This summer seems to have slipped right on by while we were busy moving. July was mostly spent hanging out in our new house, trying to put things in their place with the days occasionally punctuated by something fun.
Tucker, the 17-year-old cat that came with the house, has made himself at home. He still sleeps outside most nights (out of necessity since I can't for the life of me get him to use the litter box), but during the day he'll come asking for his food and sleep the day away in various favorite places.
Tucker, the 17-year-old cat that came with the house, has made himself at home. He still sleeps outside most nights (out of necessity since I can't for the life of me get him to use the litter box), but during the day he'll come asking for his food and sleep the day away in various favorite places.
Honestly, I think all this cat does is eat and sleep. I guess if I was that old, I'd probably be doing the same thing.
The boys are still enamored by him and delight in being the one to let Tucker inside in the mornings for breakfast.
He's a very patient cat--I'll occasionally hear him hiss at Cole for picking him up or pulling his tail, but hey, I'd hiss too if I was arthritic and someone was pulling on my tail. Jude and Cole are slowly learning how to appropriately love on such an old kitty and just love him to pieces.
We are getting a puppy! We found a lady in Palmyra who's Australian Shepherd had a *ahem* fling with the neighbors black lab that resulted in 10 cute babies. We picked out a boy when they were about 4 days old. Since he's not coming until mid-August, the kids and I have gone back a few times to visit and play.
I think the puppies were 3 weeks old at this point.
Here's our big guy with Lance:
Cole taking a turn holding him:
And Jude was content to hold them all. :) I swear he's the puppy whisper because they just flocked to him.
Even Lily met one.
So cute! The lady with the dog is such a fun person. I've really enjoyed talking to her and getting to know her a bit better.
Lily and Jude seem to share a special bond. Lily can just hear Jude's voice and start laughing. The other day Jude was singing a song when I heard Lily join in with her "la la la". Melts my heart.
They do seem to enjoy each other.
One of Lily's newest tricks: sitting up by herself! She is pretty solid now and rarely falls over. I love this stage where they can sit up and grab toys and play.
Since George missed the fireworks up in Ashburn, we got a box and waited for a night when everyone was home and lit them together.
This is the first time Cole was aware of the fireworks and thought they were pretty neat.
Scott signed Lance up for a week-long camp at UVa that taught the beginning basics of computer programing by having the kids manipulate the game Minecraft. Lance had a blast! It was all day long for five days and I was sure Lance would get tired of it, but every day he was excited to go and happy to talk about everything he learned when I picked him up.
On the last day, Lance got to show us what he had worked on that week.
Each of the kids got a certificate with a personal little blurb on it from the camp leaders and a jump drive with their adventure maps they created so they could play it at home.
Lance got to design his own world/adventure for Minecraft and learned how to manipulate the skins of the characters to give them the look he wanted. He created zombies with blood all over them, giant spiders with venom leaking out of their fangs and instead of a bow and arrow, he designed a gun and bullets. I was very impressed!
Showing us his adventure map:
Lily is starting to crawl! Well, she gets up on her hands and knees and kinda flops forward like a seal to make her way across the floor. The month of July was spent by Lily perfecting these skills. She started the "elbows and knees rock" in June and slowly progressed until by the end of July she was on the verge of crawling.
Ha! Love the "downward dog".
We finally ventured out to the park in our development. It's only a few streets away but when you have three little ones who all want to walk or ride bikes it might as well be a few miles. It was worth it, though!
Right behind the park that's situated in a nice open area is a path that leads through the forest along a creek.
The kids cannot resist the call of the water and every time we go to the park we come home completely soaked.
George started a month of research and was able to come with us one day! It has been wonderful to have Daddy around so much.
While the boys prefer the water, the park will do in a pinch.
Jude giving Cole a push.
We went back the end of June to visit the puppies again. This time they were 7 weeks old! Those four weeks made a huge difference!
Lily thought it was fun, too!
Lance loving on the runt of the litter. She was so sweet!
And Cole trying to hold a wiggling puppy. :)
Finally got it mostly right with help from Lance.
Here's our big guy!
Our puppy loving on Lily...
My attempts at a family picture:
(Lance is holding our puppy)
We're thinking of "Bender" for his name, but it's still up in the air. He's the biggest of the litter...I was thinking he'd be about 35 lbs since his mom is about 30 and the dad wasn't much bigger, but with him topping the scales at almost 9 lbs at 8 weeks, he may end up being more lab size instead of aussie. Luckily, it looks like he also has the coat of the lab--I wasn't looking forward to that crazy long aussie fur.
And finally we had another medical scare, this time with Laura. She was doing an exercise class at the gym when her right arm suddenly went dead--no feeling, no movement, nothing. She and Tyler went to the hospital where they discovered she had suffered a stroke! After a few days of tests, images and blood-work the doctors discovered a mass on her aortic valve that has been throwing clots and they were 99.99% likely the cause of the stroke. Her scans showed other scar tissue that told the doctors this wasn't her first stroke and they suspected that the migraines she's been having over the past few years were quite possibly mini strokes. Scary!
After a lot of prayers and fasting they decided to do the surgery to remove the mass at Fairfax hospital with a well-known doctor that also happened to be a member of the Church. We held a family fast and even Lance joined in! It was the first time he has ever fasted. When he heard what we were doing and why, he said, "oh, I want to do that!" It was sweet. Afterwards, when I told him how special it made Aunt Laura feel when she heard about him fasting, he said, "I feel really good. I haven't felt this good about myself in a long time." Love that kid!
Thankfully Laura recovered fully from the stroke and suffered no permanent damage. She was released from the hospital to await surgery. We did a session at the Temple about a week before her scheduled surgery.
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