Meet Hudson.....

Meet Hudson. He is our new Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier. He flies in from Nebraska next Tuesday and I am excited and a little nervous! This is my first doggy as an adult. The first pet besides a fish that I will be wholly responsible for....I think I can handle it (I do pretty well with two kids). Hmmm...so much to learn. I just need to remember my child rearing basics and that should do it. Any advice from fellow doggy owners? By the way, is he not the cutest?

So sad....

So it might have had something to do with the state of my hormones but I really almost cried yesterday when I got the call that some other woman put down her deposit on My dog! A mere four hours before we were going to go and meet him and I'm sure claim him with our deposit! So unfair. Although now I am hot on Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers again. Also, they are not so dang expensive! Just an update.

It was a doggone good party!

Last Friday was my dear, sweet boy's birthday. He is a big four year old now - I can hardly believe it! We started our celebration weekend with me madly cleaning the house for the birthday party that was to be held Saturday.

This was funny. Midday Friday I tried putting both kids down for naps. They really needed them and Mommy really needed some uninterrupted housecleaning time. Well, Eli ended up climbing in Addison's crib with her and for some strange reason, taking his shirt off. That is how I found them. Needless to say, neither of them slept. Fine, okay. So later in the afternoon while I was finally getting ready in the bathroom Eli joined me on the rug. Before I knew it.....
Shortly after this my parents arrived. Just having come from a long car trip they needed to use the potty. No problem, did it bother Eli? Nooo! They did think I should cover him up though. Wouldn't want him getting cold on the bathroom floor.
He slept like this for so long. We were planning on going out for a birthday dinner that night and we had to wake him up to go. Of course he ended up waking up terribly grumpy.

Saturday dawned with me attempting to make these darling pupcakes I had seen in an issue of Family Circle. Eli naturally calls all cupcakes "pupcakes" so I knew I had to make them for his birthday! We have also been looking for a dog to add to our family so we decided to have a light doggy theme for the party.
The cute white ones were the Westies (these turned out the cutest and were actually really easy!) The blue pupcakes are supposed to be Schnauzers and the brown ones were bulldogs. The magazine had another option - a beagle. By the time I had made 27 of these puppies of was done with the pupcakes. The remaining nine received sprinkles and a cute little pinwheel.

All in all the party went really well. Everyone we invited was able to come and it was the first year we had invited so many of Eli's friends. They had so much fun playing it was a shame to break them up for "party" things. We did take a break to hit the Pinata though.
And here is Eli blowing out the candles. By the way, we were all freezing our hineys off...it was cold!
So Happy Birthday my dear boy! He is already talking about his next birthday.

Oh, so on that doggy note. I have been searching Petfinder, Craigslist and breeder sites looking for a perfect dog. My latest obsession is mini goldendoodles. I think this breed would be perfect for our family. They aren't supposed to shed and would end up being a medium sized dog. They are ridiculously expensive though but I justify it by saying we really will be happier in the long run getting the dog we really want. Sooo, I was searching the doggy classifieds this morning and found an ad for one little boy mini goldendoodle. They live in our area and we have an appointment to see him tonight. If we decide to get him he will be ready in another week! I am so excited (and yes, yes I know how much work it will be and that there will be days I will loathe the day we got him!) :)

I'll keep you updated. If we decide to go for it we have to give the guy our deposit tonight. I will let you know tomorrow!

A little tour.....

I love peaking into other people's homes and I was inspired recently when I saw a fellow lovely blogger do a home tour on her blog. My house was spankin clean today because I worked my hiney off yesterday for our dinner guests. I took advantage and quickly snapped some pictures because in all of five minutes my kids can destroy the place!

Welcome to our little cottage!
We live in a tiny home...we have no formal entry or mudroom. When you walk in the door you are immediately introduced to the living room and dining room!


Our tiny entryway.


Above is our dining area where I regularly scrape food from beneath the table and clear off mountains of mail and other junk that magically accumulate.

This is where I do most of my t.v. watching!


This is between the kitchen and living room and leads to our one and only bathroom and bedrooms.

Our "bath".



This is the room we toiled over right away when we bought the house. There had been a leak in the wall and my husband had to replace a big section of drywall. While he was at it he replaced the beadboard and we put in a new sink and toilet. Interestingly enough, the original toilet was okay. The only thing I immediately had done was replace the toilet seat and lid. The night before Thanksgiving (we were crazily trying to finish the bathroom for Thanksgiving guests) my sweet hubby took the lid of the tank off because the toilet was running . When he went to replace it the lid slipped out of his wet hands and hit the little part behind the lid. CRACK! Water gushed everywhere. I didn't know a toilet bowl could crack like that. So off we were to Home Depot late that night to buy a new toilet. So we got a pretty one. It is quite nice. This is the extent of my sewing abilities. I hand sewed the pom pom fringe on my shower curtain. A sewing machine would have been too hard!

This is my sweet kiddos room. They share for now because we only have two small rooms on the main level and one attic bedroom. When we bought the house I couldn't bear the thought of being on a different level from the kids. So they share and we have the other tiny bedroom. The attic room is our guest room which I love having!

More to come as soon as other rooms are clean! Our bedroom is still under construction so that may be awhile.....

Thanks for visiting our cottage!

This is what happens when you have a boy and a girl....

A purse filled with cars....

and a girl in a bathing suit with a gun.

I tried Addison's cute new swimsuit on her yesterday because we were planning on taking the kids swimming at the Y last night. I think it was Addison's first swimming experience. At least in a pool. It was my first swimsuit experience in a long time. It is quite painful after a winter of being bundled up to expose so much flesh for public viewing. I did it though...I even got out of the water in my wet swimsuit a couple of times to take Eli down the water slide. I have to say I'm not really into the getting dressed and undressed in a locker room full of strangers. My husband said "didn't you shower in gym class? didn't you sweat?" No, I did not sweat and I do not recall EVER having to take showers in gym class. Guys are so different from girls. I had to explain that I avoided gym class as much as possible. I took badminton and only suffered through basketball when I had to.

Here is picture of Eli in his new swim trunks. I realize I have been saturating my blog with Addie pics and haven't been giving Eli adequate picture time. Taking cute shots of a one year old is so much easier than a four year old though.
I was looking at another great blog and she was doing a home tour on her blog. I would love to do that since all of my posts have been so kid oriented lately. The only problem is I have to clean my house before I can take any cute shots. We'll see.....

This girl has taste!

I think she chose a lovely shade for her first lipstick, don't you?

Finally.

I have been buying little hair dodads for quite some time now. The other morning I was playing with her hair and realized that I could probably put it in little piggie tails. I guess it would be pig tails instead of pony tails because as you know pig's tails are much smaller than horsie tails. She didn't really like it when I put them in or took them out but they stayed in all day - even through a nap! My time has finally come!