Charles in Charge

Everyone has been so kind to ask how Charlie is doing.  

The short answer:  GREAT!

The long answer:  REALLY GREAT!

Everyone also asks, "Which brother does Charlie look like?"

Why don't you decide?

Here are the options:

a.  Jack

b.  Finn

c.  options a. and b.

d.  none of the above.  He looks like Charlie.

We'd love for you to answer.  It changes from day to day.  We've also heard that he looks like John.  Or me.  Or John's Dad.  Or my uncle.  Or Squiggy.

See?

But...whoever Charlie looks like...

must be pretty darn cute....

and "healthy"....

and have good taste in clothing.

Charlie is now 3 months old.  He's the perfect little addition to our family, and we thank God every day that He has allowed us to have him.  

And in typical Baby #3 fashion, we have no baby book for C man.  Feel free to read the following, but it's really for record keeping:

Sleeping:  9pm-7:30am.  Three 1.5-2 hour naps/day.

Eating:  6oz x 5 a day

Playing:  Cooing.  Standing with his hands held.  Batting at toys.  Smiling.  Hating Tummy Time.  Face Mimicking.  

Size:  6 month clothing.  Unsure of his weight.  Guessing 14 pounds?

Christmas 2011

Christmas really is my favorite time of year.  It always has been.  But now that I'm a mom, it's even better.  After Thanksgiving, I sit around and dream about the perfect Christmas.  Creative gifts for everyone.  Good food.  A few days of the boys and me baking Christmas cookies and decorating them with all of the Wilton products.

But then January rolls around and none of those things have happened!

All I did was sit at the computer and look at Pinterest to research all of these fun ideas that never came to fruition.  And as for the gift giving...I seriously mailed a Christmas gift today in the mail.  January 19th.  Way to go, Erin.

Despite all of these failures, Christmas 2011 was simple.  The way it should be.

Jack kicked the season off in true form with his first solo ever.  He sang about the birth of Christ.  Here were the words (in case we lose the DVD or want to test the part of our brain that creepily stores music lyrics in the future...)

"The Bible says there was no room at the inn. Down in the little town of Beth-le-hem.  If they had known that you were the King, would they have found you an opening?  A manger bed, to rest your head...The innkeeper said, "I have no room at the inn."

Look at this kid.  He is so freaking awesome I cannot even stand it.

School let out on Friday the 16th, but we pulled a cool parent move and let our kindergardener skip school.  I know!  Bad to the bone, right?

We surprised the boys with a night at the Great Wolf Lodge.  If you haven't been, you should go.  Unless you hate water parks and cabin themed rooms and indoor fake snow and Dunkin' Donuts and fun.  Because the GWL has all of those things.

The little getaway was the boys' Christmas present from us.  Neither one could tell us what they wanted for Christmas, so one day Jack suggested that we go somewhere.  So we did!  

We pretended to pull over at the GWL as a bathroom break.  Jack was having fun exploring the lobby when he came to the observation windows that looked out over this water wonderland:

Jack was big enough for all of the slides and activities.  Brother Finn?  Not so lucky.  Or tall.  But he made the most of it.  

Since the slides were not exactly nice camera friendly, we got a few shots of the boys on the lily pads.  

They were champion lily padders by their second attempt.

(Hint:  Wearing water shoes helps a ton, but should they ask you about it, tell them I said it was their unbelievable coordination and agility.)

We have a Christmas tradition of receiving new jammies on Christmas Eve.  But since we were so bad to the bone in 2011, we opened the jammies early.  

Charlie was so good while we were there.  It was his first night in a pack n' play, but he kept his normal routine.  Another good sleeper!  Thank you, Lord!

This year's jammies gifts included bathrobes as well.  They were a hit.  

I will forever love Finn's toothpick legs sticking out from this oversized robe.  

But those little legs stood firm as the giant bucket of water dumped on his head!  It's hard to tell here, but Finn is about to get doused with hundreds of gallons of water that dumped every 5 minutes or so.

  

(And don't worry...those stars aren't there to protect anything indecent.  I just felt bad putting the backside or upper thigh of an unknown woman on our blog.  It was like breaking some sort of unspoken girl code.  We (women) should all be respecters of the backsides of other women.  Whether it be out of envy or protection.) 

After the GWL fun had come to an end, we travelled up the road to Greensboro to spend a few days with my family.  We went to Raleigh for our annual Angus Barn dinner.  This photo makes me wonder for the gazillionth time why Christmas lights are only used at Christmastime.  White Christmas lights make everything look good.  They should adorn every dressing room ever made!  Seriously, stores!  Get it together and ditch the overhead fluorescents!  It would greatly diminish the amount of golf ball butt cases that are diagnosed in dressing rooms on a daily basis.  I'm a nurse.  I know these things!

But only because I'm a nurse. 

We went to Four Seasons Mall while in the 'Boro.  Can't remember the last time I was there.  

We got to see Santa and no one cried...

Only one wailed!

My niece, Ava, was not a fan of the jolly old man this year.  

But in true Southern girl fashion, through her tears, mind you, she half cried/half shouted, "Teddy bear!  THANK YOU!"  

Who doesn't love a good Santa freak out picture?  We have our fair share in this house.

Our time in Greensboro was so wonderful.  It was so nice to see those we were able to see.  As always...not enough time!

Once we returned back to SC, we kicked it into major Christmas gear and went to Greg Russell's performance under the oak tree in Harbor Town.  This was our 2nd time going to his Christmas performance, so we knew that we needed to prepare a sign and song should the boys want to sing on the stage for the crowd.  See, Greg will choose a handful of kids at each performance to sing a song of their choice.  Jack had practiced "Away in a Manger" before arriving, so I assumed the whole...if you prepare, they won't call on you" thing.  But, nope.  Jack was chosen!!!

After Jack rocked all of Harbor Town, we let the boys burn off some steam by running around the big Christmas tree.  We happened to get all of the grandkids to pose for a few seconds with Gigi and Poppy Johnny.

What good is a giant Christmas ornament if you can't make goofy faces in it?

No good, at all, really.

(I used to do something similar as a youngster whenever I would come across a Leggs panty hose display with the silver dome tops. Strannnnge.  Probably took my mullet to a whole new level.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We were so thankful to spend a quiet and simple season celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with family and friends. 

Happy 2012!

Scout Ussery 9.8.03-9.18.11

This post is much like the First Day of Kindergarten post. 

I've delayed it's existence because it would feel real.

Our sweet, hairy, best friend, Scout, passed away on September 18th. 

We still don't believe it sometimes.

Like when we drive up to the house and his strange pink nose isn't smashed in the window waiting for us to come inside.

Or when we drop food on the floor and he's not there to be our vacuum.

As everyone who has a dog that they love says...Scout really was the best dog. 

Really really.

He was kind.  And smelly.  And beautiful despite our brushing negligence.

He looked like he was always smiling. 

He was so loved, and so taken care of by Jack.

That's why there are more pictures of Jack on this post.  (I typically try to even out the kid pics when it comes to blogging because I don't want them looking back on these one day and counting.)

Jack and Scout were BFFs.  

Except for the Christmas Incident of 2010 where Scout had to "find a new home" for a week while Jack decided that it was not cool to be rough with his canine companion. 

(Adult Jack, if you're reading this, hopefully you are smart and you now know that quotations used for these purposes are for lying.  So, we're sorry.  Scout never went to that fun farm with the fun family of children who didn't stab him with plastic forks.  He stayed with Jennie 2 miles down the road.  Remind me to tell you about "Santa", too.)

This is the fake goodbye picture we took before Scout "left us" to go to the fun farm with the fun family.

We learned that Scout was very forgiving.

And that Jack would never play rough again.

You never realize how much a part of your life your pets are until they're gone.  Probably like most things, I guess.  

The majority of our Scout pictures are like this one below:

Bad pictures.  But with Scout in the background.  He was a second fiddle of sorts.  Always there.  Just behind the scenes.  

But still a very important part.

Time is turning the tears into fond memories for sure. 

But we still miss Scout.

Every day.

Okay, so what happened to him?

I'll include this for those of you who are the type that will hear a crazy/sad/horrible story and will try to strategically ask questions about it that make it seem like you're interested for that person's sake, but you're really just getting down to the bottom line:  How likely is it that the crazy/sad/horrible thing could happen to me/my family member/loved one?  I get that.

The short of it:  We don't know.  Scout was woken up by a common household noise (a trash can sliding out from under the kitchen sink) on that fateful day.  Like normal, Scout clumsily and goofily went from sound sleeping to jumping up to his feet.  Or so we think.  I was in the bed.  John was in the kitchen.  Scout was at the foot of the bed on the floor.  We heard a bunch of rumbling around where Scout was and heard him hit our entertainment center.  John then discovered that Scout had peed on the floor.  We kind of laughed it off to his goofiness.  After running outside to finish his business, he laid down in the "down" position, head upright, looking straight ahead.  He never responded to us again.  Wouldn't look at us or wag his tail.  Nothing. After several calls to the vet, debating over a concussion or a seizure, they suggested just to wait it out as his heart rate and breathing were fine.  But after a few hours his breathing suddenly changed and we took him in.  The doctor told John he wasn't sure what had happened, but that it was clear Scout was trying to die.  And about 5 minutes later, he did exactly that.  Peacefully.  No pain.  The doc said perhaps he had a heart condition...stroke...massive seizure.  Doesn't really matter.  Knowing won't bring him back.

John was with him, but the boys and I wanted to see him so I took them in.  We were in pajamas.  I was huge preggo, crying.  We were a sight to behold.  When we left, Jack and I were very emotional and were crying our eyes out.  Finn, the steadfast 4 year old that he is, was trying his best to muster up some sadness in his carseat.  "Oh, Scout....ahhh...so sad...yep...we'll miss you....waaaahhh...."(fake all the way).  I told him it was okay if he wasn't sad right then, and that he didn't have to fake it.  Without skipping a beat he asks..."Okay, then. Can we go to Sonic?"  

Grief has it's various forms:)  Some wail.  Some want a vanilla coke.  

Some want to get another gold retriever to love on.  Maybe that'll be a post for 2012!

Thank you for all of the phone calls and cards and kind words about our beloved pup.  We know that he was loved by many.