Father's Day Weekend

We had a whirlwind of a weekend that started out with a garage sale on Saturday morning.  I was pissed when I pulled out the baby car seat, matching stroller and high chair only to find them covered in thick, green, fuzzy mold!  I probably could have made decent $$ on them, but instead they went out with the trash today.  I only ended up making $50, so it wasn't even worth it to sit outside and roast for four hours!

Later that afternoon, we went down to the Bryant's to celebrate Ian's 3rd birthday.  We ended up being a little late because Bridget awoke from her nap with snot all over her face and hair, so she had to take a bath, then Audrey had to change dresses because the one I put on her was not a party dress (her words, not mine!).

Andy and I don't usually get each other cards because you end up spending $3 on something that gets read and trashed, so I had Audrey pick out a Star Wars picture to color for him for Father's Day.  I googled "printable Star Wars coloring page" and let Audrey pick an image.  This is the image that she chose.

I think it is actually from an old coloring book and someone scanned it in because it's so funny. I tried to convince Audrey to choose another picture, but she liked this one because it had Darth Vader and Princess Leia.  I think we have a future sci-fi geek on our hands!

Audrey also decorated a picture frame at school.  I had to laugh at the picture in it.  Andy and his folks always tell the stories of how Andy was bad at fake smiling for pictures, so Pete would get mad at him for smiling all goofy.  Then it would be even harder to fake smile for pictures because he was getting yelled at.  Well, apparently Audrey has inherited Andy's bad fake smile gene:

Besides the inappropriate Star Wars picture, the girls also got Andy a new Chattahoochee River annual parking pass, a garden stepping stone (which we still need to make) and I ordered this for him:

We had lunch at Mom and Dad's with the Stevens clan and then headed home to hang out around the house.  Andy and the girls set the tent up in the back yard (I'm still not sure why) and Andy wouldn't choose what he wanted for dinner, so we ended up with my favorite dinner, Chinese food!  Andy wanted to use chopsticks, so Audrey decided that she wanted to try them too.  She has a pretty good method - she just stabbed her food with the end of the chopstick!  She asked how she was supposed to get the rice, but quickly lost interest when I tried to show her how to hold the chopsticks and scoop.

I've been missing the little guy lately.  As much of a pain in the butt that he was, it's strange not tripping over him in the kitchen or being crushed by him when I sit on the floor.  Hazel is not as food motivated as Roscoe was, so when the kids drop food on the floor, I have to call her over and point it out so she'll eat it.  She doesn't even eat all of it - my floors are a mess! (I hate to mop.  That's probably why my floors are a mess, but I'll blame Hazel because she can't talk back!) :)

Miscellaneous

Time for cute, happy stuff!  Here are some of the pictures from the girl's first canoe ride that I mentioned a couple of posts ago.  (Blogger keeps flipping my pictures again.  If any of you who use blogger know how to fix this, please let me know!).  Since you have to strain your neck to see these, the first two are Audrey and the last one is Bridget.

Proving once again that she is Andy's daughter, Audrey is now obsessed with Star Wars.  She likes to watch Andy play his Star Wars PS2 game and will watch the trilogies with him when they are on TV.  Her favorite character is a minor character named Aayla Secura because Aayla has two "ponytails."  Our family now all has our own Star Wars names.  Audrey is Aayla (which is nice because she lets me put piggy tails in her hair now), Andy is Boba Fett, I am Princess Leia and little Bridget is Yoda.

Speaking of piggy tails, look who can finally wear them!

Audrey has been impressing us with her eating lately.  In one weekend, she tried (and liked) chicken wings, popcorn shrimp and steak!

Bridget is picking up new words left and right.  Her newest phrases are "eat," "book,"  "all done," and "wah dih?"  "What's this?" is her favorite question and she follows me around pointing at objects in the house or pictures in books asking "Wah dih?" all day long!  She also points to Hazel and says "doggie?  ball?"  and she will go find Hazel her ball.

Here is one last picture from their buddy Lynzie's birthday party.  B's face just cracks me up!

Roscoe

**Warning:  This is long and sad, but it's therapeutic for me to write it out, so don't read it if you don't want to.**

This past Friday at 4:15 am, we lost our faithful buddy, Roscoe.  I heard some loud thumping on the stairs and sent Andy to go investigate and he found Roscoe at the bottom of the stairs.  For those who don't know, Roscoe was born with a heart defect and wasn't supposed to live to see his first birthday.  Our vet told us that when it was his time, he would pretty much just have a heart attack and go quick, which is exactly what happened.  Although he was 9 years old and we knew that his time would come eventually, it was still really hard and I didn't expect to witness it happening.  I am comforted to know that he took his last breaths with his head in Andy's lap though.

We got Roscoe about a month after we got married.  Andy knew he wanted some kind of hound dog, so we spent one Saturday driving around to the various Petsmart adoption days to see if there were any hounds.  After a full day of looking at dogs, we realized that we had forgotten to buy cat food for Wingnut, so we stopped at a Petco.  There he was, with a big sign that said "Basset Hound, Reduced Price!"  I didn't think that was the type of hound that Andy was looking for, plus I had never given the breed a thought other than that they were cute, but we asked if we could go see him.  I sat on the floor with him and laughed as he stepped on his long ears and tried to eat my purse and Andy knew I was in love!  We really knew he was going to be a goof ball when we were leaving the store and he walked right into the glass storefront instead of going out the door behind Andy!

He was such a little wild man as a puppy.  He was an angel when Andy was home, but as soon as the two of us were left alone, he would run around our apartment destroying any paper in sight.  We got a quick lesson in baby proofing with him; through his puppy years he pooped out such items as nail clippers, wrappers from an entire bowl of Halloween candy (Reese's miniatures) and little colored seashells.

Our apartment was across the street from a Chattahoochee River Park, so we would take him on walks there all of the time.  He was a horrible swimmer with that big body and short legs, but he would wade in the water a little.  One time he tried to walk down a fallen tree and fell into the river.  He also got lost in the woods by the park once when out with Andy.  Andy was on his way back to the apartment to get me and his car when a lady pulled over and had Roscoe in her car.  She had picked him up on the side of the road and he got all excited when he saw Andy walking down Riverside Drive, so she knew that must have been his owner.

Our favorite story from the early days was when we had Roscoe out in front of the apartment without a leash.  He used to get dog treats from the ladies in the leasing office every day on the way to get the mail, and on this particular day, he saw someone outside of the leasing office and got all excited.  He started running over, and this other tenant, who was apparently scared of dogs, FREAKED out.  She started yelling "He's going to kill me!" and she ran and jumped on the hood of a moving car to get away from our vicious basset puppy!

Roscoe lived in a two bedroom apartment with a cat and ferret for two years, so he was really good with other animals. He even had a young deer come up to him in the woods and kind of prance around him trying to play!  When Spot had her kittens, he was so sweet with them!  He would gently nudge them with his nose and give little kisses.

When we moved into our house, we felt bad leaving him outside alone in our big backyard and were so happy that he and Hazel got along so well.  They jumped up on the couch and took a nap next to each other on the first day Hazel was here, so we knew they would get along.  Poor Hazel has been a little clingy and mopey these past couple of days.  She isn't used to being an only dog and we miss her buddy too, so she has been extra spoiled.

There are a million more stories of Roscoe eating an entire fruit tray while tailgating in Athens, going camping with Andy and his friends and playing with the girls.  I can't remember them all right now.  I just know that he will be missed.  There is no replacing Roscoe - he was one of a kind!

Backyardigans

I just wanted to post a quick video of Audrey singing.  She was trying to sing along with the Backyardigans opening song, but she doesn't know all of the words.  Warning:  She's a little off key! ;)




I have a bunch of pictures from last weekend to post when I get a chance - Audrey took her first canoe ride and loved it!  I'll leave you with a cute story until then:  Last night, Audrey gave Bridget a big hug, said "You are the best little sister ever!" and gave her a kiss on the head.  I just love watching the sibling bond grow and hope that they still love each other when they are older and stealing each others clothes and makeup!

Lazy Weekend

We had a very lazy Memorial Day Weekend.  There were scattered showers all weekend but luckily we didn't get much rain.  We had enough sun to make our first trip to the neighborhood pool on Saturday.  We started out by eating Popsicles in the driveway.  Audrey also helped me wash my car, so the bottom half of the passenger door is very clean!

Both girls loved the pool!  Bridget clung on to our necks and watched the big kids play and Audrey had a blast playing on the stairs.  I have not signed her up for swim lessons yet b/c Andy insists that he can teach her to swim, so hopefully once she gets warmed up to the idea of going to the pool, it will be easier for him to work with her.  She still gets a little panicky if you take her out deeper and try to get her to float or just hold your hands and kick. 

We just hung out around the house on Sunday and did exciting things like stick animals down our shirts (well, just Audrey did this!).

She loves those little animal toys.  She has a box full of them and she can spend hours making them play school.  It's funny hearing her yell "Hyena!  Go to time out!"  It's not so funny when she leaves them scattered all over the living room and you step on one though!

Yesterday Mom and Dad came up for dinner and took the girls home with them so Mom could take Audrey to ballet today.  She starts a new class today called Princess Dress Up Ballet, which ties in ballet, dress up and theatrics - it sounds right up Audrey's ally!  She almost didn't get in to the class, but they had a last minute drop out and I was so glad!  I just wish I didn't have to work so I could go watch.  :(

Here's one last picture from my phone of the girls eating lunch on the couch while watching Yo Gabba Gabba yesterday.  That show is so strange, but they both love it!