Grrr!!!

Already. Ticks. Ugh!!! In the last few days of being outside I keep coming across ticks. 2 of them were when we were playing on Dylan's play set, on the mulch! Today, if I wouldn't have had Dylan keep his hood on the tick would have been in his hair. It was sitting there right on his hood. I hate those things! Now, just now, relaxing on the couch one crawled on my elbow. It must have hitched a ride inside with one of us this morning. I know that happens, but crap, I hate those things. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about them. They are everywhere. I could just scream!! I don't remember seeing them this early last year.
Well, I'm not sure, but I think Dylan has another cold. It could be his allergies, but this time I am leaning more towards cold. Runny nose, sneeze, occasional cough, that type of thing. No fever yet, which he normally doesn't get. Vick's allows him to sleep so that's good. I guess it's the time of year for colds huh. They are just an inconvenience. They don't seem to affect his attitude much. He always plays and acts normal. I just hope this one doesn't last long.
My allergies have been going haywire off and on these last few days. This morning they were rough, but now all I have is a headache. It rained yesterday, and some the day before, and it is supposed to continue clear through Tuesday morning. By that time we will all be going stir crazy.

...Well this ended up getting kind of long, sorry!

Well not much here. I spent the last part of the weekend sick. That wasn't fun. I think I'm finally over it now, at least I hope. Ryan got our washer and dryer hooked up. I started using them today. They are smaller than what we had before, so that will take some time to get used to. That is about as exciting as it has been here.
I will say one thing. All this talk about the so called "swine flu" is getting old. I haven't looked it up, but if they were to put the number of people who are sick and/or have died from this swine flu up against the number of people that have gotten sick and/or died from this years strain of ordinary (for lack of a better word) flu, then it would all be put into perspective. How many thousands of people get sick from the flu in this country alone, and how many hundreds (probably more) die in this country from the flu in the same amount of time? Most likely a lot more or just as much as what is happening from the swine flu. Flu can be serious, swine or otherwise, the media is to blame for all this ridiculous hype.
And I think as a result of this and "this" being called swine flu, the pork industry in this already tested country will take a hit. I think the CDC calls the strain H1N1 (but don't quote me on that). Don't blame your local pig farmer. If you want to "blame" someone, blame Mexico or being under developed and not being able to treat their people for common illnesses. Blame your neighbor for going to Mexico on vacation, then realizing he was sick but CHOSE to go the the grocery store or work anyway to infect others.
So the last thing the media built up was Avian (bird) flu, or was it West Nile Virus? Oh who cares, each year or 2 it's something they runaway with. Couldn't the media also be partially blamed for the economy taking a crap? Yeah. All you hear about it all the negative. There are also a lot of positive going on as well. There are so many industries thriving right now. Companies who are still doing well, but we never hear the encouraging news. If we did, I think it would make a huge difference with everyone. Honestly, the economy could probably benefit somewhat from positive reporting. Oh well.
I'm done now!

First off, well driller guy, says hopefully Monday. So my guess is he won't be here on Monday. Ok, now that's out of the way.

Well I got some pictures of the play set and Dylan outside yesterday playing on it.

He noticed all of the dandelions growing in the yard and went to pick the flowers. I don't know how many he picked, it was a lot. Then he'd smell them. After we came inside, the skin right below his nose was yellowed from all the smelling he was doing!

So the well driller dude didn't show up. We should have known. So should we say, maybe tomorrow? HA!
So yesterday evening, we took Jed, Chloe and Diesel to the vet. They all checked out good! Chloe was a whopping 4 pounds!! She was a pain in the butt last night! Wow. She just would not sleep. She whined and cried a lot. I thought she had to go to the bathroom, so each time I would bring her down to go, she'd just sit at my feet. I think I finally got some sleep at some point, but it was rough.
It seems as though our dryer is leaving us. It still works, but it's making an awful noise, so it won't last much longer I'm afraid. It acts like there is something wrong with the drum inside. Also, our TV in the living room isn't working right. It has streaks of yellow across the screen, and it is showing doubles on one side. We called a couple of places and they seem to agree that it is some sort of box thing inside that is going bad. Great. At least they are both still working. We will see what we can do with them and if we can't do anything, we will start looking for sales I guess. Both are over 10 years old.
On the bright side, it is so nice outside today!

Well well well

So we have news I keep forgetting to share about the well drilling. So hole number 1 is done, with no water at the bottom. Since there is no water, thats why there is a hole number 1. So now on to hole number 2. The new hole will be a little further away and I hope it won't take as long to complete and hope there is water. So this was all decided on Saturday, and we hope the guy shows up sometime this week to start. Now it was raining the last 2 days, so I will give them that, but no one showed today either. So lets just shoot for tomorrow. There is no reason why someone shouldn't be here tomorrow. We shall see though!
Other than that, nothing new. It is so cold and windy out right now. At least the weather will be improving in the next few days. We had a nice morning. Did a few things around the house, kept busy so no one got bored. Dylan is napping and so are the rest of the kids (the furry ones).

It's Monday!
We got Dylan's play set done this weekend. We have yet to buy sand for the sandbox, but no big deal. The actual play set is built and ready to go. He was out playing on it Sunday before it rained. He did good. He can even hold on the the chains on the swing. He doesn't need a baby swing like we thought he might. Granted we don't push him very hard. He had school today. I dropped him off without any tears on his part, so that was nice. When I picked him up he was ready to come home.
Chloe is doing well. Dylan worries about her at times. But he doesn't like it when she gets in his face if he didn't instigate it. When he wants to play though, he gets right in her face and eggs her on. She has been sleeping a lot! Last night she didn't whine to go to the bathroom until 5:30 this morning! I was shocked when I looked at the clock. She just completely passes out when Dylan goes down for his nap. When he is awake, she can't usually nap well, because he makes it a point to wake her. They do well together. Its nice to know that she will never outgrow him.
The cats are still adjusting, but doing better. Max allows her to get withing slapping distance and then takes a swing. She then proceeds to chase him. Now Diesel will hiss and slap if Chloe even looks at her. Its pretty funny though!
Not much planned for the week. As of now, Ryan is supposed to have all weekend off, and it is supposed to be nice outside. So hopefully he doesn't get called in to work. We won't do much, but it will be nice to just all be home together for once!

Chloe

Ok, so Chloe decided to take a nap, so I'm going to do this quick. Dylan is doing well with her. He can say her name and pays a lot of attention to her, when he's no busy of course! He doesn't like it when she gets in his face though, so we will work on that and hopefully she will learn not to do that. We gave her a few toys to play with from Dylan's old stock. She likes to play with a rubber ducky, an old stuffed animal, and a plastic Easter egg. I could only get Dylan to give up one, out of his stock of 30 some! He's so funny.

Now the cats are having a harder time adjusting. I knew it wouldn't be easy for them, especially Diesel. Poor Diesel has been hiding most of the time. When she did come out, Dylan bothered her so she went back into hiding. Max has been cautiously curious. Both cats are twice Chloe's size, so they could easily put her in her place if they'd just get some courage. I think Max will adjust well, I just hope Diesel does as well.

Dylan is being nicer than I thought he would. I thought he may get a little rough with her since he's never been around a puppy before. He can tackle and waller Max, and does, so I just assumed he'd do the same to a puppy.

Chloe knows where to go to get her food, and does so whenever she wants during the day. She has yet to leave the kitchen (where her food is) though. We have a air return for our heating system just outside the kitchen door, and it scares her, so we won't go near it or around it yet. She seems to be napping quite a bit. I hope she will sleep tonight. Last night we went to sleep around 11 and she had me up shortly after that at about midnight and I took her to pee. She slept until almost 5 before she was crying hard again. So I brought her back down to pee, then she cried for a while and finally went back to sleep until we got up at 8. She cried a few times in between the 5 and 8 times. The lady we got her from said she was always up at 4:30 in the morning and would feed her then, so I imagine that Chloe's crying between 5 and 8 was hunger. But once she gets on our schedule she will do fine. She sleeps in a small crate beside the bed for now. Until she is fully house broken she'll be there. We are going to need a bigger one soon though. She likes to stretch out. She loves to have her belly rubbed, and right behind her ears.

I think she will make us happy. Of course it won't all be roses, but life never is. I do have to say that I am proud of Dylan for being so good.

He seems to be coming out of his 'no' phase and his recent boundary testing phase. So I hope that continues to improve.

Welcome to our world!

Ok, I don't have much time to post but I wanted to pop with an update. We have a new member to the family. A clumsy tiny baby girl pug, who we have named Chloe. We picked her up yesterday eve, so this is the first full day of life with us. She didn't do too bad last night. I got up twice to let her pee and she did cry here and there, but that is to be expected. We are of course trying to house train, so I have to keep one eye on her at all time to catch her, hopefully before she goes! I can't really say how its going, as this is just day one. I took some pictures so I hope to get them posted very soon. Hopefully in the next couple of days.
Ryan has also made progress on Dylan's play set! Yay!
Ok, more on Dylan and Chloe later!

Busy busy!

Well, the last 2 days have been kind of busy, which was nice. We did Dylan's Easter thing on Saturday since Ryan had to work on Sunday. So the night before we hid a few plastic eggs in his play area for him to find in the morning. After he found all the eggs, we gave him his Easter basket. He got a bunch of eggs, some that had a treat inside, and some empty, and a grain cart for one of his tractors. The treats inside the eggs were a couple of Gerber Yogurt Bites. He loves those, so instead of candy, he had a few of those. When he found the treats inside, he would say "awesome" or "cool." Here are some pictures of him finding the eggs and his basket.

After all the Easter stuff we did work on Dylan's play set a little more. It now has a roof and railing on the bottom.
Then later that day, I had some friends of ours come over for to have something for Ryan's birthday. He turns 30 at the end of the month, but I wanted to do something before he got busy with planting. Here is a picture of his cake. I took a baby picture of him and had them put the image on a cake. It turned out well! It was good too!

We all had dinner and then they all played "Rock Band." It was so funny! All in all, it was a nice day.

Today of course is Easter. Ryan had to work, so Dylan and I went to my Donna and Floyd's (my aunt and uncle) house for dinner and an Easter egg hunt for all the kids. That was nice. Here are some pictures from the day. Dylan finding eggs and one with his uncle Kyle helping him on the swing.

Sorry, I kept most of the pictures small, just so I could get them all in. I am so tired. Dylan in bed early tonight, because he has school tomorrow and has to get up early. He is already sound asleep and it is only 7:30. He was worn out. These next 2 days it is supposed to rain. So once again, we won't get anything done outside. Our yard is a swamp in most areas. Mowing needs to happen too, but won't anytime soon! At least it is finally going to get warm. Maybe we can stop wearing our winter jackets.

Well once again we managed to stay busy this morning. There were things I needed to do around the house and finally got to them. Dylan was good thankfully. He's been...well...a little defiant lately. Testing his boundaries for sure. But I guess he took the morning off. Later, who knows.
Ryan and I attempted to work on the play set yesterday. We got about 2 hours in and that was it. Once Dylan woke from his nap we came in. He has a cold, and with the wind being so cold yesterday, I just couldn't take him out in it. Ryan is at work today, and tomorrow it is supposed to rain all day, great. Enough with the rain for a while. Hopefully we can get some work done Saturday...depends on the weather though.
Tomorrow our nephew is spending the day here. That should keep Dylan occupied. Hopefully he is good. Too bad it wont be nice outside though. It would be nice to take them outside to play.
When I was going through the house today, I realized that I need a nice tablecloth for my dining room table. I don't have one. It would make it look so nice in there. I love that table we have in the dining room, and I want to keep it looking nice. I put a lot of work in to get that table. It took a lot of me badgering Ryan to get that table! Ha ha.

Ok, so it snowed today. In my book, we were supposed to be done with winter. Yet its only in the 30s, very windy, and rainy and even some snow. Tomorrow, I guess is more of the same, before it finally warms up later in the week. Weather! Ugh.
Dylan had his school today. He didn't cry when I dropped him off, thankfully. He was ready to go today that's for sure. I asked him if he had fun at school today and he said "uh-huh." He does do well down there, and everyone there seems so nice.
Not much on our plate this week. Couple of things to do this weekend though. Ryan and I are still looking for something small (inexpensive) to put in his Easter basket. But Walmart's toy department seems to be sparse so it's not easy to find something that catches our eye. That store gets under my skin. But, sometimes you just need to go there to get what you need. Between their toy department and their checkout isles they have a lot to improve on.
Here's a little side note, Dylan just went to get his Elmo doll, and stuck Elmo in his old walker, and is now pushing him through the house. Some days, he changes Elmo's diaper as well. There are days when he treats that Elmo doll as another kid he can boss around. Its cute.
Ryan was home on Saturday so we got some more work done on the play set. It is starting to look like a play set now. I hope the rest of it goes quickly. Here is a picture of our progress.

Off to the right side will be a slide. Off to the left will be a tunnel that leads to a crows nest type thing. Hanging below the tunnel will be the swings. It will have a wooden roof as well. Sand goes in that empty hole behind the ladder. So I guess we have a lot left to do!

Naptime is here! My time. We managed to stay busy this morning picking up around the house. I got Dylan to help me with things, and it went well. He likes to help me clean up a little. Keeping him occupied with something different really helped. Lately he has been in this horrible phase where he constantly tells me 'no' to anything that I say. Most of the time I just ignore it, but when I need him to do something, and he gives a growling, firm 'NO' it gets very frustrating. I don't know how to get to stop doing it.
Let's see...we are still dealing with getting a new well drilled. So far they are still drilling. They have been drilling for months now, but they work only 3 hours or so a day, and only a few days a week, so I guess thats why it is taking so long. It's a little ridiculous, but there isn't much we can do about it I guess. Dylan likes to stand at the window and watch the work.
Ryan came home from work early yesterday which was nice. After dinner we went out and were able to get a little more done on Dylan's playset. We bought one for him a while ago, and started putting it up a few weeks ago. Ryan just doesn't get much time to work on it though. Between all of the days he has been picking up at work and the crazy weather, it's taking a little while to do. Hopefully it wont take too much longer though.

April is here! Hopefully that means we are done with anything remotely related to winter.

This is a picture from 2007. Should be about the same time of year.

This is a picture from around this time LAST year. He toppled over and decided to sit there and mumble for a while. From the looks of his hair it was a little breezy!

This I took today. Ive been slacking on picture taking lately, so I had to get one real quick. Since he was an October baby, there isnt a picture from this time in 2006.