I have good reason, tho! I promise.  Life has been just a tiny bit crazy.  Once again, Charlie, the most wonderful dog in the world, has proven that he does not enjoy deployments. If you remember, the last deployment, I spent a BUNCH of money trying to figure out what was wrong with him, only to realize that yes, he still has food allergies, but he also has bad separation anxiety.

This time…what did he do?  He ate an entire rotisserie chicken.  At least I got the meat off it before hand.  But, I wasn’t thinking, and after I stripped the chicken clean, I just put the bones back into the container and left it on the stove. Monday was trash day after all, and it needed to be thrown away. Why, oh why, would I have put it away? Because the silly dog ate all the bones! I mean, all of them. Minus the drumsticks which I had put in the fridge with the other chicken.  So, I called the vet, then dropped the kids off at a friends, then took Charlie in.  2 x-rays, 3 medications, and a whole bunch of money later, we came home. I had to COOK his meals of steamed rice and, yes, you guessed it, CHICKEN!  He’s just now on regular dog food today.  Crazy dog!

We also went to Elmo, LIVE on Tuesday the 12th:

The kids loved it. My camera freaked out about halfway through.  So, didn’t get many good photos. The lens started to act up.  But, we had fun.  This is how I viewed the majority of the show:

Lara stood on my lap, and I held onto Ethan with the other arm trying to keep him from falling through the chairs. We had good seats, but I’d probably try to get us closer like we were last year.  This show was about Elmo’s green thumb.  So cute!  Good music. We bought the soundtrack. My favorite were the beatles singing about trash.  The past two years, these programs are very well put together. The hardest part is getting out of there without spending a fortune.  Luckily, I convinced the kids that popcorn and a drink was a treat and they did NOT need any more toys.

Here are some more photos of our lives lately:

Miss Attitude

This boy wears his cowboy hat EVERYWHERE!

We went to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese’s.  The kids wanted nothing to do with Chuck E. Lara actually tried to get as far away as possible from him as he walked by.  She wouldn’t even sit at the table with the kids for pizza because he might come back out.  Funny how she loved Elmo, and even wanted to go and shake hands and give hugs with the characters, but other things, she hates.  Ethan was pretty unsure himself.  A giant mouse…I can see how it might be scary.

Lara combing her hair with the comb she picked out with her tickets.  

I will say it was a fun birthday party. I think us parents had the most fun.  We had so many tokens, so we were on mission to earn tickets for the kids.  We walked out with about 400.  So, Ethan and Lara had fun picking things out.  I played skee-ball and won the 100 tickets for getting a score over 47,000.  Fun times!

That’s our life lately.  We go to the dentist today for the kids. Praying for no cavities.  We brush twice a day, but I know cavities still happen.

Other than that, we’ve had gorgeous weather lately.  We’ve planted more strawberries, 3 tomato plants, and been busy trying to prune the yard and get the weeds out.  Fun times!  But, it’s enjoyable to me to get to do it. I already have blooms on my strawberry plants from last year, so I’m hoping to get some good fruit this year. They’ve really grown and spread, so here’s hoping!  I bought netting to put over them this year to keep the birds and critters out.

I’ll post more photos soon (if Lara cooperates, I’ll get photos at the dentist today).