Summertime catch up

We spend a lot of time outside in the summer, so blogging has taken a bit of a backseat.  If we are home for the evening, and after the kids are asleep, I like to garden and sometimes stay outside until it is just too dark to see anything anymore.  When we are home on the weekends, you can usually find us all in the backyard playing in the pool.  The dogs are doing well - Tyler is teaching Rally with my one night a week and we are both enjoying it.

We have been keeping busy!  I haven't posted since AAC Regionals - a lot of fun things have happened since then.

This baby continues to be both totally ADORABLE and potentially naughty all at the same time:

So very, very cute!

This little boy continues to be awesome in most ways and funny, funny, funny:

Eating Pink Berry on Father's Day

My spring garden did very well and I *may* have planted too many peas...I had two huge patches of green peas and still have half a bed full of sweet peas; I will cut back a bit next year on the peas I think!

Shelling peas on the left, sweet peas on the right

Baby Robertson came to visit!!  It was lovely meeting him and spending time with him and Erin too, of course:

Robertson with his Grandma

One of us (Tyler, cough, Tyler...) ate 6 pounds of kibble in one sitting.  This certain someone earned himself a $162 trip to the vet to be um, relieved, of said kibble:

The vet said "I have never seen so much food in one dog!"  

 Maelle continues to insist on wearing a hat at all times (we draw the line at when she is sleeping but she sure tries!)  She says "Ha! Ha! Ha!" meaning "Hat!" and points at one of her various hats until she has it on her head...funny girl!

Unflattering hat but still cute!

While they took forever to grow, our carrots are very tasty:

My gardening sidekick and I

We were supposed to have Loic's Birthday party last Sunday but someone went and caught Scarlett Fever (yes, you can still get Scarlett Fever!)  Poor kid had a high temp and a *terrible* rash.  After less than a day on antibiotics he was much, much better.  We are having his party tomorrow instead :)

My poor hot, itchy, boy at the Doctor last week

Speaking of Birthdays...look who turned 4 last Thursday!  Rob and I picked him up from daycare for a special birthday lunch, just the 3 of us.  Loic requested a pirate pack so off to White Spot we went!

I sure love this boy!

Bad picture, but look who is walking!  And who can now wear pigtails!!  That dress is so lovely, Grandma Barb bought it last summer for her :)

Chatty, mobile, cute baby girl

Last but not least, I harvested garlic today!  10 months to grow, 10 minutes to pick:

So worth the wait!

Tomorrow is the big party - wish us all luck!!

-E

Smart SMART black dog

We went to Regionals last weekend and I am still stunned at how well Tyler did.

We got: 5th in Jumpers, clean run and 7 seconds under time
We got: 6th in the 2nd Jumpers, clean run and 11 seconds under time
We got: the Gamble in the 2nd Gamblers - this never, ever happens

We also only had 5 faults and 10 faults in Standard.  Oh my gosh was Tyler ever awesome.

Drumroll....we ended up with just over 466 points!  This from the dog that had only 200 or so at his first Regionals and just over 350 at his second.  He was on fire this weekend.  We only needed 350 to qualify and he got over 100 more than that!!!

We ended up 10th overall in a very competitive division - such a good, good dog.

It was slightly disheartening to hear and see all the talk about breeders, and importing puppies, just to do agility with.  My VAS adopted lab kept up and beat a lot of those fancy 'sport bred' dogs and I couldn't be happier.

I shall do a rant about that topic later, for tonight I am just so, so so happy with Tyler :)

-E

(ps - pics and video to follow)

Dogs, kids, teeth, garden

Well today was not awesome.  I was supposed to go to the Dentist for a crown but after a traumatic 3.5 hours I ended up with a root canal and a temporary crown....fun times.  I will say that I can very, very happy that we have extended dental.  In 4 weeks I go back for my real crown.

We went for a family hike on the weekend with our dogs and my mom's dogs and of course our kids.  Carol over at SAINTS wrote a good blog post about how new parents can keep their pets.   Rehoming our dogs was never an idea that we had, even though we knew Arthur and Toby were not giant fans of kids.  Arthur just passed away but we did a good job of making sure he never bit the kids.  We will do the same with Toby.  Carol wrote about how spending short bits of time with your pets is all you need to do and I would agree.  I would also say that having dogs gets you and baby out of the house at the beginning to go for a walk.  There were days where that walk did wonders for my mental well being.  Plus - I could get a coffee too through the drive through :)

This is a picture from our hike on Sunday.  Loic and I hunted for bugs, the dogs chased sticks and Maelle watched everything going on around her:

 Such a good black lab!

 Loic watching Toby dig (and dig and dig)

My garden is coming along nicely!  We have eaten a lot of radishes, green onions and lettuce.  We have kale ready to start eating too - this pic is of some washed Pearl lettuce:

Oh Maelle :)  This is her new favorite pose:

 Agile baby!!

I made a delicious salad this week, soon I hope to use everything from the garden (well, not the feta) to make this salad:

-E

2 + 2 + 2

We are a household of 2 adults, 2 kids and 2 dogs.  5 years ago we were a household of 3 dogs and 2 adults; so much can change in 5 years!!

Maelle is *so so* close to walking.  She can walk easily if you hold onto one of her fingers.  As I predicted, I think she will walk around 14 months just like her big brother.

Loic has a cold, again :(  He is at a bigger daycare, which he still really loves, but I think that means he is exposed to more cold bugs.  He had a good day though, we went to a parade, he had a mid-day tub because we got soaked at the parade, he watched a movie then went with Rob to get the truck washed at a fire fighter fundraiser.

Loic is on a bee theme these days; we go outside and he loves to watch the bees gathering pollen on our raspberries and creeping thyme plants.  I am so happy that he continues to love animals and plants (like his mama).

The dogs are doing well.  I can't tell if they miss Arthur or not.  Rob and I feel relieved that we made the right choice when we did and that Arthur didn't suffer.

In garden news, I transplanted some tomatoes into pots and into the garden yesterday and made my own hanging baskets this years with annuals my dad gave me!  They look very pretty.  Next up - put in some pepper plants given to me by a co-worker/garden friend :)

-E

Oh, Arthur. Sep, 1998 - May, 2013

We euthanized Arthur tonight.  His heart had finally given out after 15 years of life, the last 3 on heart medication.  The vet was nice, she said there was nothing more to do and that it was absolutely the right decision to euthanize him.

A toast to Arthur: you were very naughty, but you were our naughty Chihuahua.  We hope you are with Cody somewhere and that the two of you are barking at both everything and nothing together.

In Maple Ridge

In Tofino

-E

Jody's place! And a dirt party

Here are some pictures from our trip to visit Jody.  Maelle and I spent two days there and we had a lovely time :)

Maelle with a Chicken!! :)

Maelle watching the kitchen with interest when we were out for lunch

I tried to get her to cuddle with me in the morning but all she did was frown, roll over, and go back to sleep next to me....adorable

Maelle and Jody at the park, Loic would have loved this park!

Baby and Moose :)

I took Loic to his buddy Ezra's 4th Birthday party on Monday and the kids alternated between jumping on the trampoline and digging in the 'job site' aka pile of dirt in the back yard.  Loic had a blast!  (He is the one in the red shirt on the far right of the 'job site'.)

A parting shot of my front veggie garden.  The peas on the left are super happy, and the blank spot has just been planted with bush bean seeds:

Rob has another cold, I have a raging ear infection but the kids are doing well (hope they stay that way, fingers crossed).

-E

SO Funny

Maelle has a new interesting crawling style, which makes Rob and I fall over laughing.

She is also a bit more strong willed than her brother was.  Rob and I can't figure out if that is just because she has an older sibling around when he was on his own or if she is actually a bit naughtier than he was....
Loic is so sweet with her and if he has something she wants she tends to head but him out of the way.  We are already working on teaching her how to take turns (meaning she sits and yells when it isn't her turn) because we feel it is important for Loic to hear us teach her how to share.

Rob and Loic went on an adventure hike on Sunday!

He is carrying the flashlight that I clip onto Tyler's collar when I walk at night :)

-E