The new addition to the family

That's right, in the midst of everything else going on, we thought it fitting to try our hands as a dog owner. Most of you may think that it was the last thing we needed right now and you would probably be right on the money. But, Reba and I tell ourselves all the time that life is short and worth living....or something like that. We picked up Lego from his owners two weeks ago and Jacob had already named him Lego. As you can probably tell, Jacob loves legos in general so he thought it fitting to name the dog after his first love. We won't lie to all of you and tell you it has been a walk in the park, but it could have been much worse also. When we accepted the dog, we were still living with Reba's parents, Mark and Sue. They also received their dog from the litter that sane day. So, the scenario looked something like this; All five of us are living with them for two weeks with two new puppies running around pooping and wetting. They did quite well together and in the evenings would wrestle and pounce on each other until they were exhausted. Many of our evenings were spent sitting around telling the dogs to stop biting the chair etc. You know the drill. We got into a rhythm with the dogs and it hasn't been bad at all. My worst fear in getting a dog at this point in our lives was that I wasn't up for getting up in the night and taking him out to do his business. We have just completed that part of our lives and don't care to revisit this. We can all say, "Thank God" because Lego sleeps through the night and doesn't whine until we come out in the morning. We have had some accidents with nice piles in different places, but Noah usually yells out that Lego pooped and then runs through the house saying, "No, no Lego". It is our built in poop siren if you will. Anyway, he is very cute and he does add a lot to our family. The kids love it and play with him all the time. At this point they are still fighting over the chance to feed him at mealtime and pick up the poop---see how long this lasts.

Aside from the dog and finishing up on things with the house, I guess that would be why we haven't blogged in two weeks. Absolutely no time. When we were staying with Mark and Sue, once the kids were in bed at night, we were up at the house painting etc. We were both to the point where we felt like we were close to the snapping point. I told someone the other day that when you wish for a non-fatal accident to put you in the hospital for a three day rest period, you know it's bad. We were wishing for a lot of those over the past couple weeks. We did finally move back home this past week on Thursday 10/5 and have spent most of our days moving stuff back into the bedrooms after the carpet was put in. We have also been doing a lot of the finish work which always seems easy, but it takes weeks. Today, we actually moved our kitchen in with dishes etc and I still find myself reaching for the paper plates and plastic forks. Each day we are gaining back some small sense of normalcy in our lives. Things are looking great by the way and when I actually find the camera, I will take pictures and put them up for all to see. We are trying to get back some of the old traditions with the kids and bedtime, books, talk time, and prayers. They are really glad to have all of this back. We have the long list of projects to complete before Reba and I take off for a much needed vacation without the kids to............Chicago for a national conference on ADHD. Ok, so maybe it is not romantic, but it will be educational and time away. I will be better about more blogging now that the computer is hooked back in and I am not getting dressed out of my car anymore.

Robb and Reba