Marley & My Life

So I'm watching Marley & Me. Everyone I've run into lately has said 'Have you seen Marley & Me? You should!" So I am. The first part definitely could have been written from our first 24 hours with Atlas. Except Marley is about 1/2 the size Atlas was at that age. After that its just made me appreciate my dogs! Marley is more active than Joey! And that's saying something!!

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I finished the movie. Its a good movie but I dont think I'll ever watch it again. The last half is entirely too emotional. It just follows the life of a couple who gets a puppy as their first child and then has kids and the life that follows. Its very good, really. And I know why everyone said I should see it. There were even some parts that have happened to us EXACTLY like they happened in the movie. My neighbor was the last one who said I really should see it. They have had a very similar life to us over the last few years. They moved into their house about a month before we moved into ours. They got their puppies the same time we got ours. They had their twins in May before we had Peyton in July. She and I have been catching up and learned that our lives follow each other almost perfectly. And we don't do anything together except talk in the yard. I guess the movie gave us a glimpse of what our lives could be like in 10 years! For those of you that haven't seen it- if you do, be sure to have a box of kleenex handy! And if you have dogs, you'll need some treats handy for them! I (almost) wanted to let the dogs sleep in our room again after watching the movie. But then I came back to my senses!

Hindu Wedding Pictures

Pictures of the Hindu wedding are up! Go to www.artbykriea.com and click on the Blog link. Right now it is the first set of pictures in the blog.

Petting Zoo

These are the pictures from Peyton's first visit to the petting zoo. He did pretty well with the animals. The only animal that really freaked him out was the horse. He didn't know what to think of that one! I kept telling him it was only a little bigger than Atlas but he didn't buy it! I think his favorite was the bunny. The goats were pretty cool too but they seemed to be tired of the attention by the time we got to them. We got to hear a little girl tell us how bunnies lay easter eggs! It was great!! It was one of those stories I'd expect to receive in an email fwd! She was about 6 or 7 and told us that there was an egg in the bunny cage (there was). She said it was the bunny's egg. I asked her if the bunny laid the egg and she said 'yes'. I said, 'do bunnies lay eggs?' she said 'oh yes! They lay Easter eggs. Their babies are inside'. It was really cute!

Its been a while since my last post- I can't believe its been almost a month!! We've been busy around here as usual! Peyton and I just got back from a great visit with Grammy and Grandpa in Tennessee. We had a particularly good visit full of rest! I didn't really realize how exhausted I was until I got there, rested, and then jumped right back into the marathon at home! Two weeks before we left, Peyton had his staph infection that improved almost immediately, thank goodness!! The next week I had to go to the dr with an infection in my sinuses. Of course I was allergic to the antibiotic and my face swelled up in a scary way!! Thank goodness mom was driving us to TN! Peyton really wasn't sure about me there for a couple of days! Tennessee was great! Peyton had so much fun playing in the yard with Grammy and with Grandpa in his shop. Its always good to be home. Peyton really missed his daddy and we've been having fun with Grandma, Aunt Kristine and Uncle Joe.

We hit the ground running as soon as we got home. Of course work was waiting for me when I got home. I have three weddings in May and one in June. Somehow I'm already exhausted!! Yesterday Peyton and I planted the flowers in the front yard that we began in our kitchen. I didn't thnk we'd have enough to plant the whole front flower bed but we did! I can't wait to see them continue to grow out there. Transplanting with Peyton in tow proved to be a huge challenge!! The poor guy just can't understand why we can't pull some green stuff out of the ground and we CAN pull it out other times. He's seen me pick weeds for a while and the flower sprouts look oh so similar in the eyes of a toddler! When he's not pulling them out he's stepping on them. I try not to get too frustrated. I did learn that the best way to get it done is in small planting trips.

So after we learned a few lessons the day before, I thought I'd tackle the vegetable garden. In the first little trip we planted the watermelons and hot peppers. Peyton still had a little trouble with pulling the tops off of seedlings and trampling but we went back in. We needed to cool off anyway. Later I had a brilliant plan! I decided to clean out Peyton's pool and put him in. It was 80 degrees and poor Peyton has a hard time keeping cool so I thought it would work great at distracting him and keeping him cool.
This is how we began...

This is what I did...

And this is what I saw when I turned around...

OK truth be told, I had turned around before he got into the mud. He had been getting in and out of the pool for a while doing different things but the mud situation happened in less than 5 minutes. I was finishing the last of the peppers and all I had left to plant was the lettuce and I heard Peyton calling 'mamma... mamma...' so I turned around and saw him in the mud. I didn't realize the water had pooled there. He was having a really good time and I was having a hard time not laughing because it actually was really cute! But he knew he wasn't supposed to be in the mud (he really wanted to play in another mud puddle that I knew about earlier in the day). So I took pictures of what we had both accompished and we went inside.
When I came in I saw the fires around OK and TX on tv. None of them were near us, thank goodness. The wind was awful, though. The sky was red from dirt around but not fires. Our electricity went on and off all afternoon and some of the evening and I think my phone and internet are doing the same.
I'm beginning to realize why I'm tired all the time... It could be from staying up blogging late at night... So on that note, I better head to bed!
Oh, and P.S. ... for those of you keeping track, there's been another snake incident. If I have to find one this is the way I want to find them- it was stuck to a sticky mouse trap in the garage! I told Brandon we should line the doorways with them. I'm still considering the logistics of that one...