pick a puppy

Today we went to visit the breeder and we picked out what puppy we wanted.   Here we are with our new pup. (still need to pick a name)!

 It is really hot and yucky weather! Tons of flies and knats. So gross.  The puppy is 4 weeks old so it isn't read to leave home yet but since this was Dave's last available day to look we decided to go today. It was so fun to look at all the puppies and hold them.


Here they all are

This is Dave checking for dermoid sinus on the dog. When you hand him a baby, he feels the head, when you hand him a puppy, he feels for dermoid sinus. Neurosurgeon at heart!

 Calvin was for sure the most passionate about holding all the different boys and picking just which one he liked the best.

 Lexey and Clare really loved holding the runt of the litter...seriously 1/2 the size of the others. They really wanted to get that one but we didn't think that was the best choice.

Lexey's 1st grade reading list

One of the fun things about home school has been being able to pick lots of good books to read with Lexey.  The books we read here are waaaaayyyyy better than the (dumb) text books at school.  Clare was lucky to have a second grade teacher who read amazing read aloud books and got Clare hooked on reading. I'm trying to do the same for Lexey this year.


Here are some of the books we read this year with Lexey's rankings.

Magic Tree House books  9
  - lions at lunchtime
  - tigers
   - stallion
   - titanic

Mercy Watson Series 5

Clementine's letter 2

Trumpet of the Swan 10


Mr. Poppers Penguins

Ivy and Bean

People Magazine Survivors 10

Ivy and Bean series   --- we read this late in the year (march/april) and it was fun to see Lexey really take off on her reading in this series. It was the first time she read on her own and was so excited about a story she couldn't put a book down.

puppy

These are puppies and mother Makena on April 27th, the day they were born. One of those fur babies will join our family at the end of June! We are so excited! 

Our favorite dinner time conversation revolves around what we should name our puppy. Most of our names are either Houston or Ohio State related.

Clare loves the name : Graeter  (like graeters ice cream). This name is doubly awesome because it reminds us of Ohio and ice cream. Plus the nickname is Gray.

Calvin likes the name : Kirby  - a major street running the full length of houston, plus a neighborhood in houston and a vido game character

Dave's favorite name is: Bayou. Lots of water in town. Lots of Bayous in town, plus we loved seeing the other Bayous in the south

JoJo  likes the names: Rudy and Brutus (funny enough this is a great ohio state name but it is also the bad guy in Popeye, the old cartoon which she Dave introduced her to and is now her favorite show!)

Lexey: is not super opinionated. She is just waiting for a time when she can have her VERY OWN dog! :)

Denise:  My favorites are Graeter and Houston. I also like Thunder.  I'm still open to suggestions/ideas and have lots of names I really like.  NASA, Sanford and Kirby are a few other Houston names I like.

Since the dog is going to be 100% my work I figure I get to pick the name. However I thought Dave did a great job picking the name Tressel so I will trust his opinion.

The little one on the right is sort of what our dog will look like when we get to take it home in a few weeks.

To see more pics go to: Lslh Ryan CiGi Moore on facebook.  

pink eye

We currently have pink eye in our house. Fun times.   Jo gets REALLY upset when her eyes are not feeling right.  Last night she came into my room no less than seven times to tell me, "my eyes are teasing me"  on one of the later visits it was "MY EYES ARE TEASING ME" and then threw herself on the ground crying in frustration.  I wipe her eyes with a warm towel until they are all clean and she is on her way back to bed. She is a funny girl. She has no qualms whatsoever about coming into my room during the night to tell me about what is bothering her... the most common problems are "my nightlight is missing" and "I can't find my mimi".

Love cute jo

36 things I love about Dave

Recently the kids were reading some of our older blog books from about 5 years ago.  They loved reading the list of why I love Dave, which I had written on his birthday. I thought I'd do another list for this year.

#1.  He loves me.  This is for sure the #1 thing I love about Dave.  It is so nice to be married to someone who always tells me he loves me and shows his love. Probably the first few items will be related to this.

#2. He tells me I'm beautiful. All the time. So much so I'm not sure if he'd be willing to lie because even when I weigh 10lbs too much (like right now in Houston), or I'm pregnant or haven't showered. Maybe the only time he wouldn't say so is if I'm wearing capri pants.  We all know how Dave feels about fat people.....I joke with him sometimes that I'd like to get fat just to prove that he'd still think I was beautiful. Lucky for both of us I care too much about how I feel and look to ever embark on this experiment.

#3. He would do anything for me. Recently we have been discussing where to live in the future, what kind of home we want, what ward, etc. we discussed several options and then in the end he said, "but I'll do whatever you want if you feel strongly about it."  It's true for most things.

#4. A few days ago I texted Dave : "today would be a good day for you to ditch work and bring home Torchy's for lunch." And guess what!?! He did it! Miracle of miracles that he could actually leave work. But so sweet of him to do so when he could.

#5. He gave the best Christmas gift this year $500 visa gift card and offered to babysit the kids while I went to visit family. I'm using it to visit Scott/Abbey/baby and Pete/Jess/Austin/Parker in VA with Lexey. That $500 gift card might have been re gifted from his department but I love it just the same! :)

#6. He always thinks really hard about what to give me for b-days and mother's day, etc. Sometimes he'll run his ideas by me to see if it's something I'd want. I think he has improved in this category. He has been known to give me XL basketball shorts and a computer that he took to work and I've never used.

#7. Dave is beautiful.  He has beautiful hands, gorgeous eyes, a perfect butt. He is tall, dark and handsome.

#8. Dave is strong. Even though he doesn't get to workout as often as he'd like he is still super strong and maintains a pretty decent level of athleticism.

#9.  Dave is a good dad.

#10. He's a good dr.

#11. Says funny stuff.

#12. Likes good food.

#13.  Is never boring.

#14. Works soooooo hard. I could never do what he does.

#15. Has a great family

#16. Is super creative..... in parenting and in life.  Love the new super Gonda t-shirts he designed!

#17. Always has good advice for me.

#18. Has a good sense of humor and a great laugh

#19. loves all the neighborhood kids

#20. He's wicked smart

#21. Doesn't let me quit. encourages me to do my best without being pushy.

#22. Loves God

#23. Has an amazing memory

#24. Speaks his mind

#25. Likes to read

#26.  When we go on road trips he can drive the entire way

#27.  Is a dreamer

#28. Gets along with everyone

#29. Is happy

#30. My best friend.

#31. Loves San Diego as much as if not even more than I do.

#32. Looks forward to traveling together.

#33. From Calvin: nothing

#34. From Jojo: throws us in pools and he bes the tickle monster

#35. From Clare: he's fun and that he throws us in pools

#36. From Lexey: he's a tickle monster, he is fun

great weekend

Since Dave works sooooooooo hard during his two weeks on .. ..we try to do lots of fun things when he's off and spend good time together, as a couple and a family. Work hard, play hard is our new motto!

Fri night Calvin and Jo and Lexey went to the Mealey's for a bday party. Then we got a babysitter Trevor Mangum to stay with the kids so we could go say hi to the Lazars, David and Deborah. David Lazar is a general pediadric surgeon. He did residency in SD during the same 7 years dave was doing his so they crossed paths. Now David is at Texas Children's with Dave. Plus UCSD is recruiting Dave back to SD. We may on the same life path for a while longer. He has one more year in Houston before he's done. Deborah is going out of town for a month or so and we weren't sure we'd see her before we leave.  We enjoyed chatting with them for an hour or two. They were sweet to have ordered a cake at the bakery that said "congrats Dave and Denise" which they gave to us.  We also had pizza that they picked up and we brought Ben and Jerrys. They have one more year in Houston, much to Deborah's dismay! :)

Sat. we went shark fishing with the David and Christy Francis and kids.  Let me cut right to the chase by saying that we didn't see any sharks. Basically shark fishing is just a day on the beach.  We met a few families from the Francis' Austin days and they were fishing. The fishing was from shore. They would kayak 200 yards from shore and drop the bait and line. Then they'd come back in and sit on shore and wait for a bite. They caught a few fish that were 18 inches long.  They were all fun adventurous type guys, and it was nice to meet them.  We spent most of our time just chatting with the Dave and Christy and watching the kids swim. They loved it! The water is very warm and the shelf is pretty long so it's fun for them.  All of the kids swam until they were to the point of utter exhaustion, except Lexey who we had to drag out of the water after about 4 hours when it was finally time to go home. Awesome adventure. Oh, to get to this beach we had to drive about a mile on packed sand ...this was quite scary for the kids who thought we were going to die, but really not that treacherous. Not sure why our kids didn't think it was exciting!

It was super convenient to drive the car right up to the shore and back into a nice spot, open the doors and let the kids out. The water is ugly, the beach is ugly but it was very convenient!

Sat evening we knew the kids were beat so we made breakfast sandwiches and hash browns and watched a family movie, Earth to Echo. Then the kids played outside with the Hatches until bed time.

Sun we had church of course...around 1:30 just as we were leaving for the Francis's for dinner we got one of our CRAZY torrential rains!  It was incredible. The streets were flooding so quickly!  Just from walking to our car from our front door and then from our car to their front door we were soaked to the bone. Love the rain! The thunder was so loud it shook the house!
David grilled steaks. It was a ton of meat and very good as far as steaks go!  We had some other great sides, lemon orzo salad, potatoes, veggies, cinnamon rolls. Great company. We stayed until about 5 and then came home for book club.

We had to document Dave eating his huge steak because Dave has been called "vegetarian" by some of our meat loving friends here (Myles and Rishelle) since he doesn't love meat as much as many men!  Rishelle grew up on a cattle ranch so they view red meat as a staple. Even chicken is probably not considered real meat!  Rishelle joked that if she brought Dave to the ranch not only would her family think he's a vegetarian, they would probably ask in hushed voices if he was gay.  When we texed Rishelle this picture she said, "Nice try. I bet that's Denise's steak."

We've been doing couples book club which is super fun. Mike and Mandy Hansen, Rishelle and Myles Scott, Mark and Sarah Lott and Christy and David Francis. We have read Boys in the Boat and Uncle Tom's Cabin. This discussion was for Uncle Tom. It was an outstanding book. Everyone loved it. The discussion was great. After we were done with the regular book club type discussions Mike Hansen likes to ask difficult questions such as, "is race eternal?"  to get everyone thinking real hard. We turn on a movie for the kids to keep them happy while we all do our book discussion. It's about the perfect amount of time -- 90 minutes -- for all of us!

We're doing one more book next month and since we're meeting on Father's Day it'll be a marriage/relationship book called The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

magical moments

Every day my life is filled with fun little moments. I'm not great at writing down every little thing that happens around here, but here are a couple of fun moments from yesterday.

When I was laying by Lexey putting her to bed we had a conversation about aging:
Lexey:   Mom, you're 35, right?
Mom:  Yes
Lexey:  Wow, you're getting older. 30's are getting older.   20's are still young, 30's are in between and 40's are old.
Mom:  What about 50?
Lex: Dead.
Lex: .....well, if not dead than ooold
Mom: 60?
Lex:  ooooollddd. 70, ooooooollllllldd  80, ooooooooollllllllllldddddddddd, 90, oooooooooooooolllllllllldddddddddddd, 100 very very ooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllldddddddddddddd

So funny!

Clare has been reading Harry Potter. She's on book 5.  We let her stay up reading while the other kids go do bed. She's supposed to be in bed by 9, but lately she is up reading much later.  A couple of nights ago we heard giggles coming from our room (where she reads while the others are going to bed).  She was giggling about how Harry kissed Cho.  She read the entire passage to me the following.  Last night, after she went to bed, she was apparently still reading in her room and I heard sobbing. I called her name and she came out crying because Sirius Black died. She came out and cried for a while and then went back to bed. Long after Dave and I were in bed I heard her get up to get a drink.  I'm glad she's enjoying her reading!

jo's wedding

 

It is so fun watching the girls play together all the time. It has been the #1 perk of homeschooling this year to see their relationships grow. They are great girls and take good care of each other.  I almost hate to break up the play to do the school work!

 

One morning the girls planned a wedding. Jo was a beautiful bride in my old baptism dress!

tough mudder pictures

I don't have very many pictures of the tough mudder because the kids were doing their mini mudder during part of Dave's race and so we missed the first few obstacles. After that we had a hard time gauging how long it would take him to get to various obstacles.  Some people were finishing the race in 4 hours and others taking 6....

 

so, we decided just to stay put at this spot towards the end of the race. The obstacle is called Mt. Everest.  It was entertaining watching the various groups and individuals come to this obstacle.  It was neat to see the teams helping each other out and great to see those who really struggled get encouraged by everyone around them.  There was an older man, maybe 70ish who had to try half a dozen times to get up to where the help was. He knew everyone was watching him and cheering him on so he gave us all a victory wave. I was impressed that he kept trying. Many people who didn't make it after a few tries just walked around the obstacle.

 

For some reason Dave was the muddiest person at the race. Apparently his face was totally submerged in mud at some point.

I love how Clare and Lexey happen to be holding hands in this picture!

Dave is tall and strong enough that he made it without much help. He says the help got in his way.

Then Dave helped others get up. To me this looks like more work than actually getting yourself up!

Electroshock!!

Ouch!!

Here's the team. Plus Lexey photobombing as usual!

A little post mudder activity -- trying to win free burritos from Chipotle.

It was a neat event. I'm glad Dave was able to go. He is deserving of a little fun! 

The only down sides to the day were #1 the super strong smell of cow patties. So gross. If I was pregnant I would have been in really bad shape.  #2. losing Calvin for an hour. Happens all the time but it still raises my blood pressure and heart rate. When I told the workers I lost him I told them "he will not care that he is lost and that's what makes him hard to find" haha. They found him in the gift shop. I should have looked there myself but it was really of hard to walk around with the girls, cow poo and mud.