A valuable lesson...

The kids and I visited the library today to kill time before the boys' doctor appts, they each chose 3 books WAY quicker than I thought. When we were loading up into the car, we noticed a star shaped American flag mylar balloon flying up into the air, and a woman watching it fly away. Then, as we were pulling out of the lot, she was walking into the library with a little boy (maybe 4) who was crying. So sad.

 I thought, we have time. And $1. So off we went to buy a replacement. They didn't have his star balloon, so we found a yellow happy face one, fitting for our plan. We rushed back, tied it to his door, and parked close enough to watch, but far enough that they wouldn't see us. We predicted their reactions while we waited.

Finally, they appeared. Mom, older daughter and son. Skipping across the parking lot on a nice sunny day. He'd probably totally forgotten his lost balloon. Mom sees it, but boy skips past the car without noticing. Mom and sister call him back and point it out. He comes back, stops in his tracks. Mom looks around. She seems surprised and confused. And we blew that popsicle stand!

 I figure it probably made the kid's hour. Maybe mom's day. But being able to teach my kids to act kindly without needing recognition for sure made my day.

AHH, The mouths of babes...

So, I've pretty much been sick all month long. I tend to break out when I'm under the weather.

Ellie sees a commercial for Proactiv this morning and tells me " Mama, you better buy that to clean up your face."

All the livelong day

In July, we found a super great deal online for a ride on a real train! My grandparents took us when we were little, and it hadn't changed at all! We had a lot of fun that day. The boys especially. They imagined what it was like to work on the railroad or travel long distances at the super slow speed we went. They even were excited that it smelled like "train". We ended up at a cute little waterfall where we ate lunch and the boys tried out one of those little cars you hand-pump.

Jax on the tracks 

Boomer pondering life

Daddy just realized he wore two different shoes that day. Whoops!

Family Love

SASS.A.FRAS!!

A Dahlia, by any other name...

While on our freeway drive to Seattle this past Thursday, we were chatting about what our new dog's middle name would be. We were trying to come up with a name that went well with Maggie, because that was pretty much the name we all decided on as a family. We were having a bit of a mental block, so I started paying attention to the cars passing by and would joke..."Navigator? Lincoln? Rav4? Odyssey (taken)? Sonata?" "Moonlight Sonata? hahahaha..." I guess I should explain the humor in that....

For the past 10 years every time moonlight or pretty colors or dahlias or awards would come up, we'd giggle and have a nice little memory of the sweet couple who did our wedding flowers. When we were planning our wedding, I knew I wanted dahlias for our flowers. I had very fond memories of Grandma's dahlia garden, so she pointed me in the direction of some friends of hers that still was very much involved in the dahlia community. When we met with the Wynne's, there was much talk of the prize winning dahlia they created and actually registered Wyn's Moonlight Sonata.  A very pretty flower indeed.



So, Jason says "I actually really like that name. Sunny was one of the names on our original short list!" But, I was just kidding. I really liked the name Maggie much better than Sunny, or in this case, Sonny. But he really wanted it to still be in the running, so I agreed to that much.

We had a great weekend and even asked some friends for middle name suggestions.

Then we get home, and Grandma calls to tell me the awful news that the husband of the dahlia couple, Walt, had passed away in a house fire this last weekend. When I got off the phone and told Jason, he commented on how it was really weird that we would have been considering naming our new puppy after one of their great accomplishments. I got chills and called the kids down, told them the whole story and the sad news that went along with it, then asked if they would like to change her name. They very excitedly agreed, so we have a set-in-stone name for her now. Moonlight Sonata "Sonny" Dahlstrom.

Grandma called me again today to let me know that she had read in the paper that the Wynnes had lost all their dahlia tubers in the fire. I surely hope that she is able to get starts from people and that someone, somewhere, has one of her special Moonlight Sonatas to give back to her.

Dahlstrom #6

This is "Biscuits and Honey". A 4 month old Australian Labradoodle puppy. We are beyond excited to bring her home at the end of the month! Her name is cute, but will be changed. Our list has gotten shorter and shorter and is down to 2...Magnolia "Maggie" or Calliope "Callie". The kids all like Maggie. Boomer has already started adding her to family sketches and labeling her name with Maggie, so that's the most likely. But Calliope is so danged cute! She just needs to cooperate with the whole name-change business!

I've got the FEVER

I've always been a cat person. I had cats all growing up. George, Smokey, Shadow, Princess Jasmine, Serenity, Socrates, Sherbie, Scrotummousefinkerton (don't ask), Molly. I love that cats are playful and snuggly and love to be scratched and loved, and are mischievous and so super cute, but most of all that they are perfectly content with little attention (though, in thinking back, I've always been the kind to always try to get my cats' attention anyway).

Until Miley came along and changed my way of thinking about dogs. They aren't ALL aggressive, taking random bites out of people's noses. They don't ALL poop all day. Everyday. Everywhere. They don't ALL eat a giant bag of food in one sitting. They don't ALL stink like a dog. They don't ALL lick your face constantly. They don't ALL jump all over you and your small children constantly. They don't ALL ignore your commands or run away. I love Miley and she changed my mind about a lot of things, but I was always still on the cats rule, dogs drool (except for one) side.

But there was still one item on my "Reasons to never have a pet again" list. PET HAIR.
Insert the Labradoodle. We recently went to visit our surrogate parents who are breeders. I was so surprised to see that they have a gazillion dogs running around their house and it was like any other house, it smelled normal, I didn't leave with dog hair all over me (and I was wearing all black!), there were 4-6 dogs of all ages running around the same room as my 2 year old and she never got bit or knocked over. Nobody pooped in the house.

That's right when my list changed... "Reasons to never have a pet again...ASAP"

C'mon.... who could resist this

Maybe it's just me...

Am I alone in being extremely annoyed when people ask for advice on FB group pages and then say... "GO". I cringe EVERY time.