Our new furry friend

She lives in the garage. She has long legs and a sweet little face. Dawson and Bennett are quite attached. Unfortunately, she's not breathing. I'll spare you a picture. I'm talking about Jon's first kill. The lovely little doe strung up by her legs, hanging in our garage. I seriously was hoping that wouldn't be part of the deal. It completely disgusts me. I thought surely he could just hand her off to someone else to do all the nasty stuff. But no. There she is in all her gutted glory. On my side of the garage, no less! I had to climb through the van to get Dawson out from the other side. I wasn't getting near that thing.

So as I said, the boys are quite attached. When Bennett saw it (and touched it. Blech.), he said to Jon, "She's so soft and cuddly. I wish I had deer fur!" Dawson loves looking at it. As soon as we pull in he says, "dee, dee, dee!" Jon found him tonight trying to open the back door, saying, "dee, dee!" and he kept saying it while I carried him all the way up to bed with such desperation in his voice. I seriously almost gave in, he sounded so sad! Oh well. I mean, if we're going to have a pet, its about as low maintenance as they come ;)

Here are a few more antics from my boys:

Bennett with his new CD player:

Putting it to good use to keep Dawson still during a diaper change:

Dawson loves wearing the Mr. Potatohead glasses. He can put them on himself and wore them for an entire morning the other day:

Mullet be gone

Big day for Little D today. His first haircut! He was growing quite the mullet so we definitely had to rectify that situation. I intended to take a good before pic, but of course I forgot. Bennett didn't get a haircut until he was over 2 1/2 and he sat frozen the whole time. I was quite curious how Dawson would do. He refused to wear the cape. He started flailing his arms around underneath trying to escape, so she just laid a towel over his shoulders. He was ok for about a minute (thankfully, while I could snap some pictures) and then he kept reaching up and trying to get her hands away from his head. So I ended up reading him a book in an over-enthusiastic voice and that worked pretty good. I tend to hate the first haircut on baby boys. They instantly grow up. But his is pretty subtle since she only had to trim around his ears and the back. He still looks like my baby.

No more mullet:

First Day

Well, our lives are about to change. Jon started his first day of a new job today. It came up kind of out of the blue. Some friends we've known our whole Iowa lives (Randy Nesbit and Davey Bloom) offered Jon a job with them selling insurance wholesale to insurance companies (or something like that). They had a new zone/area/district (I can't think of the word) open up for sales and offered it to Jon so he'll actually be travelling to Kansas every week for a while, and then probably just once a month after he establishes contacts and relationships. He's trying it part time for the first two months while he contines with mortgages and if its a good fit, he'll start full time and close his mortgage business.
This is going to impact our lives a lot, since Jon's owned his own company almost our whole married lives. He's always only worked a handful of hours every day (if that). His schedule has always differed from day to day and he's usually in and out of the house all day. He's pretty good at staying busy with different projects but he's always had a lot of free time. I can't imagine having a husband work from 9 -5! I rely on him a lot for help with the boys and he also does the majority of the cleaning and half the laundry. I know--most of you moms are probably thinking, "Oh, boo hoo. Now you'll know how the rest of us do it!" And yeah, that's true. I've had it easy compared to a lot of moms. But its all I've ever known!
I'm excited for the change this will bring. I'm sure there will be a lot of positives--I like predictability so it'll be really nice to know his schedule from day to day. And when he's home, he'll be home. For the past 8 years he's had to take phone calls at any time during the day and evening and even on vacations. He never got a true "break" from work. But I do feel like I'll have to step it up around the house. I'm a terrible housekeeper and I've let him do most of it since I do more of the childcare. I'll keep you posted as we adjust to this new chapter of our lives.

I asked him if I could take a "first day" picture of him-posed by the front door with his back-pack or something, but he wouldn't let me :)

Christmas Part III

This is the last of it, but I had a couple cute photos of my boys first thing on Christmas morning that I had to share:

*And no, they did not sleep in our bed! :)

And boy am I glad Jon's brother, Adam, married Kayla this year, because she brought these to Christmas dinner!:

Man, she's making us other daughter-in-laws look bad! How does she have the time for that? Oh wait, she doesn't have any life-sucking, energy-zapping, curse-inducing, house-destroying little terrors children!! Kayla--so glad you don't want kids so you can keep bringing cupcakes to everything! :)

We interrupt this Christmas series to bring you...

SPRING! At least that's what Bennett thought when he looked out the window today. It was 59 degrees in Des Moines today and all the snow from Christmas weekend had melted. It was just so heart-breaking to have to tell him that no, winter is not over. We in fact have 3 more months of it. But if we could get a little reprieve like this every few weeks, I just might make it through!

Christmas Part II

(I guess Dawson didn't get the memo that IT'S CHRISTMAS!)

The four little monkeys:

Sorry for the delay. I was waiting on my little sis to email me some photos she took on her camera. Since probably most of you read my sister's blog, I won't go into much detail. But we started Christmas morning with Bennett opening his stocking at home and Jon giving me some Christmas presents (which I was totally surprised to get, making it even better!). Then we went over to my parents where we always eat a big Christmas breakfast (my favorite part of the day, of course). Bennett asked the day before if he could have a Christmas picnic. Why not? :)

After everyone Skyped with Seth, my dad read the Christmas story and we trie to stretch present opening out as long as possible with two 3 1/2 year olds involved.

Bethany and I were so excited for the grand finale--this sign we made from scratch (hammering and nailing done by my hubby) for my mom which we copied from here. It turned out better than we anticipated and we were quite proud of ourselves. *Now taking custom orders. Wink. ;)

I'll take a better picture of our handiwork when she gets it hung since this one just doesn't do it justice. ;) Kidding, kidding.

Then we rushed off for Chrismas, Part III with the Colyers again.

Christmas Part I

I'm laying in bed writing this, thankful to my hubby for letting me take it easy today. Last night around 11:30 (after sleeping for 2 hours already) the flu hit me and I spent the rest of the night throwing up. Not surprising considering I'm the 5th member of my family (both sides) to get it over the course of a week or so. I'm just so glad it held off until all the Christmas festivities were over and I still got to stuff my face with all the yummy food over the last couple of days. I'm really really crossing my fingers that my kiddos don't get it.

We started Christmas on the 24th with Jon's side and opened presents that afternoon with a couple of Jon's brothers who wouldn't be there on Christmas day.

Wearing their matching monster slippers from Uncle A&Aunt K. Smiles and open eyes?? That's way too much to ask for:

We went to the Christmas Eve service at my in-law's church that evening with my parents and Aaron and Bria. It was nice to be at church with a lot of our family.

Love this one of them singing. Especially since I know Bennett didn't know the song :)

We ended the night with delicious hors d'oeuvres at our house and a late night for the kiddos. More Christmas coming soon...