First Family Pet: Tortoise

Oh, I cannot count the times Toby asked me, "PLEASE, MOM, CAN WE PLEASE GET A PET?"  He tried all kinds of ways of persuading me.  But I'm not much of an animal person and the thought of another responsibility deterred me...because we all know it's mom who ends up caring for the kid's pet/s.  But I was beginning to crack a tiny bit when I saw what a difficult thing being "petless" was for my animal-loving son.

One day he came from school announcing that he was the ONLY kid in his whole class without a pet.  I came back with the classic line: that makes you unique!  "Mom, I already am unique!" he reminded me.  "I have red hair and I'm the tallest in my class!"

This is my favorite part of this story because it shows how much God is aware of the desires of our hearts...of an eight-year-old's heart and it's desires:  A few weeks back we were pulling in to our driveway and out of the corner of my eye I see a tortoise on the sidewalk in front of our house!  There was no one else around and it definitely seemed to be a stray.  We hung out outside with it for awhile, but no one came to claim it.  We brought it to our backyard.  Put up signs.  Talked to neighbors.  No one knew where it had come from.

I called the Pasadena Turtle and Tortoise Rescue and a nice lady, who I emailed pictures too, let me know we have a female Greek Tortoise and was very supportive of us keeping her.  And that is how we came to have our first family pet, whom Asher appropriately named Shelly.

Toby seems to have a great peace now that we own a pet, but it is Cora and I who are the most taken with Shelly. We follow her around the yard and check to see what she is doing several times a day.  In fact, I'm not too embarrassed to admit that I, the non-animal person, might be the most smitten with our Shelly.

Go figure.

iPhone Pics and the Random

I take a lot of pictures with my iPhone.  It is SO handy, even if the quality of the photos isn't all that.  Mostly I take pictures of my kids, but often I take pictures of random things too.  Here are a few from this week (I played with the photos a bit using an app called Camera Plus):

Asher was promised that if he swam across of the width of the pool this summer, we would take him out for ice cream.  Well, he did it!  Hence, the DQ ice-cream cone and BIG smile.

Toby enjoyed a cone too, of course!  He deserved it just as much for passing every aspect of his swim lessons this summer, learning difficult strokes and really improving his swimming all around.  His sessions were quite a workout!

The boys put this bandana on Cora and we all thought it was cute.  She looks like a cross between an aerobic instructor from the 80s and a pirate.  Argh!  (She cut her toe when playing with the sliding closet doors in her room.  I had to bandage her toe to keep it from bleeding every time she bumped it in to things.)

These are the jars I am saving up for this project.  Debbie is coming over tomorrow so we can have a craft day!  Can't wait!  It is our goal to try to get together to craft once a month.

To make my lunch a little more appetizing I took the leftovers of the kids' mac n' cheese, added  frozen peas and fresh cherry tomatoes and basil from the garden.  Pretty good (...for mac n' cheese, anyway)!

Cora and I enjoy sitting on the front stoop together.  It is shady, a nice breeze travels through, and we can watch for butterflies and enjoy the fresh air.  Not sure how the plants by our front entry became such a lush jungle, but I kind of like it!

This footprint was left on the stoop by the painters before we moved in to our house a year and a half ago.  It has been on my to-do list forever to remove it.  I even bought the right stuff at the store.  When will I ever get to it?  Nobody knows....

Linking this post to InstaFriday at Life Rearranged.  :)

Baby Product I Love!

Not sure why I felt the need to blog about this, but it was fun looking up the pictures of the kids!

A friend gave us our first Dura Bib when Toby was a toddler and I remember saying to Tim, "This bib changed my life!"  It used to feel like most of Toby's meal ended up on his lap or on the floor.  Clean up was messy.  We also went through a lot of bibs, which made for a lot of laundry.

This bib is wonderful in that it catches the majority of food that misses baby's mouth, and it is so easy to clean you can go quite a while before it really needs to be thrown in the wash.  The pocket unsnaps and the bib lies flat when it is time to wipe it down.

From Amazon.com

Below are some pictures of the babes wearing their bibs:

Toby's had balloons on it.  Made it feels like every meal was a party!

Ran across this picture and I just had to post it.  Toby falling asleep during his lunch...

This is Asher at his first birthday.  His bib had footprints on it and said, "I'm Your Tootsie Wootsie!"

 And Cora's had sea turtles on it.  Even girls can be messy sometimes. :)

Life with Three

A common conversation that I have with other moms is discussing which is more challenging, going from one child to two, or going from two to three. My response? Going from one to two was MUCH HARDER than going from two to three. Cora is a very easy baby, so that is part of it...and having two older children that can keep each other entertained is a major plus, but it is also about my attitude and the experience I've gained. It amazes to see how much my children have grown and changed over the years, but I'm also amazed at how I've grown and how much they have changed me.

Friday is Toby's last day of Kindergarten. I find it hard to believe that I will be the mom of a first grader! His teacher, Mrs. White, who he had for the majority of the year and is a phenomenal educator, advised us to encourage our kids to write often, but not to correct their spelling. I love reading Toby's writing and I have been wanting to include some excerpts on my blog. It isn't quite as cute when you can't see it in his own handwriting, but here it is just the same:

The ocean is very big. The ocean haev abowt amileyin difit cins of animls. The pusific ocean is the bigis ocean in the world. The bigis animl is a blou wayl.

I've lost five tethe. I sartid baseball. I love animls. I like socer. My favrit sesin is sumer. I am six years old. I haev dogs thet come to my yard behid the fens.

One day he asked if I could text daddy this message:

Dere Dad will you git me a dog on yor waye home from werc?

We have been so delighted to watch Asher in his new role as big brother. He is so tender and sweet with Cora and already protective of her. He loves to learn and completes pages in a workbook while Toby does his homework. In fact, he seems to like "homework time" much more than Toby does. Hope it lasts!

What can we say about Cora? She's perfect! She is almost 12 weeks old and is weighing 9 pounds, 8 ounces. She is small, but very healthy and happy. She is generous with her smiles and loves "face time", interacting with anyone who would care to have a little chat with her. She is the sugar coating that makes our lives extra sweet.

One thing that makes a mommy's heart glad is to watch her children interacting together (in a loving, peaceful way...the sibling rivalry type of interaction drive me nuts!). Here are a few pictures I took of the kids spending some precious time together: