What's new?

I've been a terrible blogger the past few weeks. Our lives have been so busy that I need to take a moment to update what we've been up to.
In February, we welcomed our dearest Ginger into our homes. She is a golden lab/greyhound rescue and we are so happy to be a two dog family again...even if we do have some puppy challenges to work through. She loves to scoop things out of the sink to chew, pulls down bread and bagels to eat (shes eaten whole loaves and 6packs of bagels), and just yesterday she pulled our beloved griddle off the counter and broke it. We'll be happy when this passes.
My mama came to visit last month too! I love how easy it is for her to travel to Denver to visit. It was wonderful to have her here to help with Emery, keep the doggies happy, and to bring a piece of home.
Since then we've been working a lot, taking lots of family walks to the park, visiting the dog park and trying to learn more about our new home. We've had some adventures with friends and have been planning for March.
This week, Jason's brother is coming with his wife, Candace, and our nephew and niece. We are so looking forward to a family visit and having them here to celebrate Emery's 3rd Birthday. We love spending time together and having the kids together, so this should be an adventure.  AND, they are staying with us, so we will be quite cozy this week. =) But we're excited!
Emery's 3rd Birthday... can you believe it? I can't believe how much change has happened in our lives since she turned 2. She is such a little girl. My baby is gone. It breaks my heart, but I love seeing her become her own little person. She is amazing and a lot of fun. I'll share more on this tomorrow, but I just feel so blessed to be raising this amazing little person.
We are not having a full party for her this year, but we will send cupcakes to school, and have a mini-party at home on Friday with cake and presents. AND, Emery, Auntie Candace, Cousin Claire and I are going for mani-pedis on Friday. Emery already decided she wants purple. I'm so excited to celebrate with her all weekend.
And, in a few weeks are we heading to CA to pass through, drop off Emery and head to vegas with our dearest friends, Bri and Andrew. We started planning this in the fall as a surprise for Andrew (which lasted like 3 weeks) and I can't believe we are only a few weeks away. We don't get to see the Klahn's nearly enough (mostly because our preference would be to be neighbors). I'm sad I don't get to see my sweet Delaney's face this trip, but this mama needs a kid-free vacay! We're staying in my parents timeshare and truly can't wait to have a few carefree days filled with cocktails.
In other news, we have found a realtor and will begin our official CO house hunt next month. woo hoo! We looked for over 2 years in CA and are so thrilled to finally know we're going to get an amazing home, in a wonderful neighborhood that we can actually forward.

And, because I can't leave you without a photo, or two....

Emery giving Ginger hugs. She really loves her so much. This morning she told me Jackson was her brother and Ginger was her sister. I love her love for animals.

 We had cheeseburgers the other night.. Emery wanted a Mickey one, so of course Daddy made a Mickey cheeseburger.  Spoiled girl!

Emery LOVES to go to petsmart. She likes to look at all the little birds, mice, and lizards. It's really cute. And, here, she asked Daddy to get in the cage. Is this the solution to all my troubles?

Happy Love Day!

I was really never into Valentine's Day growing up. My family didn't make a huge deal about it, and I honestly never had anyone in my life that I considered Valentine worthy.

Then, I went to college, and met Jason.

And we had our first Valentines Day together.

I hadn't really shared with my family that Jason was around. I was having lunch with my Grandma on Valentine's Day when some girls from the sorority house called and said I got a massive bouquet of roses sent to the house. I played it cool in front of Grandma, but on the inside I was leaping for joy.

My first Valentine's Day with the guy of my dreams. Boy, was I lucky.

Especially since my bff and roommate got a plant from her boyfriend.

Now that we are married, we skip the crazy busy restaurants and make a fab dinner at home and just enjoy being together.

And, now that we are parents, we get to share this day of love with the greatest and symbol of love in our life.

I continue to be so thankful for my amazing husband. He shows me love everyday, not just today. He thinks ahead and gets our little girl a valentines gift and card when I totally space out. And, like last night, he is patient with me when I am totally sick and just want to curl up in a coma.

After nearly 9 years together, I am more thankful today for his partnership and love than I was when we still had those first valentine's day butterflies.

Wishing all our friends and family a day of love and happiness with whomever you decide to spend it with.

Welcome to the family, Ginger!

I've shared that several weeks ago we began the progess with the Retreiver Rescue of Colorado to adopt a second 4-legged family members. The process was intense: online application, several phone calls, family/home visit, getting set up with a matcher, then, we waited. We were matched with a beautiful golden retriever last Saturday, and were thrilled to set up a meeting with her for this weekend.
But, eventually, after several days of back and forth with the foster mom, we decided to move on. She was extremely unkind to our family, passing untrue and unkind judgements about our ability to care of a second dog. As much as we loved what we had been tolk about the dog, we really didn't want to subject our family to meeting the dog only to be rejected onsite by the foster mom. (the rescue allows the foster family to make the final decision)
The most frustrating part of the situation was that everyone else in the organization agreed that we were a great match for the doggie. However, with a very heavy heart we did eventually move on. Which ended up being such a blessing. The very next morning we were matched with our darling Ginger. She had not even arrived at her foster family yet, but we were already smitten. Ginger is a family release due to finances. She previously lived with a family with young children and a black lab (sound familiar).
We immediatly recieved her photos and put a hold on Ginger. After a great conversation with our matcher and her foster mom, we met Ginger yesterday morning.
Jason made the grand declearation that we need to "be objective" when meeting Ginger. It took our entire family about 5 seconds to fall in love with her. She is so sweet and loving. Emery immediatly wanted to take her home.
The previous night we shared with Emery that we were going to meet a doggie and if we loved her, we could take her home. She pretty quickly told us she didn't want a new doggie, she wanted Carley. You can imagine how that broke my heart. I would love to have Carley back too...
It made me so happy that Emery so quicly fell in love with a new doggie.  She is just like her Mommy, a doggie lover.
Jackson was excited too! He literally tore into the house to meet her. They were both a little nervous, but it seemed to go really well right away. After about an hour we signed the contract and took Ginger home. She immediatly go a new bed and kong toy.
Ginger quite literally spent the afternoon on the couch, mostly in my lap. We did have a couple of furbaby growing pains and snarls, but nothing major. This morning they seem to be eager to get out and play. We are planning a nice long family walk for today.

We can't wait to continue to make her feel like a member of our family. She is so kind with Emery and is crazy loving with us.
Isn't she fabulous?!

Our household mystery

We have a major mystery going on in our household these days.  Something that is about to take my sanity and throw it out the window, the window, the second story window.
Since moving to CO, Emery has been a pretty awesome sleeper.  She might wake up in the night, but mostly because she loses track of whatever stuffed toy she went to bed with that night.
She sleeps awesome, unless her daddy is traveling.
Then, she doesn't actually sleep at all.  At least that is what it seems like.
Last night was no exception.  In fact, it was one of the worst of them all.
My sweet girl asked to go to bed at 8:30pm.
She refused to sleep in her own bed.
Or by herself.
But insisted on sleeping in my bed, with me.
Except she didn't want to sleep in my bed at all. 
She wanted to play with her two tiny teddy bears.
Then came the screaming.  The first round of screaming.
We retreated to the couch an called in Daddy on the phone for back up.
To no avail.
Here comes 10pm and we finally make it to her bed to sleep together.
She's out like a light.  I'm up until 11pm.
Then, just past midnight, in comes our darling dog, Jackson.
He needs another potty break.  Which these days, is code for sniff fest.
At midnight.
I toss an turn and cat nap until 2am.
Awesome, right?
Emery is crying again in her sleep.
And burning up.
Temp? 101.9.
And, now she is demanding watching Mickey on the couch, in my arms.
Very specific, this girl.
So, up we go to watch Mickey.
I come in with medicine reinforcements, which Emery loves.
That kid LOVES medicine.
Mickey is over.
Round 2 of screaming begins.
I'm shocked my neighbors don't call 911 because she screams like I am skinning her alive.
Which clearly I am not. Nor, would I ever (for the record).
But, I am crying too and begging her to go to sleep.
3:15am.
We in my bed and she is quickly falling back to sleep.
4am. I finally fall alseep too.
Only to be woken up at 6:20 by my darling husband calling.
Apparently "by accident."

Not.enough.coffee.in.the.world.today.

Thank goodness husband comes home today to rescue me from the non-sleeping baby.

I'd bed $100 that she sleeps through the night today with Daddy home.

ugh.

Snow-pocolypse 2012

Taken from our patio.  Yes, that is snow above my child's knees.  It took like 15 minutes to get her properly bundled.  But, she was dying to play in the blizzard.

Jackson is one of those giant, freakishly tall labs.  Please notice the snow that is up to, or beyone his rib case.

While I am enjoying my snow day at home with my family (complete with afternoon coffee and girl scout cookies), I am angry and jealous that my CA have FB status updates that have included the BEACH this week. At least today I am justified for having not gotten dressed and mostly not left the couch.

I'm kinda obsessed.

I've shared recently on FB that we are in the process of being approved to adopt a new doggie into our family.  We lost our beloved Carley in October and our home hasn't felt the same since.
Jackson is lonely.  But, he does get a lot more attention being the only 4-legged child in the house.  It is easier to take long family walks, get to the dog park, regular doggie day care visits...
It is all easier.  But I don't necessarily like easier.  I like a complete family.  Jackson needs a sibling.
We had originally planned to wait until we bought our home this summer to bring a new 4-legged child into the family.  Then I started this dog adoption process on a whim.  Mostly, I kept seeing these beautiful faces and I got nervous that the right dog would miss our family because we weren't on the eligable list.  And, I knew it would take time to get through the million steps to become eligable. Plus, if it takes time to find the right dog, and we didn't get on the list until August, we could be a single dog family until Halloween, easily.
That sent me into a panic.  An axiety driven freak out that now has me in hyper mode trying to find our family a suitable dog.  I swear it is like when we decided to start trying for a baby... I made the decision I wanted one, so I wanted it immediatly.  Not in 3 months.  I cried constanly because I HAD TO HAVE A BABY!  I was a little crazy about it, I get that now.  But, it is what it is.  Once I put my mind to something, it has to get done, quickly.  This isn't only with children, or pets... it's clothes, vacations, buying a house.  I'm impatient.  Just ask Jason... once we had been together about a year, I started nagging about getting married... all at the ripe old age of 19.
So, here I am spending all my free time searching every dog adoption website I can find looking for a dog to look me in the face and tell me that she is mine.
I should be embarressed, but I'm not. 
And, I got my heart set on a beautiful 2 year old girl dog that was good with cats, dogs, AND kids!  I thought for sure she would be ours in a matter of days.  In fact, I had renamed her to something more suitable to our family.  I looked at her picture several times a day for the past 4 days... then BAM! she was adopted to some other family right out from under my nose! I'm confident they are not nearly as good a family as we are, but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.
So here we are... waiting.  Tonight is our home visit with the adoption organization. 
Wow, this is a process.
One online application
One 40 minute phone interview
Several shorter phone conversations later...
And, we are having a home visit.
But, at least by going through a rescue organization that fosters the pets in homes, we have a much better idea about the personality we are bringing into our home.  We have a 2 year old and another doggie to consider here.
Man-o-man, this process is stressing me out.
I just keep in mind that pretty soon I'm going to have two amazing giant retrievers to think they are lap dogs.
My name is Crystal, and I love giant dogs who think they are lap dogs.

I really encourage anyone looking to add a furbaby to their family to adopt.  It is giving a pet a second chance on life, something they will never stop thanking and loving you for.

I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on how this home visit goes and where we end up in the process. Jason is working from home today to get the house cleaned and organized so the home visit goes spectacular!  I have the best.husband.ever. for putting up with my crazy... I know secretly he wants a second doggie too..

Mommy's Blocks

These blocks have been a major topic of conversation in our house.  I brought them home from the Target bargin bin last week.  I'm not a huge holiday decorator, but I would eventually like to be.  Right now, we don't really have the space.  But, I figure if I get a few things this year while we are in our apartment, it won't be a huge expense or as time consuming a process.
Emery pretty immediatly spotted them and wanted them out of their plastic packages and into her sticky little fingers.  You can't tell it here, but they are still in their plastic packages.  I'm not crazy enough right now to let them loose.  They will go into her room, never to be seen from again.
When I gave the blanket statement of, "Emery, don't touch, those are mommy's blocks," I was pretty quickly peppered with questions...
"Those are Mommy's special blocks?"
Yes, Emery.
"Can I play with them?"
No, Emery.
"Are you going to build something with them?"
No, Emery.
"Why not?"
They are not for building, Emery, just looking
"Can I make a train with them?"
No, Emery.
"They aren't for stacking?"
No, Emery.

We've been through at least this full set of questions at least once a day since.  Each time, she walks away with the saddest, most confused look on her face.
She simply can not understand why I would have blocks that I'm not making trains with, or stacking, or building something.
Apparently, I'm nuts...