Introduction to Lilly

Today I am introducing our new family pet, Lilly. About a week before Christmas we adopted Lilly from a couple moving to New York who were unable to keep her. Lilly is about two years old and the perfect dog for us. To be honest, I will be the first to admit I am not much of a dog person. Gab has wanted a dog for a long time and over the summer we did decide on one. Once we purchased the dog from a breeder and got it home within two days we realized it had parvo. The vet said to play it safe we shouldn't have another dog in the apartment for at least six months since parvo is so deadly and highly contagious. Now that we have moved to a house we were able to start looking again. When Gab came to me and informed me she was asking Santa for a Chihuahua, I thought... guess I better search. I was nervous because I didn't know how I was going to tell her we couldn't get a puppy. Trying to potty train a dog is just not in my cards. I have tried it and wasn't successful. Plus with all of Gab's doctor appts and our running around I don't think we are home enough to potty train a dog.

Thank goodness I found Lilly. She is grown and fully trained! She loves to go on car rides therefore she rides with me every morning and afternoon to the kids' school. She loves to sleep with us and literally follows us around. The kids can dress her up a million times and she won't complain. My favorite part is the fact she goes outside to potty! I never thought I could like a dog so much as I do her. I already baby her a ton! She is very spoiled {to say the least}.

I used SmileBox to create digital scrapbook slideshows for you to see our newest addition. I just LOVE SmileBox and signed up for a FREE account. The below slideshows were absolutely free and the luxury is I can email them to friends/family or post them in my blogs. What better way to show photos then just uploading them in plain view?!

{New Family Pet}




{Bath Time}


Now after I created Lilly's slideshows I noticed I have never done an introduction for Miso, my beloved Cat. I am a total cat fan and not only because he is low maintenance by keeping himself clean but b/c he is so soft and lovable! So here are a few pics of him. {We adopted Miso from PetSmart in October, he is now 8months old}

{Miso}



Don't forget to check out SmileBox for great e-cards or invitations too! You can even print the scrapbook pages or e-cards you create to mail out too. I love it!

Tuesday Toot

It sure has been a long time since I wrote a Tuesday Toot! I even had to go back and look to see when the last one was written and it was on October 28, '08!
So for those of you who don't know what a Tuesday Toot is, it is where you toot your own horn. Most parents spend their time bragging about their children's accomplishments and forget to take a moment to acknowledge what THEY have done, themselves. With the new plan of blogging daily I hope to continue with the Tuesday Toot weekly b/c I think it is healthy to be proud of yourself!

For this week's tootin' I am just proud of myself for surviving the holidays! That is not only surviving the kids home from school every day for over TWO weeks but I also survived my family coming in town and staying at my house. Oh and did I mention they brought their dogs, who stayed indoors? Now don't get me wrong, I am not dog bashing or even family bashing. I love my family and they love their dogs. I knew their dogs were coming before hand and they did ask my permission. Their dogs are potty trained to go on pet pads they lay out on the floor within certain rooms of their house. The dogs will also go in the yard if they happen to be outdoors but will only use the pads if they are in the house {not go to the door}. Of course let me clear this up, the dogs will do this at their house. At my house... well that's a different story. The dogs felt the need to piss on 'bless' {yes, that's the word we'll go with} my carpet in every room about three times a day. The first 'blessing' took place within five minutes of entering my home after getting out of their crates in the car and stretching their legs while 'blessing' my lawn. Do dogs really pee two times within five minutes? So the first night I thought, it's okay, it's a new home and they must not realize where their pads are and maybe they just want to mark their territory once. Ha, ha, did I say once? I wish! After about 4 days I was ready to pull my hair out. If you have read any of my past posts you probably know I am very open to admit I already stress easy. But thinking of walking around on my carpet barefoot that a dog is 'blessing' all over, drove me nuts! The first day I actually tried shampooing the spots right away. After that we just cleaned it up by hand and waited the week out. Now the carpets have all been shampooed with pet odor control shampoo and my house is back to normal. I also am proud of myself for not getting upset once in front of my family. Nope, I walked away and worked really hard to just enjoy my time with my family. Although as sad as it might sound, from now on I would have to say no if I was asked again. Is that wrong?

The kids were also being extra 'special' this week. I guess they are bored being home for so long and must be ready to get back to school! Noah felt the need to turn his room upside down at least three times a day and Gab was defiant. T just got in the routine of staying up late and sleeping most the day and enjoying how lazy life can be for an 11yo on break. I will give her credit for helping me after I felt like I was 'pulling teeth' to get her moving, LOL. :)

But... I survived! Toot - Toot

Tuesday Toot

It's Tooting Tuesday time again and I am not very happy already... This is literally the fourth time I have redone this post. First I had problems creating the links to add photos. I added the photos and they were not showing up, then I had to publish the post to view it so after I edited it the automatic save feature was not on. Therefore when my computer froze up I lost the whole post. So... let's try again!

Okay this Tuesday I am not only going to toot my horn about my store opening. Since I promised photos of the store I will provide some here:

Now remember these photos were taken last week and the store is still under construction. I promise I will post new photos as soon as I am done with everything. The shelves are already fuller. This is just the preview of what I have been working on.

Now I also want to toot my horn for other things I have been doing recently. Spending more time with the kids. T has started violin lessons and while she is in her lesson after school I take Gab to the park. Here is a priceless photo of our last trip.




Her hair was standing straight up after coming down the slide, priceless.

Our family also recently adopted a kitty. His name is Miso (yes, like the soup) and he is five months old. He is so sweet, cuddles, purrs really loud and pounces my hands/feet during the night when I move in my sleep.





T went out of town for a quick day trip with my parents last weekend. While she was gone I took the little kiddos to the pumpkin patch. They loved it! They got to decorate pumpkins, Noah explored and Gab jumped in the bounce house.

I am also proud of myself for surviving the 1st grade field trip today. It went great, we had fun and all the noisy hyperactive wonderful children did not push me over the edge! :)





That concludes my Tuesday Toot. So.... Toot Toot!!

Why Blogging Momma?!

So now that I have begun my blog I figured I would take a moment to introduce myself and tell you why...

First to tell you a little about myself and my family. Of course I'm the mom, AKA DJane. I have high anxiety, act silly with the kids, stress to the max, am a planner, organizer, loving mother who is dedicated to my kids, straight A college student, gullible, outgoing and well... just me. I have three little ones that I am a single mother to. T is my oldest and she is 11, wow just typing that is so hard to believe, she has grown so fast. T is my brat drama queen, tomboy athletic, loud mouth full of life child. But on a positive note she is my big helper, my wonderful, well behaved daughter, all in all - my side kick. Then we have Gab who is the middle child at age 6. Gab was born with disabilities and even recently had major brain surgery. She is stubborn strong willed, a fighter spunky and a loner set in her ways/hard to tame. On another note she can be so lovable, caring, very bright at such a young age and just my little princess. Finally I have Noah who is my last child at the age of two. Noah is defiant TWO, pain in my rear, hyper active, gets into everything my high sprinted child. On top of it all he loves me, loves to cuddle, climbs into mine or his big sissy's bed every night and so adorable you can barely say no. My little ones are my life. They are why I get up in the mornings and although they drive me to the insane limit they always seem to pull me right back to sanity.

As I mentioned in my first post I have been wanting to publish a blog for a while now. I have many ideas that I want to do with my blog. Although I do own an online store and am a WAHM, this is not a business blog. I actually want to use this blog for mostly personal use to blog about my life as a mother in general. I will network with other mothers and other wahms. I love constructive criticism and great advice! I have been reading several other blogs that I just love. You can always check my Blog Roll to find out who they are. So why blogging momma? Well because this is who I am... Some blogs you will read from other moms might say they blog to help others, some blog to have that little bit of time to themselves to get their thoughts out and I have even heard the cutest thing which is it's Cheaper Than Therapy. All I can say is this blog might fall into all those categories but right now it is defiantly in addition to therapy... lol :)
Enjoy!