tiny little tree huggers: 2009

Trot

For Christmas I decided to give Damian something super special that we've both been wanting for a long time - a dog!!

I found the perfect little guy on petfinder.com. He was a rescue named Dodger. He was living in a foster home in Alabama. He was rescued by ADAR Rescue from a high kill shelter. He was about 14 weeks old. He is supposedly a German Sheperd/Rottweiller mix.

We were approved for adoption but then had to wait a few weeks before we could go pick him up. He would be transported by Rescue Riders (www.rescueriderstransport.com) and they only make trips every so often.

After what seemed like eternity, the day for his arrival finally, well, arrived!

We drove to a park & ride in Hillsborough where we were to meet the Rescue Riders and Lisa, of ADAR New England. We waited for a little while, while more and more people showed up to pick up their K9 friends. There were so many people there!!

Finally, the truck with all the dogs showed.

Just seeing all the people there waiting to welcome these dogs with loving arms was overwhelmingly joyous to me. I cried like a little baby. It didn't help that the first girl to get her dog - an adorable little puppy - was also bawling like a baby. At least I wasn't the only one.

After a while our little guy's (old) name was finally called. He was with his new family at last!

Damian decided to change his name from Dodger to Trot - after Trot Nixon. Trot was shivering like crazy when we got him. It was a BITTER cold day that day. The poor little guy had come from Alabama and had also just endured a 24 hour (with stops) truck ride!!

When we got home we realized the collar we had was too big for him. We brought him inside to try to figure something out while he got acquainted with the house.

Yea, look closely at the picture - he got acquainted with his new house by pooping all over it! It was a crazy first half hour. After that, things settled down immensly, thank god!

Life with Trot has been great so far. He's an awesome little dog. He does the annoying typical puppy things - nibbling and trying to chew on everything. Other than that, though, he's a peach! He likes the kids and they like him. He is good in his crate, doesn't have too many accidents and he loves to just lounge with us on the couch. In fact, that's what he's doing as I type this. <3

Welcome to family little guy!

Fun times in the snow

When we got our first good snowfall Boston and I got all bundled up and headed out.

We had loads o' fun! We ran, rolled, laid, ate some snow.. we even made snow angels.

When it got to be too chilly we headed in for a special treat!

Look at these rosy cheeks!!!

There's the mama!

Our special treat? Hot chocolate, of course! It was Boston's first time and he was smitten!!! He drank almost the whole cup. We also had to have some yummy homemade chocolate chips with our hot chocolate. mmmmm

Christmas tree OH Christmas tree!!

We decided this year to purchase a pre-cut tree instead of cutting one ourselves. It seemed like it would be the path of least resistance when it came to lugging two small children around. We packed ourselves up and headed on our way to Rossview Farm.

Well, not all things work as planned. They only had cut-your-own trees. *sigh* We walked around for a while. Long enough for my husband to start hating me and Christmas trees. It was really, very cold and started snowing one of our first snows of the season. Then I finally spotted 'the one'; A pretty, symmetrical, not-too-big tree. Yippee!

Daddy got busy on his knees on the cold, wet ground - grumbling away - with the less then sharp hand saw.

I tried to teach Boston to catch the snowflakes on his toungue with some success. He's such a little cutie.

Ashton just kinda hung out, like usual.

Damian got it down, dragged it along, paid for it, got it on the car, drove home, cut it off the car, dragged it inside, set it up in the tree stand and then it was time to decorate. This is my area of expertise. ;) So, the boys went down for their naps while we lugged everything out from the basement and I got to decorating.

It came out nice, didn't it?

A camping we will go

Mimi let Boston use her tent to set up in his room. It's funny how a tent seems small until you set it up inside the house! This 'little' two-person tent barely fit in Boston's pretty good-sized room.

Boston thought it was lots of fun at first..

Daddy read him his bedtime story..

But when the light went off for bedtime.. whoa nelly. Boston was having no part in that. He slept in his bed. :D

I'm so thankful

Thanksgiving with the Kircsh' was great, as usual, this year! Unlike years in the past it was held at Grammy Lynn's house. Good thing she has all that space!

The food was fantastic and the company crazy and fun. Unfortunately Brooke was unable to make it with Henry so soon after his birth. Luckily, we were able to get her and the little guy on a laptop via webcam. It wasn't as good as the real thing, of course, but still pretty cool.

Pretty little Halla and Bella.

Lots o' people in this house!

We even got a decent family picture!! It probably looks familiar if you received a Christmas card from us this year.

Boston thinks Thankskgiving is awesome!

Family picture time!

sniffle

My little baby is not so little any more. Ashton has gotten to be such a big guy!

Around the end of October Ashton slowly switched from the boob to the bottle. That was definitely bittersweet for mama. I loved nursing him. He was a breeze! But it was/is also nice to have somewhat of a break. It was nice to see him bonding with Daddy a little more, too.

Here is one of his last nursing sessions. My poor boobs were all dug up. No wonder.. little Mr. Dagger Nails was less than gentle most of the time.

He now prefers to drink tea

Kidding! Mean Mama says no. Boo. Poor little doobie.

Ashton still prefer liquid nourishment over solid - but we have been making a little more progress over the past few days. Despite his preference he is becoming more ready for the real stuff!!
He has TEETH!!

Some other things this giant enjoys are:

Drooling all over himself.

Hanging on his Mama.

Playing with Daddy.

Standing up and cruising along the furniture.

Playing with dog toys.

And being absolutely freaking ADORABLE!

He loves his big brother when Boston can manage to not torment him for 5 minutes. He sleeps like a champ day and night. This makes me one happy mama!!! He has his 9 month check up tomorrow so I will update with stats then.

Trick or Treat

..smell my feet. Give me something good to eat!

We had such a fun Halloween this year!! All of our costumes were of the homemade variety. My mom made them all except for Damian's.

We went as a group them this year. Our theme was dah dah dah daaah - Wizard of Oz!! I was Dorothy, Damian was the Scarecrow, Boston was the Tinman, Ashton was the Cowardly Lion and my mom went as Glinda on the front, and a Wicked Witch on her back. We went trick or treating on Halloween night in Concord. We got SO MANY compliments on our costumes. It was amazing!!

Our group!