After school snack

Sydney comes home from school tired and hungry, so the first thing we do before going outside to play is eat a healthy snack.  I love this time with them.  She tells me about her day and Sawyer and I tell her what we have been up to also.  Then we race outside to enjoy the beautiful, sunny, autumn weather!

Morning Daze

Like I mentioned, Mia is getting up super early.  This also means the girls have been getting up super early too!  Sawyer is back to napping again.  Partly because we are all up super early!

I call this look on Sawyer's face the morning cartoon daze!

She is getting huge

I took these photos tonight.  She is getting so big.  What a sweet sweet puppy we have.  She is so well behaved!  She really is picking up good habits from Izzy!!!  The only thing we are trying to work on is sleeping!  She wakes us up at the crack of dawn ready to play.  She's getting better, but still requires some coaxing back to sleep!  Jim was out of town for 10 days shortly after we brought her home, so I was exhausted dealing with her early wake up times!  Early mornings, running around like a crazy person with a new puppy, new school routines for the girls, etc!!

We have been spending a ton of time outside after school since the weather has been so nice.  Mia sticks pretty close to all of us.  Every night our neighbors bring over their little doggy and she and Mia have an awesome time wrestling.  Each night Mia crashes hard after all the activity!

from tonight...

Old Girl, Young Girl

I got a quick snap of each of my fur girls tonight.  Isabelle sat nicely for a moment but Mia won't sit still for a second!  I want to get a full body shot of Mia but it is impossible when she won't stop moving!  So close up was all I could get while holding a treat above her head!  Silly puppy!

Izzy is looking so old and gray.  My pretty old girl.  She is tolerating Mia pretty well except when Mia chews on her ears!

Mia is doing great.  Learning some nice behaviors from Izzy dog.  She still chews things like crazy so I have lots of puppy toys for her.  She is pretty much potty trained and will sit by the door and whine when she needs to go out.  She has had a few accidents in her crate, usually in the middle of the night.  That should end soon since she is able to hold it longer.

I want to document a few cute and sweet moments with our time with Mia.  One of the sweetest and most endearing stories is on the day that we met and picked Mia up.  We loaded in the truck early that morning to drive an hour and thirty minutes to the breeder's home.  As we were driving Jim asked if I remembered to bring the checkbook (even though we were just going to look, yeah right).  Of course I had the check book because I knew what was going to happen!

Anyway, on our way home, Mia cried so sadly most of the way home.  Just a few minutes into the trip home, Sawyer broke down in tears over Mia's crying.  She kept saying that we needed to take her back so that she could be with her mommy and her brother and sister.  We kept assuring Sawyer that all puppies cry when they first leave their family and when they have to drive in the car for the first time (she still isn't a fan of the car yet!).  It was so sweet to see how concerned Sawyer was for Mia's well being.  Also, the first few times we put Mia in her crate, she whined.  This also made Sawyer sad!  My little girl has a soft spot for her new puppy.

Old girl Izzy...

 Young pup Mia...

 Nap time cuddles...

The Winning Costumes

I tend to shop for the girls' Halloween costumes early in the season so I'm not scrambling at the last minute and so that the costumes are ready for a photo opp as soon as the leaves change to beautiful colors!

We stopped at Gymboree to see if they had any costumes that the girls like.  Both of them selected their costumes in 5 seconds flat!  My kind of shoppers.

Sydney chose a cute witch outfit and Sawyer chose a beautiful Flapper Girl dress.  So fitting of their personalities.  Sawyer loves anything sparkly!

Mia Pup

She's sweet, she's crazy, she's really really cute!

Fall Days

The weather is cooling off and Mia is keeping me running around like a crazy person, so that means lots of outside time!

 The only time this puppy sits still is when she is all tuckered out!

 Mia keeps trying the get old girl Izzy to play.  Not happening, as you can see!

 Mia wasn't so sure about the girls' scooters.  She chased them around for a while before her short puppy attention span got sidetracked by something else!

 Cute girl, Sawyer.

 I love listening to her stories.  She's got such an imagination!

Mia

She won't sit still long enough for me to get a good photo of her.  Oh well.  I guess most of the pictures of her will be when she is sound asleep!

It's a girl...

Her name is Mia Rose and we love her.  She's a sweet little bundle of puppy energy and we love her so much.

Why oh why did we get another puppy, you ask?!!  We kept saying that we would need a break from pets once Izzy leaves us, but then Jim took Izzy home a few days early from camp at the end of the summer and I really missed her and felt her absence (the girls did too)!  I told Jim there was no way that we could be without a dog (Jim was thrilled!).  Izzy is the best dog ever and she is such a source of joy to us.  The girls and I love having her around and we had the best time at camp with her.  We then debated about whether to get a new puppy now or wait until Izzy is gone.  Jim wanted to get one now so that Izzy could teach her good habits and help her socialize.  I was just so worried about how our old girl would react to a new puppy.  But we decided to look anyway...

Jim quickly called the breeder that we got Izzy from 11.5 years ago.  Lo and behold, the breeder had several puppies left, including a yellow female.  So we took the trek up there, met her, and took her home.  Clearly we are smitten (and crazy).  The girls love her (except when she bites).  Izzy tolerates her and is even starting to bond with her.

Meet Mia Rose.

By the way, Jim gets credit for naming this baby too!  How does he come up with all of our girls' names!

 We got Mia from the same breeder as Izzy.  She is actually from the same bloodline as Izzy too!  Isn't that so cool!!!  Izzy is slowly bonding with Mia.  We won't let Mia torture Izzy with puppy bites and craziness.

She's really doing a great job with crate training.  Each night she whimpers less.  She didn't even fuss when I put her in there this morning while I took Sawyer to school.  Just like Izzy and Remi, crate training seems to work for our doggies!

Sawyer starts school tomorrow

Sawyer starts 4 year preschool tomorrow!!!!  She is so excited!  3 days a week for 2.5 hours, so not much time, but enough for her to be engaged in fun activities with friends.  Perhaps in the spring I will add lunch and enrichment classes to her day.  This will help prepare her for full day kindergarten next year.  Crazy!

Put a bandaid on it

We had just remodeled our kitchen in Charlton just over a year before we moved (not knowing we would be moving).  As we were searching for homes in PA, it was hard getting past all the dated our "not our taste" kitchens.  The house we bought was no exception.  Every detail, althought nice, was the absolute opposite of the choices I would have made.  We put it at the top of our list to change a few details in the kitchen.

Although the cupboards are not my taste in style, they are custom Amish built, solid wood, and nice natural maple.  So it was out of the question (and budget) for us to replace cupboards.  My biggest issue was the very dark countertop and mismatched backsplash.  Like my other homes, this kitchen is an interior kitchen, so it didn't make sense to have black/green countertops.  Too dark, not reflective, just ick!

So we replaced the black/green countertops and mismatched backsplash!  I love the results. It brightens the whole space up and the light really reflects off of the new surfaces.

Still need to search for cupboard hardware.  Haven't found anything I like that fits the "whimsical" theme I'm going for.

***On a really crappy note, the tile installer (third party contractor for Home Depot) did a horrific job installing the glass tile.  We talked to Home Depot and the third party contractors.  Two inspectors from the contracting company came to inspect and said the only way to repare all the poorly installed tile was to do a full rip out and reinstall.  Yep, sucks, doesn't it.  I'm so pissed off that they ruined so much beautiful material and will have to interrupt our lives again to get it done right for a second time!  Sucks.  Jim is really pissed off two and we are insisting that another contractor do the work.  Who would trust the same guy to come back when he clearly didn't take time or care into the project in the first place.

Old dark granite and mismatched brown tile.

 New quartz countertops and aqua glass tiles.

Sydney Started School

Sydney was thrilled to start full day Kindergarten this year.  We got home from camp and and only had a few days to prepare ourselves for getting back into the groove!  Luckily her elementary school doesn't require school supplies!  So we didn't have to run around collecting those items.  

Our decision to put her back into Kindergarten this school year was pretty much decided before she even started private half day Kindergarten last year.  We really felt like she needed another year to build her confidence and we felt strongly that we wanted a 6 year old kindergartner instead of a young, barely 5 year old.  Her private school teacher put it pretty succinctly.  She said that Sydney has to work hard and some things don't always come easy for her.  Luckily, the teacher also mentioned Sydney's motivation to learn and her love of all things science!  Also, of 8 students in her private school last year, 5 of them have summer birthdays and all 5 of those kids are also going back to full day Kindergarten.  So we really felt like we made the right choice!!!  Seems to be the trend around here for summer birthdays.  Benchmarks and standards are tough.  We also feel grateful that she will have a boost up in academics since she already completed the kindergarten curriculum in another school.  

Proud Girl!

 Sneakers are required for gym class, so Sydney got a new pair of kicks!  She loves them.  Still can't believe I bought lace ups!  But it is motivating me to teach her to tie them up herself!

I'm so proud of my sweet, kind hearted girl.  She loves school, comes home everyday saying how wonderful her day was, how she met new friends, how much fun the bus ride is, etc!!!!!