Its A Doggy Dog World

On Friday Matt and I got up early and headed to get our Oklahoma license plates and drivers licenses. 

Four hours and lots of senior citizen gossip later we had them.

We are now officially Oklahomans!

Never thought I'd hear myself say that...

On my way home, I was about to turn into the neighborhood when I spied two dogs trotting along the side of the busy street.

Most of you know about Roy getting hit by a car four days after we brought him home, and so the thought of someone else's dogs getting hurt just squeezes my little ole' heart. 

So I pull into the neighborhood, park, and run to try to get them.  They've headed down the road, though, and are nearing the other entrance to the neighborhood.  I jump back in the car and beeline it down the street, pull up to the entrance and meet them just in time.  I open the back door, give a friendly call, and a large, white husky mix and a smaller chihuahua/German pinscher/terrier dog hop into my car.

Great, they're safe!

Now what do I do?

I head home, tell my mom, and we put Roy in a bedroom while letting them into the backyard.  They're just the friendliest girls you ever met, already warming up to us and so loving!

Problem is there's no collars or tags, and we have a raging beast in the bedroom.

Yes, Roy.  He's got an issue with other dogs.

He doesn't like them.

When we let him out of the bedroom and he finally saw them in the backyard, he went berserk. 

We finally drug him away and put him in the bedroom again while he paced and snuffed and huffed.

I made some signs and posted them at the entrance of the neighborhood, and posted them on craigslist as well.

Then we waited and played musical dogs, shuffling them in the garage or bedroom or backyard to keep them all apart. 

The men get home from work and are none too happy seeing these extra creatures in the house that my mom and I are trying really hard not to bond with.

It was even implied by some male members of the household that we just let them out and they'll find their way home.

Are you crazy??? we asked.  First of all, what if they didn't?  What if they did get hit by cars? Not only would I hate for that to happen, but I know if I ever hit a dog I would be seriously emotionally messed up for a bit. I couldn't let that happen to someone else.

During dinner my phone rang, and I picked up to, "Hi, my name is Keith and I'm hoping you still have my dogs?" YES! I replied. "Oh thank you! I have a four-year-old daughter and she's had them her whole life and you just made her day!" In the background I could hear little sniffles.  

Yes, my heart melted, too.

A few minutes later Keith picked up his dogs.  He said he'd love to offer us money but had been out of a job for a month and a half and had just had gallstones removed.  Heidi and Nora, as we found out the dogs names were, obviously were his dogs as the husky quite literally jumped up and hugged him.

So we waved goodbye to our new friends and sat back down to dinner while Roy pranced around the house, King of his domain once again.

'Doggy dog world' is a beautiful world full of little puppies." -- Gloria from "Modern Family"

Tatum's Twenty-Fifth Week

Yup, Roy made it into the weekly picture again.

He and Tatum are, like, so into each other (insert valley-girlish voice).

Actually he came in quite handy as she started to get the boo-boo lip out when I laid her down on the fabric, and then Roy went over and lay down beside her and saved the day!

She's just fascinated with him these days--she watches him when he goes by, reaches for him, and occasionally grabs an ear and hangs on for dear life.  Poor Roy.  But he doesn't seem to mind it too much as he keeps going back for more!

Towards the end of the shoot I sat Tatum up for a bit...

...and then she saw how close Roy was and lunged at him.  Before I could grab her she had face-planted right on Roy's face.  I picked up up and put her in my lap right away, wondering if she was going to cry.  Roy had jumped up, but then came over to her and sniffed her (quite loudly) from head to toe, as if to make sure she was okay.  I think that distracted her from crying...so thanks again, Roy!

I thought about using this as the weekly pic...they're all so darn adorable its hard to choose...

Our little Tater Tot is getting much more squirmy and opinionated every day! If she's not happy about something she lets you know! She'll go on these angry rambles of jabbering that we call "baby profanity."

When she is excited her whole body flails in utter joy! She's lately begun waving her arms over her head when she's happy.  If she wants something, she goes for it with everything she's got...I love that about her.

Since last week I've applied to six different part-time jobs...we'll see if any pan out.  

For now I'm doing things I wished I had had time to do when working full time like making homemade chicken stock, yogurt, cooking dinner every night (I actually enjoy it, contrary to some opinions), and all those other lovely mommy things like laundry, playing, stuffing diapers, picking up the house, more laundry, reading Tatum books, running errands, taking pictures, cleaning up spit up, paying bills, working on the budget, more laundry, stuffing diapers again, playing on the floor, watching Tatum learn something new and get super excited about it, picking up a surprising amount of toys for one so young, and, yes, more laundry.

And people wonder what stay at home moms do all day...

Tatum's Twenty-Fourth Week

There she is! My little angel who recently has decided that life is far too interesting to do something as mundane as sleep!

Like how Roy's paw is just peeking in the upper corner? He likes to stay nice and close during these little photo shoots.

After we changed (massive spit up), she hung out in her exersaucer and watched the birds...

I just love her pigtails...

What are you doing up there?

And in house news...we've decided to put it on the back burner for now and focus on replenishing the savings we used to move to Oklahoma, and save up for a bigger down payment.  For now we'll stay at my parents and keep an eye out for an apartment or an amazing deal, and really buckle down and save as much as we can.  Sigh.  I was really looking forward to getting our own place but we're so blessed to be happy where we are right now.  We still actually like hanging out with my parents!

And I'm looking for some part time work I could do from home to help bring in some extra income (all my fabric is packed!), so if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to pass them on!


Oh, and I published a hub for the first time in a year and a half! Yay! Head on over to take a glance and don't forget to click on a Google ad while you're there!

Moving With A Baby

Not a Neutral Gal

Hi.

My name is Kait.

I'm a Pinterestaholic.

I'm loving pinning things to boards about my home decor style, crafty ideas, being a chic mama and amazing pictures of places I'd love to visit.

But I've noticed a huge trend lately.  Actually, in Seattle at least, its been going on for a couple of years.

Its this obsession with neutrals.

Gray is the newest chic color.

There are gray bedrooms.

Gray living rooms.

Gray bathrooms.

Even gray nurseries!

Then there's this other trend.

The all neutrals trend.

Call it what you will--cream, taupe, beige, brown, gray...they are all neutrals.

As in Switzerland.

As in lack of infusing opinion.

And that's not just me.

Give me COLOR!

Aren't these space fun? You walk in and it tells you right away the kind of person who lives there.

And maybe some of these pictures are not your style (they're not necessarily all mine), but then...that's the point, isn't it? They're not your style...but they definitely are someone else's!

So, sorry, Trend of 2011-12.  I'm not buyin'.

What about you? Do you like lots of color? Or brain dead calming neutrals? Or a happy medium?

Tatum's Messy Twenty-Third Week

Here's my 27 inch long 23-week-old!

She's outgrowing her 9-month clothes and I'm now trying to find 12-month sleepers!

This week has been a bit...messy.

First off, we put another offer in on a house.  We really like this one (although admittedly not as much as the last one...which still hasn't sold...), but found out two other offers were made the day before we made ours...so here's hoping once again!

A few days ago, it was a nice, lovely morning when I took Tatum's diaper off to practice some EC potty-tunity.  She's been tinkling when I take her diaper off, recently, so at least I had the foresight to lay her on our leather couch as opposed to my parent's fabric one while I got the potty...because when I turned around she was swimming in a giant puddle of pee!  Not only that, but it got all over my robe and pajamas, too! Everyone got a rinse and a change!

Later that day we headed to the doctor's for Tatum's 5 month check up and after they weighed her I asked if I should put her diaper back on.  "No, she's fine," the nurse replied.  I had a cloth diaper under her bum just in case, but the wiggle worm just scooted to the side and peed all over the examining table and down the side.

I can't believe how much her little bladder can hold!

Then yesterday, somehow she pooped all up her front.  And in the past few days she's discovered her...well, we call it a doobie. Its turning out to be so fun to explore when the diaper comes off! So when I pulled back this icky gross poo poo diaper that's spread all up into her belly button what's the first thing she does?

Grabs her doobie.

So then I wipe her hands and disinfect them (because they're constantly in her mouth) while her nasty butt is still squirming all over the changing table...and I realize someone didn't put a plastic liner in the trash can! Oh wait...that someone was me.

My bad.

So I use my left arm to pin her arms up and somehow open the cloth diaper bag zipper one-handed so I can use cloth wipes to clean her up.

She's still thinking this is some great new game of catch-the-doobie so we have a ten minute messy wrestle that ended with me using the rest of the cloth wipes that were clean and using hand sanitizer to completely disinfect her whole body and my hands and arms up to the elbow!

At least she had a great time.

And I think she's starting to teethe...which isn't such a great time...

And she loooves Roy.  Who puts up with her pulling his ears and clawing his face with her little razor-like fingers.

What a good boy...

And one last picture, because most people who just see pics of the Tater think her hair is dark, it really is lighter and totally blonde at the roots...

All the time I've got for now, the angel is waking up...

Tatum's Twenty-Second Week

You'll have to forgive us about Week 21...it was lost in wrapping paper and pajama days and snuggles.  Ten days of five adults waiting to hold Tatum and she's going through withdrawals now everyone's back at work.  Every time I put her in her exersaucer or walker she looks at me like, "Hello?! I'm supposed to be held!"

Ammah flew in the night of the 22nd and this is basically what we did for the next week:

Stared at Tatum.

Our family in Colorado got her this ADORABLE faux fur jacket that's the softest thing you've ever felt! We put her in it in just her diaper and let her enjoy the sensation!

The kid's going to be ruined for life.

I can see her at six years old ordering steamed clams at the drive through of Carl's Jr....oh wait, that was me.  Like mother like daughter?

Christmas was loads of fun for us.  We took all day opening our presents, stopping to play with Tatum, get coffee, eat a cinnamon roll, open a present, play with our present, get more coffee, stare at Tatum...you get the idea.

On Christmas morning I think Roy was the most excited one of the bunch! He ran around panting and stared at his stocking until I finally gave him a bone.  Then he just ran in between everyone until he finally burrowed under the tree in sheer happiness.

Ammah got some good snuggle time in...

Matt and Uncle Jeremiah put together Tatum's walker (we bribed them with stockings)

And at the end of the night we continued the Curran tradition of "The Riddle" leading to (usually) the 'biggest' present.  

Matt got...

A can of green beans!

Just kidding...we like to throw people off about what's in the box, too.

He got the new Batman: Arkam City Xbox game and a bonsai for his office.

I got...

A 50mm lens! With which I can take lovely, shallow field of depth pics!

Like this pic of my other favorite gift:

A mommy necklace! This is the line at the end of the children's book Guess How Much I Love You, and when I saw it on Etsy I fell in love with it.  Its by Eclectic Wendy Designs...if you're curious.

In other news the sellers did not take our offer on the Sunny Hollow house (they sort of laughed at us by countering higher than the asking price), so we're continuing the house hunt...

I'm beginning to miss my cast iron skillet.

Is that weird?