Our Life in the Yellow Brick House

Week two with Oliver brought plenty of surprises. I'm always giving Kyle a hard time about never planning surprise outings for us, but after this past week, I think I've decided I don't like them anymore. I was home with Oliver on Saturday and things went so good! We both had a lazy but productive day. I found out that aside from sporting events, Oliver loves watching cartoons on TV. Unfortunately we don't watch a lot of cartoons around here but every now and then we'll turn it to Nickelodeon, and his ears perk up. So after a great day on Saturday, we decided that we'd take him to Greg and Stacie's gender reveal party the next day. The plan was to pack up just after church and head that way. Unfortunately, when we got home, we found out that Oliver had been busy tearing up the dining room rug from inside his cage. He got in trouble and had to wait outside while we cleaned up the mess and packed the car. Then we loaded him up and were on our way. He...

Hell has frozen over, and Kyle and I are now the proud owners of a dog. Not just any dog, an indoor dog that is part Great Dane. How did this happen? I'm still not quite sure, even though it was kind of my idea. I blame temporary insanity. Since we got married, Kyle has always wanted a dog. I'm not really a dog person, especially not a big-dog-in-the-house kind of person, so we had essentially agreed to disagree on that subject. However, we've been in kind of a rut lately. We do pretty much whatever we want to do 24-7, which is great, but tends to make us kind of lazy. I was talking about this with a friend the week of Valentine's Day, and she suggested getting a dog. I had no intention of doing it, but then I started looking at pictures of dogs who needed adopted online, and pretty soon I came across Oliver. According to his description he was a quite, loving Great Dane mix who was two years old. I thought that might be the prefect compromise. Large but not too l...

On January 7, I fell in love with a little girl named Quinn, Quinn Perrie Ward, to be exact. The morning after her due date, Stacy went to get checked out and ended up checking into the hospital! All day long she and Mom were sending me updates. Things seemed to progress pretty slowly until about 6:30 and then they really got moving. Quinn made her grand entrance into the world at 8:02 p.m. weighing 8 lbs. 15.4 oz. and measuring 20 1/2 in. long. When Kyle and I got to the hospital, Asher was FULL of energy. He was pretending to be a deer and climbing all over Uncle Kyle. I don't blame him for being excited. We were all so glad to meet the little lady. Before we left for the night, Asher had calmed down a little and was singing to her. It was so cute. I can't remember the song, but it was something upbeat like 'Oh Suzanna.' (I'm not sure where that came from.) Kyle and I got to come back the next morning for some snuggles before heading to work. ...

Don't worry, I'm not referring to the Urban Dictionary's definition of ballin' out. (To spend exorbitant amounts of money. Usually within the confines of one ridiculously drunken evening.) I happen to be referring to one of the best birthday parties I've ever attended. Who knew turning two could be so much fun?! The day after we celebrated Christmas with the Fox family, we had Henry's party. Since he's a New Year's Eve baby, it can get a little hectic trying to fit everything in, but Stacie always does a great job making the day special. The theme for this year's party was "having a BALL". Henry loves playing with balls and spots them everywhere he goes, even in the grocery store (avocados look like footballs to me, too, Henry!), so it was a perfect choice. Stacie had ball decorations and a ball-themed menu featuring the basketball birthday cake, but my absolute favorite part was the ball pit. They took an inflatable swimming pool and fi...