Welcome Sweet Annabelle!

Last Saturday I got to meet one of my best friend's sweet 6 day baby girl.... 

 Welcome to the world Sweet Annabelle!  

♥ ♥ ♥

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Days of Childhood Past

Throughout my kids' childhood, we spent thousands of dollars on toys...

but the expensive toys mostly sat gathering dust while they spent thousands of hours playing with these...

the girls called them "characters", Ben called them his "guys"

Whether they came from the toy store, a Happy Meal or a big bag from trips to "the Flea" with Gramma Tiss...

they were well-loved

and played with constantly

Through the years I've gotten rid of several of them...

But these that remain

Were the favorites.

And I will save them. Forever.

♥ ♥ ♥

Bentley!

Meet our newest family member, Bentley Pants...

Several years ago, we promised Ben we would get him a dog when Jordan went to college.

After a very sad experience at the local pound (we fell in love with what turned out to be a very sick dog who had to be put down R.I.P. Lucy Pants), I put out the word on FB that we were looking for a dog to join our family. While we strongly believe in "saving" a dog, we were just too heartbroken to go back to the pound.

Debbie, the mom of one of Megan's old soccer teammates heard about Bentley, a one-year old labradoodle whose family had a change of circumstances that led to poor Bentley being stuck in a crate for 10 hrs. a day. Thankfully, they had the wisdom to know that was no life for such a sweet, loving pup, so selflessly they decided to find him a new home.

Now originally, the plan was to get a medium-sized dog. Michael grew up with a golden doodle (then commonly referred to as a mutt) & I grew up with minature dachshund. A medium sized dog seemed like the perfect compromise. Although I quickly found out that our idea of "medium sized" was completely different. I was thinking Lhasa Apso, he was thinking Golden Retriever.
But once we met Bentley, we all knew that medium-sized was right out the window.

There is nothing "medium-sized" about this dog. Just ask the cats (who, 10 days later are still not very happy with our decision)...

And althoug he LOVES to play in the mud, we think he's pretty awesome~

His favorite pastimes are playiing fetch with a tennis ball (for hours and hours and hours) & "eating" water right out of the hose.

Plus, if I do say so myself, he's pretty freaking adorable!

Even if he doesn't quite know what to make of my parents' pool.

Eventually, he decided to just hang out on the steps.

Until his boy was ready to get out & get dried off.

OMG, I was soooo not prepared to love a dog this much!

Hello again!

Hello Faithful Readers Mom!

Wow! I really had no intention of taking so long of a blogging break, but now that my amazing, astonishing, thrilling summer is over, I thought I might take another try at this blogging business.

So, what's been going on with the Beth's Blog Bunch this summer? Let's see...

First of all, Jordan graduated from high school. Woohoo!

Shortly after graduation, Jordan & I took one last trip with her club soccer team to Baton Rouge as they competed in Southern Regionals. Now, we live in Florida & are pretty used to the heat, but MAN, OH MAN it was HOT in Baton Rouge! Her team did really well, advancing through to the semi-finals before losing to the eventual Regional Champions 1-0 in the second OT. Between the 6 games in 6 days against really tough competition & in really hot, hot, hot conditions & the long drive, that week in BR really took a lot out of the girls me! I'm still not sure that I'm fully recovered.

Also hindering my productivity this summer may be an early July night out spent with these people:

Five married couples who all graduated from the same high school. Aside from the lovely lady in the middle, we were all in the same graduating class & all of us are turning 40 this year. Most of us still live in town, but Jenn & Jeff now reside in Pennsylvania. Since they were in town for a quick visit, we all decided it was the perfect time to celebrate our collective birthdays. :)

I'm not at liberty to divulge too much of what went on that night but here are a few pictures to give you some idea...




Let's suffice it to say, a good time was had by all that night, although a few of us were not feeling so hot in the morning. Love this group!



Lots of summer afternoons were spent in my parent's pool, this particular day was spent with my neice & nephew too...

I think this is my favorite picture of my mom. Ever. She was in the process of filling up a water gun to shoot her darling grandchildren. I wasn't allowed to have water guns growing up. Just sayin'.

Megan spent most of the summer up in Gainesville working at a daycare center. While I don't have many pictures of her this summer (this is one I stole from her FB), you can read all about her exploits here. She's a much better blogger than her momma! :)

Due to lease timings/college soccer preseason, we spent much of the later part of July/first part of August on the interstate, moving the girls to and fro.

Week 1: We moved Megan's belongings to a storage unit in G'ville for the 2 weeks between her leases...

Week 2: It was time to move Jordan into her tempary dorm for pre-season (we stopped in G'villed on the way to pick up Meg & Patrick).



Week 3: We moved Megan into her new digs.

Week 4: FINALLY one more trip to Tallahassee to get Jordan moved in to her regular dorm! Whew!

All that moving was finished just in time to get this kid ready for his first day of 7th grade...





You may remember his lunch bag fiasco from last year. We double & triple checked his bag for leaks. He was good to go!



What we didn't anticipate was his homeroom teacher giving him taffy. Which caused a visit from the tooth fairy that evening.

Actually, I lied. The tooth fairy never came. Ben brought home the tooth & showed me a big wad of tissue which I guess had the tooth in it. But I never saw the tooth & I haven't seen or heard about the wad ever since. Hmm...


Now for the big news....

The BIG news...

The BIG news...

The BIG news...

Looks who now lives at our house.

More to come...