Hot Diggity Dog

It's been a few weeks since the death of our golden retriever, and while she was sick and getting worse and worse,I kept telling the kids that if she died we were not getting another dog for a long while.

Yeah right!! Well, the following weekend, while in Terre Haute, we found ourselves in the local pet store. Of course, it was MY idea, to go in and just look around to SEE what kind of dogs they have. I stressed several times that we were just looking, we weren't going to get one. The store was packed, as they were having a sale. Will told us he wanted to look for a part Bulldog and part Shih-tzu mix. Get it when you put the two together- :):) Teenagers are priceless!!

Of course the kids informed us they would like to hold some of the dogs when we got inside. Another big mistake! They looked at some Shelty pups, which we had owned one prior to our golden retriever, and Will also got out a golden retriever pup to play with. It's paws were HUGE!! Will and Josh played with him in one of the little play cubicles for awhile and then put him back. He was a maniac the whole time they had him out. But we quickly decided he wasn't too smart. They put him back in his cage, and immediately he did his business, and then proceeded to turn right around and EAT it-to which we were all mortified and 5 collective EEEWWWWWWWWWW's!!!(yours truly included) were heard throughout the store. Sorry I forgot to give you a warning there. Hope you weren't eating or have a weak stomach! I told the kids I felt sorry for the next people who got her out and let her kiss all over them! YUCK!! Then I asked Will if he had let her give him any kisses while they were playing. He didn't see the humor. :)

While Josh and Will were busy with the environmentally conscious golden, Maren and Missy had gotten a little white fur- ball out of it's cage. They were both having a fit over how cute she was. She was a Shimo-which is part American Eskimo and part shih- tzu. I had never heard of the mix, but she was small and cuddly and certainly knew how to "turn on the love" for Missy and Maren. They handed her to me and she immediately cuddled up , and started licking my chin. She was a cutey. So needless to say, by the time we were ready to leave, she had won everyone over, myself included. Of course, then the "Dad, Mom, can we get her?!" started incessantly.

I will say we actually got out of the store without her, hung around in the parking lot for awhile, having a family debate on whether or not to take her home , and then actually drove all the way back to Marshall, before finally deciding. Yep,I'm sure you guessed our decision by now. I'm a softy. So then Maren,Morgan-Maren's cousin, and I made a speedy trip back to the pet store to pick her up, before someone else could snatch her up.

So here are some pictures of the newest member of the Milbourn family.

Oh, by the way her name is Mo--short for Mary Margaret Moseman (just kidding, that's a friend of Missy's, it's really short for Mosie). The bottom picture is Mo with her best friend. It follows her wherever she goes.

Gamer-cise

Who says kids can't get exercise while playing video games?
They just need to spend some time with our "little gamer."
It made me tired just watching him! :)

My Buddy Joshua

Yesterday afternoon, I got to hang out and spend some time with my son Joshua. Due to some preventive maintenance on the equipment at work I got to leave at lunchtime. Missy had to be in town yesterday afternoon, as well, so we picked up our youngest, from the babysitter's and took him for lunch. Of course, when we asked him where he wanted to go, he said Mickey D's. So off we went.

As soon as we picked him up his first words were, "Dad, Can I go home with you this afternoon, instead of going back to the babysitters?" Of course, I'm a pushover when it comes to those big brown eyes, and I already felt like I hadn't spent alot of time with him, since getting home late Monday evening from our anniversary trip- which by the way- was SUPER!! I quickly gave up the few plans I had for the afternoon, and brought Josh home with me. I'm glad I did! We hung out in the pool, riding and wrestling an ALLIGATOR, then after we had him tamed, he even posed for some pix with us. :)

After that, it was time to pick up Maren after school, grab a quick bite to eat, and head to her 2nd ballgame of the week. There I had more quality time with Josh, since Missy led worship last night at church, and Will went to help her. My Mom and my 2-year old neice, Hannah, and nephew Michael came out to the game as well. Hannah is very..... lets say....energetic!! But thats another post, hopefully for tomorrow. Missy, her mother , and Will all showed up a little later at the game too.
Hope your day was a good one as well !































Just goofing around-at home and at the ballgame.

Leonardo? Michaelangelo? Donatello? Raphael?

Check out this turtle that was at the end of our lane today!

We decided that it must be in the military, with its camo shell on.

I think it is a snake undercover-posing as a turtle. That's the freakiest turtle head I have ever seen.

Travis, can you tell me what kind of turtle this is?

Saturday Morning

We awoke to a bright, sunny morning on Saturday, so I decided to cook our breakfast outside. Cooking outside is something that our whole family enjoys. We love fixing things like ham & beans over an open fire. I think it gives the food better flavor. -Could possibly be the bugs and dirt that fall in it while its cooking--I'm not sure, but anyway I didn't have the energy to start a real wood campfire, so I improvised and fired up the burner on the grill.

My assistant chef for the morning was Will. He has a built in radar that will find an open flame within a 20 mile radius.






















































Are you hungry yet??

While we were preparing breakfast, my lovey was on the deck, picking her toes, I mean painting her toenails!! Yes, she does have other pajamas, but it seems anytime I take her picture in the wee hours of morning-she has these miss-matched favorites on.

Maren was relaxing in the house, watching a little tv.

She is not much of a bacon and egg eater.

And here's the other little rascal, sneaking out on the deck to snatch a piece of bacon! Yes we really do buy everyone matching shirts and pajama bottoms, but they apparently can't seem to be able to put them together.

and here we are enjoying the fruits of our labor!!

O Praise Him

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to share this AWESOME video/song with you. I have not been able to get it out of my head since I heard it. I'm not sure how long it has been out, but I found it on my "good friend", Travis Cottrell's Blog. :) OK just kidding, he doesn't know who I am, but I still read his blog. It will have you out of your chair PRAISING HIM!!

My Weekend

As the weekend comes to a close I thought I would give everyone a recap of what the Milbourn clan did. Saturday morning included a quick trip to Terre Haute, with an expensive stop at Sam's club. We don't go there very often, thankfully, cause we can never seem to leave without spending at least $100. This time was no exception.

After that we came home, had lunch and just hung out, doing yardwork, I took the solar cover off the pool and cleaned it, and then one child even braved the cool temps of the pool and went swimming. By the way the water has warmed up to 68 degrees.

Maren's birthday is coming up next weekend, and she has been wanting either a gymnastics mat to practice on which is WAY to expensive for the small size of it, or a trampoline to practice on. We chose the trampoline -since we figured the other kids could get good use out of it too.

WELL, that was a big mistake. We went ahead and purchased it at Wally world, yesterday, and started putting it together. Let me first say that I have always DESPISED putting things together!! I will go so far as at Christmas as to specifically pick things out for the kids that don't need to be put together. Which now that I think about it is kinda weird, because I use to love putting models of cars, and thing like lincoln logs together as a child. So I'm not sure where I lost my patience. It could be with the 5 yr. old standing next to me right now, as I am typing this, asking me 50 questions, and singing the song "Lifesong" in my ear very LOUDLY. Ok, he left, anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah, the trampoline from hell!!!
Well, to make a long story short, this trampoline came with horrible directions, we got the base-frame put all the way together, only to figure out afterward, that we had did it wrong, and had to take it almost all the way apart, and start over, which caused me to begin losing my patience Big Time!! And then my sweet sister(Love ya honey!!) if you should read this, who happens to live next door and is outside in her front yard, while all this is going on, starts to HECKLE me. YES, I said HECKLE!!!

Comments like, "What's a matter Denny?" "Having troubles over there??" "You better calm down!!" She just kept at it, and a rage built up inside me, like a pot of water quickly heading to a boiling point. I had an instaneous thought to run screaming across the yard and knock her flat.
But then I quickly came back to my senses, and realized that we were not 9 and 7 years old again respectively, and she WAS a girl, so I pulled myself together and ignored her and she eventually shut up. So after about 2-3 hours total of messing with this monster(the trampoline not my sister) -we called it quits for the day. Everything was completed except for the cage(netting)that goes around it, to keep the kids from falling off, at which point I didn't care if it ever got put on.

We did live on the edge , and let the kids jump on it for awhile yesterday. (More pictures below). Today, the netting did go on a little smoother, my sister was outside again , but kept quiet.(I think she is really scared of me!) and when the kids did get on the trampoline,when it was completely finished,suprisingly it did not collapse on them. HALLELUJAH!!!

We ended the evening having supper with some friends, and then had band practice at church, where we learned the song "His Grace is Enough", by Chris Tomlin.

So that's all I got for ya!!