Tortoises

From what I understand, our landlords own about six acres and they built four houses on the land. One of the houses is ours, one is theirs, and we have friends that live in the other two. There is quite a bit of land between each house. Just on the north side of the fence in our backyard is where these guys live.

There six tortoises that are enclosed by a big circle of pool fencing. They have quite a bit of room in there and have burrowed a hole that's about 3-4 feet deep into the ground. The landlords own them and their kids feed them and they mentioned that we can if we want to as well. We can give them lettuce or really finely shaved carrots. (I haven't read up on tortoises yet to find out what else is safe to give them.)

The dogs haven't discovered them yet, I'm anxious to see how they'll react.

Brynn's Bathroom

"Room" # 2 that I'm proud of.

DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO FIND A CUTE KIDS' SHOWER CURTAIN THAT MATCHES TEAL COUNTERTOPS?! TWO MONTHS!!

I have a few other things that I want to hang up in here but we're not really to the decorating stage of the move yet. We're to the clear-it-out-of-the-garage-so-Chad-doesn't-go-crazy stage.

Pantry

"Room" # 1 that I'm proud of so far.

Look at how organized it is!!!

Strawberry Blonde

What's That?

The Santan Mountains.  Pretty much the view from Brynn's bedroom.

Keys Please?

We picked up the keys to our new (rental) house tonight!!

Massage Time

Help for McKenna!!

We're going through a lot of our "stuff" right now trying to get everything packed up for our big move next weekend and I decided to sell a lot of Brynn's ladybug things from her room.  I put it all on craigslist and shortly after, I received an e-mail from Kristine. 

Kristine has some family friends who received some devastating news a couple weeks ago.  Mike and Brittany's daughter, McKenna, was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma.  Kristine (and others) are trying to put together some fundraising ideas and one of them is a raffle.  We're going to give her Brynn's ladybug stuff for the raffle instead of selling it. 

This is McKenna:

HERE IS A LINK TO MCKENNA'S STORY.

HERE IS A LINK TO MORE INFORMATION ON NEUROBLASTOMA.

They are from Chandler, AZ and McKenna is only 15 months old.  For some reason, this hit really close to home for me.  Maybe it's because she's such a cute little girl?  Or because she likes ladybugs?  Or because she's not too far away from us?  Or because Brynn's had two eye surgeries at the Phoenix Children's Hospital where McKenna is receiving treatment?  Or because they're my age?  Or maybe it's just because if I were in Mike and Brittany's situation, I don't know what we'd do.  From what I understand, Mike also lost his job in December.

On the link to McKenna's story, you can make donations.  Or if you aren't comfortable doing this, I would be more than happy to accept the donations for you and make sure that they get to Kristine or McKenna's family.  I really want to do what I can to help this family out. 

You can mail donations to me at:
Amanda West
PO Box 1512
Queen Creek, AZ 85142
Thank you!!!

Brella

Jetta-Jetta

Brynn's nickname for Jetta is "Jetta-Jetta". I can't remember exactly when she started calling her that, but they're buddies. She's the only one of our dogs who actually listens to Brynn, maybe that's why Brynn likes her so much!!

I See You

Luke Turned 3!!

Bird's Nest (Read: Bed Head)

So Sad

It's official, Chad sold the Bug.  It really is sad, we've made a lot of great friends because of it.  At least the friends and the memories don't go with the car.  :)

We received a deposit on it about three weeks ago, received the final check about a week and a half ago and the car was finally picked up last week.  It's new home is in Hercules, CA.  The guy who bought it hired a company to come and pick it up for him.  The first truck that they sent was a regular car hauler and because Chad had lowered the Bug, there's no way that it was going to be able to get it up the ramps without doing some serious damage.  The ramps were also too far apart and wouldn't have worked anyway. 

The following day, the same company sent another truck that worked well. The crazy thing is that when Chad was starting up the car to let it warm up, it ran out of gas.  He thought maybe that was a sign that the car wasn't meant to leave.

We're sad to see it go, but we're using that money to pay off some of our debt so that in a year or two, we'll be able to buy another house and add another member to our family.  So technically, the money is going to a really good cause.  :)

Here's one of the last few pictures of Brynn and Chad that we took in the Bug last week:

Using Her Curlin' Iron

Challenge

As you know, Chad and I bought ourselves a Nikon D5000 camera for Christmas this year and have started to get the hang of how it works. We've taken quite a few pictures, but we haven't done a whole lot with them yet.

My goal is to post one picture a day for the next year. 

Enjoy!!

Caged Up

A couple months ago, we switched the food that we were giving the dogs and because of that, they all gained weight. We switched them to a new food and we've been trying to control the amount of food that each of them are eating, so we've been feeding them twice a day in their cages.

Brynn LOVES to help us feed the dogs. We count out the amount of scoops that they get in their bowls and she even remembers which dish belongs to each dog.

A few nights ago, Mel's dish was all the way in the back of her cage, so we sent Brynn in after it. Mel didn't really know what to think!!

Daddy Scratches

I found a HILARIOUS blog tonight... reminds me of a male version of Dooce. I added it to my sidebar if you want to check it out.