Happy 4th of July Weekend!

For Independence Day we always spend it in Syracuse on the lake. But this time was special because it was Tommy's first lake weekend.  We were on our own schedule so Tommy's nap schedule went out the window but he napped when he could.

It was mostly in the car.  

 With a toy on his arm!

Tommy finally met Addison, who was born 3 weeks before him.  They hit it off.

 Check out Tommy in his holiday weekend gear.  His shirt says Brand New in Red White and Blue.  Awww. He needs an American flag bandana.

Instead we put him in another hipster hat.

 Check out that rash-free face! This kid is unstoppable with those baby blues!

 We ate outside on the lake until the storm rolled through.

 Then we sat inside and waited to see if there was going to be a fireworks show.

There was!

 We couldn't take the boat out but it was cool to see from the lake house.

 It's always so neat to see the reflection on the water.

Big finale! 

How did Tommy do with the fireworks, you ask? He actually slept through most of them.  It was a little too late for him.  But they probably would have scared him anyway. 

The next day we came back to Syracuse to see some friends on Lake Tippecanoe.  

 We loaded Tommy up in his swim gear and took him out in the water.

 He looks pretty bundled up but with skin like his, would you take a chance?

He still enjoyed himself.  He had on a shark hat, a shark rash guard (fitting name, no?), and shark shorts.  Plus his mega cool shades.

 Look at that cutie keeping safe from the sun!

 We thought his cheeks might be getting pink so we brought him inside for a bit.

 Tommy decided he was done swimming so we changed him into his Purdue gear.  He played with Auntie Maria for awhile. He loved it!

 But he loves life in general.

We had to take him out one more time to say goodbye to our friends.  We had to take a quick picture by the lake.

Then we headed over to Gram and Pop's to visit.

Hung out with the doggies for a bit.

Plus Tommy got some quality Gram and Pop time.  Did I mention he also drooled all over himself? Yeah, I can't believe that either!! 

Happy Birthday, America! 

I think they found my replacement...

Brian had a fantastic day today.  I got a call from our realtor this morning that someone wanted to see our house in the afternoon so I left work, rushed home, cleaned like a maniac, packed up Brian and went back to work.
Brian was so happy to be able to sit in the front seat for a car ride. Then he was ecstatic to sniff every inch of the office.  My employees all have dogs so they don't mind having a furry visitor.  He was well-behaved almost the whole time.  Right before Andrew came to pick him up, he got into the trash and ate the remainder of someone's lunch.  He was chewing on a ball of foil (that makes me teeth hurt thinking about it) when I caught him.  BAD DOG! But he spit it out as soon as I laid the smackdown.  Good dog.

So now Brian thinks he's the big dog at the office and already put his name on the door.  I guess someone has to take over when I leave.

Walk Like A Man, My Son

(I chose to quote a Frankie Vallie song as opposed to Walk by Pantera, which Andrew would have been excited about.)
(Oh what the hell...)
Respect, walk what did you say?
Respect, walk Are you talking to me?


Annnnnyyyyywwwaaaayyyyy....


Tuesday night Andrew was out of town so the boys and I decided to go for a walk.  

I put some shades on Tommy, gave him a couple toys and out we went. 

This became an Iditarod challenge for Brian because he was so excited to be out for a long walk. He pulled that heavy stroller along like it was his job.  (It must have taken him back to the old skateboarding days at our Fletcher house. Ah memories.)

 It definitely made my job a lot easier pushing the stroller up that hill in our neighborhood.

Everything was going fine until tragedy struck.  We were in a cul de sac and a dog (Charlie) that Brian has been around before was running loose in the area.  All the sudden Charlie (Brian? Charlie? Are these people or dogs?) bared his teeth and attacked poor Brian.  :(  I hightailed it out of that cul de sac stopping only to let Brian poop in their mulch.

 I didn't notice until we were back at the house that Brian was bleeding! That dang dog drew blood!

Poor Brian.  It was such a beautiful day and that dog had to go and ruin it! I'm glad he crapped in their landscaping.  Jerks! Brian was just protecting his new bro.  Bros before... well you know. 

Thought You Might Be Missing Brian...

Poor Brian.  He used to be the star of this blog until Tommy came along. So just in case you've been missing Brian and all his glory, here's a video of the family pre-Tommy.

We took this video 10 days before Tommy was born.  We had just gotten our new HD video camera.  I haven't posted any videos from this camera yet so I thought I better get started. Brian even does his famous Aflac thing in this video. 
Our lives were just a teeny bit different then.

Here's a video from 5 days before Tommy was born.  It was just a little snowy.

Welcome back to the blog after long hiatus, Brian!

Brian's Birthday Post

Sometime this month is Brian's 6th birthday! Can you believe that? He is six years old.  Now, yes I'm a bad dog owner for not knowing exactly when his birthday is.  I have it in a filing cabinet in the basement somewhere. 

Ok, ok, now you're making me feel bad. I'll go look it up. 

Anyway, Brian is SIX! He's 42 in dog years.  Mid-life crisis time! No wonder he's been acting out.  

So yes, this post is for Brian.  Let's relive some fond memories...

1.) As a puppy, when we first got him we took him over to Andrew's friends' place dubbed "The Hall".  He immediately peed the floor.  Welcome home, Brian! Also at the hall, Brian discovered that he liked beer.  We let him drink it and then he repaid us by squatting to release some loose stools in the middle of a game of bags that Andrew and his friends were playing. 

Aww, he's so little!

2.) The first year of his life, we lived in an apartment in Lafayette.  We didn't tell the landlords that we got a dog but Brian let them know with his incessant barking during the day.  Thanks for the extra Pet Deposit Charge, Brian!

 Yes, he is laughing at us. 

3.) In that apartment, Brian was very destructive.  He pulled up linoleum from a corner of the kitchen.  He chewed through the drywall to make a nice little hole.  He also chewed through the carpet to the floor because he smelled pizza that I had dropped. Luckily, we are handy little geniuses and somehow got our entire deposit back! Nice.

4.) Brian would go on runs with Andrew and one day he cut his paw on something while running around the complex.  He bled all over the apartment.  $100 Vet visit and a band-aid later, he was all better.  :)

The only picture I have from this incident, I printed on paper and had to scan it. Poor pup.

5.) When we moved into our first house, Brian was pretty destructive there too.  We would keep him in the pantry/laundry room during the day.  He scratched the crap out of the door in that room. Also, whenever we would have parties, Brian would find deserted beer bottles, knock them over and drink what came out.  He really likes beer. 

Brian will take what is his.

6.) Brian also liked to escape from our house.  During both our bachelorette and bachelor parties, Brian got out and our friends were forced to run after him.  It took a VERY long time at my bachelorette party.  Probably because we were dressed in 80s sequined dresses with bright blue eye shadow up to our eyebrows.  The woman that found him that night asked my friend Meeghan if she was going to prom.  HAHA!

Why yes, in fact, we were going to prom! 

 

7.) At Andrew's bachelor party, Brian's dried up yard poop was used as a weapon.  I don't think I want to go into any more detail on that.

I thought this picture of Brian's poop partially cleaned up was appropriate. You can see more turds in the back ground.

8.) After we sold that house, we transitioned between two more apartments before I was finally placed in my job in SB and we purchased our current home.  In our new home with the TV mounted on the wall, we discovered Brian has a new trick. During Cubs games, there is always an Aflac trivia question.  Before the question, the Aflac duck walks across the screen while saying AFLAC! We've always known Brian to find and bark at all animal on the tv screen.  Well now, Brian thinks that any time the word Aflac is said in the right tone of voice, that that damn duck will go walking across the TV screen, EVEN WHEN THE TV IS OFF! Anyone can say it and as long as it somewhat sounds like the duck, he go running to the TV and barking his head off.  It's pretty amazing.  I wish I had it on tape. 

Brian after a long hard day of work.

9.)  Brian has enjoyed the new house very much.  Lots of room to run.  Lots of neighbor dogs.  Lots of squirrels to bark at during the day.  He doesn't destroy as much anymore.  Still marks his territory occasionally. But he still likes to escape.  We live next to a multi-million dollar compound of people related to a former Senator for Indiana.  He likes to go over there.  I've been caught by the wife a couple different times carrying Brian back to our house after he ran like a Wyld Stallyn all over their 80 acre property.  She gives very dirty looks.  Thanks Brian. 

Yes, he cut his paw and we had to go to the Vet more than once.

10.) Brian is definitely getting older and much calmer.  He still sheds like the dickens but he really has become quite a good dog, despite what all the above shows.  I can't imagine our life without him and I'm sad that our son won't get to know the old Brian... the Wyld Stallyn Brian... the puppy days that taught us more about patience and raising a child than any birthing class could. 

Sweet, lovable dog.

Here's to you Brian.  We appreciate that day back in November of 2004 when some wily pug got out of his cage and snuck into a beagle's cage and created you.  (That's the story we always told you anyway.)
Happy Birthday and we wish you many more.

 

Classic bath video...


Finally, his video debut... Brian swims...

Shower Weekend Extravaganza

This was quite the exhaustive weekend for us.  Well for me mostly because I'm just not as capable of handling big weekends like this anymore.  But we started our weekend with tailgating on Saturday.

 Aww, we're so cute. :) (Traci, Mandy, Morgan, Diane)

Staffords and Thornburgs whoopin' it up.  Preggo wives can still have fun!

We went to Harry's after this but I didn't take many pictures.  Probably because I was too focused on finding a lost credit card.
Wanna hear the story?
Andrew told me to remind him to close his tab before we left so I did.  He went up to the bar to close it and came back.  I said, "Did you close your tab?"
"Yes."
"Did you get your credit card?"
He stares at me blankly and then gets his wallet out.  He doesn't have his credit card.  "She didn't give it to me!!!"
I said, "Go back and get it from her."  He goes back up to the bar and she doesn't have it.  She feels terrible.  She's apologizing all over the place.  We've got people in the bar looking for this credit card.  It is no where to be found.  We looked all through Andrew's wallet, didn't find it. Looked in his pockets, didn't find it.
We finally leave Harry's and I make him call Chase and cancel his card because I'm sure the card is stolen.  He calls Chase Customer Service and being that the call centers are usually located in middle east and the fact that he has had too much to drink, he can't understand what they are saying.  He tries two or three different times to talk to a person he can understand.  Finally, he is able to cancel his card.
We were meeting Andrew's aunt, uncle and cousin that night for dinner.  We get to the restaurant and as we are walking in the door, he sticks his hands in his pockets.

LO AND FREAKING BEHOLD, there's his credit card in front left pocket.
Did he check that pocket???? I GUESS NOT.
So now he has to switch over everything that was automatically set up for that card.  Sweet.  Good times.

So anyway, on to the rest of the weekend.

The shower was in Lafayette at the Rush Pavillion which is a wonderful place to have things, by the way.  It's a gorgeous building with a wrap-around porch.  So cool.

My mom and her friend Sue and my sis-in-law Erin all helped put together quite a fabulous event.  It was awesome!

The theme was "the little pumpkin".

You can see everyone hard at work on their pumpkin trivia.

They were really thinking hard! They had no idea they were going to get a pumpkin pop quiz.

 My mom wanted the obligatory shot of me with the food. :) But the fall themed food was REALLY good, even on a 80 degree day! YUM-O!

The gift table was packed to the max!! That's not even all the gifts! We were so blessed.  We got so many wonderful things.  It was incredible!

 Obviously, there would be 3 brazillion pictures if my mom took pictures of every one but here are some gift opening highlights.  These pictures were taken after I had to pull my hair back because I was sweating like a cat in a China Garden restaurant.  Ridic!  It got really hot in that room because it was 80 degrees outside. I gotta say- I would've really liked to be one of those polar bears on that onesie at the time.

We got an awesome Purdue Book from Steph (who coincidentally is to the right in this picture) called "Purdue Pete Finds His Hammer".  I ruined the book for everyone by looking at the last page and found out the hammer in his locker the whole time! 

Funny enough, Purdue Pete HAS the hammer in his hand on the cover.  How did he lose it? Did he STICK IT IN HIS FRONT LEFT POCKET?????

We also got a Purdue Potty from my mom.  When you pee in it, it plays the Purdue Fight Song.  AWESOME!! (We just might be currently using it. Why do you ask? "Hail, Hail to Old Purdue....")

Baby T's future buddy Wyatt came to the shower.  He was one of two boys in attendance (besides the one that is in his own carrying case, wink wink).  He is a walking MACHINE now! He definitely does not need any support anymore. His only speed now is... ESCAPE!!!! :)

We took some fun pictures after the shower.  I thought it would be fun to take professional looking pictures with my mom's camera while we had such a beautiful background.  Here are Andrew and I with Sue.

 We took some nice ones like this...

But then I was so deliriously tired after the shower that I couldn't take anything seriously and we took pictures that looked more like this. Andrew's losing it above.

Here I am as Captain Preggo Morgan Pumpkin.  Or maybe just Captain Ridiculous.

I was glad that the 118 Fowler girls got together for a picture.  So cute! (Traci, Angela, Morgan, Holly, Mandy)

Erin brought the cupcakes for the shower and they were a huge hit.  Even with the fellas after the shower.  :) Andrew ate one and like he always does when he eats something chocolate, he made his poop joke.  I believe it goes, "Clean your butt for a dollar?" with a mouth full of brown stuff.  So funny right? *eye roll* But this time, with the blue icing, he changed it to "Clean a smurf's butt for a dollar?"

I think he married me because I often laughed at this jokes.  I'm not sure why I laugh though.  Maybe it's because he looks like he does in the picture. 

Another Andrew Story from the day of the shower:
Andrew and the other men in the family went out to eat at Scotty's while we were busy with the shower.  Andrew drove and parked in the lot.  It took them about 2 hours to eat and when they came out to the car, Andrew couldn't find his keys.  They all look at our Equinox and realize it's running... unlocked... with valuables inside... FOR THE ENTIRE TWO HOURS THEY WERE IN SCOTTY'S.  How lucky did Andrew get on THIS one?? No one stole the car or anything inside.  But we are getting really crappy gas mileage on that tank of gas.

I think Andrew must be having Pregnant Brain Empathy or something.  I hope one of us becomes less of a moron soon because someone has to be the non-nincompoop for poor Baby T!

So after the shower, everyone helped load our car with the gifts...

Then when we got home and had to unload everything into our house.  Because we're working on the baby's room this weekend and because we were so exhausted, we just brought everything into the kitchen and left it.

Even Brian was cashed from his weekend of being boarded at the vet.

Poor guy.  He spends the whole weekend barking at everything at the vet and then he comes home and he is totally hoarse.  He tried to bark at the neighbor dog tonight and it was so pathetic. :(

Right now, he's snoring loudly in that exact position with his eyes flickering.