A tribute to Jack

April 2005-January 2015

Jack chocolate lab

We got Jack when he was 4 yrs old. We have a home video of when we first got him. Josiah was 3 1/2 and Titus was 18mths old. It was love at first sight with Josiah, but Titus was terrified of him in the beginning. 

http://youtu.be/5ph_gDj2UCk

Here's another video of Josiah playing with Jack just a few days after we got him. Josiah was playing with him and I noticed that Jack had chalk all over him. If you listen close enough to the video you can hear Josiah say, "That dog is bad. He needs to straighten up."

I asked him if he colored on his dog with chalk and he said, "Yep, because he's a Chalkolate dog."

http://youtu.be/l_jiwDUS_6U

The bond between them just continued to grow. 

When Titus was a baby and would walk around in the yard, Jack would follow him to protect him. Once Titus fell down and Jack tried to pick him up by nudging him with his nose. 

Also, the boys were never allowed to go back behind the house when they were smaller. They had to stay in the front yard where I could see them. If they did go to the back, Jack would come to the front door and start barking. He was such a tattle tale, but he was just protecting them. 

He was so gentle with the kids and put up with a lot of tough love. He was a horse to the kids more than he was a dog. 

Amelia was born almost a year later and Jack was responsible for another baby to watch and love. 

She became pretty bossy, but he learned to deal with it. 

He was just part of their outside play. I know they are gonna miss him awful this spring. 

Jack was all doctored up by Titus in this picture with toilet paper and duct tape. Nothing was wrong with Jack, but he was happy to be Titus' first aide patient. 

He loved going on walks with me. He recognized my tennis shoes. If he seen me wearing these shoes then he would head to the road and wag his tail happily. He actually made me feel safe when he walked with me. Sometimes dogs would come at us and he would run them off. 

There's only 2 things I can think of that he was afraid of. 

1) Fed Ex or Ups trucks terrified him. I have no idea why. He literally would growl and bark so loud that the drivers were terrified themselves to even get out of the truck. Maynard drove his Fed Ex truck home one evening and Jack did not appreciate that one bit!!!

2) Fireworks!!!!  Jack was terrified of fireworks. I guess you could say the 4th of July was not his favorite holiday. 

Mom was over one day and I guess the neighbors were letting of fireworks and Jack jumped in her lap. Even though he is a huge dog and definetly not a lap dog. It was hilarious. By the time I got their picture he had moved behind her. I guess he knew she was a Mamaw and Mamaw's are made to protect. 

He also hated taking baths. 

Here he is right after he got a bath. As soon as we turned him loose he ran straight to the weeds and tall grass and rolled and rolled. He finally came back and laid in the yard, but was all pouted up. You can tell by looking at him in this picture he was sulking. 

He loved it when it snowed. He couldn't wait for the kids to come out and play when it snowed. We also have videos of us sledding down the hill and he would run down after us. 

Here he is coming to tell on the kids for being in the neighbors tree house. 

Jack was also a hunter. We always found lots of dead critters in our yard. 

I'm guessing this leg used to belong to a deer. Jack must have thoroughly enjoyed his snack because he was licking his lips. 

Probably one of my most favorite memories of Jack was that he was the neighborhood theif. He brought home the bacon so to speak. 

He would bring home bags of dog food all the time. Sometimes half opened bags, sometimes brand new bags, little bags, or huge bags. That's not all though!  He even brought home bowls for us to pour the food in. It was hilarious. Well to us anyways. I'm sure the other dog owners didn't appreciate the disappearing dog food and bowls. 

He knew what time we ate supper. It never failed that when I opened the back door he would be sitting patiently waiting for leftovers. I caught myself today throwing out chicken bones. There was no Jack to eat chicken bones tonight. Josiah offered to throw scraps out Sunday and realized Jack was not there to eat scraps anymore and he started bawling. It was so sad. 

His favorite thing in the world to eat was BBQ rib bones from Sonny's. Of course he didn't get them often, but oh how he loved them. We brought leftovers home once. They were laying in the floor behind the driver's seat. When the kids opened the door to get out Jack grabbed the whole box and took off with them. We had a dinner catered by Sonny's last year and we brought tons of rib bones home for him to eat. He ate so many that he was miserable. For weeks I would fine rib bones laying in the yard and he wouldn't go near them. He was so full and miserable he could barely move. 

I know I'm rambling on, but y'all just don't understand how good a dog he was and how much my family loved him. This post doesn't even come close to telling y'all how good a dog he was. 

He loved us and protected us. He actually was our whole street's neighborhood watch dog. If someone pulled into their house and he didn't recognize them, then he raised cane until he knew the coast was clear. We always felt safe here because Jack would always let us know if someone was out there that wasn't supposed to be. 

Once Titus was riding his bike at the end of our road and driveway. We live on a deadend road. Anyway, a UPS truck was backing up out of a driveway and was coming awful close to Titus riding his bike. Jack went crazy. He ran from Titus to the front of the truck barking and then would run back to Titus to make sure he was ok then run back to the front. Me and Maynard both watched in awe at how Jack was trying to protect Titus. 

We will also never forget the time Jack protected Amelia from the stray dog in our yard. I will put the link here:

http://itsbeginningtolookalotlikechaos.blogspot.com/2013/08/dog-gone.html?m=0

He fought and fought that dog to get it away from the kids. Amelia ended up with 3 bites, but she was ok. I am thankful it wasn't any worse. 

I've racked my brain and that's really all I can think of to write about him for now. 

Maynard and the kids think Jack will be back any day. He has been known to wander around and had many neighborhood girlfriends. He's never stayed gone this long though. I noticed he was acting funny and he refused his food for 3 days. He only wanted water. We left to go out of town overnight and when we got back he was no where to be found. We have searched the woods and the neighborhood. No one has seen him. I read online that dogs know when they are dying and sometimes go off to hide in order not to hurt their loved ones. I don't know if that's true or not, but it makes me even sadder to know we didn't get to say our goodbyes or give him a last hug. Maybe it was easier on the kids this way though. I can't even imagine how traumatic it would be for them to have found him dead in our yard. So I guess it's better this way. 

If he does decide to come home y'all will be the first to know and then I'll save this post in my draft file for when he really does die. Lol. A bit of humor there, but my instincts tell me he's gone now. So I guess this is my closure I need to accept it. The kids want another dog.  But I believe we will wait until spring time so they can enjoy one better. 

Hope y'all enjoyed reading my tribute to Jack. Everyone deserves a good pet in their lifetime and he was definitely ours!!

A Birthday and girls night out.

When we left my parent's house on Christmas night, I told everyone bye and that I would see them again on Easter.  Usually we never drive down again before then, but we found ourselves headed that way again last weekend. 

My youngest sister Melissa was turning 30 and wanted all her sisters accounted for that day. 

We drove up Saturday afternoon and met  my family at a Mexican restaraunt for lunch. Amelia was all too excited to see Melissa get whip cream all over her face. 

Maynard may have encouraged the singers to go all crazy on her. That's ok, he has a birthday coming up soon!!!

My sister Angela suprised her with a Betty and Veronica cake. Ever since she seen Josiah's Archie and Jughead cake she declared she wanted a Betty andVeronica  cake.  

I thought it looked great!!!

We did a quick exchange of pick ups and drop offs and then it was just all us sisters and Mom headed to the Derby Dinner Playhouse in Indiana. 

We had a lot of interesting conversations in the vehicle that evening. Trust me. Don't ask.......

We arrived an hour early because we were warned that there was gonna be a lot of road construction on the way. It ended up not being bad at all. 

When they opened the doors they escorted us to our seats and Melissa was suprised to see balloons on her chair. She said, "I feel like they know it's Birthday, but I don't know how."  What she didn't  realize was that Angela had called and added the birthday package to our tickets.  

Our dinner was a buffet style so we got in line to get our food. I liked everything pretty good, but the food wasn't amazing though. 

Angela thought to take a picture of her food. Well, she actually sent the picture to her husband to taunt him a little bit. He in return sent a picture of frozen pizzas he and Maynard and all our kids were having. Ha ha

After we ate the show began. 

It was a cute play about a young woman who was overweight and her beautiful sister kept setting her up with dates much to her dismay. 

During intermission our waitress brought out another suprise for Melissa. It was a birthday cake with a sparkler on top. 

We had the hardest time keeping the dessert menu away from her. She kept insisting it was her birthday and she should be allowed to order dessert. We knew the cake was coming and she didn't. When Melissa was away from the table we asked our waitress to not ask us to order dessert so we could suprise her with her cake. 

We enjoyed the rest of the show. Well kinda!  I couldn't quit staring at the lady behind me who was ridiculously enjoying herself. I mean seriously. It was a bit extreme. However, entertaining to say the least. 

We had some hilarious conversations and I believe we made Mom blush more than once. 

It was so good to spend time with my Mom and all my sisters. I was excited to get away and have a girls night out. It was long over due and we all decided that we needed to get together more often like that. 

We stayed all night at Angela's house and then went to church with them Sunday morning. They had an awesome service where a young lady was filled with the Holyghost. 

It was a great weekend and glad I was able to spend Melissa's 30th birthday with her. 

Amelia's 5th Birthday

Amelia has told me so many different ways she wanted to celebrate her birthday. She was one excited little girl!!  She wanted to have a big party, but I was partied out after the Holidays and figured everyone else probably was too. 

I asked her if she wanted to just have a little party in her Sunday school class instead. She got really excited about that and couldn't wait to share her birthday with her new little friends. Even if they were all almost boys anyway. 

Here she is at Walmart choosing her birthday cake. It was a very serious task and she didn't need help or suggestions from any of us. You can tell by the look on her face she meant business. 

It was no suprise to anyone that she chose a princess cake. It was kind of special though because last year her cake was pretty pitiful because she wasn't allowed to have any artificial dye. This year she was going for every color possible. 

I kept it simple and just decorated one little table for her. 

I walked into her class and she was hanging onto the cake box with dear life while her boy classmates were in the process of rearranging everything else on the table. She was in a state of panic as only Amelia can be!!!

Her cake really was pretty. They had crystal sprinkles on the cake that made it look like glitter. 

She was with all boys until Aubriella came in a little later. All the pink didn't even phase these boys. They were just happy to be part of the party. 

As soon as church was over Josiah and Titus came running to her class making sure there was cake left over. Ha ha. I knew they would be up there. We took cake home and she had to blow out her candle at least 3 more times that night. 

 

Monday was her actual birthday so of course we had to make that day special too. 

Presents before school!!!

What better way to make it even more special than to have her do school work!!!  

She was halfway through when she heard our dog barking. She looked out the window when she seen Mamaw and Aunt Melissa out there!!!  She was so excited that she went and hid in her closet. Ha ha. Yeah, not sure what that was about. 

We had assumed that we would all be eating Mexican for lunch because that's her most favorite place to eat. She absolutely refused because she was afraid they were going to sing to her. Ever since this:

2 years ago they came up from behind her and sang to her and it terrified her. She has never forgotten and will not go near a Mexican restaraunt close to her birthday. I took her last year and promised they wouldn't sing to her, but they did anyway without me asking them too. I had to ask them not to put whip cream on her face though. So this year she didn't trust anyone!!

We ate Chinese instead. 

Amelia mastered the art of using chopsticks. 

We went back home and Amelia opened more presents. She got clothes, sticker book, and another Barbie. 

The Barbie was actually from Aunt Angela, but somehow Amelia was lead to believe it was from Aunt Melissa. Ha ha. (Angela, I will let you handle that.)

Later that evening when Maynard and the boys got home we went to Dino's for supper before Mom and Melissa left. 

I tried to get a picture of Amelia, but she kept getting photobombed by her brothers and Melissa.

 She wasn't too happy!! Lol

When she went to bed that night she said she was sad because her birthday was almost over. 

Tara gave her birthday money so she was determined to go spend it today. I tried to coax her into getting things she actually needed, but she looked at me like I was crazy. 

Last year I asked her a few questions on her birthday so I thought I would ask her the same questions again this year. I'll put last years birthday link down below if you want to read her answers from last year. 

What is your favorite color?  PINK

What is your favorite food?  Rice and Beans 

What is your favorite dessert?  Cake

What is your favorite cookie?  Sugar cookies with icing

What is your favorite pair of shoes? Ruby  Red sparkly heels

Who is your Best Friends?  Hailey, Myia, Rachel, Olivia, and Aubriella

What is your favorite song?  Happy Birthday To You (English only, apparently. Ha ha)

What are you going to be when you grow up? Princess

 
What is your favorite toys? Barbies

Who is your favorite Aunt? Ruth's mom 

Who is your favorite Uncle? Kenny or Todd lol

Here is last year's link. 

http://itsbeginningtolookalotlikechaos.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-princess-turns-4-not-16.html?m=0

12 days of elves

One of these days I'm gonna rise above feeling like I have to include disclaimers in my posts, but until then........Here's another:

We do not teach our children about Santa Clause. They know he's pretend just like the tooth fairy. 

So a few years ago when the elf on a shelf got popular they were loving it and wanted an elf at their house. 

Maynard came home with 3 elves, Snap, Crackle, and Pop. The famous Rice Krispie elves. 

We decided to have some fun with it. 

I believe the whole point of the elf is to report to Santa every night whether the child has been naughty or nice. My kids completely don't get that part because they know Santa isn't real, but I wished it worked. 

Basically, we have 3 elves that wreck havoc in our house right before Christmas. My kids love everything about it. Sometimes they get really mad and upset at what the elves do to them, but yet they can't wait for the next to day to see what happens. They wake up as early as possible and run through the house to see what happened during the night. 

This year the elves showed up 12 days before Christmas. Last year they were here a whole month and it exhausted me. I was so glad they didn't arrive until later this year. 

These are not in order by day that they actually happened, but I'll explain each day in case you can't tell what's going on. 

1) snowmen with toilet paper and cotton balls

2) they caught the stomach virus from the kids

3) brought kids a treat on their 1st day there

4) took the last of the cinnamon rolls

5) used the rest of their salt dough and made a pizza out of it (Amelia was not happy) 

6) acted like shepherd boys in the nativity scene

7) wrote Merry Christmas with their candy from their treat bags from church 

8) put kids underwear in the freezer

9) played video games all night

10) wrapped kid's backpacks up for their last day of school (Titus was not happy)

11) made a chairlift using yarn and candy canes

12) caraousel using toilet paper rolls and scarves

Basically having the elves is just me playing with the kids, but it's fun. Josiah is not into it as much as he used to be. I may draft him into helping next year. I think he would enjoy that. 

This should sum up all my Christmas posts. I don't have big New Years plans so I probably won't post anything for that. So I will go ahead and wish everyone a very Happy New Year!!!!

Glory to God in the Highest Christmas play

My children participated in a Christmas play this year at church  and they were extremely excited. Josiah had a big speaking part as a narrator. The night before the play Josiah started throwing up. Again. My kids all caught the stomach virus that was being shared at school. Josiah had went home sick from school 3 days before so I figured he was on the mend. I heard him coughing and went to check on him. He was puking in his sleep. I never seen anything like it in my life. He wouldn't wake up and I was scared he was gonna die in his sleep. I pulled him up and me and Maynard both started beating on his back to get him to wake up and take a breath. He finally woke up and he and Titus were so confused. Titus was covered in puke and had no idea what was going on. It's kind of comical now, but it wasn't at the time. I started washing their bedding and put them in the shower. I had to throw wet blankets out the front door because I had no where else to store them. 

I had no idea if Josiah was going to be able to participate in the play the next morning or not. 

We finally all went back to sleep and got some rest. 

In the morning Josiah was up rooting threw the cabinets searching for something to eat for breakfast. He said he felt just fine. I suggested him eating toast to see how that set with him. 

I decided he seemed okay so we all got dressed and headed to church for Christmas Sunday service. 

Josiah was the narrator and had a small solo. He done a great job!!!  I loved his bow tie he wore. I mean shouldn't a narrator wear a suit and bow tie?!?!?

Titus was Joseph. You can see how he felt about being that close to a girl in front of a lot of people. Ha ha

However, he did perk up when he seemed to think the wiseman were bowing down to him. 

I had to remind him later they were bowing before baby Jesus, not him. 

Amelia's little class sang a song and each of them was an animal and had to make an animal sound when it was their turn. 

Amelia was a sheep and did her part perfectly. Amelia is a giant compared to her other classmates. 

After their program the kiddos had a pizza party and had a "candy bar". 

I believe Amelia has made up for that whole year she went without candy during this Christmas season. 

I, however, was completely stunned that Josiah had eaten pizza for lunch after being so sick the night before. 

We hate to see the Holidays go, but were very glad to see the stomach virus leave town!!!

I am thankful my kids were able to participate in the Christmas festivities at FPC. 

I'll be home for Christmas.

Our Christmas this year reminded me of the story called "The best/worst Christmas Pagent ever". It's where these unruly kids decide they want to be in the annual church Christmas Pageant. Everyone just knows they are gonna ruin the play and it's gonna be a disaster. However, it turns out awesome and ends up being the best Christmas pageant they ever had. 

Well that's exactly how our Christmas turned out. I had the hardest time getting in the "Christmas spirit" so to speak. It's has been a rough year financially due to the passing of my mother-n-law this past spring. We depleted our savings during her passing and just lived from paycheck to paycheck ever since. The Lord has always provided and we never went without. The bills have always been paid. We just didn't have a whole lot extra. With that being said, Christmas time was going to be tough this year. Sometimes I would get anxious and start to worry about my kids not having a good Christmas, but then I could feel such a peace come over me at other times. I can't say I didn't fret and worry because I did, but The Lord really helped me trust in Him. 

About a month before Christmas Maynard came upon a good investment deal. It was too good to pass up and he could possibly make an awesome profit. We had a few possible buyers, but nothing had sold yet. 3 weeks before Christmas we had our buyer. Problem was he asked for 2 weeks to get the money, but he definetly was going to buy the equipment. We were a little nervous, but didn't have any other options so we thought we would wait it out. 

1 week passed and I tried to avoid the "Have you got your Christmas shopping done yet" questions.  I hadn't bought the first thing yet. 

2 weeks had finally passed. Now we needed to collect our money and start shopping. 

The problem was our buyer hadn't contacted us or returned phone calls.  

So this was it. 6 days before Christmas and we didn't get that Christmas money we desperately needed. Then the buyer called late one evening and told us he had problems getting the money, but could offer us half the money as a down payment and would get the rest to us in 2 more weeks. It wasn't what we had hoped for, but it sure would help. 

Then that turned into a disaster because he was a no show once again. 

Our last option was hoping for a Christmas bonus from Maynard's work.  Which the bonus came, but not in a here's your money kind of way. It's a long story, but in other words we got a bonus, but couldn't spend it. 

 

Maynard and I left the kids with Tara one evening and we set off to do some meager shopping with a little bit of money we had left over from the bills. 

 

We had enough money to buy the kids a few gifts a peice. It wasn't going to be a grand extravagant Christmas, but we got them a few things they had asked for and we were thankful to be able to get those for them. We never go all out at Christmas anyway, but this was really cutting it down a few notches. My kids would be getting a few gifts here and there from other family members so it would be more than enough. I mean I just cleaned their room and it took me 3 hours so it wasn't like they needed more toys anyway. Ha ha

Also, the past couple years my kids have been begging to stay at home on Christmas morning. Tradition was that we always went to my Mom and Dad's for Christmas and I had a hard time letting go of that tradition. It was a little easier this year because everyone agreed to meet at Mom and Dad's at 5pm on Christmas evening to give everyone more time at home or with their inlaws. So we decided this year to just stay home for Christmas and drive down to my parents that evening. 

We loved it!!  Something about being at your own house for Christmas just made it so much more special. 

Christmas Eve was spent finishing up last minute things that needed done including making a few treats. The kids always make a gingerbread man during Christmas and they all had had the stomach virus and no one thought a gingerbread man even sounded good. Now that it was Christmas Eve and everyone felt better we decided to go ahead and make one after I got caught up in the kitchen. 

The finished project!!

Maynard got off work early and we ate lunch at Shilohs and then got ready to head over to the Parker's Christmas party. For some reason I didn't take any pictures while we were there. 

Here they are getting ready to open their gifts from Tara on Christmas Eve because she had to work on Christmas Day. 

I locked myself in my room to start wrapping gifts. I came out a little later and seen this:

My kids know Santa isn't real, but it's still fun to play along anyway. 

I went to check on Amelia. 

I seriously can't even handle the sweetness here. Amelia was asleep with her new princess Barbies. 

I finished wrapping gifts and cleaned my house again for the 50th time that day. I layed my head down in the bed at 2:30am. Maynard was tossing and turning during the night and he said, "I can't sleep for still delivering packages."  I said: "Well, you're delivering, but I'm wrapping them."  Apparently we both were having a hard time resting. 

Before I knew it Titus and Josiah was in my face telling me it was Christmas morning and time to wake up. I tried to convince them that Christmas started at 8:00 and not 6:15. It didn't work because come to find out Maynard was the one that had woke them up in the first place. He wasn't brave enough to wake me up and sent the boys instead. Ha ha

We were all up and ready to start our own new Christmas traditions. 

Maynard read the Christmas story and then we all prayed before tearing into the gifts. 

Presents under the tree!!!

First gifts to open. 

Josiah asked for a tool set. He was so proud of his tools. He had to take them to show Papaw later on that evening. 

Amelia asked for a Princess Belle doll. She was so happy when she opened it. 

Titus was a little harder to buy for. He only wanted sports stuff. Of course he already has most stuff so I had a harder time buying for him. 

This picture really makes me proud. Here I had fretted about my kids not getting very many gifts and afraid they wouldn't like what they got. I was so wrong. They were more than thankful. This picture proves it. 

Since last summer Titus has been begging for "Beef Turkey" that they sell at the fruit stands or the flea-market. We bought him a huge bag of it and I put it in an old iron box. 

When Titus unwrapped his gift all he seen was the box with an iron on it. We told him that I was gonna teach him how to iron and that was going to be his new job so we got him his own iron to use. He smiled and was like "ok cool."  He even posed for this picture and was still smiling. Finally we told him to open it and this was his reaction:

Yep!!  Passed out in the floor. Lol

All the gifts and stockings were opened. The kids were playing with their toys and games. 

I fixed breakfast and even used my Gingerbread man China plates. The kids thought that was extra special too so that is a tradition I hope to continue. 

I made breakfast quesadillas, breakfast casserole, hashbrowns and breakfast burritos.  It was delicious. I had done most of the work the day before so it didn't take long at all. 

After we ate we played with the kids for awhile. 

 Amelia is undefeated at Candy Land. This game made her feel so grown up because she understood how to play all on her own. That doesn't mean she won't try to cheat either. Just saying.....

Daddy and his boys playing a good game of Sorry. 

All too soon it was time to get dressed and head to my parent's house. We had a great time there as well and had some yummy food and treats. Maynard had to work the next day so we had to drive back home again that night, but it wasn't too bad. Somehow I managed to drive all the way home so he could rest. 

Our kids never mentioned only having a few gifts to open. They were so thankful for what they got. I can't tell you how many times they hugged me and Maynard and told us Thank you and ...... 

Wait for it.............

they even said......

"This was our best Christmas ever!!" 

 I am crying as I write this because all I had to do was trust in God. I just knew my kids were going to have a disappointing Christmas. I hated it, but yet God had given me peace about it already and now I know why. I wanted God to help us get that money so we could have a bigger Christmas. Yet God wanted us to not get that money and to trust Him and we would still have a good Christmas. I debated on writing about this, but hated not too. I won't mention any names though. The night Maynard and I had shopped for the boys we got back home fairly late. There was a Christmas card in the mail with $100 inside. It was from someone who felt like they needed to send us some money. We were so happy because that money would help out so much. We could buy more gifts, we hadn't bought stocking stuffers yet, it could pay for food for our Christmas breakfast and so on. Well, that was on a Saturday. The next morning we had church. Would you believe God nudged me to put that $100 bill in the offering?? Oh no!!!  I needed that and I needed it bad. I whispered it to Maynard hoping he would talk me out of it. He handed me a tithing envelope. Ha ha. Not what I was hoping here. Lol. So I put the money in the offering plate and just trusted in The Lord!!!  The Lord giveth and The Lord taketh away. Ha ha ha!!!  

So here it is 2 days after Christmas and I checked the mailbox like always. There was a money order for $200 inside. It just said "Merry Christmas". I was beyond myself with excitement. Maynard said, "Aren't you glad you obeyed God and gave him the $100 so He could turn around and double it for you?"  

So why didn't He work it out so I could have money before Christmas?

Because!!!!  Because he wanted to prove His love and test my faith. 

We had a Great Christmas. What was supposed to be the worst Christmas ever turned out to be the BEST!!

I hope everyone of y'all had the best Christmas ever!!  Whether you had 1 gift to open or 100. I can truly say I am happy for you!!!!