The Future

Remember in yesterday's post I mentioned that "... Jackson's wish will come true in the future"?  Well, I didn't think that the "future" would be TODAY!!!  After 8 months of telling us he wanted a dog, Jackson finally has one!

Jackson's new puppy, Rex.

 Rex is a Black Mouth Cur and his name comes from the mighty T-Rex.  :)

There were only a couple of breeds we were looking at and this puppy happened to be the closet to us.  Zach sent an email to the breeder last night and he called today informing him that he did have some puppies available.  We jumped in the car and checked them out.  It was definitely more sudden than we had anticipated!

Rex had a little bit of an odor when we picked him up and on the way home Katherine kept calling him Stinky!  Since he's been bathed and smells nice, she's calling him Sweetie!  Occasionally she'll call him Rex! 

 Everyone needed a few minutes of rest after the bath!

Welcome home, Rex!

Man's Best Friend

Jackson has been telling us for months that he wants a dog.

Well, today his wish finally came true ...

Meet Katherine, his new puppy!!

 She fetches,

 she has a house that doubles as her bathtub,

she tackles and gives slobbery kisses just like any pup should.

Don't worry, we won't let Katherine develop a complex.

I'm sure Jackson's wish will come true in the future.  

But for the meantime, at least they're having fun together.

Movin' on Up

Katherine has taken her last nap and spent her last night in her crib.

 Tonight, she's snoring away in her new big girl bed!!

 She was a little concerned this morning when Zach took apart her crib, and also later when her bed was delivered and set up.  Once she saw her new bed, she was excited!  She immediately ran into Jackson's room, grabbed a pillow, placed it on the slats, and tried to lay down!  A little later while we were headed to pick up Jackson from school, out-of-the-blue she said, "I like my new bed."

She loves looking at herself in her new dresser mirror!

 She missed her nap today, so thankfully she went to sleep pretty quickly tonight ... within 7 minutes of walking out of her room, we heard her snoring (this little girl snores) over the monitor.

 Our sweet little girl in her big bed.  It truly is bittersweet!

WDW

We went to Disney World a couple of weeks ago, so it's about time I shared some pictures!  It happened to be Mardi Gras when we left and Jackson's class had been celebrating!

 Within 20 minutes of picking Jackson up from school,
Katherine was asleep.

(The significance ... she's not going to sleep any more of the 

day's drive and we're just getting started.  Yikes.)

 Later that afternoon, we made it into Florida and

the 'Sunshine State' was not living up to its nickname.

We spent the night in Tallahassee, and it was obvious Katherine was feeling awful.  She wasn't much better the next morning, either.  As we were walking out of our hotel room, the housekeeper saw her, and honest-to-goodness she started tearing up since Katherine looked so pitiful.

We made it to Disney World that afternoon and gave Katherine a bath with hopes of helping her feel better.  This is what she looked liked afterwards.

Jackson and Katherine quickly discovered the pool at the resort, and Zach was a great dad and jumped in the freezing water with them.  Katherine did manage some smiles while in the pool!

The next morning, we started breakfast off with Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy!

Katherine was starting to feel better and was quite taken with Mickey.  

It may be hard to tell, but she's giving him a big hug below.

We spent our first day at Animal Kingdom and

Jackson couldn't get enough of the dinosaurs.

Grandpa and Jackson playing dinosaurs.  

We were carrying around 4 of these big dinos by the end of the day!

Poor Katherine.  You're not supposed to be sick at Disney World.

While Katherine was sleeping, the parade came through. 

Chip and Dale tried to make off with one of Jackson's dinosaurs!

The next day, we ate lunch at the T-Rex restaurant.  Again, Jackson was in heaven.

Katherine is pretty fond of dinosaurs herself, 

and can name a surprising number of them!

After lunch, we made it to Magic Kingdom!

Jackson's picture of the 3 of us!

That night, Emma and Austin made it down and

we spent the next day with them as well!

It was also Zach's birthday that day.  Turns out, just as Katherine was getting back to normal, Zach was falling victim to a stomach virus.  A virus on your birthday while at Disney World.  Miserable.

On the teacups with Katherine!

 Unfortunately, Zach was getting worse and we didn't get too 

much more in before we had to head back to the hotel with him.

Thankfully, Zach was feeling better by the next day and almost back to normal.  Even better for him, (for some reason) I lost my voice and ended up not being able to talk the entire way home!  Maybe on our next trip, we'll all stay healthy.

Nonetheless, Disney World wore these 2 out!   

Even though someone in the family was sick the entire time,

we made some sweet memories!