The Munson Minute: July 2013

Monday, July 29, 2013

Brady Turns 7

Our baby, seven? You must be kidding, but it is true. It happened. How? I have no idea, but it happened. The time flies scenario, continues to hold true as we blink our eyes and another year passes. Brady had a great year. He continues to be the comedian in the family, continues to break out of his shy shell, slowly trying new things (roller coasters, tubing, swimming, getting friendly with dogs, Chinese food, reading, building Legos sans Mom, tying his shoes (funny enough we discovered he has never owned a pair of shoes with laces until this summer), and watching scary Harry Potter movies) He braved all day Kindergarten this year and did great in drawing and writing! He still has to work on his Pinocchio skills as we continue to find him taking the easy way out of stuff with some fibs, but hopefully we are making progress there. Bugs, it has been fun to watch you grow up this year, we look forward to another year of fun filled adventures that you are no doubt going to take us on. Happy Birthday to our main man!

Having a birthday on 7/11 means always a free Slurpee coming your way!

Special delivery at camp this year!

Birthday Pie .......

Toys that we shopped for in our basement (shhh don't tell)

We are not that awful, some presents came courtesy of Amazon

Brady picked PF Changs as his b-day dinner but First Wok had to do with a 4 day old puppy we weren't in for a 3+ hour dinner....yup that is not a hamburger on that fork - Progress people Progress......

It sort of makes me sad that he doesn't need me to build these with him anymore, I secretly enjoyed it.

Brady had a little dude party - themed around a character of course, the boy is still obsessed with the action figure....this year Lego Ninjago.

That's right I'm seven......

Master Brady coming at cha......

I mean why not put knives in the hands of 8 children....it should be fine.....

This guy means business.....

Per usual Brady's birthday the forecast was 1,000 degrees and 100% humidity.....Chris and I have vowed it will be our last outdoor summer birthday party.

Master siblings.....

I just thought this was cute.

Brooke spent all morning on a Spinjitzu treasure hunt, bless her heart, as it ended with her in tears as she realized that boys aren't ones for organized games .....their attention span got them through two clues, and Brooke was devastated saying "they have no idea how hard I worked to make this happen" I hated to be coy, but I couldn't resist my reply "welcome to parenthood"

This was the first clue when all eyes and ears were on instructor Brooke.

Running to clue #2.

This is where it all falls apart on her....... onto clue #3 and everyone ended up.....

Here. Treasure hunt over.......

Happy boy to hang with his friends...

Make a wish......

I truly hope everyone of them comes true!

We love you to the moon and into outter space!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Meet Roxy Applesauce.....

The newest member of our family: Ms. Roxy Applesauce Munson.

The "dog conversation" has been one that has been coming up for quite some time. We wavered for quite a while always finding an excuse not to: "Brady's not ready", "We are never home", "Do we want to start over after we have finished the baby sweating stage?", "Man I wished we liked cats as they are so much easier" But beyond all those reasons one still out weighed them all. We want our kids to have an opportunity to love a dog, as we both feel there is no better lesson for a kid to care for someone else's needs other than your own than to have a dog as part of your family! Oh and also to fulfill Brady's Xmas wish list, I think all that is left is the minivan and butler....We will see what we can do.......So we narrowed it down to two kinds of breeds and decided to sink or swim, when we found a breeder up north that had one ready to give birth in May. We thought training in the summer sounded better than in the winter!

Chris and I were able to go to the "open house" and meet the litter, we still didn't know which one was ours, as we were not able to pick, she places based on family bios. I was so disappointed when the kids couldn't go but in hind sight I think it was a good thing, as it is a long way to go, and not be able to take one home with you!

I am pretty sure this shaky one that we liked that day (the calmest) was the one we got!

9 vizlas and 8 goldens - Brooke and Brady have some big sibling shoes to fill!

We surprised the kids in May with a package on the front door from the breeder, explaining everything and pictures of the mom and pups and that one of them was your new sister! It was exciting but with the caveat that you have to wait until July to get her.....So as you can imagine the "How many more days till the dog?" conversations happened daily. We didn't want to wait to tell them as the breeder was awesome posting pictures and videos for the kids each day so we wanted to have them watch her grow and get used to her before we even got her. They did.

So July finally came and we made the trek up north, crate in tow, food in Tupperware ready to take our new baby home. It was love at first sight

So why Roxy Applesauce? Well we finally canned Oprah and Wheezie (Brady and Chris' contributions to the naming process) and decided on Roxy. However on our way up to TC Brady looks over at me after 2.5 hours of driving and we are only about a few blocks from the breeders house, and is in a full on dripping sweat. I yelled to Chris to pull over and literally shoved him out of the car where he proceeded to puke up the entire bucket of apples he just ate by the side of the road, I mean Applesauce everywhere, and then wiped his mouth and off we went to get the dog, so we thought it would only make sense........

One big happy family.....

The breeder had us sign our papers and we were on our way!

When we drove up the kids asked if we were at Great Wolf Lodge...I think we can assume the breeder is doing okay in her "biz" Roxy you better be worth the $$ :)

So it took a little help to get this little one to leave her creme de la creme residence to ride in the back of a wagon for 2.5 hours....and call a yard with no shade and water her new home.

This is what poor Roxy Left behind, I don't think our backyard will compare......

We started her in the back of the car and the kids couldn't take to be away from her so we decided to grace our laps with a training pad and let Roxy ride in the back with us!

As you can imagine everyone had to have a turn.

I think the excitement got to everyone!

Especially this one.....

Since then we have been thrown back in time in the parenthood arena, little sleep, constant eyes on her, potty training, and saying NO a lot (wait that part still happens)

Honestly though she has been a very good pup so far, a bit lazy, I was afraid I was going to be buying a Paris Hilton dog purse for this little one who didn't want to walk AT ALL, but only carried, EVERYWHERE.

Five days in we got over the sleeping hump, and we also got over the lazy not wanting to walk hump too, as she wants to be running and chasing the kids at all moments.

So we are both adjusting, we are all sleeping again and we are loving our little Roxy.

Purty Girl.

Oh did I also mentioned she is very intellectual, Brady had her reading at her first vet appointment to keep her occupied....

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The 4th @ Pine Lake.

We changed it up this year and left the Ada festivities behind and joined my mom and brother's family up at Pine Lake this year for the Fourth of July. As good as traditions can be, it was great to change it up this year and be somewhere new and experience new things too. We had a great time and got to enjoy all that the lake had to offer......

Sleepy little lake - a bit different than the lake and the 4th we grew up on......

waiting for the fireworks to start

cousin lovin...

Pine Lake had a nice display - Kudos!

This was my attempt at a patriotic star hair do.....

Let's be honest - the real reason we headed up there was to see what these "turtle races" were all about! We kept hearing about this event.......you mention the 4th up there and the next thing said is - "oh you have to do the turtle races".....and they weren't kidding this was someone out advertising it the day prior.

So off to the turtle races we went.....

All mom wanted was a picture with her grand kids and as you can imagine that is tougher than you think with this photo bomber around....

But finally it happened......

Kids with Turtle.....you either had to hunt for you own rent one...... or buy one for $1 from this little girl who was making quite a business for herself that day. We decided to support her cause.

Giving her turtle a little pep talk.

Little did we know people were bringing turtles of all sizes and ones they had been training all year long I don't think our little guys had a chance.....

But you had to give it a shot when you had the possibility of going home with one of these.....hilarious.

sizing up the competition.

And off they go....the idea is the first one to get to the edge of the mat wins.....Lexi's turtle won 3rd in her heat, but there is no advancement for third wah wah wah.....

So back home they went with us to get nail polished and played with all weekend long before they were sent home back to the lake.

Patriotic pops

Sparklers and fireworks.....

So This is usually what the scene looks like up there Jake, Lexi & Brooke tubing......

And poor bugs watching from my lap "inside" the boat....but from out of nowhere, he just hopped up and said I am going with Jake! I almost couldn't believe my ears but off he went and he LOVED it.

Don't get me wrong he was nervous I could tell, but he trusted Jake the security blanket! Kudos to Jake too, he is soooooo good with him making sure he didn't fall, or steering the tube back into the wake. He really got Brady to break out of his "water" shell!