Sweet boy Linky...

Three weeks ago, I read my friends Sayward's blog about her dog Hagrid, who had become ill and she made the difficult decision to put him down. I cried when I read it. Two weeks ago, we took our dog Link, who seemed to be having quite a bit of trouble with his leg, to the vet. We got some very sad and quite shocking news that he had lymphoma, and probably had about a month to live, at best. I cried when when we got the news, a lot. A week ago, we were scheduled to go back to the vet to see how Link was doing. He had been prescribed some prednisone to make him more comfortable and help with the pain in his leg. It seemed to work for a few days and he had quite a bit of energy and didn't seem to have a problem walking. However, that didn't last long and he started to become more and more sick as we approached the appointment. Tom and I discussed that we would not allow him to suffer, and if the vet suggested it was time to let go, we would. It was an extremely difficult decision and I cried a lot, again. We said goodbye to our sweet Linky dog on Tuesday, August 18 at 11:30 AM. We took him to Tom's Aunt Kathie and Uncle Paul's property in New Castle and buried him in one of his favorite places to be. We miss him terribly and treasure every moment of the past seven years that he spent with us.

Looking quite regal in his old age

Looking handsome and golden in his younger years

Rides in the Wrangler were his all time favorite

Feeling quite sad as Tom left for the army...at least we had each other!

Quite possibly the cutest puppy ever!

...even when soaking wet!

One of all time favorite pictures. Maya drinking at the sink, Link drinking at the tub!

They were the best of buddies... finally together again.

Maya teasing Link by eating his food right out of the bin!

Helping newborn Hunter to drift off.

Not really sure why we're paying so much attention to that tiny human that makes so much noise.

Check out Linky's tongue sneaking a taste of Hunter.

Halloween doggy's all time favorite candy...wildberry Skittles

Winking Link

Smoking a licorice on Christmas.

How he would wake up Tom when I told him to.

Looking a bit frail and sad but still as cute as can be.

Having a moment with Gryffin.

Taking care of our babies is what he did best. That and eating used tissues!

Link, you will be forever loved and missed!

...while writing this post, I cried...a lot!

Happy 2nd Birthday Olivia and Gryffin!!

Olivia and Gryffin celebrated their 2nd birthday on August 3rd. I can't believe how quickly the time seems to have gone by! We had mostly family and some friends come to celebrate with us at the house. The day was a weird one with periods of heavy rain and periods of sunny skies. A fun time was had by all!

Here is the lovely and expecting Aunt Danae with the masterpiece of a cake she created! I picked out a homemade vanilla cupcake and buttercream recipe off of the internet and Danae was kind enough to do the baking while her sister Gloria and I prepared other foods for the day. I found an adorable Very Hungry Caterpillar cake that I had my heart set on creating and Danae did an absolutely perfect job. Unfortunately, we never got to eat the cake because a light bulb broke right over where the cake was sitting. My mom quickly ran to Giant Eagle to buy some "cookie" cakes from the bakery. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit upset about it. After all, Hunter has had a homemade cake for every birthday and my sister Aubrey made homemade chocolate cupcakes for the twins first birthday. I quickly got over it and everyone seemed to like the cookie cakes just fine... disaster averted.

Olivia was very pleased with her Maclaren baby doll stroller. Gryffin covets the stroller as well and it has become the number one thing that causes arguments. Thanks to Gloria (Aunt Boo Boo) for the stroller.

Tom's Aunt Kathie made these adorable hats for Olivia and Gryffin. They are super cute on and the babies couldn't love them more! Thanks to Aunt Kathie for a beautiful and practical gift!

Olivia admiring the Hungry Caterpillar cake

Having their cookie cake on the steps

Happy boy Gryffin at their birthday lunch at Bahama Breeze

Aunt Danae and Uncle Aaron stayed with us for a week while they we waiting to close on their new house. Luckily for us it happened to be the birthday week and we had some extra sets of hands around the house for preparations and kid watching. The soon to be parents did a great job and Hunter, Olivia and Gryffin all loved them so much and were so sad to see them go! They will be great parents to their little guy and we can't wait to play with him too!

Olivia and Aunt Nae Nae playing peek-a-boo at the park

My Little Criminal

It all started with this really awesome Melissa and Doug puzzle I bought for my little key loving tinkerer, Gryffin. I thought it would keep his little fingers busy for a while and away from the more dangerous situations he usually gravitates towards. I never thought it would so rapidly teach him one of the more crucial skills necessary for a life of crime.

I walked into the room to discover Gryffin working on one of his favorite pastimes, trying to open the file cabinet. He climbed up on the computer desk via the swivel chair and retrieved a key and commenced the breaking and entering. I caught him right at the moment of success.

Caught red handed buddy!

The kicker is, he didn't even use the real key for the cabinet! It was actually a bike lock key that he skillfully used.

Thanks again Melissa and Doug!

Fourth Fun!

We had a really busy and fun Fourth of July weekend. We went to New Castle for fun with family, friends, food and fireworks.

It was a blast as usual. I have lots of work to do so I don't have much time for writing so enjoy the photos!

Boys and their toys

Swinging like big kids!

The best seat in the house

Olivia and the cutest pregnant lady (Aunt Danae)

Not too sure about this

Badminton, a family favorite

waiting for a turn on the tractor

pretty flowers and girl

Olivia loves horses...these belong to the neighbor

Magic says we smell funny!

Yummy flag cake(we had two!)

Tom and all of our babies including the first born, Link(our Golden retriever)

Don't worry, he's not as close as he looks.

Out with a bang!

Thomas and the Amish!

Last Wednesday, we embarked on our decidedly annual trip to Lancaster to ride on Thomas the Tank Engine and go to Dutch Wonderland. We had so much fun last year, we planned on bringing the kids back this year. The 5 hour car ride is less than desirable, and we squeezed everyone(Tom and me and our 3 kids and Aubrey and her 2 kids)into our good old Saturn Relay. Needless to say, with 5 kids ages 5 and under, it seemed a lot longer than 5 hours! We survived the ride there only to squeeze our families into a two room suite. We were really trying to be thrifty and I think we succeeded.

Luckily, our incredibly charming hotel(The Historic Strasburg Inn)had this really awesome Amish built playset in the back to keep the kids occupied while we packed for each days events. The above picture of Olivia reminds me of Little House on the Prairie with the field and log cabin in the background.

Thursday had rain and thunderstorms forcasted so we planned to do a few indoor things including visiting The Choo Choo Barn. We took Hunter to this awesome miniature railroad the first time we came to ride Thomas when he was two. It is a gigantic layout of the city of Lancaster with tons of moving details. There's a baseball game, a carnival, a miniature Dutch Wonderland, an Amish Barn raising, and my personal favorite, the house on fire. So much cool stuff to look at! A little fire truck actually drives to the house that's on fire and a little fireman puts a ladder up and another guy gets the hose out and actual water gets sprayed on the house to douse the flames! This is totally amazing to watch.

There are dig sites, and gas stations and a parade going around one of the blocks in town, and of course...the trains!

Outside of the miniature village, the kids climbed around on this wooden engine.

I love how this shot floated down here, crazy blogger!

From the left is Malacai, Olivia, Gryffin, Nadia and Hunter on the gazebo swing at the hotel. It's more difficult than you think getting a photograph of the five of them!

Hunter looking cute.

Gryffin was obsessed with this monster truck ride at Dutch Wonderland. He must have ridden it about 10 times!

We had a blast in the water park called Duke's Lagoon. There are baby water slides and water shoots out everywhere!

We rented a stroller from the park because we couldn't fit ours in the van, and I knew the babies would need a nap during the day. Unfortunately, the rented stroller is nowhere near as comfy as our cadillac of a stroller and it was difficult for them to fall asleep while sitting so upright in the hard molded plastic stroller. Eventually, I found a nice peaceful trail by a river that was away from all the noise of the park and they drifted off.

All 3 of my kids sleep with their eyes partially open, it's kind of creepy.

We wrapped up our trip on Saturday with the Day out with Thomas event. It was a very beautiful but hot day and patience was wearing thin with kids and adults. Everyone was excited to ride the train and we even saw some Amish farmers with a horse drawn plow harvesting some sort of crop during the ride.

All in all, it was a great trip. Olivia and Gryffin were suffering from some sort of stomach bug and that wasn't too fun but it wasn't enough to ruin our trip and I'm sure we'll be back next year...