Hard to believe this is the same kid...

You can see his ribs now!

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Splash Park

We have a new splash park and playground in town and decided to take the kids to it on Sunday. We headed over there early in hopes to beat the crowd, no such luck. Everyone in Tulsa has heard about it and they were all there. We turned around and decided to go to an older splash park about two miles down the road. Since everyone was at the new one, we had the place to ourselves.

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Hangin' with Grandma

My mom left this morning. I'm now wholly responsible for cleaning, cooking, and caring for my own children during the day...man life's rough. She was such a BIG help and we had some fun too. I was able to get out and about the last couple of days for a few hours and we took the kids to the aquarium on Tuesday and Bass Pro on Wednesday. We had a great time. My mom loves to "create" photo opportunities (i.e., her grandson being attacked by Jaws). Here are some pictures of Rogan fighting off Jaws and Brice just being Brice, he was charging at us with dear antlers. I have to admit, it was hilarious.At the aquarium we fed the stingrays and ran through the exhibits with Brice. He did slow down long enough to explore the touch and feel ponds where he got to touch shark eggs and a starfish. Believe me, I was worried for that poor starfish. You never know when Brice might decide to give it a squeeze. Fortunately, the shark egg pods are sterile and no shark babies were injured during our photo opportunities.
As always Rogan just sits back and enjoys the action!
Thanks Grandma for a great week!

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Down for the Count

I've been unable to do much blogging lately and I apologize. The kids have spent the last several days running their Grandma Jan all over. I had knee surgery on Thursday and I am just now starting to get around and able to sit a the computer for a little bit.

My boys are having a blast and my mom has done everything around here. Not only is she taking care of me and my sore leg but she has kept the laundry done, the house cleaned, dinner cooked and my boys happy. Thank you! I don't know what I'd do without her.

Hopefully, I will be up and around more this week and able to take some pictures and get back to blogging about my kiddos!

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100th Post

I didn't plan this, it just so happened that my 100th post would include an announcement. I've started another blog...ADOPTIVE MOMMA OF TWO.

I started ADOPTIVE MOMMA OF TWO because over the last few years Brian and I have fielded numerous questions about adoption and we are always willing to share about our journey and do anything we can to help others who might be interested in adoption. In the last couple of months I have provided numerous people with the contact information to the adoption agency we used and told the same tale over and over again about how we became parents. Instead of retyping this story in an email every time or having someone listen to me go on and on about adoption. I decided to start up a blog. Why not? It's a fast easy way to get information out there about domestic adoption. So, I hope if you know someone who is considering adoption, has adopted or is just curious, point them to my new blogspot adoptivemomma.blogspot.com.

This is a new adventure for me and I hope it will provide someone with some helpful information. My goal is to build up the site to include helpful links to other adoption websites, links to agencies here in the United States, and maybe just answer someone's question. If it helps someone become a parent, or one baby find a home then I think it will be worth it.

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Happy Birthday Grandma!

Rogan and Brice want to wish their Grandma Dana a very happy birthday today!!

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Happy Birthday lil' Guy Smiley!

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Rogan's Almost Birthday!

Since we were with my family the week before Rogan's birthday we decided to have a party for him at my parent's house. We'll have another this weekend at our house for Brian's side of the family. His birthday is actually this Thursday, so I think we will have fully celebrated it by the weekend. We cannot believe he's already one. It seems like it was just yesterday, that we were planning our vacation to Colorado and headed to Texas to pick him up instead. I was just starting to blog the month before he was born and if you look back to those old posts you'll see how he entered our world in a whirlwind.

He's the happiest almost 1 year old around. He smiles and giggles non-stop. We're so thankful to have him and he's a great little brother for Brice. He's so laid back and easy going, he doesn't even care when his big brother steals his toys and refuses to share (we're working on it).

Rogan dug into his birthday cupcake, but just wanted to smear it all around. He wasn't interested in eating any of it. We can't wait for his party this weekend and there will definitely be more pictures to come!

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Fisher

As we were getting around yesterday morning and preparing to leave my parent's house, we got a call from our veternarian that our lab Fisher had died. We were shocked. Apparently, he suffered a gastric torsion and died suddenly. Gastric torsions are common in labs but we weren't prepared to have him leave us quite yet.

Fisher was a handlful of a dog, he tore up more things than I even care to mention. He was full of energy and loved to play fetch with his tennis ball until he would almost collapse. We would have to hide the ball to get him to stop. He and Brice were buddies and they loved to play outside together. He was a big ol' blockhead, but he was our big ol' blockhead and we loved him very much and we miss him. Luckily, Brice is young enough that he really doesn't know what happened and hasn't looked for him. He still has our old dog Maggie and even though she's 10 years old, she is very patient with him and lets Brice walk his dinosaurs all over her while she is just trying to lay around and rest.

If you're in my family, you love dogs. We've even cried over each other's dogs. We'll miss Fisher and we're thankful he was with us for six years.

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Griswold Family Vacation

The Griswolds made it through another road trip. This year we went to Texas for a week to spend time with my family. We went with my parents to Dinosaur World and Fossil Rim Park in Glen Rose, TX. Brice loved Dinosaur World. He ran full speed through the dinosaur trail, but that's just Brice. The adults were all suffering trying to keep up with him in the relentless Texas heat. He was so excited, he couldn't wait to see what was around the next corner. He kept looking back to us and waving saying, "come on guys, look at this!". My cousin and his family and my aunt and uncle met us in Glen Rose. We all went to Fossil Rim Park which is great. It is a 9.5 mile drive through animal park. You stop halfway through to visit the petting zoo, gift shop and snack bar. You are able to feed the animals by dropping food from your car window all the way through the park. The giraffes come up to your car and you are able to hand feed those. It was a blast.

After Glen Rose, we followed my family back to my aunt and uncle's home in Lampasas. They have about 10 acres and the kids were able to feed chickens, pet some goats, climb on tractors, ride in golf carts and play with the dogs. They had so much fun and were covered in dirt (and other stuff I'm sure) from head to toe.

The rest of the week we spent at my parent's house in Denton. We took the kids to a water park and spent time with my cousin Tracee and her husband Derek. They brought poor Louie their puppy over to hang with Brice again. Poor dog, he ran non stop with Brice for two days and even responded when Brice consistently called him RUE-WEE. My parents set up a miniature water park in their backyard so the kids had three swimming pools to play in. The adults took advantage of the cold water to cool off too.

We had a great trip and lots of fun with all my cousins, second cousins, cousin-in-laws, aunt, uncle and my parents. We hope they all had as much fun as we did.

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