Meet Brody

Brody is a German Shorthair Boarder Collie mix.

Joseph has wanted a puppy really badly for a long time. I finally broke down and got him one as an early birthday surprise! I haven't been excited to have a dog around. Though I'm not really a dog person I always knew we would need to get a dog someday. Joseph has been begging and begging for one even though I told him we couldn't have one while we live here in this house. The yard is just too small. He wore me down enough I guess. Around Christmas, he started emailing me links to different craigslist post of puppies for sale. Then when his birthday was approaching he did the same thing. I took one that he seemed excited about and gave him an early birthday surprise. Brody came from Wallowa so Joseph's brother Ben brought it down when he came for a visit toward the end of January.

Even though this was a whole month before his actual birthday, I made his birthday dinner and afterward presented him with this poem/contract before he was able to see the his new puppy. He was pretty surprised!


Bet you're wondering- what is up?
(hint: I'm trying to think of a rhyme... oh I give up)

Well your fondest dreams today come true,
but first there's one thing that you must do.

Before this gift you are allowed to see,
there are terms to which you must agree.
________________________________________

- I Joseph Waite will walk my canine
  every day whether rain, snow, or shine.

- I'll rise every morning before I go to work,
  and exercise my dog and me and never ever shirk.

- I will take charge for my dog's every need,
  for training , exercise, water and feed.

- If bath time is needed cause he smells like decay,
  I will bathe him promptly without delay.

- My wife and children will never have to find
  doo doo in the yard from my dog's behind.

- I'll do all these things and with superhuman strength sublime,
  still not put any priority over frequent family time.

- My wife must never feel she should do any of the chores
  in order that she might buy my time to be with me some mores.

- Though Ivy may choose to help every once in a while,
  I'll never expect it, I'll do all tasks with a smile.
___________________________________________
That is all, your name please sign,
and this thing will be yours in a very short time.

     X_____________________

If these conditions aren't lived up to satisfactorily,
I'm sad to say a craigslist post will have to set us free.

I'm hopeful all will work out swell.
I love you Joseph more than words can tell.
(If I did not, I wouldn't have looked twice at a dog that is for sale)

Love,
Ivy   xoxoxoxoxxxoxox!

He did sign his contract without hesitation!



I know that poem makes me sound pretty harsh, but I had to be harsh in order to make sure my bases were covered. I do like Brody. He has been a pretty good dog and I do spend time with him too. Joseph has done an excellent job living up to his contract so I don't have too many complaints.  Brody rarely barks and he seems to learn things quickly. The girls really love him. Kilynn was a little scared of him at first, but I expected that. Before we got Brody, Kilynn was scared of any and every animal. Even if she saw a little fruit fly in our kitchen, she would cry hysterically and refuse to come out of her room. Brody has helped her get over those fears. Brody does have his faults, but I'm in a positive mood right now so I'd rather not get into them. None of them are too bad- just normal dog stuff.

 

technical problems

After over three months of no posts I finally got one up last night! Aren't you proud of me?
I always have some lame excuse for why I only blog in spurts, and this time it is that for a long time it wasn't letting me upload my photos. I finally got that figured out, but it only worked if I uploaded the pictures one at a time which is a huge pain! Does anyone have suggestions? I'm also having trouble changing my background and anything else that has to do with the layout of my blog. It just won't let me do it! I want to change the picture in the header to one that includes Marjorie, but it won't let me remove it! It's probably something really simple, but I don't know what it is and I'm too lazy to sit down and really try to figure it out. Any ideas?
Oh yea, and then there's that annoying "Sorry this person has deleted this image" sign right it your line of vision. Nice.

Our One Year Old

I'm going to try to bask in this one year old age as much as possible. Having gone through age one once now with Kilynn, I realize how blissful and fun this age is and how fleeting. It is the age where they gain enough independence to give you a break, but still love the cuddles. Today during family home evening we watched videos of Kilynn when she was one. What a cute little face and a cute little voice! I then looked at Margie and got a little teary thinking about the fact that she will only be one for a year.  I love the sweet baby cheeks, the six tooth smile, tiny pony tail, wobbly walking, jibber jabber stage!

Margie is such a sweetie! She has always been a calm easy baby since day one. We love her so much! She is a walking pro now. She took her first steps at 10 months, but still prefered crawling until exactly on her birthday. January 21st was the first day where if she fell down she would stand right back up and keep walking rather than continuing to her destination by crawling.

Margie adopted this as her blankie a couple months ago. She loves brushing her cheek with it and sighing, "Ahhhh"
 

We took an impromptu trip to LaGrande the weekend before Margie's birthday and Grandma Waite ended up making an amazing cake!

...and she got her own cake to dig into. She ate so well at dinner though that she only reluctantly tasted a little lick of frosting that I forced upon her, but was totally uninterested.

and opened a few gifts

Our little doll in the dress Grandma Kerns made for her

Halloween

Kilynn requested this Cinderella pumpkin, but wasn't too excited about it in the end.
I don't think Cinderella is supposed to be scary.

Downtown trick-or-treating

Marjorie was out for all the excitement and while walking home, Kilynn dropped out as well. We carried Kilynn to bed and she almost missed all the excitement that night of trick or treating around the neighborhood and handing out candy to kids at our door!

Marjorie got to experience eating candy for the first time Halloween night. At least I think it was the first time. Joseph does like to sneak things he shouldn't to the girls from time to time.

After this video was taken, Marjorie kept getting more and more assertive in asking for candy. She was constantly screaming at Kilynn if the sucker wasn't in her mouth!

Yesterday Kilynn picked out some milk duds from her Halloween candy. A while later I noticed that Marjorie had chocolate dribbling down her chin and on the carpet all around her. So she is learning all about the wonders of candy now. At least I know Kilynn is good at sharing!

Vacation part 3

On our last day at my parent's place, I was able to squeeze some more life out of my camera! Maybe I'm biased, but I really believe I grew up in the most beautiful place in the world! Based upon the pictures I took, here is a small tour of a part of this magical place.

This rock wall is just outside the back door. Mom and Dad created just this year.

 

If you continue up the rock steps into the backyard and look straight ahead, you see this beautiful view that is also the view through the big picture window in the living room.

Now looking slightly to the left-

Many many memories were made under that clump of trees near the edge of the field. One tree was blown over in a big storm years back but continues to live. The horizontal trunk was my imaginary ship and the vertical limbs served as mast and sails. The tree that is still standing holds a tree house made from a calf shelter. It is pretty high up and was always a little scary to get in and out of. There is also an old tilting shed underneath the trees that was sometimes fun to play in if a cow or wasp's nest wasn't occupying it.

And the view looking all the way to the left.

Those are rows of raspberry bushes you see. There are four rows that used to stretch all the way to the barn. Now the the rows are shorter but a bigger patch has been added across the road in the front of the house. Below these raspberries is an orchard with several of every fruit tree. There are also blueberry and strawberry patches and the vegetable garden.

 Still standing in the middle of the backyard and looking to the right. I should have taken a better picture, but there is a cherry orchard over there. This ends my little tour:)

 Mom and Dad

I love these next three pictures. Mom and Dad didn't know I was taking pictures. They both love thinking about, working in, and admiring their garden together.





 I also love how Dad is carrying some toys around. He can't go anywhere without his toys:)



 Uh-Oh, they just realized  I was taking pictures of them!



 

 

Dad with Kilynn and Kiley



 Mom went through her fabric cupboards while I was there and found this material so we could make these dresses while I was there!

Vacation part 2

Over the course of my three week vacation, I got to see all Joseph's siblings (minus a brother-in-law) and all their kids, as well as all of my siblings and their kids. This is no small feat. Counting parents too, I think that is 23 on Joseph's side, and 51 on my side. Joseph's side was easy because they were all at the reunion. All but two of my siblings live in surrounding areas of my parents so they were fairly easy too. My oldest brother Nathan, however, lives in Seattle, WA and my sister Amy lives in Rexburg, ID. I actually technically didn't get to see Nathan and his family while on my vacation, but they showed up at my house the day after I got home so I'm counting them. Amy called at the beginning of my two week stay at my parents and convinced us to go down for a visit and to see my niece perform in a community play. We spent five days there and I'm so glad I got to go! Mom, Amy and I went shopping, I got to go to the play "Hello Dolly," Kilynn and I got canoe rides from Kami and Caden, Kilynn had so much fun with her cousins, and there was always a lot of laughing going on. I was also excited that I finally got to see the new house they built. It is beautiful!

Adorable Madeline all dolled up for her part in "Hello Dolly." She did a great job! I have to say how amazed I was with how awesome her hair is! She has naturally curly hair and all Amy had to do to get these ringlets was wrap the hair around her finger and then pull her finger out in a downward motion. The hair then would stay perfectly like this all day long!  I Love it!

Kilynn and Abram.

Cooling off in the evening.

 Eventually, I couldn't resist cooling off all the way. 

When Amy posted this photo, she captioned it, "You might be a redneck if..."

Vacation part 1

We traveled to Eastern Oregon beginning of July. It was a great vacation- especially for me because it lasted for almost the entire month! Joseph was there with us for a week in LaGrande, returned home to work for a week, and then go on a scout camp the following week. I stayed behind and spent two weeks with my family. It was great!
One Sunday afternoon some of us hiked up on the hill behind Joseph's parent's house. I took a ton on pictures this hike and don't have very many pictures of the rest of the vacation because my camera was being weird and eventually pretty much quit on me altogether.

Happy 4th of July!

 

We headed up to Catherine Creek on the fourth to start our thee day Hendrickson family reunion camp out.

The Waite family all got to camp together in a nice big meadow. There were little games of football in our meadow, lots of games of Pinochle going on at the lodge, lots of good food, and lots of playing in the river. For me there was lots of following Kilynn as she trip trapped over the really cool bridge again and again, lots of holding Marjorie and watching Kilynn play in the volleyball sandpit dumping sand on her head.
I got pictures of our first afternoon there and then got too fed up with my camera to bother with it further.