It's a Boy! And a Girl!

And before I tease you any further, no, we're not having twins! See...



It's a boy!

It was so nice to finally have my ultra sound and have my first look at our sweet baby! I'm 28 weeks along now, just starting my last trimester, so it was about time! The whole duck duck goose method of trying to find a doctor delayed the ultra sound to ridiculous lengths, but everything looked healthy and well, and we finally know that the baby we will welcome in September is a boy! We're trying out different names now, and I'm shipping off all my baby girl clothes to my sister. Yippy!!!


And a girl!

Our little girl came with a name already given to her! Her name is Lilly Anne, and we just love her to pieces! She's an extremely sweet and funny little Jack Russell Terrier. Kelsie has been dying to have a dog for a few years now, but we've had to put it off because we've been renting houses where dogs were not allowed. In the house that we are renting now, we were told that he was open to pets, but we'd have to talk about a deposit or something of that sort. Since we're trying to get serious about buying a home here, and getting a dog can be expensive, we've been telling Kelsie: first a house, then a car (to replace our trusty caravan which broke down on us last fall), and then a dog. That was the plan.







So Lilly came to us kind of unexpectedly, but we knew that this was one of those times when the saying, "life is what happens while you're busy making plans," definitely applied! We were in Spokane visiting family- especially James' family. His brother was up from California to participate in the Coeur d'Alene Iron Man and it would be a rare opportunity to have a little reunion. We had a great time catching up with his family, but the kids had the most fun playing with the dogs! They were a couple of Jack Russells, and as we watched them playing, James and I both realised that they were the perfect type of dog for our family! They were small, but sturdy, energetic and smart- very managable and very fun!





Well thier uncle Steve noticed how great they were playing also, and very generously offered to let us have his daughter's dog. His daughter, very understandably, had no plans to be rid of her little Buddy, but said she knew of another Jack Russell that needed a good home. She told us all about sweet Lilly, and we jumped at the opportunity to welcome her into our family.




We picked her up on our way out of town, and didn't know what to expect for the ride home! Fortunately, she was an absolute dream for the whole two hour trip! Very calm and patient the entire time!






We didn't tell the kids that we were planning on brining a dog home with us just in case it somehow didn't end up working out. We knew that their little hearts just wouldn't be able to handle the dissapointment if for some reason things didn't go as planned, so James just told them that if they were very good he had a suprise for them. They were guessing candy, or toys- they had no idea! When we brought her into the car, they were so excited to see her, but still had no idea that she was going to be theirs! When we started pulling away, they asked if we were going to babysit her! We finally told them that she was ours to keep, and it was like fireworks going off in thier little eyes! They were so completly thrilled! They kept saying over and over "this is the best day of my whole life!" Well, Lauren just kept saying, "Doggy! Doggy!" but I think her sentiment was the same as the big kids! The car wasn't big enough to hold their smiles!







So we've spent the last week getting to know our little Lilly. She's had some adjusting to do, and we've had alot of learning to do, but we're getting along wonderfully! Lilly is two years old, so we haven't had to deal with alot of chewing, or house training. She's very, very well behaved and sweet. She does amazingly well with the kids- even Lauren who is so very interested in pointing out the doggie's eyes and ears! Kelsie loves laying in the grass and letting Lilly lick all over her face! She says her favorite thing is to be able to walk her. Griffin loves playing fetch and tug of war with her, and getting her to chase him around the yard. She gets really crazy when she's all keyed up, but even when she's playing rough she's very careful. It's all gone better than I dared to hope! On top of it all, when we told our landlord about her, he said we didn't even need to worry about a pet deposit! Amazing!

In some ways it was a really spontanious thing to do, to agree to adopt this little dog, but in other ways it's something we've been preparing for for a very long time. Thank you, thank you to Brittany for looking out for her little cousins, and to Lilly's first family for sharing her with us!