Life Lately

Guys, life lately has been spent with my two favorite furry ladies. 98% of the pictures in my phone involve these little girls but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

 

Rory has been loving her new life and home. We've been spending a lot of time outside in the beautiful spring weather. She loves playing with her big sister and often they can be found chasing each other around the yard. Puppy zoomies might be the cutest thing in the world! Rory is the happiest puppy and is just thrilled to be included all the time. She has no idea why Sophie gets excited but runs alongside her excited as well, just thrilled to be along for the ride! 

Oh Sophie our neurotic princess! She absolutely adores her baby sister and bringing her home was the best  thing we could've done for Sophie. She loves being a big sister and is so good to Rory. She's so gentle with her and lets her climb all over her but also so playful. It was truly the best decision to get a second puppy even though it was a crazy first month as a family of 4 (+1 cooking!).

You don't often see one without the other, they stick pretty close! 

We took Sophie for her most recent grooming appointment and Rory worked on riding in the backseat with her sister. We were nervous at first but they do great in the backseat together. Rory is learning how to look out the window like her big sister does. We did discover she is a lot calmer than Sophie in the car and when we brought her home while Sophie was getting groomed, Rory was sleeping in the back seat...something that has never happened with Sophie!

Tim has been bringing home extra turf from work for us! Our goal is to get all the dirt areas in our backyard covered with turf to keep out house less dirty. We are hoping to have this done soon and possibly get our front yard done this summer too.

Please ignore our mess of a deck, we desperately need to get it redone. I'm hoping this might be our project next spring...right now we have too much else to get done first!

I still have a ton to do in Ellie's room, but my mom bought this cute E print from Marshalls and I love it! I need to find and order a rug and need to complete our closet DIY, but we are working on it! 

I have been very into clearance shopping for baby Ellie! You guys know I am always on the hunt for a deal and baby shopping has been my main focus lately. If you see any great deals please let me know!

Last Saturday I headed into Walmart where I found diapers for $6 and onesies for 75 cents! I also headed to TJMaxx where I spent $50 on a ton of clearance finds.  I know we will be getting a ton of gifts for Ellie and that everyone loves to buy baby clothes, but I just can't help myself. I love getting a good deal and I really don't want to pay full price for baby items.

Again, if you see any diaper/wipes/baby deals please share them with me!!

I hope you are all doing well and I will try to do better at taking pictures in the future!!

Welcome Rory!

 I know I promised I would be better about updating the blog. I have a TON to say and life has been so busy lately.  I have a list of posts to write up and do plan to get better about updating as we go forward.

Today I wanted to share the newest addition to our family! No, not our baby girl who will be arriving in September.....

Meet Rory!

Last July/August Tim and I had been struggling with infertility for over a year and were looking at starting fertility treatments. We knew we wanted to bring a sibling into our home for Sophie and that she would love having a sister so we put ourselves on a waiting list for a goldendoodle puppy. The day I found out we lost Baby B we received an email that we could pick up Rory on April 4th. It was a true miracle. 

Rory's first weigh-in at the vet came in at 13 pounds! Sophie was 18 pounds when we brought her for her first vet visit so Rory feels significantly smaller than her big sister did. We keep commenting on how fragile she seems but luckily she's been a great eater and we can already feel her getting bigger every day! 

As far as puppies go Rory is extremely easy-going. Our vet and vet tech kept commenting on how easy-going she was during her visit. She loves to play and has been in heaven with the huge selection of toys we have collected around here. When she gets the zoomies it is absolutely adorable and she can often be found sleeping on top of a pile of pillows.

I'm sure you're curious about how big sister Sophie is adjusting to having a sibling. Well, she couldn't be better!! The first day we were very nervous and Sophie definitely seemed a little jealous. After that initial jealousy, we haven't seen it since. The two of them are best friends and play together, cuddle together and just generally enjoy each others company. Rory is obsessed with her big sister and Sophie is very sweet about letting her cuddle. It is so adorable and I love watching their relationship. 

I am excited for Rory to get a tad bigger so I won't be quite as stressed out about their wrestling matches but I love to watch how Sophie rolls on her back and lets Rory climb all over her. They also play a ton of tug and Sophie has always wanted us to chase her around the yard and she finally has someone who will do it non-stop.

Overall adding Rory to our family has been one of the best decisions we have made. She is sweet, snuggly and so playful. While having a puppy is certainly stressful and I'm not sure I would recommend any pregnant woman to add the stress of it to their life I am so glad we did it now before having a baby. We will all be adjusted before we get thrown for that loop in September. 

One of our friends who came to meet Rory said it best when she said, "You guys seem to thrive on chaos."

I can't even disagree with that statement because we just love to have some sort of project going on. If there's not something going on then life gets too boring! 

Halloween Weekend 2020

Hey friends! Did everyone have a great Hall-o-weekend? It was very low-key around here (like most weekends around here) but I thought it was great to have Halloween on a Saturday. I think we should observe Halloween on the last Saturday of October every year, anyone else with me on that?

Sophie loves her toys from her Barkbox and I love that each month the theme changes. We were of course thrilled to see Halloween themed toys and Sophie has been enjoying her Vampy-corn, Barry Bones, and Ghouly Worm. If you haven't signed up for Barkbox and you have a pup it's a great idea to get a year-long subscription as a Christmas present for them! We truly enjoy having this box come each month and I think the price is 100% worth it!

Guys, it snowed here on Friday!! My poor pumpkin and mums enduring the storm, they look so sad!

We spent a lot of the weekend cuddled up on the couch and Sophie was thrilled with all of it! I love how sweet her face is in this picture. 

I feel so lame. This is what I did for Halloween trick-or-treating. I made 30 treat bags and left them out for our neighborhood kids. We ended up with 5 leftover so it ended up being just about the perfect amount. Even though I put out a pumpkin and some little Halloween decals on the door, I didn't really do much outside decorating for Halloween. I always intended on going back out to pick up more pumpkins/gourds and make the front steps look nicer but I just never did. I felt especially bad about my decorating skills when I saw what The Blonde Abroad had done....

(This picture is a screenshot of @theblondeabroad Halloween post on Instagram)

How cute is her setup?! Her dog Bailey looked so cute as Harry Potter and I couldn't believe all the awesome decor she had. If you aren't already following her on Instagram she is one of my favorites. Normally she is traveling non-stop but has recently purchased a house in San Diego and is doing some home decor content which I love! I felt very inferior when I saw her decor versus what I had going on outside!! I always say next year....

Last week at BJs I picked up a huge box of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate mix and I kicked off hot chocolate season on Halloween! I love fall and have enjoyed having my fall decor up inside our house but I am ready to decorate for Christmas. 

It seems like more than half the people I follow on Instagram started decorating yesterday for Christmas. I didn't start yesterday but I am planning on starting very soon. Tomorrow I have the day off from work so I will be taking down all of my fall decor and giving the house a good deep clean and I plan on decorating for Christmas maybe next weekend. Let me know when you are planning on decorating for Christmas, I would love to hear how long you are waiting this year.

Speaking of tomorrow, it's my husbands birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Tim! You are the most patient, kind, wonderful person in the world and I cannot imagine my life without you. You are my match in every way and I am so lucky to be married to you!!

Sophie's May Barkbox

Well, this post is a bit delayed, but today I'm sharing Sophie's Barkbox for May!

This box was absolutely adorable and had a Scooby Doo theme for the new movie that just came out. Whenever a package arrives now Sophie assumes it's for her and this day she was absolutely correct.

Here she is just waiting patiently for us to open her box. She knows there are fun toys and treats inside and watching how excited she gets just makes it more exciting for us. I swear we are the most over-excited dog parents on the planet, it's borderline obsessive how much we love this dog. 

We were surprised and excited when we opened the top of the box and saw Scooby on the top. Of course Sophie instantly grabbed Scooby and took off running! She always grabs the first toy she can and runs off like the Flash. Then she comes back to see what other treats are inside.

Scooby has been with us for a little over a month and has held up pretty well! His ears are a little tattered and his tail has seen better days but beyond that he is holding up nicely. He is a toy that stays in rotation now and Sophie often grabs him for tug or fetch. 

The Mystery Machine remains in near-perfect condition. This isn't a toy she has really played with much at all. I'm not sure if it's just a little too big or if it doesn't make the right sounds but she's not too interested in this one so far.

Oh the sandwich. Well, this was destroyed the first night it came into our home. This is a great tug toy but Sophie's teeth were just too strong for it. We ended up having to toss the little pieces and only have the bread pieces and the burger (I think it's a burger??) part left. Sophie will often bring us the bread for us to throw. So, I guess she's still sort of enjoying this one.

Both bags of treats have been loved and enjoyed! These treats were pretty small but she would perform all sorts of tricks for both to them. We loved asking her if she wanted a Scooby snack too :)

This "long term chew" isn't so long term for Sophie anymore. However it's always great to an extra "cookie" to give her.

Here is a picture of the inside of the box and you can see the other two toys that were options. I'm really glad we got the ones we did! 

Here Sophie is with her haul! You can see some other toys in the background too, girl is spoiled and always digging through her toy bin!

Do you order Barkbox or another subscription box for your pets?

Sophie's April Barkbox

Another Monday working from home! I think we are on week 6 now and I never imagined that I would ever be allowed to work from home for 6 weeks but here we are! Sophie is thrilled, especially since Tim is home with us part of the time so she has all her humans in one place.

Today we are sharing Sophie's Barkbox for April. She always knows when the box is for her, it is so cute. 

We were waiting for Tim to open up the Barkbox with us at this point, because it's a full family event.

Neither of us will open it with her without the other because we both love it so much! She gets so excited and it's just the cutest thing.

Clearly she was getting tired of waiting for dad. 

This months Barkbox was themed "Night at the squeakeasy" and we thought it was very cute! I also want to point out that one toy is missing from the above picture because as soon as the lid opened Sophie grabbed the first toy she could get to and ran off. 

The toys that Barkbox sends over are always super intricate with so many details! I also love that there are toys inside most of the toys so if your pup destroys them then you have a ball or something like that for them to play with.

This is the bouncer who looks super angry.

A two in one toy, the whiskey glass with an ice cube inside. Sophie is loving the whiskey glass because she can stick her face right inside it and make crinkly sounds.

This is the toy that Sophie ran off with, she seems to like this one a lot too!

As usual all the treats are a hit with Sophie. She ate her long term chew in about three minutes and we've been giving her treats from the bags whenever she's a good girl which is pretty often. 

Do you get Barkbox for your dog? If so, let me know what toys you got this month!

March Barkbox

Last week we received Sophie's Barkbox in the mail! I'm telling you one of the few things that can give us that much joy in the mail is her Barkbox. Especially with everything that is going on we were so excited to open it.

Sophie couldn't sit still when Tim was trying to get her to sit, she was just SO excited!

The theme this month was the Australian Outbark and I was so excited when we opened the box and saw that! What a cute theme!

Every box has three plush toys. The ones we received in our box were:

A koala

A platypus

and a crocodile.

They are all super cute but the biggest hit so far has been the platypus. For some reason Sophie is drawn to it and we played quite a bit of tug with her with this one. 

In your Barkbox they always have a picture of all the other toys that went out. I love the lizard and the kangaroo! I'm always so tempted to order more but really does this girl need more toys?

We the answer seems to be yes because I added this piggies in a blanket toy to her box because I saw it on Facebook and thought it was funny!

We always give her one of each kind of treat so she can test them out and both were instant winners. The "long term" chews aren't quite as long term anymore. She can suck those down in a couple of minutes, but she still seems to enjoy them at least!

The only picture I managed to get of her during the box opening. This girl is always blurry when it comes to her Barkbox. She has the platypus in her mouth in this picture. (Turtle pictured is not from Barkbox and was gifted to her back in the fall)

Do your dogs get Barkbox? What toys did they get this month?

Life Lately: Social Distancing

We are getting really good at social distancing over here.  As an introvert I'm very good at being alone, so being alone with my husband and puppy is pretty easy for me! I do like to get on video chat with my friends and I talk to my mom every single day so it's not like I have no outside contact I'm just not seeing anyone in person right now. Which is what should all be doing and if you're not, GO HOME AND STAY HOME. Nothing matters more right now then staying home and letting the essential employees get their jobs done. We've been asked to stay home and do nothing, it's not that hard.

Anyways, here is what we've been up to around here!

I was very sad, although unsurprised when Tom Brady announced that he was leaving the Patriots. He has been a part of the Patriots family as long as I've been a Patriots fan and it will certainly be weird to cheer on another quarterback. Unless of course it's Sophie who gets the job. I sent this picture as a resume for her, so hopefully she'll be signing a contract soon :)

We've been trying to get out and go on a walk or do something active every day. Sophie pretty much demands it. Here she is sad she's not outside.

This is such a blurry picture but I love the way she is just standing over me :)

I already owned this shirt before the social distancing so you can see why it's not hard for me to stay home right?  You can find it here on Amazon. It's very soft and I'm wearing a medium.

We let Sophie run around in the backyard and she got herself covered in dirt. She was a disaster. So, she got a bath and this is how sad she looks after bath time!

On Sunday morning we lounged around in bed in the morning and Sophie didn't mind one bit! She usually is the one to wake us up in the morning but that girl is in no rush to get out of bed. She just wants to roll around and kick her legs so make sure you stay out of her way!

On Sunday afternoon we did a 3 mile hike! Sophie was exhausted afterwards but it was just what we needed to get outside and get moving!

My heart is so full! These two make it all worth it!

Quick family selfie! Look at that tongue!

After the hike it was time for a nap!

On Monday morning this is how Sophie was laying in the hallway. She has trouble when Tim and I are in two separate rooms. Tim was still sleeping and I was getting ready for my work day and she was forced to lay in the hallway between us. 

Sophie has been obsessed with the birds lately. She wants to get outside and chase them so badly. It was pouring rain on Monday afternoon and here she is watching the birds. 

She also had the chance to FaceTime with her cousin Attie.

More green popping up in the garden! Woohoo!

My friend Rachel introduced me to a new app the other day which was really fun! It's called HouseParty and we were able to chat with 5 of us on there and play trivia games and Pictionary. It was a ton of fun and nice to be able to hang out with friends virtually during this time!

What have you been doing to stay busy during this time? I am still working full time remotely so I am able to stay in the house but that does eat up about 40 hours of my week. Besides that I've been watching Netflix, cleaning, and hanging with my fam! 

Share any creative things you are doing with me, I'd love to hear them!