A Boy and his Dog

Ephram really loves Boone.

He begs to play with Boone all day.

And Boone loves Ephram too.

You'll notice that Boone is wearing a muzzle in these pictures.

He has a condition that results in him licking his legs to the point of bleeding.

The muzzle prevents him from being able to do that,

But still has holes that allow him to get water throughout the day.

True Story: Halloween Kovar Kids

You probably haven't noticed this, but I love to take pictures of my kids for holidays.
Okay, so it's obvious.

But taking pictures of an autistic child, a toddler and a baby -  all in the same place, at the same time, not melting down, not hungry, not tired and actually willing to smile - is challenging.  Very challenging.  So challenging at the stages they were all in this October that I was 100% positive that it would not work out on the day of Halloween.  Surely on Halloween, we could anticipate meltdowns from all three due to anticipation, over-sugaring and overstimulation.

(Yes, my prediction was correct as evidenced on the 31st.)

I am so glad that I can take decent pictures of them, because if I had to rely on studios, we would not have many pictures with them all together in the frame.  You will notice in posts-to-follow that we failed to obtain a single picture of all three costumes together.  Not even a bad picture.  They would not get together in the same frame with those costumes on.  Period.

This year, I decided we had a two week window to get Halloween pictures done.  For two weeks I kept the boys' Halloween shirts and Macie's Halloween dress and headband downstairs on the counter.  There they sat, ready to grab and throw on the kids when the miraculous alignment of picture-perfect happiness would occur.  I straightened my bed every morning, and cleared off the neighboring night stands, so that my scene would be set.  (Really, these are things I should do every morning... but I don't.)

The first week gave me nothing.  I thought about putting the outfits away.  One morning I came downstairs without making the bed, and didn't go back up and do it when Macie took her first nap either.  In fact, I thought about crawling back in bed instead.  Did I mention the autistic child, the toddler and the baby?  Some of my days are so challenging that it takes me a couple to recover.

And then it finally happened.  Charlie had a great day at school and did his homework quickly.  Ephram actually took a nap that morning so he was not experiencing his afternoon cranks.  And Macie woke up from her nap just as their snack was starting.  So I nursed her during their snack and then grabbed the outfits and put them on.  Even the discovery of Ephram's dirty diaper did not stop us.  I had to bribe Charlie with a dollar.  (Usually it is Ephram that takes the bribing, but he ran away before I'd even got his pants on and went to my room where he started self-posing this time.)  They gave me 23 full minutes of photo-taking bliss - yes this is my bliss.  Then Macie let me know that we were done.  Five minutes later she was peacefully sleeping in her swing.  Success.

And that is the true story of how I got these precious pictures.  So, next time you look at pictures of my kids and think, "Wow, they look so happy.  They're always smiling."  Just know that I may have worked hard to make that happen.  I may have waited them out.  It may (probably) be set-up.

Just being real.  Because blogs are so often un-real perfect presentations of our imperfect lives.

Here are my littles, ready for Halloween, six days early.
(And Boone, too.)

The Big Storm

This January we had the biggest snowstorm I have seen in the 13 years we've been in the Puget Sound area.  It started the day before my birthday and lasted for about a week.

We always measure snowfall on our patio table to see how much has accumulated.  On Day 2 we stuck this ruler in so that we could measure it.

By Day 4 we could not find the ruler anymore.

And it kept piling up from there.  This was the last picture that I took of it.  We're guessing there was somewhere around 18 inches on the ground at that point.

Another good indicator of the accumulation?  Boone.  Boone loves snow.  He typically begs to go outside and eat it all anytime he senses it is near.  Around Day 4-5, he started only going out because he needed to.  I don't think that he liked the feel of it on his stomach, and he was having more difficulty working through it.

It was very fun to watch him rebuild his paths day after day.

Day 1 - not too much snow, just the way he likes it.

Yeah... that's too much snow.

Our area is really not equipped to handle storms like this.  The main streets are plowed, but they don't plow into the neighborhoods.  When you have several inches of snow on the ground and a front wheel drive minivan, this means that you are stuck in your house.  From our house we watched several people try and fail to navigate our cul-de-sac, so we remained inside.  We also happened to have colds that week, so we probably should have been inside anyway.  We did venture out by foot a few times, and it was beautiful.  I love snow when I don't have to drive in it.

We were lucky and did not experience any power outages.  Many people in the area were without power for days.

Front yard view.

Street view.

The branches of this tree are usually nowhere close to the ground.

View of our house from the mailbox.

On Friday it finally warmed enough that it started to rain.  It took 5 days to rain that snow away.  Here is what the patio looked like after a day and a half of rain.

Saturday marked a full week of us being inside the house, and I was ready to be out.  Andy went and shoveled for an hour so that we could all go find something to do away from home.  We ended up at Red Robin.  It was the best Red Robin food I've ever had.

This was an interesting storm.  I am okay with it being a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Yard Work?

We are lucky to have a stand of trees behind our house.  They aren't actually on our property, they're controlled by our HOA, but we get the benefit of looking at them all year long.  We also get to watch all their pretty leaves turn colors, and then... fall.  Along with them, we have a few leaf-dropping trees in our yard.  So every year we watch the leaves turn color.  Every year we watch them fall.  They start to drop slowly at first, and then they come off in large groups and make what Charlie calls "leaf tornados".  After a couple weeks of rapid dropping, they slow down again.  And then we get to rake a lot of leaves.

Get to?  Yep... look at how much fun Andy, Charlie and Boone had doing leaf clean-up this year!

Boone at Three

Boone turned three on May 28th.  It is a little hard for me to believe that we met our cute little puppy three years ago!  But, when I think about the journey we've taken from hyper puppy to evermore calm dog, I realize that a lot of time must have passed.  We decided to throw Boone a proper birthday party for his third birthday.

We started the day before by making a cake.  Charlie was in charge of combining the ingredients.  He did a great job!

We also thought that Boone should get a birthday sign on the wall.  Charlie set to work and came up with this creation:

 Then Charlie and I went to work on decorating Boone's cake.

It took a lot of explaining afterwards so that Charlie would stop bugging me to eat that cake right away!  Finally he said, "But Mom, Boone can't eat the cake because he's allergic to chocolate.  So can I have a piece now?"

My answer?  "Aha!  But this cake is for the human members of our family.  We're going to make a special cake for Boone."  I was met with a perplexed look.  You may be perplexed as well.  What is this special cake?

Three doggie treats decorated with frosting to resemble birthday candles on a paper plate.  Tasty enough for Boone.

With that, we were ready for the festivities to begin.  We sang Happy Birthday to our favorite canine and then let him loose at his cake.  He loved it.  In fact, he ate the entire plate.  Oops.  But he was happy and that's all that mattered.  The human cake was very good too, so we had to congratulate Charlie on his excellent cake baking skills.

Then it was time for presents.  Boone got a box of treats and a new rope toy.  He loves rope toys and immediately started playing with it.

All in all, it was a fun birthday party for Boone.  Can't wait to see what his fourth year brings!

Our Great Backyard

When we found this house, one of the biggest attractions for us was the backyard.  Most of the houses that we looked at didn't have a very large yard... our house actually has a nice one.  Unfortunately, we have not used it as much as I had hoped.  Now that the weather is improving, (sporadically,) we're trying to be better about using our own backyard.

A couple of weeks ago we all spent a couple of hours out there and I brought my camera.

Andy has a renewed passion for his bike.  He has been riding it in our backyard and practicing for the trails that he hopes to find soon.

Charlie started riding his bike that day too, but was quickly distracted by his favorite backyard activity - digging.  We let him dig whatever and however he wants in this patch of dirt between the basketball court and our big tree.  This day he was also making flags and forts out of sticks.

Boone loves to come out with us and run around.  He and Charlie like to play with the before mentioned sticks.  Boone is really excited for the day that Charlie learns how to pitch them further than 10 feet.  :)

And Ephram, since it is sunny and he is still too young for sunscreen, enjoys watching it all from the shade of his stroller.

Backyard Play in September

Banana bread ... Or really, bananas in any form ... Were a huge pregnancy craving of mine. So, one day I mixed up the second batch of banana bread of the week, threw it in the oven and went to go join Charlie in his play outside. This time I actually remembered the camera. Charlie was pretty cute all summer with the things that he was interested in and learning... And I got a few of them captured this day. At least, if I missed almost everything else this summer, I will remember what these pictures showed me. Still can't post them online, but progress is actually happening toward that end!

1) Gathering and gift giving. Everywhere we went, Charlie was big into picking flowers for people... Usually for me. (Yes, even dandelion weeds.) We had to learn about not picking things from people’s yards. He was always after everyone’s pretty gardens... But he got it after about a month of reminders. When we had his tricycle, he would gather up flowers, grass stems, sticks, rocks... And anything else he thought was interesting and place them in the “trunk”. Then when we got home he would give them to any “lucky” bystander in the cul-de-sac. Most of these bystanders were children between the ages of 9 and 12... For the most part, I think they thought he was funny. Incidentally, they are all also his “best friends”. When asked how many best friends he has, Charlie will quote any number between 10 and 45 depending upon his mood.

2) Balancing and jumping. Largely due to the gymnastics we did for about six months, Charlie was big into practicing his balancing and jumping all summer. We have a small series of stepping stones in our neglected garden patch that are in a v-shape. I can’t tell you how many times I watched Charlie jump from stone to stone this summer. Always with a squeal of, “Hooray for me! I did it!” and a bow at the end. (This was usually followed by “thank you, thank you very much.”)

3) Becoming best friends with Boone. This summer I really saw Charlie grow in his relationship with all of our pets – but mostly with Boone. He loves that he can tell Boone to do something, and Boone will listen (about 75% of the time.) His favorite thing to do, still, is run around the bottom of our house with Boone chasing behind. They can do this for about thirty minutes. Charlie does stop every now and then to “gas up” on either water or orange juice. He also got really good at playing fetch with Boone outside. This day, he had found a stick that he thought was cool and was going to put it in his shirt pocket... There was no conceivable way it would fit. When he saw Boone impatiently sitting and wagging his tail so fast that it looked like Boone was going to take off, he realized that Boone wanted the stick. So Charlie told him to settle and then let Boone have it. It was really cute.

4) Lots of hugs and kisses. Charlie has always been affectionate, but I would say he is even more so now. I can always count on him for a hug and a kiss – even at inopportune moments. (The baby also is a frequent recipient of these hugs and kisses!) The picture I took of both of us really isn’t that great, but it still shows me the moment.

Just after taking the pictures of Boone and Charlie, I stepped inside to check on my bread. I found a significantly raging fire in the bottom of my oven. I threw baking soda on it to put it out, and then immediately opened up all of the windows and doors to try to get the smoke out of the house. (I also panicked for about a day about whether it was alright to inhale smoke when you are pregnant.) This put an end to my banana bread craving. I have yet to make another batch.

I went outside and continued to play with Charlie. We ate dinner outside as well, and stayed out until the mosquitoes joined us. All in all, it was a really good afternoon. I just wish I could take away the fire part. :)

Boone at Two

This past May, our puppy turned two years old. Yes, I do still call him a puppy... and that is my plan for at least another year! Boone still has abundant amounts of energy, and thankfully he has calmed down a lot.

Our next door neighbor participates in 4H, and is using Boone as his dog to train this year. So, hopefully that will be another step toward Boone learning some manners in different social situations. :)

Here are some pictures from this past summer!