I won’t torment you like I did the peeps on Facebook last week – our adoption was of the four-legged and furry kind.

I filled out one sheet of paper, wrote one check and he was ours. WAY easier than our last adoption 🙂

Meet Buddy, our 8 month old Goldendoodle.

Remember how last summer we dogsat for some friends who had a Goldendoodle & a Labradoodle? We all totally fell in love with the dogs and I decided the breed was much preferable to the stubborn, trash-eating basset hound (trust me, we have plenty of stories).

I said that IF we ever got another dog it would definitely be a golden doodle. Preferably adopted post potty-training 🙂 But I waffled and wavered. Did I need another “person” to take care of. Could we afford the expense (that fear was well-founded based on past vet bills with trash-eating basset hound)?

So I’ve gone back and forth over the last year and a half but I’ve been keeping my eye on a few Doodle rescue sites. The problem is that Doodles are not very common in Arizona. Plenty of them in Colorado – thought I might have to make a drive. But if they are found and posted on the rescue boards they disappear really quickly.

So last Wednesday I hit the board to see and there he was, cute little face staring back at me.

We debated if we should wait for the kids, but in the end Mark and I hopped in the car and drove to the shelter. Poor Buddy was not feeling very sociable as he’d had the old “snip-snip” just 3 days before. He had the big Cone of Shame around his head. But he seemed so sweet and calm and…I’m a sucker for a cute doodle.

The kids had literally NO idea any of this was happening. I had kept putting them off when they begged for a dog. Seeing their reaction when we got them from school was pretty awesome. At first they just stared at him like “Why do you have a dog?”

The girls are still saying “Mom, it feels like I’m dreaming.” I think I pretty much have hero status for at least a month 🙂

Buddy is proving to be a very sweet dog. He’s still pretty calm considering his age, but he’s perking up a bit more each day. I think part of it is recovering from the surgery, the other part is warming up to us.

Even though he was a stray it’s apparent that he’s had some training as he seems to be fairly well house trained. We did have one accident in the house today but that’s way better than I feared.

Last night he was out on the back patio pouncing on crickets. If we can teach him to catch them Mark will be thrilled 🙂

I love reviewing books, I just always feel bad about how long they sit on my shelf before I get to reading them 🙂

A couple months ago I received a copy of “In On It: What Adoptive Parents Would Like You to Know About Adoption” from author Elisabeth O’Toole.

As an adoptive parent you sometimes feel like your speaking a foreign language to your friends and family and you notice that their eyes start to glaze over. Often during our process I thought, “I wish there was a quick resource I could point them to.”

Well, now there is. “In On It” is the perfect book to give to your parents, close friends and other relatives. It will answer many of their basic adoption questions like about paperwork and the adoption process. But it also covers topics like the child’s right to privacy (about their story), positive adoption language and ways to support the adoptive family during and after the adoption.

The book is a quick read and full of practical advice.

I was looking through my digital photos today and got totally caught up in looking at pics from when Noah and Natalie were young. This set cracked me up.

We had just finished decorating the Christmas tree and I was trying to create some sweet picture of my children gazing into the lights of the tree.

Instead I got a Spy Kids re-enactment.

What I LOVE is the way Natalie is copying Noah. She used to call him “bubby” and want to do everything he did. She was a pretty awesome sidekick!