Q: 3 y, 11.5 m; A: 15.5 months

Anytime Ash is laying with me, Quinn will come over and say, “Uh oh, now there’s two lovey boys on you. What are you gonna do now?” 

I’m not sure how it happened, but my biggest baby turned four last week 🥺🥺. Well, my biggest human baby. Sophie is definitely the biggest baby in this household 🐶 . I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like time passes too quickly. He wanted a werewolf themed birthday party, so that’s what he got. 

Birthday boy!  

I spent weeks making all of his decorations. That’s my favorite part of planning their parties 😊. 

I sewed felt onto gloves to make claws. I printed out werewolf masks and attached elastic. 

I drew the werewolf for the Pin the Tail on the Werewolf game. 

I also made a paw print piñata. Quinn talked for a week about how he wanted to beat the crap out of it 🤦🏻‍♀️. After all of the kids had a turn (he went first), he got to do just that. 

My friend, Chris, helped Ash take a turn 😃. 

We bought a fake poop to put in the piñata and Scarlett picked it up and threw it back down 😂😂😂. 

I bought the cupcakes from Walmart, but I made the howling werewolf picks for them. 

Quinn wanted to go with me to pick up the cupcakes, and when we did, he decided he wanted cheesecake instead of a cupcake 🤦🏻‍♀️. High temps and a cooler for refrigeration didn’t make for the prettiest piece of cheesecake 😬. Plain cheesecake is his favorite though, so he was happy with it, even though he decided he didn’t want it right then. 

Ash mostly ran around, living his best life 😄. 

Quinn got the biggest card ever from Nanna and Juju. He was so excited!

I asked for no gifts because we are drowning in toys. We got him a few things I knew he would really like. He still got some gifts from others, of course, but it wasn’t the usual toy overload. Many people gave him money, so I took him to Walmart and let him pick out some things he wanted. He got 2 packs of water balloons, a military play set (he already has a fire station and a dinosaur one. He plays with them pretty often so I was happy with that choice), and a Ryan’s World treasure chest. 

His pre-birthday interview. Cracked me up 😆. 

If you read my last post, you know we’ve been riding the struggle bus over here. Things have gotten marginally better, but the days are still long. Philip and I agree, it’s like Quinn woke up one day and decided he was going to retest every limit he has ever learned, just to see how much he can get away with. Sometimes it’s hard to hold the boundaries when it feels like we’ve done nothing but correct him all day. Sometimes I start to question whether my expectations of him are too high. However, I feel pretty strongly that there are many times throughout these early years when a bar gets set, and if you don’t uphold it when the initial test happens, it’s even harder going forward. I think Quinn is starting to connect the consequences to the offenses, but sometimes he lacks the impulse control. I could even forgive some of that, if it wasn’t for things he has known not to do for 2 years now—messing with Sophie, jumping on the couch, etc. Our biggest struggle is probably over his interactions with Asher. They want to play together, but Quinn always ends up being too rough and hurting Ash. Classic older brother behavior 🙄. 

Here’s an example:

Me: *goes into the bathroom and then comes back out*

Quinn: *Immediately moves away from Ash*

Quinn: “Are you coming back out here?”

M: “Why?” 🤨

Quinn: “I don’t know.”

M: “I’m getting in the shower. If Asher cries while I’m in there, you’re going to be in trouble.”

Quinn: “Like, if he squawks?”

M: “If he cries in any way because of something you did, you’re going to be in trouble.”

Quinn: “Like, if he squawks like this?” *Annoying shriek*

M: “Just DO NOT wrestle with him while I’m in the shower.” 

Quinn: “Why?”

M: “Because if he gets hurt, I can’t come out and check on him easily.”

Quinn: “I’ll check on him.”

M: “No.”

Quinn: “But I want to wrestle him.”

M: “Listen to me.  DO NOT wrestle with him. If he gets hurt, you’re going to be in trouble. If I hear him cry, you’re going to be in trouble. Understand?”

Quinn: “Yeah but he might just squawk on his own.”

M: 🙄

****** 7 minutes later ********

Asher: *cries*

Quinn: *comes in bathroom mumbling about how he doesn’t want to be in trouble*

M: “What did you do?”

Quinn: “I ax-squid-dentally (accidentally) put the blanket over Asher’s head.”

M: 🤯

The sassiness has seemed to calm down, yet he still gets his quips in occasionally. He was on a roll for several days, telling me he didn’t have to do what I said. Obviously, that didn’t go over well for him. He never pulls that shit with his dad 🙄. So annoying. Both boys very much take the saying, “Save the drama for your mama,” quite literally. 

Quinn tattles on Ash, mostly, every five seconds, and I can’t wait until he picks up my response, as I fully expect it to happen. It’s most obnoxious when they’re riding in the stroller, side by side, because Asher lovesssss touching Quinn’s face. I get it, it’s completely annoying and his complaints are valid. However, the only option he has is to get out and walk. We can’t make Ash walk, and I can’t carry him (well, I could, in my carrier, but I don’t want to. It’s hot as hell. I’ll pass), yet he refuses. Therefore, when he tattles on Ash, I ask him, “Are you bleeding?” When he says no, I tell him I don’t want to know unless someone is. I’m just waiting for him to pick that up 😜. 

Aside from not following rules, the whining is easily

my pick for least favorite of Quinn’s behaviors. I’m working on being more tolerant, but damn is it triggering for me 😩. It is exhausting spending the entire day with someone fully committed to making everything hard and being negative. I know he doesn’t consciously do it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. 

While I’ve never heard a cutesy moniker given to four year olds like the former ages have—Terrible Twos, Threenager— I can already report that four is when the know-it-all and “I hate” phases begin. He knows he’s not allowed to say he hates people, but he takes every opportunity to tell me he hates any other thing that doesn’t go his way. If he can’t get his shoes on, he hates them. If the costume he wants to wear is inside out because of the way he took it off the last time he wore it, he hates it. If he can’t get a Blippi toy inside of his helicopter toy, he hates it. 🙄🙄🙄. I’m very sympathetic, obviously. /s

I won’t argue with most of his know-it-all-isms, but they still get on my nerves. After I took him shopping with his birthday money, we stopped at the bank to deposit the rest of his money. He was upset because he said he wouldn’t have it anymore. I explained that the bank just keeps it safe for us, but we can get it back anytime we want. However, he, as someone who has no frame of reference for how money works, informed me “that’s not how money works.” 🙄🙄. I swear my eyes are gonna just permanently roll toward the back of my head before this phase passes. Which, by the way, when will that be? I know teenagers are famous for this way of thinking, but I also know some adults who never outgrew it. Should I just hold out hope for 25, when the prefrontal cortex fully forms?? 

Quinn getting older has had its perks; like I can sometimes take a short nap with Ash while Quinn watches tv. Ash is a terrible sleeper, which makes me one, in turn, so I’m always down for a nap. Naps are hit and miss with Quinn. If he’s especially cranky during the day, I tell him he has to lay down and try to sleep, and he usually does. Some days he says he isn’t tired, and if I believe him, I’ll let him stay up. Ash has dropped his morning nap, for the most part, and usually only takes one in the afternoon for a couple of hours. That makes life easier because scheduling anything around two naps is difficult. 

Another perk—manual labor 😜. Ash even got in on the leaf blowing fun 😉

I can officially say Quinn is fully potty trained—pee and poop. He met that milestone just before his fourth birthday, so I was satisfied with that. After his market poop-tastrophy, we had a few more purposeful incidents that made it clear we were going to have to impose more undesirable consequences for those actions. If he truly couldn’t hold it, I would never punish him for having an accident. The market mess was questionable, and maybe even the next one, which happened while I was nursing Ash, and he said he didn’t want to wake Ash up to come and tell me he needed to poop. However, the third time happened while I was literally in the bathroom. We had just given Sophie a bath, so he had been in the bathroom, too. The door was open, I was cleaning up the tub, so there was nothing stopping him from getting to me. He chose to go into the living room and poop in his underwear, and then hide in a corner. When I discovered what he had done, I made him wash his underwear in the sink, and then take a shower by himself (which he hates). He was not at all happy about any of that. We had a long talk afterwards about how it could be so easy if he pooped in the potty—I would wipe him and he would be done. No risk of him touching poop, no underwear cleaning, no shower. He agreed that sounded much better and it’s been smooth sailing ever since 🤷🏻‍♀️. 

I gotta say, when consequences actually work, it might be one of the best parenting feelings ever 😂. When it comes right down to it, I can’t control that situation. I can’t physically make him poop on the toilet, and I can’t physically stop him from pooping in his pants. The only hope I had was motivating him to make the right choice via the desire to avoid the consequences of making the wrong one. 

There have been some amusing moments during potty training. He likes picking his underwear each morning (he wears a pull-up to bed, just in case, but he usually wakes up dry) using the “rock, paper, scissors, shoot, that one” method 😂. The other day he yelled for me from the bathroom after he pooped. He was excited to tell me, “Mom! I got out a big ole piece of poop! Does that mean I get a big ole candy?!” 🤦🏻‍♀️😂. I told him the size of his poop doesn’t determine the amount of potty candy he’s allowed to have. Really, at this point, we don’t even need to use potty candy as a motivator anyway. He doesn’t get any for peeing anymore, just for pooping. 

He can’t be trusted to bring anyone else sweets. He is honestly very good about sharing food, a trait he didn’t inherit from me 😅. When we were playing outside, he said he needed to go in to change his shoes, so I asked him to bring me a chocolate covered pretzel that I had made earlier that day. He came back with half of it missing, saying, “I took a little bite because I love them too.” He was going back inside again a few minutes later, so I asked him to bring me another one. He said, “For me?” I said, “No, for me. If you want one, get one for you, too.” 🤦🏻‍♀️

He came up to me the other day and said in a sing-song voice, “Mom, I’m gonna bite your toenail!” I said, “No, you absolutely are not.” 

Absolutely is a word Quinn has started using. When he hears it, it is almost exclusively followed by the word, “Not,” pertaining to something he is doing and shouldn’t. He used another big word recently, too. We were talking a walk around the neighborhood and he saw an old, rusty truck. He said, “Mom, look at that rotten truck. I don’t know what conclusion to come to” 😂. I was super amused by his description of the truck. 

He says, “Too bad,” and “Too late,” correctly and pisses me off 😂. I’ll say something like, “Don’t make a mess with those toys,” and he’ll respond, “Well, it’s too late.” 

I’m not sure where he heard someone say, “Or what?,” at the end of a sentence, but now he likes to say it when it doesn’t really apply. I was trimming my weeping cherry tree one day and Quinn came over to me and said, “Mom, are you cutting down that tree or what?” 😆

He caught me trying to get rid of his artwork. He walked up to me with a paper in his hand and said, “Mom, is this right? I found this where the recycling goes?” 😬😬

Funny he noticed that, but ask him to find his toy that’s right in front of his face and he’ll fail 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄. 

Quinn’s imagination is always running wild. Several times he has come up to me with a serious face and said, “Mom, I got bit by a werewolf and the doctors had to cut off my hand. Wanna see now what I have? It might be sad.” Then he reveals the hand he’s been holding behind his back and it’s holding the hook prop I made for him. He’s good at being dramatic. 

In fact, if anyone is in need of compliments, and likes to gamble, now is the time to cook for him. There’s a 50/50 chance he’ll either say, “That’s the best food I’ve ever eaten in my entire life!,” and describe it as “delicious,” or he’ll tell you it’s “disgusting,” and say he’s not going to eat it 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️😂. I think it’s pretty funny when he says things are disgusting, just because of the way he pronounces the word. I don’t take it personally if it’s something I made him. The kid bites his toenails, his taste buds are obviously tainted. 

Quinn isn’t the only one learning new words. While his are smaller, Ash is like a sponge, picking up new ones every day, it seems. We are suddenly aware of how often everyone else in our household says “Ohhhh,” in a ‘gotcha’ kind of way because Ash mimics us every time we do, and then we laugh. Another funny one is every time we eat chicken, I’ll ask him if he wants it by name and he’ll say, “Bawk bawk.” That seems kind of wrong 😂. He knows about 12 animal names and/or sounds. He knows body parts that I didn’t even know he knew. I’ll randomly ask him to find one and sometimes he surprises me when he does. He’s very good at finding his head, hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, arm, fingers, foot, and toes, but his favorite to show off is his belly 😆. He often does it whether you ask or not. 

I was getting Quinn some potty candy out of the cabinet one day when Ash started yelling, “Neeee! Neeee!,” over and over again. I didn’t know what he meant at first and offered him lots of incorrect items that only made him mad. It finally dawned on me that he was saying, “Candy.” He wanted a piece, too 🤦🏻‍♀️. You should’ve seen his face when I said the right word. He was so excited that I understood what he was saying, and even more so when he got a piece 😆. We’ve created a monster 🫣. 

He’s even starting to pick up some two word phrases, such as, “Good job,” “Thank you,” and my favorite, “Dang it!,” which includes a fist movement 😂. We call that his “dang it hand.”

He understands the concept of temperature. He comes in our bedroom and stands on the vent while the AC is on and says, “Cold!” 😄

Ash is not lacking in communicating his wants and needs. He shakes his head for both yes and no, but he gets them wrong. He even dictates what he wants on tv sometimes 🤦🏻‍♀️. His favorite show is Steve and Maggie and he loves the Halloween episodes because they have a lot of singing. If you turn on that show’s channel and ask him which one he wants, he’ll do his arms like a skeleton when he sees one on a preview clip 😂. We’ve seriously created a monster. 

Mid-move doing the skeleton 😅. 

He even tells me he wants to switch sides when he’s nursing 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄. He only nurses before nap and bedtime, so we’re always laying in bed. He will sit up and point to the other side to tell me he wants to switch. Have I mentioned how I want to quit breastfeeding? 😜

He is the orneriest child I’ve ever seen before in my life. It cracks me up how often other people look at him and say how rotten he looks. He just embodies it. I put him in the bath the other day without thinking to first get a diaper for when he got out. So, I dried him off and put on his lotion, opened the door, and while I was hanging up his towel, he took off into the living room completely naked. Of course, that got Quinn activated and he started chasing him. Right when Quinn snatched him by the shoulders, Ash peed all over the floor in excitement 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️. I’m just thankful it was on the hardwood and not the rug. 

Just one example of his orneriness. He ran from me to splash in this mud puddle…..and then sat down in it 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️. 

Where he stores his pretzel sticks during our walks 😅

Putting brothers underwear on his head while I was folding the laundry. I swear, that kid can get anything on his head 🤦🏻‍♀️. 

Even Fiesta bowls 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️. 

He even does at other people’s houses. He tried on Farmer John’s safety helmet. 

Sometimes he doubles up..

Normally, I love watching him run around. Baby running is the cutest. Chase is Ash’s favorite game ever, but it has landed him in his first, second, and third timeouts. He’s at the age where corrections need to happen. He ran out into the road, laughing the whole way because he wanted to be chased. We take safety very seriously having a road in front of our house, and a train track in the back. It’s very important to teach boundaries early on. Ash did not like time out at all. Quinn was laughing at first that Ash had to go, but as soon as Ash started crying, Quinn was in the hallway trying to comfort him, telling him, “It’s okay, Ash.” I had to shut the door to keep him out of our business 😂. 

Quinn is a good supportive brother sometimes. It’s cute when he notices and is proud of things Ash does. Ash covered his mouth when he coughed one day, no doubt from having watched Quinn do it. Quinn excitedly told me what Ash had done 😊. 

After seeing the puppies at the animal shelter, for a brief moment, we were considering adopting one. I still miss Sansa all of the time. Philip was adamantly set on getting a monstrous sized dog, something he has always wanted, but I never have. While we agreed on the last two, they were my pick of breeds. I would rather only have one dog than get a gigantic slobber box that creates even more of a hairy mess than we already have. However, after some discussion, he agreed we could get another Lab if I agree he can get a stupid snake 🙄🤮. We’ve had two before and I’m not a fan. I really want another Lab though. Some day. I’ve since come to the realization that Ash is still in his puppy phase and I can’t take another one 🫣😂. He gets in the trash, steals shoes, licks my leg (weirdo), chews on everything, scratches me with dagger-like nails, and will take food out of your hand (or knock it out if he doesn’t want what you have while holding him, even if it isn’t for him 🙄). If you’ve ever had a puppy before, you know the similarities are uncanny 🤷🏻‍♀️. I see no reason to intentionally complicate my life anymore than it already is right now. 

I went shopping by myself this past weekend. I prefer to shop alone—I don’t have anyone rushing me or asking me questions. I can spend as much time as I want looking at whatever I want,  and I can leave whenever I want. It’s truly my favorite way to do it. I decided to shop for some new clothes, because we have a beach trip coming up next month. I would really love to know who decided that women no longer want a shirt of regular length. I know, I’m just another millennial on the Internet complaining about crop tops, but I’d truly like to have a conversation with whomever made that decision so that I could tell them all about the meat bag that is my two time post C-section body. I’m not sure how I am within a 5 pound range of my pre-Quinn weight, yet none of my fat fits where it used to. Like, it definitely used to be stuffed in here more efficiently. I’m not sure how to dress this post partum body. One thing I love about the younger generation (and some of mine!) is that they don’t really seem to give a shit about how their body looks; they just wear what they want. I think that is an incredible attribute and I wish I could get on board with that attitude. Instead, I have approximately three oversized T-shirts that I wear in rotation because they’re the only ones that don’t make me feel uncomfortable with my saggy skin sack. I know someone is reading this thinking about how I don’t even look big, or heavy, or fat, or any other synonym, but unfortunately for me, I decided a long time ago to stop caring about how other people view me. While I appreciate the sentiment, it wouldn’t even be helpful to tell me because I only care about how I feel about the subject, and right now, it’s not good. It would be awesome if those feelings would motivate me to lose some weight. However, my stress response is eating, and that’s not doing me any favors. I’m just too overwhelmed with my life right now.

For that reason, I decided to talk to my PCP about increasing the dosage on my depression medicine. For me, depression doesn’t always look like the stereotypical sad faced, can’t get out of bed, doesn’t want to shower kind of person. While I could definitely take on that persona if I didn’t have children, I have no choice but to get up and go, so my depression often presents itself in the form of frustration, anger, and irritability. I’ve been having a pretty difficult time processing my emotions lately. Philip has even noticed and told me that he was concerned for my mental health. He even suggested that I should maybe consider going back to work and not being a stay at home mom anymore. While that may be a possibility, I don’t think that’s the right decision at this time. There is no other job I’d rather do, I just want this job to stop sucking so much 😂. With the medication dosage change and me trying to remember what it was that I used to love so much about being at home, I am hoping that I can make some positive changes within myself, especially, and by helping Quinn to modify behaviors so that they don’t drive me insane. 

Getting out and having a break was really good for me because I am really, really bad at asking for help. You cannot pour from an empty cup, and I have definitely felt empty for quite some time. When you get to a dangerous level of IDGAF, it’s time to step away and regroup. 

For that reason, I’ve made lots of activities for the boys recently. It’s one of the things I really enjoy doing because I get to be creative, and then watch them learn. 

I added to our felt board 😃. 

I also made a small one for our friend, Iris, because she liked playing with ours at the market. They have Highland cattle on their farm, so I made her cow to match theirs. 

Some other things I made fall into one of my favorite former post categories—Passion for Repurpose 

Noodle drop. He was so proud of himself 😊. 

Mason jar + pour spout + noodles

Bunch-O-Balloons fillers. They fit perfectly on a plastic water bottle. They added some renewed interest in the water table. 

Quinn even found a purpose outside of play—watering my dahlias! 🌸 

I trimmed them up and used the cut pieces to add even more fun to our water table. Ash worked on hand eye coordination by pushing the skinny straws into the holes on the bottom of a cup. 

Strainer type cup + BOB fillers

Ash loves taking the lids off of containers, so I thought this activity would be a big hit. While he did enjoy taking them off, those snap lids require a little more skill in lining them up to put back on than he possesses, so it made him frustrated. We’ll pull it back out in a few months and see if his skill improved. 

Cardboard + water jug tops and lids

Since he loves tearing things apart, I made Ash some Velcro matchers. 

Milk jug lids + Velcro

An in and out activity: ribbons in a jar. 

Mason jar + Parmesan cheese lid + ribbon scraps

Another: 

Danimals yogurt drink bottle + snap on water jug lid with slit cut in it + wooden buttons 

And another. This was a multi part activity. Ash started by dropping the feathers in the jar. I tickled him with it, and then he tickled Quinn 😅. We experimented with blowing the feathers up into the air, and then I told Quinn to get us some straws and we all practiced blowing the feathers across the room. 

Mason jar + Parmesan cheese lid + feathers + straws

I made a poke the sheep activity for Quinn. 

Cardboard + Q-tips + marker 

My last one was for me. We finally emptied a tequila bottle that we’ve probably had for 5 years, and it seemed like too good of a bottle to recycle, so I turned it into a terrarium. My mother in law and I traded plants a few months ago and I almost killed this ghost plant trying to get it in the bottle, but it’s coming back around now. 

Some other activities/play dates we did:

Quinn turned into a butterfly. Too bad there were no weeks of quiet time involved with this transformation, like a real one 😜😜. He let Ash take a turn with his wings, which was nice 😊. 

Quinn practiced drawing shapes using a dot to dot technique. He liked doing it so much that I made him a laminated one to do over and over again with a dry erase marker, so I wouldn’t have to keep putting dot stickers on paper. 

Ash mastered his 3 piece circle puzzle 👏🏻. 

And he finally figured out how to scoot on his trike 😃

I found these really cool ice ball molds at Dollar Tree, so I froze some small toys for Ash to play with in the water table. 

They painted on the outdoor inflatable easel that Mimi got Quinn for his birthday. I told her I’d forgive her for ignoring my request for no gifts since it was a cool one 😜. 

We like taking baths on the deck... 

And then dancing in our underwear 😅. 

We had so many balloon fillers to repurpose because we played with water balloons a million times. 

Ash did not like the result he got when he squeezed one 😂😂. 

Quinn and Savannah had fun together though 🥰. 

Ash did like the splash pad that we finally remembered we had and pulled out. I think Aunt Lulu got it for Ash’s bday. 

We visited our friends at Jennings Brae Bank Farm. Iris’s face says she doesn’t trust Ash’s driving and I definitely don’t blame her 😉. 
Quinn climbed their very cool tree (and wore shorts! Only 1 of 2 days this summer 🙄. That boy has no sense). 

We went for a ride on our friends’ golf cart to get a “fancy drink,” as Miss Megan calls them. Curby’s 2 has bubble teas, milkshakes, coffee drinks, and more. I had never had bubble tea before. It was awesome!

They only come in one size—huge lol. 

We got to see the Wileyville fire truck during story time at the library. Ash loved sitting in the driver’s seat and saying, “Vroommm.” He did not wanna get out. 

We spent the 4th of July with my family in the early afternoon. 

We had a water balloon fight with them. Kate thought she was gonna be in trouble when she accidentally got me instead of her dad 😂. 

I made a popcorn bar with lots of mix-ins, including melted milk and white chocolate. I think everyone enjoyed it. 

Milk chocolate with mini Oreos 🤤 

We had leftovers once the popcorn was gone so I dipped some pretzels. They weren’t pretty but they sure tasted good 😊. 

Later that evening, I let off a few fireworks. Ash liked watching them. Quinn wasn’t too impressed. He wanted to go inside 😅. 

Unrelated, but another yummy treat I wanted to share is sheet pan pancakes. So much easier than regular pancakes, and you can customize them!

I did them in quarters: plain, chocolate chip, strawberry jam swirl, and blueberry. They were delicious!

We got to celebrate another birthday. Luka, the boys’ bonus cousin, turned one the day after Quinn turned four. Pictured: Ash-16 months, Luka-12 months, Jax-11months. 

Sophie PUPdate 🐾 

She is scared of thunderstorms so she becomes way less choosy over who can love on her when there’s one going on 😅. Quinn took advantage that fact. 

This is her usual hiding spot when the children start getting on her nerves. 

Apparently, her standards for pillows are very low. Hard table frames and iPad cases are good enough for her chin 🤷🏻‍♀️. 

She knows when it’s almost time for Philip to get off work and sometimes goes and waits by the basement door for him to come upstairs 🥰. 

Laying on the vent after our walk, to cool down with the AC. I said this is the smartest thing she’s ever done. Earlier in the day, she couldn’t figure out how to get into the bedroom while I was napping with the boys because I had closed the door to where it met a laundry basket that was partially in the doorway 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️. She sat in the hallway and whined at me until I got up and opened the door for her to come in 🙄. 

🤦🏻‍♀️ 😛 

Soph wasn’t the only pup Ash kissed recently 🤦🏻‍♀️. Cooper, Mollie and John’s dog, was happy to greet him, as well. 

We went to visit them and meet their newest addition, Pepper. They have a third dog, Dory, who I love so much 💜. 

We saw Abe, the Great Dane, who got scared of Ash’s sound effects 😂. Ash wouldn’t stop growling at him 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️. 

I couldn’t forget about our favorite friendly feline: Kels. He’s such a good boy. Or girl. I can never remember because his mom, Kiki, calls it him and her interchangeably 🤦🏻‍♀️. 

Lastly,

Here’s an unfiltered sunset view from our deck 🌅