Henry Ruff, Benton's little brother

Question:  What do you do when your five-year-old son develops an inferiority complex because he has too many sisters and girl dogs and female friends?
Answer: You adopt a boy dog from the humane society.
Meet Henry Ruff.  David's father's day present (to himself, not my doing.  At all.) and Benton's adopted brother.

P.S: He really is a sweet, cute, lovable dog. 

Summer is Ruff

One of my students sent this picture to me last week and it was the perfect way to describe the week. 
I started having chest pains the first day of summer, and they got so bad (and I got so paranoid) over the weekend when David was at a golf tournament that I decided to go to the emergency room.  Luckily, a wise doctor at church convinced me to just wait and see my doctor that week.  My doctor determined that my heart is fine so I had some kind of inflammation.  Two weeks later, I still have some pain, but nothing like I had before.  All my bunco friends convinced me it was stress.  I have no idea what could be causing my stress (see two posts ago re: Kate). 
In the midst of the chest pains, we had a day where our garage was overtaken by lizards.  Lizards are ugly and fast, so even though they are not harmful, try convincing the kids that they are no big deal.  They were all over the door frame and steps into the house.  So each time I loaded up the kids to go or unloaded them when we returned (which was multiple times a day with cheer camp, swimming lessons, and gym for me), I had to carry three screaming children who were holding me with a death grip.  L and B are over the lizard-phobia;  Kate still freaks out every time we open the back door. 

And finally, to end my first-world problems, Benton decided he did not like swimming lessons on the third day of class.  His solution was to hide under his bed when it was time to go, which resulted in me running through (and around) the house screaming his name because I assumed my child had runaway.  I finally found him when I heard whimpers from his room.  Pitiful.

Since then, we have gone swimming several times (three days in a row last week) and Benton was fine each day.  He was a fish. 

Guess last week was just destined to be ruff.

Stomp...and scream...for the Jaguar team!

We heard those words over and over and over last week because Lindsey went to the cheer camp at my school.  Lindsey desperately wants to be a cheerleader when she is older, but there is nothing in me that wants to be a cheer mom.  She had tennis lessons from 8-9 and cheer camp from 9-12, and she would talk about cheer the rest of the day. 

Lindsey with the cheer captain, who is one of my precious students.  Lindsey thought it was so cool that Anna Morgan called her Little Ruff!

Lindsey and Lily with a photo bomb by Kate.  At the pep rally on Friday, when Lindsey's group got on the floor to perform, Kate ran out of the bleachers and sprinted to the floor.  She wasn't necessarily heading straight for Lindsey; I think she just wanted to dance.

Now this was fun for the girls

I told them to lift Lindsey higher.  If Lindsey was not already in their arms, she would have refused to go this high.  But look how proud she is!