Our New Addition

The other day I was singing Justin Bieber's "I Just Need Somebody to Love" (hey, don't hate on the Biebs) and I realized it was true: I do just need somebody to love. This epiphany lead me to the conclusion that we needed a dog. That very day, I saw on Facebook that a family from church was needing to find a home for their dog. I of course interpreted this to be a sign that this dog was meant to be mine. Now to convince Nate. As I'm sure you can guess, I'm the spontaneous one and he's the responsible one in the relationship so the key was tricking I mean enlightening Nate so he would know that getting a dog was the responsible thing to do. After all, happy wife equals happy life. :) After plenty of research, he reached the same conclusion and agreed to a "trial run" with the dog. Little Ollie quickly won us both over making it impossible to say no to keeping him. And so I'm pleased to announce that we've officially adopted the cutest schnoodle you ever did see!

For all you Harry Potter geeks out there, his full name is Ollivander! I wanted Hufflepuff but Nate said that was embarrassing.

 He is a year and a half so he's still young and playful. He has a lot of energy but also likes to sit and snuggle. We haven't had Ollie very long, but we're already finding many hidden benefits to having a dog:

1. Having an indoor pet encourages me to keep the house cleaner because a) I don't want to leave things lying around that Ollie will chew on and get into and b) I refuse to have a house that smells like dog. I will be busting out the vacuum and the mop much more frequently.

2. Dogs like to be walked much more than husbands do! I love going on walks but Nate never saw the point of it. Now, I take Ollie for walks every day and he loves it. Nate even willingly joins us some days because there is a point to walking a dog.  

3. I am actually on time to work. Normally I hit the snooze at least three times, but I wake up on my first alarm now because I feel bad that Ollie is waiting to be let outside. I let him out and play with him for few minutes and still have more than enough time to get ready for work. Amazing how waking up 15 minutes earlier makes a difference.

We've also discovered that Ollie was on his best behavior for his 3 day trial period and his "true colors" are shining now. Today,  Nate called me during his lunch desperately looking for the breadsticks we'd had the night before. Turns out while we were away, Ollie ate the nearly half a pan of leftover breadsticks and a bowl of marinara sauce! No wonder he had no interest in his bowl of food last night or this morning. I suppose I should be mad, but really I just thought it was funny especially since Nate was frantically searching the kitchen for them. Who knows what other surprises Ollie has in store for us.

When in Rome

Now that we've been in Arkansas for over a year and half, Nate decided it was time to make a drastic move to better fit in with the culture. He realized that he wasn't nearly redneck enough to consider himself an Arkansan. So........

He decided he needed to get rid of his front tooth! For those of you who know my husband well, you know he knocked his two front teeth out as a kid and has had fake ones every since. Over Thanksgiving, in a not very friendly match at the church turkey bowl, he chipped his fake tooth. He finally went in to get it fixed a few weeks ago. The dentist outfitted him with a temporary tooth as the lab creates a new one for him. The only problem, or not problem if you live in Arkansas, is the temporary tooth doesn't fit properly and keeps falling out. Bryson, Alyssa, and Derek were over for Sunday dinner the other day and Nate's tooth fell right out into his bowl of soup! He didn't notice at first and nearly slurped it up! Once he fished it out of the bowl, he casually put it back in without anyone noticing. Shortly thereafter, while eating his cheesy sandwich the tooth fell out again and he completely crunched it! He had to get a new temporary the next day. Being toothless has come in handy at times. Last night Nate had taken his tooth out to eat dinner (he learned his lesson after the soup incident) when the doorbell rang. Nate answered it forgetting he didn't have his tooth in. He scared that darn salesman right off! My favorite tooth incident happened one night while sitting on the couch. Nate had a giant sneeze that propelled the tooth out of his mouth and across the room where it bounced off the wall! I think Nate is more than ready to get his new permanent tooth, but I'm certainly enjoying all the funny moments in the meantime.