Funny? Perhaps...

Our Beast.  

I've stopped our growth graph (obviously-if you ever looked), but we did weigh Ziggy a few days ago and he was a whopping 75 lbs.  Wow. 

We really love him.  Joey really loves him.  Definitely like a brother though, he asks to say goodnight to Ziggy when it's convenient or will play with him when there are no better options, but mostly tells him "no" and does not want to share his toys with him.  :-) 

Mocha really loves him.  They are definitely still best friends, as strange as that is.  

Ziggy at times though is slightly exasperating.  He is like a vacuum cleaner when we walk him, even if it is after a meal.  He eats ANYTHING in his path, edible or not.  You really can't do anything else when you walk him because you have to watch the ground SO carefully.  We've seen him eat, rocks, paper, napkins, letters, sticks, grass, poop, boxes, any kind of toy, chair and table legs, towels, pillows, potted plants, not potted plants, rugs, cat food, our baby gates, and laundry. 

Today he ate a book of matches on our kitchen table, knocked Matt's coffee all over our ottoman and floor, and ate someone else's letter.  I was sorting through some mail and left a small pile of "Not at this address" on the floor and he ate one.  Silly me for thinking that I could set a non-edible piece of paper on our floor for a few minutes.  I guess "non-edible" is a matter of opinion.  

I don't actually know what the letter was or who it was for anymore.  It was too chewed.  I feel bad, but I can't think of anything I could actually do about it. 

We've upped his food but might have to do it again.  Right now he eats 3 cups of food for breakfast and 2 for dinner and we are thinking that we'll add lunch back in.  At one point we were giving him rawhides (which he can eat like popcorn) to relieve the urge to chew but he could go through like 4 or 5 a day!  Which is bad.  I know that now.  It took a day with so much gas that I almost blogged about it, before I decided that dog-farting us into oblivion was probably not a good blog.  Imagine your worst my friends....

So lots of rawhides=hard to digest=lots of gas

I have more morsels of important life information for you all... keep coming back....

So we got him some BIG BIG chewey, not- edible, not- swallowable, and not- destructible rubber chewing things to rotate.  One of them is a tire.  Seriously.  He seems to be doing well with them but more hungry now.  Maybe he was getting a meal's worth of rawhide and that's the issue.  

Either way, that's our doggie update.  I had to blog/write about it in some way.  Can you call a friend to vent about your dog?  You know when you are out with your little kids and someone looks at you and says something like "Wow, looks like you've got your hands full...." whenever someone says that, a picture of Ziggy flashes into my head.  If they only knew!  Gosh, we love him.  All of us love him.  I LOVE HIM, but BOY is he a handful!

I'm enjoying the smell of a nice candle now.  I think I'll let it burn the rest of the night because I have no more matches, since someone ate them all.  

Photo Dump: Berkeley Kite Festival

I'm so far behind in blogging. Here's a recap of our Mid-September through now:

Joey turns 2, celebrate as family

Joey has birthday party, lotsa food

Matt runs 1/2 marathon, does GREAT!!

All 4 Oakland Beardsleys visit Uncle Rob in L.A. Do not see Brangelina :-(

Come home, Matt works ALOT

Host Baby shower for good friends, Matt finishes summer/fall wedding shooting, yea!!

Matt works more, lots of school, lots of business. Keep same netflix videos for 2 months and have no time to watch them.

Matt's parents come for visit. Eat, Drink, Be Merry, Get Spoiled. :-)

Baptize Matthew at Christ Church. love him!

Matt's parents depart, Matt's sister visits....

Matt's sister leaves to visit brother in L.A.

Go Trick or Treating with friends in Concord. Joey begs, signs "more" and is generally cute and gets ridiculous amount of candy. Mom and Dad select pieces that are no good for toddlers. Interestingly we find that more pieces are appropriate for Mommies and Daddies than Joeys. Mmmm.

(and now we are at today: Matt plays guitar at church, Membership class tonight, Jessie returns to our house tomorrow and 12-week 1/2 marathon schedule starts. GYM.)

There's been more I know, but it would be hard to insert it all. Just next to every line picture: *sweep floor, grocery shop, wash laundry, sweep floor, change diapers, sweep floor, fold laundry, wash diapers, sweep floor, walk giant dog/horse* I'm not even going to act like, clean bathrooms, dust or put away laundry is on that list ;-)

So here's an old photo dump from shortly after Matthew was born. Matt really enjoys kites and kite flying so we headed out to Berkeley for the annual kite flying festival. It was full of pretty cool demos, real competitive teams and gigantic kites. It was VERY windy, which made it seem kind of cold, but all-in-all it was pretty cool!

I wish I had better pictures because there were hundreds of kites, but most of them were pretty high up and like I said, it was REALLY windy.

Dear Dr. Uncle BoBo:

What do hives look like?

love, Joey

P.S.  Hi Baba HI!!!!

Trying...

Goodness....

Matt and I just got back from a long weekend in L.A.  It was great fun visiting with Matt's brother Rob, and Joey loved seeing his uncle!  Since we've been back though, life has been slightly trying.  Last night after having a grown up shower, Joey developed a rash (legs, arms and face) because of the soap.  Mental note, child with sensitive skin cannot use normal soap.... Yesterday our basement also flooded.  No serious problems, it just brings our attention to the fact that since the "rainy season" is beginning, we are going to have to work the pumps and be aware of the problem.  (It's just a crawl space that floods, not the whole basement and certainly not areas where we have things, but it's still an issue and it stresses me out!  I mean, you aren't supposed to have water under your house!!!)

We haven't unpacked, so there is a small mountain of stuff in our entryway.  Honestly, why is it so easy to pack to go places and so terribly hard to unpack.  Likewise for unloading the dishwasher and putting away laundry.  

And we had a miscommunication with the neighbor who was watching Ziggy and Mocha that resulted in Ziggy missing out on a walk on Monday afternoon before we came home (late late late Monday night).  He ended up in his crate for over......nevermind.  It was a really really really long time.  A really long time.  Which for us....ehhhhhh, we love Ziggy but we love Rob more and we appreciate the flexibility in being able to visit.  We simply could NEVER afford to board him so the fact that he missed out on 1 walk is very minor to us and we didn't have any hard feelings, but our neighbor felt TERRIBLE and came over with her MOM today to apologize with some kind of EXPENSIVE pastry from some shop and *sigh*.  I feel awful that she feels so bad.  I mean, it's really REALLY not a big deal.  We love our dog but I like to think that we are realistic about him and he is a DOG.  I just don't want her to feel so bad that she won't watch him again!  It's truly invaluable to us!

Matt's computer had some kind of mutinous rebellion today that involved hours and hours of moving files around resulting in a work day that started about 45 minutes ago (at 6 p.m.) so it looks like after the boys are abed, tonight will be full of album designing for him and unpacking and laundry for me.  

I'm debating giving Joey another bath tonight with just cool water to try and help the rash.  I've had like 5 cups of coffee today to try to get up the motivation to put things away and get back to life, but by golly, I'm just not there yet.  

Thanks!  I just needed to whine about it for a minute.  

My Little Pumpkin

Last week Matt took Joey out for a little photo shoot for one of his classes. Joey had a little picnic:

And then spent some time looking cute with a pumpkin:

Give me happy....

Now pensive....
I need deeper, more thinking...
Now give me pouty....
How about just, cute?

13 Miles....No Problem!

Well, I'm rushing to get this typed before it's time for church here, but I am excited to say that Matt raced in his first 1/2 marathon today!!! He finished strong, happy (a little tired), and 20 MINUTES before his estimated finishing time. (I guess he guessed conservatively :-) but it was his first so.....

There are some articles and pictures here: http://running.competitor.com/category/races although I have yet to find Matt in anything. He ran with a great friend of his from high school, Robert who flew here for a visit, and for the race with his sweet girlfriend, Meredith. Pictures to follow, but feel free to drop by facebook and give Matt your congratulations. He is totally pumped and pretty tired! :-)

We are SO proud of him and are hoping to make the next one a family affair (umm....if it is at least 4 months or more away :-)

Is it Still Today??

Today is one of those days, where you just know, even in the morning hours that it is going to be a trying day.  :-)  

I had a dream last night, about a pot roast I was going to cook for dinner tonight.  I think that has to be a sign that domesticity has beaten me down.  I'm not dreaming about exploring the world, or even having old nightmares about not studying for a test or turning in an assignment, I'm dreaming about cooking pot roasts for dinner.   *sigh*

This morning as I was changing Joey I asked him "what do you want for breakfast?"  he said.  "No." 

 *sigh*

I noticed that my favorite wind chime that I brought home from Chile (it makes the most beautiful sounds outside of my kitchen window) had been blown down when I found Ziggy chewing on pieces of it.  

It's made of glass.  

Glass, people, glass.

*sigh*

When I went down to pick up the pieces of my broken chime *sniffle* I saw Ziggy eat a doggie doodoo that was laying in the yard.  *sigh*  Can a dog be banished outside for grossness?  What do you do then?  Wash out his mouth?  Try to remember not to let him lick you..... EVER AGAIN??  

*sigh*  

I think when everyone takes a nap, I might just go to bed and when I wake up, pretend it's tomorrow...

**Update**  I had Matt read my "funny" post and he said.... "that's kinda sad."  so I thought I should say that it was all in good humor.  I'm pretty sure my windchime is glueable (um, except whatever Ziggy ate).   I am told that in fact I am not making dinner because Matt has promised pizza to visiting friends, Joey enjoyed his breakfast and is playing with his toys, and Ziggy..... well the only thing different about today is that I actually saw him consume the poo.    

:-)