The Bacon

Quinn was a TERRIBLE sleeper when he was little (and when I say little, I really mean the first year of his life). That child would not sleep...He hated to nap! He woke up several times during the night! And was, of course, the earliest riser in this house! That first year was tough! Well I finally had to lay down the law with that kid and make him cry it out!!! But to make the transition from not sleeping to peacefully slumbering a little bit easier, I bought him a little green square of a blanket that I knew would not help, but would at least make me feel better about tossing the kid into the crib until morning. Turns out that Quinn fell in love with that little blanket and still uses it over one year later. His name for his blanket has evolved from BOONTUN (seriously) to what he now calls it--his BACON. Funny, though, he calls it his bacon, but if you call it anything other than his blanket he looks at you like you are crazy! So apparently, through Quinn's little ears, him saying bacon sounds just like blanket.

For Elizabeth

Ok, this update is for Elizabeth so she can see how our little chicks are doing! They have grown sooo much since we got them a few weeks ago and they have both become quite the mess-makers! Lola is growing @ an alarming rate while Alice still seems to be fairly delicate. It's really hard to tell if they are in fact, both girls. They both love to scratch and peck. They shred the newspaper lining their crate daily and chirp constantly. Here are some recent pics.

We Have Started Charging Admission

It's official. The Doak Family Zoo is open for business and we are charging admission!!!! Kidding, though we do have enough animals around here to certainly entertain guests. Just as we had finally gotten Jay used to the idea that there are live chickens in his house a package containing caterpillars came in the mail. What I keep reminding Jay is the chickens and the caterpillars are TEMPORARY pets. The chickens are going back to the farm and the caterpillars will hopefully transform into Painted Lady butterflies and will be released outside. Then we will be left with only Murphy and Nico (and the new cat I plan on getting to keep Nico company...ha!!).

Quinn

Here are some pictures I took of Quinn the other day! His eyes are changing color to this

beautiful shade of hazel with little specks of gold and brown. Such a sweet little boy.

Some of You May Not Know This....

But I am OBSESSED with pop culture which may infact, explain my odd fasination with reality tv and Perez Hilton. So, as many of you DO know, American Idol is back in full force (woo hoo!!!!!!), which around here is reason to celebrate.....at least by me and my partner in crime, Stella!!! Jay is the "fifth" judge and can make Simon Cowell's comments sound supportive and uplifting! He can be brutal and has no tolerance for bad singing or the "wrong" song choice...Jay tends to get behind the contestants that can actually sing (interesting concept), whereas me and Stella strictly go for the cute factor. If they can sing well, all the better! So our favs. this year are the adorable Kris Allen (Stella) and the geeky cutie pie Danny Gokey (Me)....Both did a decent job last night, but the stand out vocally for me was the "Not-As-Cute-As-Danny-But-Will-Do-In-A Pinch" Matt Geraud!!!! How awesome was he?!!! Jay had fallen asleep by the time Matt took the stage, but I'm sure he would have agreed with me that he was the best of the night!! It's nice that at the end of a long day a show as inane as Americal Idol can bring a smile to my face...Don't know what that says about me, but I'm not too sure I care either.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! The kids were soo excited this morning when they woke up and remembered it was St. Patrick's Day! I made green eggs to celebrate the occasion while the kids dressed in their green clothes....

Things are good in the Doak house. We are loving our chicks and they seem to have adjusted to life in our home very well! I've started to notice real chicken feathers coming in underneath their baby fuzz...They are real cuties...Alice is the more social of the two and Lola seems to be more adventurous. I'm already dreading giving them back in a few weeks, but Jay says they MUST leave. I've looked online for chicken coop plans, but I really think there is no convincing Jay to keep these guys...I suppose he's right.....

Lola And Alice-The Chicks Have Arrived!!

Thanks to our fantastic friend and piano teacher Elizabeth, we are the proud new parents of two more chicks....Lola and Alice! The baby chicks were born only three days ago on a local farm in Chesapeake. We plan on keeping them for a several weeks until they are old enough to be sent back to the farm! Until then we are excitedly caring for our new pets!! Wish us luck!

Lola Chicken-Doak

Alice Chicken-Doak

Little Warriors

Stella and I have been studying ancient civilizations all year. Part of today's lesson was to make a Philistine warrior hat. Of course, Ashlyn and Quinn had to get in on the craft. The final line of instruction for making the hat was to look "FIERCE." So here are the three with their fierce looks. I think I would be afraid to come across Ashlyn alone in a dark alley....Stella not so much!

Hey Ya'll

Hi Everyone:

I'm officially diving into the blogging world after months of swearing I would never do such a thing. Come to think of it though, everything I swore I'd never do I have ended up doing @ some point or another. Do you think it's a karma thing? murphy's law? ok maybe i should start saying really crazy things I will NEVER do and let the chips fall where they may!!!!!....I will NEVER win the lottery! I will NEVER go on a cruise around the world...not interested....not one little bit....Seriously, maybe I just changed the karmic face of my future...! So, I'm going to figure out this blog thing and my main point I suppose, is to keep everyone posted on our whereabouts and everyday stuff....As you all know we are an extremely crazy family of FIVE....Jason, Me, Stella, Ashlyn, and little Quinn...We've had an extremely crazy past few months and I'm ready for things to settle back down...We are homeschooling and surprisingly LOVING it!!!! The little things in life are the coolest and the ones I'd like to share with those of you interested....For example...yesterday we asked Ashlyn what she wanted to be when she grew up and she told us a dog...She was fairly devastated when we told her that was not possible. Ashlyn is definately the drama queen around here..come to think of it maybe she's the princess....she had to get the drama from somebody...So, on to figuring this blogging out...Until then, take care and love to all!