Since I don't have any pictures of my own from the time Oliver, Jack & Baylor spent together on Wednesday, I'm sending you to Christine's post, which includes a few photos and some witty chatter. Enjoy!

**Update**

It's Wednesday morning and I'm just now getting this posted. I know, I'm lame. But, the good news is that we've made it safely to the Case casa and we're having a great time!

**Original post - written Tuesday night**

Yes, it’s Tuesday and I’m only now publishing my “Not Me! Monday” post. But, isn’t that what “Not Me! Monday” is all about – falling short, not confessing, and then feeling much, much better about whatever foolish/shameful/frivolous thing you’ve done during the week?

MckMamma posted hers on time, and she’s not even in the country this week. But, here it is, Tuesday evening, and I’m sitting in the car with my boys, popping open the laptop, catching a few quiet moments to confess everything that I did not do this week.

To begin, while Ryan and I were up watching SNL one evening last week, I did not send him down to the kitchen during a commercial break for a stack of cookies and a glass of milk. As I ate my nighttime treat, I did not get distracted by the show and leave my cookie in the milk just a little too long, thereby leaving at least half of it in the bottom of the glass to spoil my fun. I most certainly did not immediately, without thinking, plunge my entire fist into the bottom of the glass, saving the cookie, only to find my hand (up to my wrist) dripping with milk and nothing to dry it off with. Good thing I thought first and didn’t make a big mess of things for a little bit of cookie.

I also went to see “Marley & Me” with Ryan last week. Let me just say that I did not wear my “traveling pants” so that I could look cute and still be comfortable for the movie.

By the way, I’d like to thank all of you for your kind comments about my last “Not Me! Monday” post. They have not encouraged Ryan to reconsider the house rule regarding maternity apparel.

I do not take advantage of our spare room and use the bed as an ongoing laundry folding station.

After attending an all-day and all-night birth on Saturday, I returned home at 4:00 Sunday morning completely exhausted. I went upstairs to sleep in the guest room (the darkest room in the house) and did not find the bed entirely covered with unfolded laundry. Desperate for sleep, I did not proceed to toss all of the clothes into the pack-n-play that was set up in the room and go to sleep. The sheer volume of unfolded, neglected clothes did not overflow the pack-n-play.

As recently as yesterday morning I did not propose to my husband an impromptu, week-long trip to Chicago without Oliver.

Just two hours into our trip we did not hear the weather man on the radio at a rest stop warn travelers, “If you do not have to travel today, STAY OFF THE ROADS!” Because we are cautious people, we definitely did not get back in the car and continue North to visit my dear college roommate Christine and her charming family.

I am not wearing my “traveling pants” right now.

I did not let Oliver watch an “Arthur” DVD 3 times in a row, and then follow it up with a “Sesame Street” DVD to keep him happy. Of course not, I am the Mom that reads books to my child on long car rides and does not get car sick doing it.

That’s all I’ve got, folks. We have squeezed a 7-hour trip into 9 hours and only have a little over an hour left to go. My toes are wiggling at the prospect of seeing our friends and their little ones for the week, as well as visiting a city that is very near and dear to our hearts.

Deep dish pizza and H&M, here we come!

(Stay tuned on Ryan’s blog and mine this week for trip updates, Case-family fun, and Chicago festivities.)

My sister hijacked my blog and thinks she's clever.

Well, as you all know, I have been wanting to get rid of Scout for years. It's difficult because I am torn between love for her cuteness and great grief on account of her destructive powers.

Quick story.

It was my great fortune yesterday to notice in the nick of time that I was just one post shy of 100. A close call!

Now, I’ll note here that it has taken me significantly longer to write 100 posts than, say, Christine (who wrote 100 posts in under five months), or Dr. Grant’s Eleventary (six months – it should have been eleven!), or MckMamma (who came close to 100 posts in August 2008 alone)!

It’s been nearly seven months of blogging for me. Seven months and 100 posts. And in this, my centennial post, I’ll use just 100 words!

I can hardly believe it's been a year; it really does seem like only yesterday.

This is an exciting time for our family! My sister and brother-in-law, along with their two-year-old daughter Beatrice, have the orphans of Ethiopia heavy on their hearts. This summer, Caleb and Rebecca committed to adopting not one, but two baby boys from this country abounding with baby boys and girls who need homes.

It's been six months since the first bits of paperwork were filed, and we are all so excited to move on to the next step of getting a referral and bringing two sweet babies home. The dossier is ready to be mailed the first of February, and we're ready for the final push of raising money to give these boys a family.

I'd like to invite you all to be involved with us in this beautiful picture of the gospel.

On Sunday, February 8th, we will be hosting an Adoption Fundraiser and Silent Auction at the Methodist Church in downtown Franklin. The meal will be catered and served by Providence Farms and there will be live bluegrass music provided from a couple of local bands. (Dancing along has NOT been ruled out!) Tickets are only $12/person.

Here's where you come in:

• First, we ask you to pray! Please pray that we will be able to raise the remaining money needed to complete the process. Pray for the Faires family as they prepare their home and their hearts to welcome TWO babies into their lives. Pray for the orphans in Ethiopia. We know that God has already handpicked two babies for this family, though we don't know who they are yet. Please pray for their protection and provision. And pray for the babies that will not get a home as well. We wish we could help them all!
• Second, come to the lunch! If you're local, come and enjoy phenomenal food, fun bluegrass music and a great time!
• Third, donate! Do you have any services that you can offer to the auction? Can you paint homes or walk dogs? Do you have a piece of furniture you don't need anymore or a killer pie you could bake? Be creative!
• Finally, bid bid bid! We've kept the cost of attending the lunch low so that you can have the opportunity to bid on some really cool things! Already, folks have been incredibly generous and donated some awesome things. From piano tunings, teeth whitening, and trendy eye-wear to kennel stays, baby-sitting and custom paintings, the list continues to grow! Ryan's donating a blog design - you can bid on that from anywhere!

“Every one of us who follows Christ was adopted into an already existing family. Thus, the Gospel should manifest itself among us as adoption by the adopted. Such is the Kingdom of God.” —Russell Moore

Oliver was running around the play room this afternoon with a hockey stick and ball. I couldn't make out what he was saying immediately, but it didn't take me long to realize he was shouting, "Focus, guys! Focus!" Evidently we use the word "focus" a lot around here.

I've really been missing our Evie-girl this weekend.

List #1: Things My Dog Has Eaten

• We went out for lunch as a family today, and when we returned, we found an empty 40-flavor Jelly Belly box on the play room floor. I sure hope Oliver will still use his potty chair if we don't have any more "dommo beans".
• Along with the jelly beans, she also consumed one yellow crayon (I'll note here that she did have the good sense not to eat the wrapper.)
• In her lifetime (that we know of), Scout has successfully swiped -and swallowed in one gulp - a total of 3 full sticks of butter from the dinner table.
• She has also snatched meat from the grill on countless occasions, including - though not limited to - 8 raw hamburger patties, several cooked pork chops, and hot dogs of varying temperatures.
• Once she ate my mother-in-law's lipstick out of her purse, without actually getting any on her lips.
• Strangely enough, she was also tempted by a sealed bottle of prenatal vitamins I had several years ago. I came home from work one evening to find the bottle open and empty, and Scout, with little pink pills stuck all over her face and body. (You see, when Scout is really enjoying something, she likes to roll on her back on top of it. We think she must have licked the pills, then rolled on them, then forgotten about them.) That time I called the vet and actually had to force feed her teaspoonfuls of hydrogen peroxide every 5 minutes until she "coughed" them all up.

• When Oliver was born, things really got bad for a while. Right away she started doing things while we were gone to let us know how she felt about being replaced. One night we came home from being out to find an entire bag of brown sugar scattered (and rolled on) all over our shag rug.
• Brown sugar wasn't the only thing, though. She also trained us never to leave infant formula any less than six feet off the ground and behind closed cabinet doors. She ate that stuff like it was candy. We started to hide it like it was gold.
• By the time Oliver was 3 months old, she was just shameless. We left her downstairs for just a few minutes one evening and returned to find that she'd eaten a chocolate cake we'd set out for dessert, while standing on my beautiful, white, Ethan Allen Chair (the one nice piece of furniture I'll probably ever buy - at least until Scout goes on to her reward.)

• We'd really made it clear to Scout that night how we felt about the chocolate cake incident. Less than an hour later though, she made it clear to us how she felt about things by eating a bowl of ravioli and smearing it on the freshly cleaned, $900 chair.

List #2: Things My Dog Has Destroyed

• Scout chewed the heel off a new pair of beautiful shoes before I ever got a chance to wear them.
  
• She has destroyed her weight in gold's worth of breast pumping equipment.
• We once arrived home to find our leather sofa on the other side of the room, with a great big tear in one seat cushion.
  
• Another time, we came home to find that Scout was feeling insecure about leaving her bone lying around, so she'd decided to bury it in our mattress.
  
• Once, we went on vacation to Florida and left Scout with my sister and brother-in-law. We received a phone call two days into our trip that Rebecca went on a walk with their greyhound and didn't take Scout with her. This is how Scout reacted:
• When Christine and Steve came to visit at Christmastime when Oliver was newborn, they brought a gift for him and we left it wrapped under the tree while we went out for dinner. When we returned home, Scout had not only unwrapped the gift (an "Ugly Doll" named Ice Bat), but she had torn the ear off of it as well. Ice Bat has been repaired, but he looks like he's had a lobotomy.
• Scout unwrapped only 6 gifts from our tree this year. She even took some upstairs to unwrap them there.
• One afternoon in September 2005 I had the day off from work and decided to spend it planting mums in the backyard. It was hot, hard work, but by the end of the day it was well worth it. The backyard looked like an autumn wonderland. The next morning I woke up with on of the most serious cases of poison ivy I've ever had, and Scout and the neighbor dog had dug up and eaten every last mum in the flower bed. I spent the next two weeks in bed with poison ivy and it was years before I had the heart to re-attempt any backyard beautification.
  

List #3: Reasons We Keep Her Around

• She terrifies strangers - mostly the bad ones, but we do also have some friends who are just plain scared of dogs. We keep her around for the bad guys.
• She keeps our toes warm in the winter.
• I chose a weimaraner in the first place while I was a design student because she coordinated so well with all the plans I had for our home. She is pretty to look at.
• She'll lick your feet if you like that sort of thing. Sometimes I think that's the only reason Rebecca comes to my house.
• Now that she's been reassured that she has not been replaced, Scout is the best dog a little boy could ever have. She lets Oliver tug on her ears and climb all over her while she contentedly chews her bone. He stirs her food with a big wooden spoon while she eats, and she makes room for him. She plays soccer with him in the yard and they chase balloons together in the playroom. She loves him.

And finally,

List #4: Some Highlights (and Lowlights?) of Our Time With Her

Brand new to the family.

After an "accident". (And by "accident", I mean, "Ryan and I thought it would be fun to have a second dog, so we chose a weim/chocolate lab mix at the Humane Society. Heidi was adorable and sweet, but only lasted a week and a half because the two did not get along.")

Not long after that, we decided to enroll Scout in obedience classes. That's a post all in itself. Here is a photo of her on the day of her graduation. Yes, I was a stay-at-home Mom to a weimaraner and I made a mortar board for her out of a cereal box and some aluminum foil. No, I am not proud of it.

This was taken a few days after we brought Oliver home from the hospital.

Scout didn't get that the Moses basket was not for her.

She had good moments with baby Oliver too.

And, she *almost* always respected nap time as quiet time.

This is just a funny picture I took because I have no idea how this happened.

I'm guessing she must have jumped through the swing.

And finally, a photo of Scout since she has accepted, nay, embraced her new life as Oliver's dog.

Have a lovely day, friends!