The Munhollands: January 2012

M U N S O N

Four days into the New Year & even though I am behind again, at least I'm not too far into the year.

There was Christmas and we got to spend it with family - yay! And it was a white one. My work was closed on Thursday - we got a foot of snow. G-ma Lawna and Papa Jim came in for a week, the days leading up to X-mas we had a great time. Then X-mas hit and G-ma was down for the count, literally - so sick we didn't see her until that night. Three more days of being sick followed and Papa Jim eventually got it too! We felt so bad. We're still eating X-mas dinner leftovers. We were all spoiled rotten as usual by everyone.

Gorgeous sunset at Uncle Tom's. Kellan snowboarding on the golf course

Christmas Eve at Tom's

All the excitement was too much for someone...

and someone else...

Flashback to Jim's birthday. I debated and debated about buying Jim a dog for his 40th. Selfishly I was enjoying life sans an animal. I was hoping to get new carpet in the family room. Lucky we didn't go there. Jim's always wanted a Bull Mastiff. He had been eyeing one at a pet store since we couldn't find one anywhere else. The puppy had been reduced in price a couple of time and was 16 weeks old. The night of his birthday we decided we'd go look at him (who are we kidding, probably would have bought him) - he had talked to the lady that day and knew he was still there. Zoe decided to throw an absolute fit for some reason, so instead of leaving right after I got off work we got there 15 minutes before closing time. The lady asked if she could help us and we asked about the Mastiff - "the Mastiff went home 5 minutes ago." Such is life - but everything happens for a reason (so some say) and that same week I found part Mastiff - part Boxer puppies to adopt. Jim and Kellan got to the place and were the first in line. We brought home "Smitty" that same day - Zoe's birthday 12/10. The people that were fostering Smitty were great and we could tell he came from a happy home.

If only it had been true

The paws

Is she 6 or 16?

The name. Kellan really liked the name Smitty (his foster parent's given name) - but coming from a 2 year old it sounds a bit like "S_itty". We tossed around a few more names - "Tebow", "Tulo", "Ripkin" but it was "Munson" (after Thurmon and our namesake "Mun") that everyone unanimously agreed on. For the first couple of weeks Zoe could only say "Mutson" - odd that she couldn't get the "Mun" part down. Dexter called him "Gus" for a long time (after we had dog sat Jeff & Jenna's dog Gus a few weeks before). Poor dog was probably having an identity crisis. He's a sweet, sweet dog, and we are all happy to have him as part of our family...even though I didn't get my new carpet and it's even worse for wear now (if that was even possible post-Duke, ah, Duke).

Christmas card outtakes. There was supposed to be a letter - that didn't happen. There were tons of ideas thrown around, but we didn't execute on any of those in time. It was a last ditch effort and after a lot of drama getting Zoe into a home made T-shirt, complaining about frost bitten knees (Kellan), an overall impatience with their mom & finally a conversation about what "Tebowing" really was, the X-mas card was born.