Our newest addition...

It was inevitable that it was going to happen....

I mean what did you expect????

How long did you think we were going to wait........

We finally have added a new addition to our family......

PLEASE WELCOME.......

TOTO!!!!!!

Isn't he the cutest thing ever?! Ok not a perfect pic of him but look at him!!!

Caesar is getting used to him..... although he doesn't like it when the boys come home and TOTO is excited to see them and they are excited to see him and because he's new they don't quite give Caesar the attention he's used to ~ he'll get used to him though he's already making sure Toto has come in before he comes in the house.

Dylan loves the little guy ~ he's actually the one who named him TOTO. I think it fits.


So the story behind our newest addition.... We rescued this little guy from the heat after finding him covered in dirt and tiny rocks glued to his knotted dirty hair. We figure he either travelled a very long distance or was badly abused where he came from. We have attempted to find his owners but with no luck and I must say I feel a bit relieved with the condition we found him in.

So that's our BIG news.....

WHAT???

You didn't think I was PREGNANT did you???

An update on us....

I feel like it has been forever since I actually posted something (minus our Disneyland trip of course)....I don't even know if anyone reads this thing anymore but with my fingers crossed I continue with our blogging....

So much has been going on where do I start ~ BTW this might be a long one so please bare with us!

Lets begin with the day after we returned from our trip to the happiest place on earth...since before the trip Jeff had been talking about going back to work (not that he hasn't been working from home on his business) so that I could be back home with the boys...the whole working thing was getting the better of me ~ I am definitely a take care of the kids, keep up the house, run errands all day long and have dinner on the table by the time my husband gets home kind of girl.
Anyway Jeff was very determined to make both our dreams happen (he isn't the take care of the kids and house kind of guy!) so the DAY AFTER we got back from our trip Jeff went to work putting his resume out there for something...anything. Well believe it or not he got an email THAT NIGHT from a company (of course with the way things had gone for so long we didn't really have our hopes up) and they set up a phone interview for the next morning. WELL...the phone interview went GREAT and they set up a face to face for the very next day! Could this be real??? Still our hopes were numb because we knew the chances weren't huge ~ I mean how often especially in this day and age does a person have his first interview and get the job right??! Well he went on his interview which went well....Jeff of course was critical of everything he said once the interview was said and done...but I know better =-) This was a Thursday and the company told him that they would get back to him in about a week. Well that Monday morning Jeff got a call from the Project Manager (one of the guys that interviewed him) and he asked him to meet him and some other guys for lunch in 2 hours...are you kidding me?! Who was going to watch Dylan (I was at work while all this was happening)..luckily Jeff's mom is still in town and watched him. Jeff rushed over there stressed as you can imagine...when he got there him and 3 men piled into the "project manager's" SUV and went to Chipotle...they talked, laughed and chatted away but still what was going on??? WELL.... when they got back to the office they OFFERED HIM THE JOB!!!! WOW how is that for meant to be?! The first company to contact him and now he's working for them! April 6th was his first day! He loves it and he's finally doing what he loves instead of doing what just pays the bills~although it pays the bills too!

SOoooo..... what does that mean for Jennifer???

I finally get to be home with my boys!!! I gave my notice a week after he started working and May 1st was my last day working in an office....I definitely was ready to be back home. I realized when I had to go back to work how much I was taking advantage of being at home with my boys ~that will NEVER happen again! We have so much planned to keep busy and I think the boys are just as happy to have me home as I am to be home.

Although I am excited for myself I am mostly excited for Jeff and for the boys. Jeff has worked so hard and has met up with so many trials these past few years...a year ago there was ZERO jobs in his industry and we all had to sacrifice a lot to get by. The boys especially Dylan were having a hard time having me gone all the time ~ although the money in my industry is good the time it takes away from my family made it so unworth it a lot of the time.

Well anyway that's pretty much our BIG news.....for now! Who knows what the Stout's have in store next so keep checking back in!

Goofy + Breakfast = FUN!!!

Our recent adventure

Well we are about a month late on this post but here are some pictures from our last trip to Disneyland! Sorry it has taken so long so much has gone on in the past 30ish days its unbelievable and definately POST worthy AFTER I get this one up so that the HARD TIMES can end....yes I'm talking to ALL of you who have been asking for this!!! :-)

Anywhoo ENJOY!!!

We had breakfast at GOOFY's KITCHEN and it was a BLAST! The characters came to our table and gave each person special attention. Baloo is Jeff's favorite character from a Disney movie but insisted that he was to NOT have his picture taken with him so here is Trevor and his best friend Ross who we brought on the trip.

Dylan and I were waiting for all the BIGGER boys to get off the Matterhorn so we decided what's a better thing to do than have a ROCKET SHIP painted on his face! He was so excite and believe it or not he stayed still the entire time! In fact to take this picture the artist person had to pretend like he was still painting because he wouldn't let me take a picture otherwise.



Anyone who has been to Disneyland near the Star Wars ride has seen or at least heard this group of very talented trash men! They do the coolest things with the few things they have and how they stay in-sync is beyond me but it's awesome!



We were stopped by THUNDER MTN. and just so happens to show up?! JESSE from Toy Story! She was really funny flirting with all the boys...notice that Dylan is NOT in the picture well as much as he loves his Disney movies and can tell you who each character is he sees from a distance when it comes to them coming any closer than 3 ft he is NOT ok with it!



Like I said before Dylan IS NOT into meeting the characters ~ not even with his daddy by his side! He was so excited to see Pooh Bear AGAIN and the Pooh Bear ride is his favorite but he just wasn't having it when Pooh wanted to meet HIM!

I think this is a really cool picture! Since we were there a week we decided to take a calm down day because we were all pretty much BURNT out! The hotel we stayed at (Howard Johnson) had their own kids "water park" that we had a view from our room of so while Dylan was napping we let the boys have FUN IN THE SUN. There was a pirate ship with a bucket that every 15 minutes filled and dumped. This is the boys getting a SERIOUS SOAKING!!!!

The story behind this picture: Ok so some of you know that Snow White is my VERY FAVORITE PRINCESS of all time! Well we spent a whole lot of money to have lunch with her and all the other princesses at Ariel's Grotto at the CA Adventure park. We or should I say I was really excited about this lunch ~ I couldn't believe I was going to finally meet SNOW WHITE!!! The boys were so understanding too...they just played along and got picture after picture with the princesses just to make MOM happy. Well anyway we get to our table and our server comes to introduce himself and I mention Snow White and what does the man say????

"Actually SNOW WHITE will not be joining us this time BUT princess Jasmine will be taking her place."

Are you kidding me???!!!! All this time my poor boys had to spend at a princess lunch and all this money we spent for what? FOR NOTHING!!!! Ok so it was a bit fun but when your the only girl in your family and all you want is to meet one particular princess it's inevitable your day is not going to be so happy after all.....

The "bigger" boys all rode together on the Grizzly Bear Run ~ one of Jeff's favorite rides! If you can't tell the guy in the white shirt straight ahead is Jeff....the boys are to HIS right.



This was a TON of fun...After doing Turtle Talk with Crush AJ talked us into going into the animation academy. We didn't really know what to expect so we weren't too excited about it at first but when we found out we were going to learn how to draw Disney characters our ears perked up! It was actually so much fun we did it twice....the 1st time we learned how to draw POOH BEAR and the 2nd we drew JACK SKELETON from The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is something we will definitely do again!




I love this picture! We were riding the Mark Twain boat and Jeff and Dylan were watching the "duckies" swimming.

This is such a CUTE picture! Dylan was knocking and trying to open the door at Mr. Toads house! This year he definitely had a bit more fun I loved watching what he got excited about because each year I know it will be different!

Ok so back to the SNOW WHITE story...well 2 days after our TERRIBLE lunch (it was our last day there) we decided to go check out the Princess Fantasy faire area to see if she was there and SHE WAS!!! The only thing was the people we were asking who were leaving said that she was making comments about only having a few more she could do and we had already stood in line for a 1/2 hour in a 1 hour line so the stress level was starting to get high! Well if you know me you know I'm pretty much a "whatever goes, goes" kinda girl so I decided to sneak through the exit to see if she was there and SHE WAS! But how long was she going to be there was the problem so the child in me came out and I decided to tell one of the character helper girls my entire lunch disaster story in hopes that she would just tell me if we were wasting our time ~ well she did better than that (and those who have stood in that line in the past please do not hate me for what I am about to say) the girl actually let us through the EXIT so that we could see her before she left!!!!!!

SO LONG STORY SHORT MY DREAM FINALLY CAME TRUE!!!!!!



One day of our trip we got to go in an hour before other people (not just us everyone who had the ticket so it wasn't the "special") and we saw something that doesn't happen EVER during regular hours ~ an empty picture shot in front of the castle!
AHHHH MY PRINCE CHARMING!!!

This was our last day on our vacation ~ we were sad to leave but excited to go back again! (Has anyone else noticed that Dylan loves his blankie in more than a few of these pictures?!?)

SILLY BOYS! On our day off from Disneyland we walked and shopped the stores of Downtown Disney and we couldn't resist posing on the GIANT LEGO!

Well that's our trip in a NUTSHELL....we had a ton of fun and came home with many new memories to cherish forever. Some people think we are crazy for going so often to "The Happiest Place on Earth" but how can you stay away from a place where "YOUR DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE!!!" ~ ok I know that was gooey but seriously IT ROCKS!!!!!

IT's that time of year AGAIN!!!

THAT'S RIGHT IT'S DERBY TIME!!!!

This year AJ is a WEBELO in Cub Scouts...which means this is his last year as a CUB SCOUT!!!

He has been working very hard the past 3 years to earn his badges and advancing from BEARS ~to~ WOLVES ~to~ WEBELOS! Next year he'll be turning in his BLUE and GOLD and start wearing TAN and GREEN....where in the world does the time go?????!

Here's AJ eagerly anticipating his first run on the track!


When your derby car (or truck in AJ's case) is in the first lane of the track you get to push the button that releases the cars.....if you look at the end of the track you can see AJ getting ready to push the GO button.


AJ's truck is in the 3rd lane of the track ~ I know it's kind of hard to see...sorry



He's definitely one proud kid! He got the "Monster Truck" award for his design and the scout leaders really went all out this year and created personalized trophies for each of the boys resembling their award. As soon as we got home AJ hung up the shelf he made in scouts, put up his award and displayed his trophy and derby car on the stand he also made in scouts.

This year was a ton of fun and we can't wait for next year when Trevor is FINALLY in Scouts too!!!!