Cousins: A Love Story in Pictures

While the rest of the state of Louisiana was in New Orleans on their Mardi Gras day off, we took Dixie while Cydney was out of town, so that the boys could meet her. Jake is exceptional with animals, which is surprising since his own dog at his mom's bit the beejesus out of him and bruised both his legs. He's very calm and careful with Dixie. Landen wants to move her and hold her and constantly engage her, and we spent a considerable amount of time saying "Landen, stop. Leave her be."

Jake is really into reciting his family tree right now: Lily is his sister, Dixie is his stepmother's sister's dog, so that makes her his cousin and Cydney his aunt. I told them to smell how sweet she smelled, and Landen sniffed her and said "Oh, so good. She smells like Sitney's face."

The three of them played in the boys roomduring which Dixie quickly established ownership of all the TinkertoysAnd they watched Dad play some Xbox.

and then we took all of them to the elementary school playground next door. I have a son who cannot abide by fair play (Landen cheats at everything) and a niece who has no intention of sharing, as shown here with the stick her parrain wants for himself.

And don't think for a second Jake and Landen got to play with their Nerf swords in peace

before Dixie won out and claimed one for herself.

At the conclusion of this day, a nap was in order.

An update on her relationship with her first cousin Lily: this is how she looks at Lily when she walks by

and Lily spent the majority of the afternoon like this.

Fun boy pictures, not related to the puppy--Landen climbed one of those chain link walls that go behind the batter on a baseball field, with Corey spotting him at the bottom, until he got to the top once and got his t-shirt caught. Despite screaming bloody murder, he was able to get untangled and safely into Dad's arms.

And Corey played the troll who wasn't letting Jake cross the bridge