Puppy Love

This weekend we celebrated three birthdays:  our Uncle Mike, my brother-in-law Jerry and my mom.  In order to celebrate as a 4 year old would expect, you have to have a party with 31 of your closest friends, play games and make sumpin!

It's really hard to convince a 4 year old that, once you hit a certain age, you don't do that anymore.  It's akin to telling her that her puppy is dead and Santa isn't real all in one day.  She just wants to pretend to be a baby all the time because then you still have many birthdays ahead of you rather than being one year closer to the death.  Apparently Grandma is only 24...no make that 25...no make that 48.  I guess she does have some time before the big parties stop.

In order to make Grandma's birthday official, she wanted to make a cake.  She picked out a chocolate cake and we got to mixing.  Zoe is anti-loud noise.  If there is a potential for a loud noise, she will run into her room, slam the door and wait for the blasted thing to stop.  What I learned this weekend was that Zoe is really just good practice for our getting Toby.  Apparently, when there is loud noises, he runs to his bed and hides too.

Fortunately he has someone in his life that totally understands.  Zoe went to give him hugs to make sure he was okay. 

I'm pretty sure there is nothing sweeter than seeing your child love her on her puppy so that you can lick the bowl in peace.

She Gets Her Mad Skillz from Me

This weekend was low-key with gorgeous weather.  That is my kind of weekend math.  On Saturday I had a memorial service for a dear friend of my mom's.  I've known her since birth and she fought ovarian cancer for the last 10 years.  She was a true woman of God and her life testimony reflected that.  After hearing about her love for God and her love for family, it made me want to get home and love on my family.

Since it was sunny and like 45 degrees, Zoe and I decided to walk the 1/2 mile to the park for some play time.  Exactly one block from our home she said, "I'm so tired, will you carry me?"  I threw her on my shoulders and off we went.  On the way there we spoke of heaven and Jesus's love for her.  While I'm not sure she totally comprehends the whole concept, she did say a prayer asking Jesus in her heart.  It made the 1/2 mile with a 4 year old on my shoulders completely worth it.

When we got to the park, they have this play area with a "map."  It's basically a physical fitness guide for kids.  There are 7 stations for you to work on your muscles.  Zoe had to do them all.  We first did the monkey bars, then some leg lifts, then some sit-ups, then a balance beam, then the parallel bars, then a chin up and ended with some push-ups.  Check out her form.

She gets that from me.  By this time we were officially pooped and N came to pick us up in the car because after all that exercise we went to dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant where we had a coupon for the bodybuilder's meal. 

It was a great afternoon and evening with the people I love the most in this world.  I couldn't feel more blessed.

Old Man Winter Woke Up From His Nap

We had some nice sunshine and days where a light jacket was plenty.  Then Old Man Winter decided it was time to wake up and show everyone that He isn't done.  Wednesday we had a winter storm warning.  For most of the afternoon it looked like we lived in a snow-globe.  AWANA was cancelled, streets were quiet and snow continued to fall.

When we woke up on Thursday morning we had 14 inches of snow at our house.  I got a call that our office was closed.  All the schools, including colleges were closed.  The Federal court and Post Office were closed.  We got dumped on.  A blizzard warning came into effect because of all the wind.  Yesterday morning it was -14 at our house with the windchill.  It was cold!

Fortunately by the afternoon the streets were plowed, the roads were driveable and things were back to normal.  It was still cold, but not windy.

This morning I woke and prepared for the trek to work.  This is what I saw on my dash:

Just a single 2.  It was 1 when I left my house and 3 when I got to work, so this was the average temp this morning.  Good thing I made Pioneer Woman's Corn Chowder with Chilis yesterday.  I have a feeling it will be keeping us warm today too!

Wordless Wednesday...A Girl and Her Dog

It's like Getting an A Minus

In September we decided, as a family, to get involved in the AWANA program at our church.  N is a leader in the boys group, I'm a director of the Kindergarten - 2nd grade group and all our girls attend.  It's not only a fun time as a family, it's also a mid-week check in with D & E.  We all love it.  If I had to say, it's my favorite night during the week.  It's chaotic, but it's the first activity we've been able to do as a family.  There is something about having all our girls there that makes the night seem complete.

What is so awesome is how much D & E are enjoying it.  They are memorizing their verses, making new friends, inviting their friends and just having a good time.  Not only that, but they also want to participate in all the additional activities with AWANA.  The first of those was Bible Quizzing.  The girls are quizzed on things they've learned in their books.  They could be asked to recite a verse from memory, hear a verse and have to recall where it's found in the Bible or they have to know things that aren't verses, but other work in their books like questions on why God gave us the Bible.

Bible Quizzing was always the thing that intimidated me the most.  I never did it.  So I'm totally impressed that both D & E wanted to do it.  They came early every Wednesday to practice.  It paid off!

Our girls placed 4th in their heat.  Out of 3 girl's teams, ours were the only ones to place.  They answered most of the multiple choice correctly and that was enough to put them in this place.  We are so proud of them! 

We Are Now a Family of 6

I would like to introduce you to Toby.  We welcomed him into his forever family on Friday, February 18th. 

Since Zoe has been able to talk, she's been asking for a puppy.  Every night before bed, she asks again, if she can get a puppy in one more sleep.  A couple weekends ago she did her nightly routine of asking about a puppy and I told her, as usual, that we would see.  Apparently her campaign expanded because she started asking N during the day about a puppy.  We knew it was only a matter of time and since she's sleeping through the night and we are finally out of the baby stage, we thought it would be fun to get a puppy and lose sleep all over again.

We started looking online and came across a place called Priest River Animal Rescue.  They had some Blue Heeler puppies that were absolutely sweet.  One of them caught both N's and my eye.  They called him New Year.  We inquired about him and learned that he was one of 4 puppies rescued from a home with 16 other dogs.  He had no human interaction and had to fight large, adult dogs for food.  The house was covered in dog feces and trash.  Because of this he was absolutely terrified of humans and had been in foster care for the last 8 weeks to get him used to being around people.  His story absolutely broke my heart.  Both N and I knew that this was our puppy.

Because it's a rescue shelter, you have to go through an interview process.  Those 24 hours were absolutely terrifying.  We knew he belonged with us, we just hoped the rescue volunteers knew that too!  Fortunately they did. 

We went and got him a bed, a leash, some food, dog dishes and toys.  Zoe LOVED picking out the toys.  As we were leaving they had this bin of sock monkeys.  She insisted that he HAD to have one and that he would love it.  N and I weren't convinced, but we let her get him one. 

Apparently Zoe is a dog whisperer because this monkey is his absolute favorite toy.

It's also his security blanket.  Anytime he feels a bit scared or he's getting ready to fall asleep, he has to be touching his monkey.

It is the absolute sweetest thing. 

When he arrived at our home, he was terrified and kept his tail tucked between his legs.  Now that he's been with us for 24 hours, his personality is coming out.  He's mischievious, playful, loving and terribly sweet. 

Welcome home Toby.  We've been waiting a long time for you.  Especially N who has been wanting another boy in the house for years.  He wasn't willing to wait for all the girls to turn 40 before they are allowed to get married! 

Zoe is already planning your 1st birthday party.  That is if you keep your distance from her ice cream.  She knows you're curious, but she's a little possessive of her dairy products!

I May Need To Dust It Off

I have a confession.  It's been a month since I quilted.  A month!  That's 30 days of nothing produced.  It makes me sad.

This is the first weekend in a month where we're all healthy.  It is also the first weekend in a month where when someone asks us what's on tap, we don't respond with, "we're going to Home Depot to buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that.  Maybe Bed, Bath & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have time."  (Can you name the movie?)

This weekend is going to be full of low-key, maybe some walks outside, some quilting and I'm going to try a new recipe for corn chowder that is not Weight Watcher friendly.  It's exciting to say the least.  I hope to come back on Monday with something to show off. 

Hope your weekend is as relaxing as we hope ours turns out to be.