Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Parenting advice
Yes. I need help. Not with Lucas...no the other child in the house, the dog.
She's so good at pushing my buttons. And I think I'm pretty strict. I want well mannered children. And Pippa ain't that right now. She WILL NOT listen when we are outside. Totally ignores me. Selective hearing is in full force. I've tried treats and calling for her. Sometimes it works, other times not so much. And if we are in the front yard she will run after people because she wants to talk to them. And our road is soo busy. And again she totally ignores me when I tell her no or stay.
Today we picked up Lucas from school and she gets so excited to see all the kids. She jumps and wants to greet everyone.
Please give me some good advice. I think it's almost time to take some puppy classes, but I wanted to wait until she had gotten all her puppy shots, which will be another four weeks. So what can I do????
Sunday, August 05, 2012
A New World
Growing up I had a couple of cats. I loved them. Both of them were my little companion when my mom, a single mom, had to work long hours, and I was home by myself.
I left home when I was 20 to move to the US and my cat stayed with my mom. I never got another pet again. I just wasn't interested in them anymore.
As Lucas grew up a few people would tell me once in a while that Lucas needed a dog. Every boy needed a little dog. I was always very fast to say "No way". I just didn't find anything interesting about dogs. Hated to jumping up on you, hated the hair. Just plainly didn't care for them. Then something happened. I don't know what exactly. But dogs started to be cuter to me. Whenever we would meet a dog at a park, campground etc. it would always melt my heart how Lucas would go and pet them, and I could just see it in his eyes how much he adored dogs. And then there is our horrible heart break that we experienced last year. Lucas went through a trauma. A huge one. And as a heart mom and angel mom, I just can't stop the thought and fear of loosing another child. It's horrifying. You can't shake those emotions. But I have an amazing seven year old, and I want him to experience everything life has to offer. And I want him to experience the greatest love I think there is. The unconditional love a dog will give you.
We also thought that Lucas is at a great age. And we only got that confirmed when we went camping in May, and he played with a dog, a border collie/black lab, all day long. He loved that dog. Couldn't barely get him to eat any meals, because he had to go back and play with the dog. We then promised him that we would get him a dog after my dad and stepmom left.
When they left a couple of weeks ago the search started. We knew we wanted a border collie. An active dog that we could teach to play fetch, go for walks, runs and even bike rides. I looked a lot online. It was like looking for another job! Very time consuming. I first looked at shelters and rescues. We went to look at a couple, but they just didn't fit us or our personalities. I changed my search to look for border collie puppies. I found a few breeders in Missouri. One had a litter just five weeks old, but they were located over four hours away from us. A far drive not knowing if we would like the dog and we had to put a non refundable deposit down to hold a dog. We just couldn't do it. We knew the right dog would come along.
The next day I looked online again and to my surprise I found a breeder right in town. We went last Sunday to look at the six puppies she had. Come to find out she had only listed them the day before, a mere two hours before I looked online. What are the chances? They say when it's meant to be you just know, right? We think we found the cutest dog. A little girl dog, named Pippa. (Yes, she is named after the sister of Kate Middleton, who is now married to Prince William.) We thought about changing her name, but none of us could think of a different name, and we all seemed to agree that the name just was hers. We could have taken Pippa home with us last Sunday, but since we've never had a dog we had nothing for her. We asked to pick her up Friday, so we could get things for her, but also have a whole weekend to make her comfortable in her new home.
She's now home and doing pretty good. She's VERY active. But she also rests and sleeps a lot. She cried a lot the first night in her crate, but last night it was much better. The first 24 hours with us she would pee in the house a lot. But the last almost 24 hours she has done her business outside. I've been taking her out a lot, and everytime she has gone. (knock on wood).
As Lucas grew up a few people would tell me once in a while that Lucas needed a dog. Every boy needed a little dog. I was always very fast to say "No way". I just didn't find anything interesting about dogs. Hated to jumping up on you, hated the hair. Just plainly didn't care for them. Then something happened. I don't know what exactly. But dogs started to be cuter to me. Whenever we would meet a dog at a park, campground etc. it would always melt my heart how Lucas would go and pet them, and I could just see it in his eyes how much he adored dogs. And then there is our horrible heart break that we experienced last year. Lucas went through a trauma. A huge one. And as a heart mom and angel mom, I just can't stop the thought and fear of loosing another child. It's horrifying. You can't shake those emotions. But I have an amazing seven year old, and I want him to experience everything life has to offer. And I want him to experience the greatest love I think there is. The unconditional love a dog will give you.
We also thought that Lucas is at a great age. And we only got that confirmed when we went camping in May, and he played with a dog, a border collie/black lab, all day long. He loved that dog. Couldn't barely get him to eat any meals, because he had to go back and play with the dog. We then promised him that we would get him a dog after my dad and stepmom left.
When they left a couple of weeks ago the search started. We knew we wanted a border collie. An active dog that we could teach to play fetch, go for walks, runs and even bike rides. I looked a lot online. It was like looking for another job! Very time consuming. I first looked at shelters and rescues. We went to look at a couple, but they just didn't fit us or our personalities. I changed my search to look for border collie puppies. I found a few breeders in Missouri. One had a litter just five weeks old, but they were located over four hours away from us. A far drive not knowing if we would like the dog and we had to put a non refundable deposit down to hold a dog. We just couldn't do it. We knew the right dog would come along.
The next day I looked online again and to my surprise I found a breeder right in town. We went last Sunday to look at the six puppies she had. Come to find out she had only listed them the day before, a mere two hours before I looked online. What are the chances? They say when it's meant to be you just know, right? We think we found the cutest dog. A little girl dog, named Pippa. (Yes, she is named after the sister of Kate Middleton, who is now married to Prince William.) We thought about changing her name, but none of us could think of a different name, and we all seemed to agree that the name just was hers. We could have taken Pippa home with us last Sunday, but since we've never had a dog we had nothing for her. We asked to pick her up Friday, so we could get things for her, but also have a whole weekend to make her comfortable in her new home.
She's now home and doing pretty good. She's VERY active. But she also rests and sleeps a lot. She cried a lot the first night in her crate, but last night it was much better. The first 24 hours with us she would pee in the house a lot. But the last almost 24 hours she has done her business outside. I've been taking her out a lot, and everytime she has gone. (knock on wood).
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
The latest...
Well, really I won't be writing about the latest in just one post. But it's been a while, and I'll just really quick explain why.
First and foremost my dad and step mom came to visit us. We just took them to the airport yesterday and said our "see you later" to them. It was so hard. It's always so hard. I miss my family. I miss having them around. Oh why, do they have to be so far away? But we had a ton of fun with them. We had a lot of laughs, lot of wine and beer and a lot of good talks. So different from when they were here a year ago when Noah passed away. A year ago I was walking around in a fog. Couldn't see what was right in front of me...didn't even care. This year our visit with them was so much clearer. I think it was good therapy for all of us.
With them coming in town, we wanted to get our house looking good. We did a lot of week many weekends before they would come. We redid our roof on the back of the house (due to a stubborn leak), and we redid our back deck. It's looking amazing (in our opinion). We wanted a "Colorado" feel to it and I think we got it. I'll share pics later.
Another thing I've been extremely occupied was the preparation for Dwayne's surprise 40th birthday party. He turned 41 in June, but I had planned a 40th birthday celebration for him last year. I thought it would be so perfect. Noah would be home from the hospital, I would still be on maternity leave and we could just celebrate. Well, as you know plans change and ours did too. It changed from it will be a surprise 40th birthday celebration (a little late) combined with a welcome home party for Noah. Well, it changed again. Nothing happened. No celebration. No party. It just turned into a big shit sandwich!!
This year was gonna be different. I wanted to celebrate Dwayne. He works so darn hard for his family. For us. He still managed to work when our youngest son was fighting for his life in the hospital. I don't think I'll ever get over the sadness that Dwayne wasn't able to commit himself 150% to be with Noah when he wanted to be there. That makes me sad.
So I planned a 40th birthday surprise a year late! It turned out amazing. He had no clue whatsoever!
I planned it for 7/7. That day is a very special day to us. That's Noah's date of death. It would be a hard day. We knew that. It was actually hard leading up to that day. We knew we needed to be surrounded with love on that day. My dad and step mom would be with us on that day too. When I mentioned to them having the party for Dwayne on that day they were totally game. They were actually thrilled that they could come and help out and be part of the celebration. My family can never be a part of any celebration, so it was very special to have them with us.
I had one of Dwayne's friends help me. I needed to get Dwayne out of the house, because I wanted to have the party outside. His friend planned a bike ride for several guys. It was easy to get him out of the house. Another friend picked him up. He knew all about the party so he made sure to keep him away from the house until the guests had arrived.
Since Dwayne is a bikerider, I had been researching his cake for quite some time. I found a cool idea on the internet to add a road to the cake. I created a bikerider and bike out of fondant.
I got a little frustrated while making the cake and it didn't help that I was stressed to make sure it got done in time before the guests would arrive.
Here's the final result of the bicycle rider with his bike.
The cake was made out of chocolate cake. It had cool whip with melted chocolate in between the layers (we love chocolate in this house). Everything was edible on this cake. Mostly everything was fondant on the outside except for the spokes on the bicycle. Those were spaghetti.
Then there was the decoration. I wanted it to be manly. I picked yellow and black for the colors. We hung balloons on a string around the backyard. It looked so cool. Unfortunately the temps were above 100, so a lot of the balloons had popped from the heat. Such a bummer. And I think I mentioned my disappointment a lot that night. I made table runners out of burlap. I bought mason jars for candle holders. Added some marbles in the bottom, added water and a heart shaped floating candle. (It just had to be hearts for Noah). And tied a little straw ribbon around the top.
Then there was the food. The cake was in place. Since I had been watching the weather forecast I knew it was gonna be hot. I wanted something cooling.
So I found this great receipe from Frugal Girls: The cheesecake frozen yogurt pops were delicious. I changed up the receipe a little bit. Instead of making it strictly cherry, I added a mixture of frozen fruits instead of frozen cherries. My bag had pineapple, strawberries, peach and mango in it. And instead of cherry juice I just bought a fruit punch juice.
My stepmom made some delicious meat balls. We also served hot dogs, chips, fruit salad, pasta salad and I wanted some kind of potato dish. Instead I found a receipe on pinterest for some tasty zucchini bites.
They compared them to tater tots, just healthier. Here is the receipe. The only diffence I did was to use plain bread crumbs since that's what I had on hand. I heard they were really good too. I never tried them since everyone seemed to wanting to eat them, so I left them for the guests instead. I'm planning on making them soon again, since they could be great for the freezer and an easy help for dinner one night when working.
Also my mother in law made Dwayne's favorite. Little cheese cakes. My good friend, Chrissy also brought an appetizer. Yum!
I just never took many pictures from the party. Must have the good tasting wine and beer that distracted me :-) But here's a picture of the food table with not too many leftovers (yay)!
We had about 30 guests including us. I was so thankful to all who could come out to help celebrate Dwayne. Also a big thanks to the guys who kept Dwayne occupied before the party. I think this 40th birthday celebration was pretty spectacular! And I think the birthday "boy" thought the same thing.
First and foremost my dad and step mom came to visit us. We just took them to the airport yesterday and said our "see you later" to them. It was so hard. It's always so hard. I miss my family. I miss having them around. Oh why, do they have to be so far away? But we had a ton of fun with them. We had a lot of laughs, lot of wine and beer and a lot of good talks. So different from when they were here a year ago when Noah passed away. A year ago I was walking around in a fog. Couldn't see what was right in front of me...didn't even care. This year our visit with them was so much clearer. I think it was good therapy for all of us.
With them coming in town, we wanted to get our house looking good. We did a lot of week many weekends before they would come. We redid our roof on the back of the house (due to a stubborn leak), and we redid our back deck. It's looking amazing (in our opinion). We wanted a "Colorado" feel to it and I think we got it. I'll share pics later.
Another thing I've been extremely occupied was the preparation for Dwayne's surprise 40th birthday party. He turned 41 in June, but I had planned a 40th birthday celebration for him last year. I thought it would be so perfect. Noah would be home from the hospital, I would still be on maternity leave and we could just celebrate. Well, as you know plans change and ours did too. It changed from it will be a surprise 40th birthday celebration (a little late) combined with a welcome home party for Noah. Well, it changed again. Nothing happened. No celebration. No party. It just turned into a big shit sandwich!!
This year was gonna be different. I wanted to celebrate Dwayne. He works so darn hard for his family. For us. He still managed to work when our youngest son was fighting for his life in the hospital. I don't think I'll ever get over the sadness that Dwayne wasn't able to commit himself 150% to be with Noah when he wanted to be there. That makes me sad.
So I planned a 40th birthday surprise a year late! It turned out amazing. He had no clue whatsoever!
I planned it for 7/7. That day is a very special day to us. That's Noah's date of death. It would be a hard day. We knew that. It was actually hard leading up to that day. We knew we needed to be surrounded with love on that day. My dad and step mom would be with us on that day too. When I mentioned to them having the party for Dwayne on that day they were totally game. They were actually thrilled that they could come and help out and be part of the celebration. My family can never be a part of any celebration, so it was very special to have them with us.
I had one of Dwayne's friends help me. I needed to get Dwayne out of the house, because I wanted to have the party outside. His friend planned a bike ride for several guys. It was easy to get him out of the house. Another friend picked him up. He knew all about the party so he made sure to keep him away from the house until the guests had arrived.
Since Dwayne is a bikerider, I had been researching his cake for quite some time. I found a cool idea on the internet to add a road to the cake. I created a bikerider and bike out of fondant.
I got a little frustrated while making the cake and it didn't help that I was stressed to make sure it got done in time before the guests would arrive.
Here's the final result of the bicycle rider with his bike.
The cake was made out of chocolate cake. It had cool whip with melted chocolate in between the layers (we love chocolate in this house). Everything was edible on this cake. Mostly everything was fondant on the outside except for the spokes on the bicycle. Those were spaghetti.
Then there was the decoration. I wanted it to be manly. I picked yellow and black for the colors. We hung balloons on a string around the backyard. It looked so cool. Unfortunately the temps were above 100, so a lot of the balloons had popped from the heat. Such a bummer. And I think I mentioned my disappointment a lot that night. I made table runners out of burlap. I bought mason jars for candle holders. Added some marbles in the bottom, added water and a heart shaped floating candle. (It just had to be hearts for Noah). And tied a little straw ribbon around the top.
Then there was the food. The cake was in place. Since I had been watching the weather forecast I knew it was gonna be hot. I wanted something cooling.
So I found this great receipe from Frugal Girls: The cheesecake frozen yogurt pops were delicious. I changed up the receipe a little bit. Instead of making it strictly cherry, I added a mixture of frozen fruits instead of frozen cherries. My bag had pineapple, strawberries, peach and mango in it. And instead of cherry juice I just bought a fruit punch juice.
My stepmom made some delicious meat balls. We also served hot dogs, chips, fruit salad, pasta salad and I wanted some kind of potato dish. Instead I found a receipe on pinterest for some tasty zucchini bites.
They compared them to tater tots, just healthier. Here is the receipe. The only diffence I did was to use plain bread crumbs since that's what I had on hand. I heard they were really good too. I never tried them since everyone seemed to wanting to eat them, so I left them for the guests instead. I'm planning on making them soon again, since they could be great for the freezer and an easy help for dinner one night when working.
Also my mother in law made Dwayne's favorite. Little cheese cakes. My good friend, Chrissy also brought an appetizer. Yum!
I just never took many pictures from the party. Must have the good tasting wine and beer that distracted me :-) But here's a picture of the food table with not too many leftovers (yay)!
We had about 30 guests including us. I was so thankful to all who could come out to help celebrate Dwayne. Also a big thanks to the guys who kept Dwayne occupied before the party. I think this 40th birthday celebration was pretty spectacular! And I think the birthday "boy" thought the same thing.
Friday, June 15, 2012
RIP Oakes
Where do I start? This is so hard to write. I never thought that Oakes wouldn't make it. He always seemed to find a way back after having his setbacks. And believe me, he had many.
He had a special way of bouncing back to smiles, to charming everyone. Charming his friends, family, nurses and even people he never met in person but just thru pictures. He had the most fight in him I have ever seen.
Oakes and his parents and older sister was a family we "met" at the hospital when Noah was there. When I say "met", we really didn't meet there. Pretty amazing huh? Considering the unit they were in was small, only 12 beds. And they were there at the same time together. Becky (Oakes's mom) told me later that she saw us in the hall, but I never did. Oh, how I wish I did. When I went to visit Noah, I never looked into the other rooms I passed. Noah was in room 11 and one of the last rooms in the unit. I walked by ten other beds before Noah's room. But I just never felt that it was right for me to look into someone else's room. I felt I was invading their space if I would do that.
Becky reached out to me after Noah died thru facebook. We started to message back and forth and at first I thought she was our next door neighbor. That's how clueless I was. I would say we have a pretty neat friendship considering we actually have only been together a few times and it's usually been for events.
Oakes was born with a congenital heart defect (CHD) and he had two heart surgeries and a double lung transplant. Not to mention countless treatments and procedures. He was/IS a strong little dude and I feel priveliged to have met him.
You can read more about Oakes's life here. Both Oakes's momma and pappa are amazing writers. They are so good with words.
He had a special way of bouncing back to smiles, to charming everyone. Charming his friends, family, nurses and even people he never met in person but just thru pictures. He had the most fight in him I have ever seen.
Oakes and his parents and older sister was a family we "met" at the hospital when Noah was there. When I say "met", we really didn't meet there. Pretty amazing huh? Considering the unit they were in was small, only 12 beds. And they were there at the same time together. Becky (Oakes's mom) told me later that she saw us in the hall, but I never did. Oh, how I wish I did. When I went to visit Noah, I never looked into the other rooms I passed. Noah was in room 11 and one of the last rooms in the unit. I walked by ten other beds before Noah's room. But I just never felt that it was right for me to look into someone else's room. I felt I was invading their space if I would do that.
Becky reached out to me after Noah died thru facebook. We started to message back and forth and at first I thought she was our next door neighbor. That's how clueless I was. I would say we have a pretty neat friendship considering we actually have only been together a few times and it's usually been for events.
Oakes was born with a congenital heart defect (CHD) and he had two heart surgeries and a double lung transplant. Not to mention countless treatments and procedures. He was/IS a strong little dude and I feel priveliged to have met him.
You can read more about Oakes's life here. Both Oakes's momma and pappa are amazing writers. They are so good with words.
Tomorrow we celebrate you, Oakes.
Forever missed. Forever loved.
3/10/11 - 6/6/12
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Just because
It's Saturday evening. Lucas is bugging about dinner, but I have to real quick share this picture I took of Lucas a couple of weeks ago. I absolutely am IN LOVE with this picture of my oldest son. Can you just not hear his giggles just looking at this picture?
I hate the staged smile whenever I bring out the camera. It's so hard to get his personality and his true smiles to show in pictures. Normally he complains about having to get his picture taken, so that don't make it easier. But THIS is just perfection. I can't say how much I love being his mom. I'm so thankful that I was choosen.
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