Grooming, My Birthday, and Silly Max

My birthday was Friday the 13th this year. I hate when that happens!  It was a great day though! My awesome friends, Mysti and Tamra brought me a chocolate cake in a nice. clear glass cake pedestal with a cover. And they brought me basket with movies, a throw, candy, popcorn, and my survival juice...Cherry Coke!!! And they stayed and ate some cake with me and visited. I just love them! I've been so busy lately that I haven't had a lot of time to spend with them so it was especially nice to hang with them!  Brian had started making me a fabulous Coconut Cream Cake, that's to die for, when they came. So, I had 2 of my favorite cakes! Brian let me pick out some clothes at Maurices. I love them and it makes me feel good knowing I have some cute things to wear. I have such a desire to have cute clothes but no funds!  :) So I got clothes for Christmas AND my birthday. I actually have 3 pairs of jeans I can wear without having my belly hang over the waist, as if I were a man because they are so low rise and they are a size smaller than I really need. My new ones aren't low rise which if fabulous! Anyway, it really was a wonderful day and I felt very spoiled! My Mom has been in Florida visiting my brother, Nathan and his cute little family, so she said she'll come here when she is back in town and I get to celebrate again!  :) Usually I don't make a big deal about my birthday so this year has been especially fun! I've been kinda freaked about the fact that this is my last year of my 30's. Yeah, I'm 39! WoW!!! Where HAS the time gone?!?!? I'm going to try to make year 39 a great one!

~Yesterday, Max played at his friend, Gabe's, house. They invited him to stay for dinner. After I picked him up I asked him what they ate. He said it was lasagna. I asked him if he liked it. To which he responded, "It was good. She doesn't make it like you make it, with all the white stuff in it. It only had a little bit of the white stuff in it so it didn't make me want to puke." I am so grateful for my Max! He keeps us laughing, even when we are sad! I just love him so much!

~So, I can't remember if I ever told more about our dog situation. I was so embarrassed that I didn't dare talk about it. We had a dog named Tex. He was such a cute dog. And we all loved him. We only had him for a few days, however, because we were all allergic to him. The day we decided we needed to let him go, Zack had hives all over him. So, then we ended up with Lucy. Lucy we a cute little puppy. Max especially loved her. His brothers were in school and he wanted a little companion. Unfortunately, she liked to bite everyone. We had to put her on a cable leash thing out front where she could freely run up and down the full yard but she couldn't bite people when they came to visit. She bit almost all of us. We tried every googleable solution we could possibly find to try and nothing worked. One day she bit me twice and drew blood on my leg. That was the final straw. I didn't want her to attack my kids so we had to let her go also. So we finally ended up with Yager. He is a Miniature Schnauzer. He was 2 1/2 years old. His family was too busy to spend the time with him that he needed so we found him on KSL.com and met his owner and got the cute little guy. He is so much fun and we all love him. Since he was older I could ask important questions like, does he bite, chew things up, bark constantly, is he potty trained. He was been a perfect fit for our family. We didn't have him groomed the last few months because the poor guy shivered and shook all last winter. I couldn't take it anymore though and tried my hand at dog grooming last night. He looks so much cuter when he looks like a Mini Schnauzer instead of like Benji! If you don't look closely, he looks really good.  ;)

Christmas and ringing in the New Year

We had a wonderful Christmas this year even though I almost totally ruined the whole thing and we had a little change of plans.

How I almost totally ruined Christmas (for Zack anyway): I put Zack's basketball goal he wanted on layaway at Kmart early in November. I was going to get it off layaway December 23rd and it was going to work out perfectly! Well, lots of Dr's appointments, pain, festivities, callings, and craziness in general and apparently somewhere in there I was supposed to remember to make a payment on the thing at the end of November...big OOPS!!! Brian was inspired one day in December to check out the status of the layaway online...it was...CANCELLED!!! WHAT!!! WHAT!!!!!! Total heart attack city for me when I got that lovely phone call! Thank goodness Brian was able to find one on walmart.com that was actually like $40 cheaper anyway. There weren't any left in the stores here in our little town and we weren't planning any trips to the big city anytime soon so we were so LUCKY (blessed!) to find that one online! And it was delivered 2 days later which was awesome!!! Thank goodness Zack has a great dad!!!

Change of plans: We were planning to go to my parent's house for Christmas dinner but my mom and my sister Katie got sick with a stomach virus that morning that they got from my adorable niece, Emily. I feel so bad for them that they were sick because that would be a totally rotten way to spend Christmas. And my brother in law Chris who is married to Katie has his birthday on Christmas day. So he spent his big day watching Katie be sick. Fun stuff! Well, we obviously stayed home and it turned out to be an awesome day!!! I was worried how the kids would react to having a slimmer, but still, very nice Christmas gift getting experience this year compared to last years major over indulgence. They LOVED it! They were so happy with everything they got! They were disappointed to not be going to my mom's and we were too but it was SO awesome to just watch our kids relax and enjoy their gifts and enjoy the day. We haven't traveled for Christmas in several years because it just doesn't work for us anymore but we thought it would be nice to go for Christmas dinner. I'm thinking while our kids are still young enough to really enjoy the magic of Christmas this may just have to be the way we do it from now on. It was a great day! I had a lot of energy that day which is highly unusual for me so I cleaned a lot and accomplished a lot of things I had been wanting to get done so it worked great for me. I kept getting teary thinking about not getting to see my sister Dana and my brother Rob that day. I knew we'd see the rest of my family in a few days anyway but I was really sad to think I couldn't see Rob and Dana! We did enjoy just being alone for the day though and realize sometimes a change of plans isn't such a bad thing after all. We spent New Year's Eve with my family and had our belated wonderful Christmas dinner and exchanged gifts and had a great time!!! It's all good!
Here are some of our pictures from the fun and crazy month of December...

Gracie had so much fun tormenting our poor tree this year. Eventually we had almost all of our ornaments on the top of the tree and only indestructible ones down low. I gave up trying to rearrange them to look halfway decent. I took this picture on Christmas Eve. Poor pathetic tree!!! I didn't want to put the gifts out until Christmas Eve because of our sweet little tornado but Brian talked me into it on the Sunday  before Christmas and sheesh...we should have waited. She unwrapped like 6 gifts. You can see that Brian's exercise bike he got was unwrapped. Silly girl! P.S. I wasn't trying to send Brian a message by giving him that bike or anything! That's what he wanted!!! Just wanted to make it clear that I didn't say here's an exercise bike fat a.. USE IT! He would just have said ditto!!

Brian made us each a hat for Christmas. Love them!!! We usually do Christmas pjs for Christmas Eve but didn't this year. Oh well, we survived! !

Apparently Gracie agrees that being surrounded by presents and chocolate = pure bliss!!!

Cute little Lucy on our way to Spanish Fork. Thank goodness Katie and Chris let her sleep over at their house with Sam and Sia when it's too cold to leave her home!!!

We came to Spanish Fork for our New Year's celebrations a day early on Thursday so we could go on a date while my parents watched all the kids. What I won't do for a date night! Even driving through white out conditions in the canyon couldn't stop me from cashing in on that prize!!!

 So, 2010..not my favorite year I must say!! A lot of trials and bumps in the road! Also many, many blessings!
Great things that have come from this year:
~A stronger testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and a greater feeling of closeness to Him, our loving Father in Heaven, and the precious gift of the Holy Ghost.
~A stronger testimony of the power of prayer.
~A closer family unit seeing as how we are so CLOSE in our tiny house. They say love grows best in little houses and boy are they right!
~The joy we feel in watching our children grow and enjoying the precious gifts of being their parents is truly a blessing!!!
~Our children have been really healthy this year and we are so very grateful to our Heavenly Father for that amazing gift as well!
~Our gratitude to our Heavenly Father for all He has provided us with in our lives has grown tremendously this year!!!
~Brian has a great job with great benefits. We have a roof over our heads. We have food on the table. We have clothes on our backs. We have cars to drive. We have the gospel in our lives. We have friends. We live in Utah in the United States of America. We have people to love. We are blessed!!! And we are grateful!!!

So GOODBYE 2010 and HELLO 2011!!!!!  Please be kind to us!!! :)

We love Lucy!!!

We have another dog. She's an 8 week old puppy. She's a Red Heeler. Her name is Lucy. I picked the name and everyone liked it. She is very cute, very sweet, and just the best puppy I've ever been around. The kids adore her. I even like her. And of course Brian loves her, she IS a dog after all and he's wanted one for years. Gracie can't get enough of her! When she saw her this morning she said, hi daw (dog) and waved. She is constantly trying to escape outside and Lucy is constantly trying to get inside so it's kind of interesting when someone needs to go in or out the door between the 2 of them. They keep life fun!



Like a bandaid...

Well, we took poor ol' Tex to the animal shelter yesterday. We decided that once we made the decision we better just take him quick and get it over with. Like ripping off a bandaid! There were a lot of tears once we started talking about it but they were actually really calm and great when we actually took him. The people there were super! They suggested that we get a Maltese or a Labradoodle next time since they are supposed to be really hypoallergenic. Brian read online that if you are allergic to the saliva of one dog, you are usually allergic to all dog saliva. We think that is the main problem with our boys. Although Zack had been snuggling the dog in the morning with his shirt off and ended up with HUGE hives all over his upper chest, neck, and face from him so it may just be the dander. We are going to try having the kids spend some time with those breeds and see if they are allergic before we get one this time. Anyhoo, it's over and they survived. I took them for an ice cream cone from McDonald's right after to boost their spirits. It seemed to work!  It's all good!

A bit of a dilemma...

So, we are all having allergy problems because of our dog. Zack and Matthew even have hives all over their faces and necks. Zack and I keep having to use our inhalers. We keep telling them not to let him lick them since we think that is causing the hives but telling our kids to not let a dog lick them is like telling them to not chew hard candy or to walk not run. IMPOSSIBLE!!! If we give him away it will break the kids' hearts but I just can't see living like this forever. We need an outside dog or one that is more hypoallergenic. We've given him 2 baths since Wednesday and it hasn't helped. Other than bothering our allergies and breathing, he has been such a sweet little dog!!! Our kids are going to hate us!!! Oh what to do to cushion the blow....

Be Careful What You Wish For...

We (mostly Brian) have always wanted a dog. Our boys REALLY wanted one and have begged relentlessly for years for one. When we rented this house the realtor told us we could have a small dog or a cat which prompted an almost daily beg from the boys. Brian was listening to Barter Bar on the radio on Wednesday and heard about a little one year old Shih Tzu/Chiuaua mix for FREE!!! Well, we drove over right away and checked him out and in a moment of pure insanity I decided we could keep him. He's pretty cute. He reminds me more of a Terrier. I think of Eddie from Frazier. But he's not his mom is a Chiuaua and his dad is a Shih Tzu (or vice versa).

Gracie was positively TERRIFIED of him the first day but by the end of last night was chasing him around trying to "love" him. With 4 kids vying for his attention and showering him with "love and affection" (I guess that's what you'd call it) I have the same fear with him that I had with Max and Gracie when they were tiny babies...that he'll be loved to DEATH!!!

The kids have been so happy! Matthew and Zack have both at different times said, out of the blue..I can't believe we actually have a DOG!!! 

Zack even cleaned his room so the dog could come in there the first night. WOW! I've been trying to get him to do that for weeks! Once he cleaned half of it. Literally half. There was practically a line down the middle. It was pretty funny. 

The biggest problem we've faced so far is that he keeps running away constantly. We have a fenced front yard but he's small enough to squeeze through. We're working on it. He took off this morning and ran across the highway. Zack took off running after him...without looking...across the busy highway...giving his parents heart attacks!!! Luckily there weren't any cars coming which is unusual! What a blessing! We explained to him that if that happens again he needs to just let the dog go because although the dog is important he is no where near as important as Zack is!!! Seriously...what was he thinking?! Zack was upset and scared and frustrated when he came back and said he hated the dog. He can't understand why he keeps running away even though Zack loves him so much. SAD! 

The thought of a dog is much better in a lot of ways than actually owning one. For me anyway. The best part for me is that he's house broken already and he is very sweet and loving!!! He is scraggly looking and we want to let his hair grow out for a bit and see how he looks. The owners had him chained up in their back, dirt yard, on a short chain and he was FILTHY and pretty neglected looking. He needed us I think! They had a child or grandchild that was allergic to him so they put him outside and decided to give him to someone who could care for him better and give him more attention. He's definitely getting attention!! His name is KuJo...we're changing it to Tex (Brian grew up in Texas and I think it's sweet and kind of manly).

We (again...mostly Brian) also wanted a yard. WHAT were we thinking?! We've managed to live only in apartment complexes or houses where the HOA fees covered lawn maintenance so we've never actually had to care for our own yard. We've experienced caring for a yard when we lived with Brian's mom in the past and mowed, weed eated, weeded, planted flowers in her HUGE yard. Our yard is tiny! Brian mows it in like 5 or 10 minutes. It's awesome!!!

 But the weeds!

 It's ridiculous! And there isn't a sprinkling system. But at least it's a yard and even though it's lots of work we are happy to have a nice place for the kids to play. We have already spent a small fortune between the weed eater, fertilizer, and weed killer. Thank heavens my sister KayTee and her husband Chris had an old lawn mower that only works part of the time so they bought a new one and gave us the old one. WE ARE SO GRATEFUL!!! There is NO way we could have afforded a lawn mower!!! Next spring we are planning to plant a nice little garden in the garden spot to the side of the yard (once again Brian's dream!!!)

It's kind of fun having added adult responsibilities of a dog and a yard.  Lots of work and patience but still enjoyable!!!