In the Dog House

Easter 2009

2009-04-16T08:18:00.009-06:00

Yes, that's my bossy voice telling the kids to leave some eggs for Scout! Poor Scout didn't know which way to run or what to do... so Kelly helped him find some eggs, and everybody was happy!

It was really great to visit with YoonKyeong and Evan during the holiday! I sure wish they lived closer... but I guess with their new move to Colorado they are a lot closer than Virginia!!!

Spring Has Sprung!

2009-04-07T20:34:00.000-06:00

Yahoo!!!

Tree's are leafing out, flowers are budding and blooming, the pond awakens, and I'm finally WARM!!!

I've been waiting for this for ever so long...

Agility countdown...

2009-02-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

And so it begins... agility season!

We've been pretty slack this winter about practicing, so now we need to hurry and get back in gear.

These pictures were taken by a few of my teammates at our last couple of practices. Meg just LOVES agility and is SO excited whenever she sees the "agility bag" come out.

I know you can't tell from these pictures, but can I just say

BRRRRRR!!!!

Yes, we are crazy... we still practice in the freezing temps. I guess we are agility addicts!

Our first competition since last fall is coming up next weekend, so the countdown is on!

We will be practicing like crazy this week in the hopes that we can get synced again and can not embarrass ourselves. :)

Dog gone tired...

2009-02-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

Quail in the yard...We've had tons of Robins in our trees, and they love picking the berries off of the Hawthorne tree in the front yard.

Meg and Steffi

Meg napping in the sun...

What? Why'd you wake me up? I'm dog gone tired!!!

Pretty girl!

Dancing Queen...

2009-02-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn had her first tap dancing class a couple of weeks ago. These are pictures from her first class. She thought it was great fun!!!

She's Belly Up!

2009-01-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

Just a quick little entry to show you how Tika sleeps...

It always puts a smile on my face when she does this. My two shelties are side sleepers who don't like to show their belly, so it seemed unusual to us when Tika came to our house to see a dog sleep like this!

She will flop down like this right in the middle of the floor, so that anyone who is going in and out of the room have to step over her. She doesn't seem to mind though, as she never budges an inch when we do!

Tagged By Shannalee..

2009-01-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

This is a picture from my 5th file and the 5th picture in that file. This is a picture of the flowers my mom sent me for my birthday three years ago. My birthday is at the beginning of January, and those flowers were such a good boost to my winter blahs! Spring and Fall are my favorite times of year. I love it when the flowers and plants start peaking through the dull winter soil. I love to see the outdoors come alive with plants, animals, and fish (in our pond).

Okay... I'm tagging Melanie!

In a Fog...

2009-01-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems we've been living in the fog for a couple of weeks now. I've never seen the fog last this long, it's really strange. I am SO ready for some sunny days!!!

These pictures were taken from the car as we drove east on I-84 from Boise on our way to Lava Hot Springs. It was really pretty because all of the trees were "iced" and so were all of the power lines, fence wires, etc...

Kelly and I celebrated our 12th anniversary on Sunday, and we kind of have this tradition of going to different hot or mineral springs for our anniversary. This year we went to Lava Hot Springs with the kids. They had never been to a hot spring and thought it was pretty cool that the water was so warm and that it came right out of the earth that way.

Other than that things have been pretty routine around here...

Green again...

2009-01-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn and Riley

enjoying the loot!!!

Well, Christmas has been and gone and we all had a good one. It was just our little family this year (plus a couple of extra dogs) and it was kind of nice to relax and do things at our own pace.

The kids waited until 8am to wake us up (YES!!!) and then we fed dogs, and proceded to the front room to open presents and to see what Santa brought.

The kids were thrilled with everything they got. Brooklyn got many barbies, a barbie house, and rollerblades, and Riley got a several car race tracks, some art supplies, and rollerblades.

I got a new camera from Kelly and took all of our Christmas pictures with it, and then proceded to erase them ALL! I guess you really should read the manual on those things! :0 So I had to take several pictures of the kids playing with their toys after it was all over...

Meg and Steffi on Christmas morning.... life's rough for them!

We had all that snow and then had a few warm days and now we're back to green (trees and yard)!

I feed the birds all winter and most of them live in the pines that line the side of our house. We get finches, quail, and these really tiny ones during the winter. The finches and other birds will pick the berries from our Hawthorne tree, but the quail like to eat off of the ground, so we buy them some yummy quail food for the winter and toss that down underneath the tree.

I think the weather has been so fickle this year that the birds don't know what to do... we saw a HUGE flock of robins out the other day trying to find what they could in the grass.

School will be starting back for the kids Monday, and we're ALL looking forward to that!!!

It's been a fun, but long two weeks on the break, but the kids are missing their friends, and I am missing how worn out they are after a day at school. :D

Let it snow, let it snow, let it...

2008-12-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

SNOW!

And boy, did it snow. Although we have only been in boise for three years, and people assure us that it never snows like this, two of our three winters here have been snowy.

I guess we will have our White Christmas after all!

The kids love sledding down the little hill at the side of our yard and think that it's great fun. Kelly and I keep telling them that they need to sled on a REAL hill!!! I think we will take them to sled down Camelsback sometime this week. Now that's a hill! LOL!!!

Riley had his Christmas program at school last Thursday. It was fun to see him singing and really getting into it! This was his favorite song, Noel. (See video to the right)

The dogs have really been enjoying the snow too! It is always so pretty after a snow fall, but our snow usually is full of doggy footprints within minutes of letting them out. They get so spunky in the new snow and will frollic with eachother until they are exhausted. I just love watching them play in the snow. I tried to take a video of it this morning, but Steffi spied me through the window, and alerted Meg and Tika that I was watching. Within seconds they were all sitting at the back door waiting to come in...

Leapin' lizards!!! Oh, I mean leapin' Tika!

Meg, Steffi, and Tika enjoying the snow...

Yummmm! I love snow!

Nope! I didn't eat any snow!!!

I'll just leave you with one more picture and a Joyous Christmas wish from my family to you and yours!

Getting Ready

2008-12-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay... I've finally broken down and made a blog. I think I have had it in the back of my mind that it was going to be a lot harder and a lot more involved than it is! Granted, mine is not the fanciest of blogs, but it gets the job done. :D

It seems like I have been getting ready for the last three weeks. Getting ready first for Thanksgiving, getting our house ready to put on the market, and getting ready for Christmas.

This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. I have only done this once before, with help from my mom. This year I made it all, except for the pies, which my mom brought. I started out thinking it wouldn't be that much work, but ended up making a lot more dishes that I had originally planned. It turned out great though, and we really enjoyed having my parents, my brother and his family over for the holiday.

Then we started getting our house ready to sell. This included a deep clean, de-junking, painting a few touch up spots, putting in a new vanity top and faucet in the kids bathroom, and filling in the dogs digging hole in the backyard and laying chicken wire over it, weed barrier over that, and pea gravel on top of that, with a brick paver border. We then placed the dog houses on top of that. Also, we had a ton of leaves to rake, the pond to winterize, etc...

It has been a BUSY couple of weeks! We finally got our tree up this week though, and that is always fun, and the kids look forward to it sooooo much. I think a lot of that might have to do with the presents that materialize under the tree after it is up. LOL!!!

We have decided as a family to have a much simpler Christmas this year, and only get a few presents, and to give more to those less fortunate than us.
I think that we get too caught up in the "I want, I want..." and don't count our blessings that we do have.
We have been blessed with Kelly's job, my jobs, our safety, our warm home, food to eat, clothes to wear, cars to drive, and most of all, with a Saviour who came to earth and atoned for our sins, and who loves us. We owe it all to Him. Without Him we would have nothing.

As I was driving in the car yesterday afternoon, it hit me that I needed to take stock of all that I DO have, and that what I have is good. Getting ready shouldn't be a chore, something to dread, but a joy and blessing.

Getting ready is something that we do for the rest of our lives...