Move Over Annie

Jaelyn's in the house.

On a lark, Jaelyn asked me to roll her hair in foam rollers after her bath one night.  We were SHOCKED by how tightly it curled her hair.  She looked adorable, but she absolutely refused to go anywhere with her hair so curly :p.

Gracie's Christmas List

Gracie Mae fit in Zac's cat bed with room to spare when she came home four weeks ago.  I think she'll be needing to ask Santa for a new one.

If I'm honest, I'm having a real love/hate relationship with our little pooch.  The house breaking is driving me nuts.  And actually, it's really not the house breaking.  We are down to just one or two pee accidents a day.  But when we go off, she gets very upset (I think you are right about the anxiety, your majesty) and her soft poop (which we are still medicating for) turns into diarrhea that she steps in and spreads all over her crate.  It's just nasty, but I can't sit home with her 24 hours a day.  Even though I don't work, I still have responsibilities that requiring leaving the house everyday.

Jaelyn's Thoughts on a Visiting Santa Claus

Allie and Caden's First Choir Performance

Gotcha Day Delayed

Gotcha Day snuck up on me this year.  On December 1st, we celebrated the 8 anniversary of Jaelyn and Allie's adoptions.  I normally spend time looking through photo albums and reminiscing.  I always have our gingerbread house supplies ready to go.  Not this year.  I didn't even realize it was Gotcha Day until Dan told me sometime in the middle of the day.  In my mind, it was only payday.  Uhhhh...I feel tired these days.  Can I blame it on sleep deprivation and cleaning up poo?

Anyway, we decided to celebrate today.  Instead of the gingerbread house kits I normally buy, we bought graham crackers and bags of candy.  I made 2 pounds of royal icing and we starting construction. 

Unfortunately, we learned the difference between using graham crackers and gingerbread.  Oops.  It was really funny to watch as Allie house slowly imploded on itself as the graham crackers collapse under the weight of icing and candy.

While Jaelyn managed to stay intact, Caden's also experienced cookie failure as his tower crashed to the ground.

We had a nice dinner out at Cracker Barrel tonight.  Well, it was mostly nice.  They forgot my salad and then had to remake it three times to get it right.  Dan is counting it as four since the last time, they also forgot the dressing.  Craziness.  We wrapped up our evening with a big piece of ooey-gooey coca-cola cake.

Hi Miss K and Other Tid Bits

I talked to my Mom today and learned that I have a loyal blog reader I didn't know about.  Hi Miss K! Miss K was my third grade teacher.  My mom helped in her classroom until I went to middle school.  We saw her every few years after that and most recently reconnected with her as she became a very good friend to my Grandma Molly in the years before she died.  For that, she will always have a very special place in my heart.  Of course, the downside to having my third grade teacher reading my blog is my attention to grammar, punctuation and spelling is going to have to quadruple :p.

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog.  There are so many things swirling around my head to write about, but this silly dog is taking up all of my time.  She's taught me if I play with her and keep her tethered to me, she doesn't have accidents in the house.  As soon as I put her in the super yard and turn my back, she pees in the floor - even if I've just taken her out.  Everyone who told me puppies are like newborns is correct.  I even bring her into the bathroom when I take a shower so she won't get into trouble.  We are still having soft poop issues.  Three vet appointments later, she is on a third medicine.  The next step will be GI sensitive food.  If I overlook the poop and pee issues, I love my Gracie Mae.  She is such a sweet dog.  Her favorite place is on the foot of the recliner snoozing in the evenings.

The kids are doing good.  We've been busy with school work, math projects and book reports. Fourth grade is TOUGH and Jaelyn is struggling.  I've talked with the school counselor, but they don't see her struggling enough to get her extra help.  It's kind of annoying.  If she got help now, she could stay up with her school work, but we have to wait until she's way behind to get her the help she needs now when it's going to be even harder to catch her up.  Thankfully, Jaelyn has a wonderful teacher that I have a good relationship with (those hours I put in volunteering in her classroom every week have their advantages).  She's getting her extra help and documenting everything so next year....

I'm knee deep in Christmas shopping.  I think I've outdone myself this year, if I do say so myself :).  I can't wait to go home and let the wrapping paper fly!

Dan seems to really be enjoying his job.  I'm thankful he finally knows what his job is.  It sounds very important, but I don't think I can explain it properly.  His GRE prep books came yesterday.  I'm sure he'd appreciate prayers.  He takes it in January so he needs to get studying.  He can start applying to schools as soon as he gets his scores.  I'm excited to know where we are going next.  I need something positive to get me through Ft. Leonard Wood.  While we are making friends and keeping busy, it's not a truly fun place to live.  I continue to be amazed that people choose to live here.  I'm not a big city girl, but I'm definitely not a tiny town girl either! 

Dog's barking so my time is up...

Gracie Talking to Her Best Friend

Deconstruction

I know I've mentioned before what an amazing woodworker my Dad is.  He's built us many things.  He built this dresser originally for my Mom about 5 or 6 years ago.  She decided it was too big in the room so she gave it to us for the girls.  It's always been a little scary to me because it's tall and deep and really, really heavy.  The "what ifs" of this dresser falling on someone are too much.  I secure most of our furniture to the wall, and this big boy is #1 on my list as soon as we move in.

I'm not quite sure why we started talking about cutting the two top drawers off, but we did.  My Dad brought a box full of tools to tackle the project over Thanksgiving. 

Now the top is connected...

Now it's not.

The project isn't quite finished.  The job requires a router, which is at home in Pensacola.  We'll bring the new top back after Christmas and attached up.  I  love the new height.  It's going to be perfect for Jaelyn and it won't be so scary for me. 

Jaelyn isn't too keen on the faux top made out of moving boxes :p.

My Parents are Here

I love Thanksgiving.  I think it might be my favorite holiday.  I especially love it when my parents come for Thanksgiving.  They got here on Thursday and Dan came home from Texas on Friday.  I am breathing easier.  Taking care of three kids and a puppy who likes to poop and pee in the floor and cries at night makes for a lll-oooo-nnnn-ggg week.

Everyone loves Gracie.

My family is slightly addicted to technology.  These were the scenes this morning.

Instead of sitting inside, I took Gracie outside to play.  Her favorite thing to do is bite my legs.

She is scared to death of cars.  I can't walk her passed the side of the house which is very disappointing.  She plants her bottom and short of dragging her, she's not moving.  I'll work on it after the potty training.  :)  Until then, she loves to run around the backyard and roll in the grass. 

First Bath

My biggest pet peeve about other people's dogs has been their smell.  Stinky dog smell.  Yuck.  I am bound and determined that Gracie will not be a stinky, smelly dog.  Jaelyn helped me give Gracie her first bath last weekend.  It started off a little rocky because Zac was drinking in the tub.  Once he cleared out, Jaelyn hopped in the tub and helped hold Gracie will I lathered and scrubbed.  She smelled so good afterward.

Gracie didn't love the bath, but she din't hate it either.  She absolutely loves the blow dryer though.  I had to fight her to keep her from biting the end.

The Leaf Pile

Camouflaged

Well That was Crazy

Gracie has been doing better.  I feel like we are getting her on a schedule.  She's sleeping for longer periods at night.  Yesterday was crazy though.

Dan took Gracie geo-caching.  I got Frontline to put her on at her vet appointment on Wednesday.  I'm freaked out about ticks so we put that on her before he left.  Dan said she was restless while he was gone and then she was crazy all afternoon and evening.  She chirped (she sounds exactly like a bird when she cries) continuously even when she was in our laps.  She wouldn't nap and she seemed wired...like one of the kids when they'd had too much sugar.  I googled Frontline reactions and saw that it can cause depression, anxiety and aggression.  It takes 24 hours to absorb in so at 7:30 last night, Gracie got a bath to wash her neck.  It took a while for her to settle down, but once she did, she slept seven hours straight.  That's her longest run so far, but she had to have been exhausted because she only had one nap yesterday morning.  She's back to her calm normal self this morning.  I called the vet and they said that's not a normal reaction, but I'm going to think twice about putting it on her again.

Finally Found a Favorite Toy

It's Official

Yes, another post about my dog.  That's my life for right now so get used to it :).

I took Gracie to the vet today and it's official, she is the cutest puppy in the world.  Three other pet owners and 2 receptionists all said so, so it must be true.  How fun is that?!  She didn't like her shot very much, but she got a clean bill of health.  She was so calm.  I was impressed.  She stayed curled in my arms and fell asleep or maybe she was just playing possum.

She had a better day today.  No soiling in her crate and she only had one accident this morning.  I should probably blame myself for it.  I took her out.  After she peed, I grabbed her up, praised her and brought her in.  She went straight into the superyard where she pooped.  I should have given her longer outside.  I guess we both have a learning curve to overcome.

Night Three

Thank you for all the advice.  I'm taking it all to heart (well, except for the advice that her royal highness didn't give.  I ain't doing that and I don't use ain't lightly :p)

Gracie is getting much more comfortable with her crate.  She goes in quickly, sniffing for her treat, and settles quicker after crying.  We draped material over her crate last.  Dan downloaded a heartbeat/white noise app and I put a box fan in the hallway.  All those things combined made for a much better night.  Gracie passes out around six at night and Dan and I do everything we can to keep her awake until we go to bed.  We only managed nine last night.  I actually laid her next to Zac.  She raised her head to look at him, yawned and went right back to sleep with a sigh.  Zac was not thrilled.  I heard crying around 1ish.  Dan said it was closer to 2, but I didn't focus too closely on the clock.  I had planned to just calm her down, but in my drug induced stupor (have I mentioned my sinus infection?), I had her outside going potty before I remembered.  She went right back to sleep and slept till five, then six and I finally got her up at 6:30.

I feel like we are close to getting night times worked out.  Now for the potty training.  Can I just say praise the Lord for wood floors?

So Cute But...

She has a cry that's killing me.  She misses her brother, sisters and Mommy something awful.  We've had two long nights.  I'm really hoping night three is better.

Saturday Scavenger

I intend to participate every week...but life seems to get the better of me.  I'm wasting no time finding and posting pictures this week.  BTW Thelma, I like the star system.  My perfectionist, over achieving personality responds well to that sort of thing :)!

Your favourite footwear

Not very stylish, but they sure are cozy and warm.

An open door

I definitely think I should win with this one since not only is the picture of an open door, there's also the world's cutest puppy in the frame.

Something that changes shape

Who Likes Sleeping Through the Night?

Not our Graciedoodle.  Many of my friends told me puppies are like babies and they were right.  I went to bed at 9 last night.  I was up at 10:30, 12:00, 1:30ish, Dan got up at 4-something and then I got back up at 6:00.  We started our day about 6:30.  She sounded so sad with her crying and whimpering. I've done enough sleep training with the kids that I knew to not let her out of them crate when she was crying. (Dan on the other hand let her right out to lay on his chest last night - pushover) I sat on the floor outside the crate and rubbed her sweet little head through the bars.  It only took about 10-15 minutes each time to settle her down and get her back to sleep.  Holly told me she was sleeping through the night and it should only take about 3 days to get her back to that.  I sure am hoping she's right because I'm too old to be doing this long term.  I'm glad our fourth child turned out to be a furbaby instead of a real one!

Even though she kept me up a lot last night, I still think she's the cutest thing around! 

Gracie's Homecoming

What a fun day today turned out to be.  We left bright and early (tangent - the kids got up really really really early - darn daylight savings time) to drive to Nevada, Missouri.  It's a little tiny town with one McDonald's on the border between Missouri and Kansas.  Gracie and her breeder were already there waiting for us. 

We were so excited.  Gracie is the cutest, sweetest puppy.  She's tiny.  It was love at first sight for all of us.

Gracie sat between me and Jaelyn on the way home.  She went back and forth between our laps taking little cat naps.  She was a great car traveler.  I was worried since we have a 15 hour drive to get home at Christmas.

Once home, we set up her superyard.  I had many people telling me having a puppy was just like having a baby.  With babies and toddlers, the key to my sanity was containment.  We had gates, bouncy seats,  playpens, strollers, high chairs.  Our kids were never loose to get into trouble.  I'm following the same line of thinking with Gracie Mae.  She will live in her superyard and crate until she's potty trained and I can trust her not to chew. 

We introduced Zac to Gracie right away and neither was too interested in the other.  I'm sure eventually they'll be good friends.  For now, I'm happy Zac didn't get upset or be mean to her.