Our New Puppies

As if our house wasn't crazy enough with 5 young children . . . we thought we'd add puppies! Ok, so we've been thinking about it for a while.  Dogs are so good for children, but I knew if we were going to get a dog I had to be sure I wanted one because I knew when it came right down to it - well I'm just home the most, so I'd be doing the most with it.  Well we got more than one and the story about how we got them is a doozy!  We found a breeder and called about his current litter and found it was a large one - 14 puppies.  They'd be ready on Christmas Eve - perfect!  I called back on the 21st to see if we could possibly pick the puppy up early since it was our Anniversary and well it was just a better day for us since we had a lot of company coming in and would have a lot going on in the next few days before Christmas. . . well, the guys says bad news, the puppies are all sick.  He's already lost one and it doesn't look good.  For most people the conversation would have ended there and they would have continued their search for another puppy or waited for the next litter.  Well not me.  I still don't know exactly how the conversation continued because I'm not much for conversation by phone anyway, but somehow we kept talking and pretty soon he was saying,' well I guess you could come and pick up a couple and see how you make out with them' (a couple, what?) 'they'd be free of course since they're sick' (hmm, we were going to pay $500 for one, maybe this would be okay.  Eric's a vet after all) So I tell him my husband is a veterinarian so I'd talk to him and see if he thought it might be worth it.  I talk to Eric and he says sure, lets go take a look (really like anyone could go look at puppies but not get one?).  I call back and say we'll come and take a look.  So we  go take a look and they're all so beautiful, but soooo sick! We decide to take the 2 biggest males a black one and a chocolate and then there's this little guy that looks at us with these big sad eyes and we couldn't help but bring him home too.  We end up bringing home 3 sick puppies - best anniversary gift ever! Eric's such a romantic ;) 

Oh, and we're not just coming home to our normal house, we've got a house full of company that just arrived.  Eric's mom and dad and sister are there and my mom and dad and brother Russ and his family are all at our house - I bet they're glad they decided to visit us for Christmas!

 

Oh, but aren't they sweet! This is how we brought them home - in little boxes.  They were so sad.  We didn't hear them bark for over a week and they were throwing up and had diarrhea.  Eric doctored them up and we tube fed them and did everything we could.  Two of them recovered, but sadly the littlest one just couldn't hold on and on Christmas day he died.  The bigger two recovered soon after and are now thriving members of our family.  We had a tuff time agreeing on a name but decided on Bo Jackson (remember he played for Auburn in college-Melissa is a huge fan and we recently watched an ESPN special about him and I'll have to say I was  impressed, he seems like a good guy) So because that was the only name we all agreed on . . . we decided to name one dog Bo and one Jackson (Jack for short). *Hint: Bo is black and Jack is brown.

 

 

These first pictures are a little sad since the puppies are so sick.  You can really see it in their sad little faces.  The one that Melanie is holding (above) is the one that died :(

Here's Bo and Jack under the tree playing like healthy little puppies - we're so glad they're all better! They're hard to capture pictures of because they're so fast! Hopefully I'll get some more pictures on here before they're full grown! They're growing fast!

Gingerbread Houses!

So much fun! I've never made gingerbread houses from scratch before, but always wanted to.  This year we got together with some friends and let the kids decorate the houses we put together.  It was so much fun! I hope we can make it an annual tradition.  Some were iced together to be totally edible, some were hot glued together for strictly decoration and some were made out of graham crackers - what a good idea! Here's some pictures of the fun.

Could these girls get any cuter!!

Wow! Look at that masterpiece!

And the boys were pretty amazing too!

What a face!

Feeding Calves

Last Winter we started a new family business.  We adopt the calves from a neighbor farm and raise them for their first 8 weeks.  It's been an adventure.  Sometimes we love it and sometimes we hate it, but I think it's good for our family.  It teaches some good lessons about work and life and money to our children and gives us something we work on together.  Here's Melissa cleaning out one of the calf hutches.

 

Here's Eric feeding a new baby.  Some learn how to suck from a bottle with no trouble, but some are a real pain to teach, well I guess they're just like children.

They like to suck on fingers . . . or anything they can get their mouth on.  The kids have all been really good with them.

Here's David trying to ride one of the older ones.  The boys really like being cowboys.

And here's sweet little Rebekah feeding a bottle.  She's such a good little helper!

Spring Break in Pensacola

I've just got to set a limit of 5 pictures per post.  I get carried away and with my slow computer and limited computer skills it takes me forever to get a post ready. 

Finally . . . .here's our pictures from our wonderful Spring Break trip to Florida to visit Grams and Pops and check out their new place.

Thanks Grams and Pops - a good time was had by all, as usual! You guys have an awesome place (glad the hurricane didn't get you! ;) )

Here's the boys with some of the little fish we caught in nets.

What an awesome tree! Melissa enjoyed a good swing at Stew and Rebecca's.

So cute! The kids were looking down at a crab trap with crabs in it.  They were well entertained for some time!

James and Melissa gettings some sailing lessons from dad - who looks pretty relaxed letting them steer!

Dolphins! Eric and I went on a sail one morning and were surrounded by a school/pod (?) of dolphins. So cool!

Can you see the sling shot? We had to have our regular pirate wars. Can't tell you who won, but we had a good time!

Look at that view!

Pops and the kids at Peg Leg Pete's. Argh! and to the right -David showing off the 'dog house' he built for Sadie dog from Pops' scrap wood.

Melanie and Rebekah searching for shells in that beautiful white sand.

Big Daddy getting some relaxing time.

He stayed out of trouble for a minute ;)

New best friends - Veronica and Jack.  So cute!

What a great house!

Snuggling up with Grams when we first arrived - checking out the new house.

We were welcomed by the Blue Angels when we arrived in Pensacola - very cool!

David and Rebekah were a little premature with their life jackets - they put them on when we passed over the Florida state line.  So excited!

A couple of pictures in Tennessee.  We stopped to visit our good friends the Smith's.  We love them - they are so good to us! Thank you for letting us crash at your place and feeding us such yummy food! We love you!

On our way back home we stopped just north of Auburn to see if we could get some boots for James.  We had a lot of fun in the store.  We stopped in Auburn too, of course and looked around and had lunch.  How and why we got away without snapping any photos, I don't know.  I won't let it happen again - I promise! We love Auburn!