Belle Meets the Family

We had Aunt Domi, Uncle Brandon, Andrew, Hunter and Caroline over to meet Belle! Here is Hunter holding her...

And Cousin Andrew...

Then it was time for a cousin rendition of ring around the rosie...

Then they all fell down!

Having the Acuff's over also marked the start of Ben's birthday week, which we celebrated with the delicious cupcakes they brought - thank you!!

Catch Up

So, besides the puppy, we have been doing a few other things. On Super Bowl Sunday, we went over to the Kurby's for some fun. Sadly, we had not seen them since before Thanksgiving, so we had a very late Christmas celebration too.

Joey and Juliette playing with the pyramid blocks...

Our little Buzz Lightyear (with a feather boa to accessorize of course)....

Uncle Phil and the pyramid blocks...those were partially for him too :)

Ben has been taking Karate class and seems to really enjoy it!

Juliette likes to help me clean...

And do arts and crafts projects...

(Edit from paul: I should add that this particular arts and craft project was all juju. I came down and she had gotten all the supplies out and squeezed out an entire plate of paint.....She actually didn't make too big a mess though! Neverless I got the dog house for letting it happen unsupervised :) )

Belle

Well there are two things I forgot to discuss in my last post...1) Part of our exciting trip to go get the puppy was that we got to add Michigan to Abbey's and Juliette's map! And 2) We named the puppy Belle! We wanted to keep with our french naming system and thought Belle was cute. It has all kinds of fun nicknames (Bella Babe, Tinkerbell, Belle Belle, Dinner Bell). Anyway, as soon as we got her, Paul went out of town for work for the whole week, so things got pretty hectic (hence, no blog posts). But he is back now and we are getting into a routine with Belle. She is a very good puppy so far. We are still working on house breaking her. She knows when she is outside that she is supposed to go potty, but she doesn't necessarily stop herself (or let us know) when she has to go if she happens to be inside when that hits her. So we are getting there. Two things she already pretty consistently knows are "sit" and "kennel up", which is consistently met with a treat so she usually pretty willingly will go into her crate expecting that. The other command she is slowing learning is "off" because she hears it about 10,000 times a day! Ben is still having a blast with her though!

Just some cute pictures of Belle...

Love this one...

Such a sweet face...

And she is getting into everything! You have to watch her ALL the time...

Abbey is warming up to her. She asked to hold her with Paul, and now will go up behind Belle and scoop her up to hold her in her arms. Belle loves trying to go upstairs, but she slips on the hard wood and it really concerns Abbey. She starts to cry every time Belle tries to go upstairs! It's very sweet.

Happy girl with her pup!

Cuddle pup!

Here is Abbey holding her!

And picking her up!

So she is doing pretty well and we are all adjusting to having a puppy!

Big Announcement!

Well, I have been on the puppy search since the new year. I know I told everyone we would wait until spring/summer before getting a puppy, but I started just looking around and once you start looking, you immediately want one. Plus, we have a lot of plans for this summer and I didn't want to get a puppy and then leave it in a kennel while we traveled around. But most of all, I just plain missed Chien.

Losing Chien was much harder than I ever expected it to be and there were small and simple things every day that made me miss him. Our house seemed so quiet and lonely without him. He was such a huge part of our lives in ways we didn't even notice until he was gone. One example is that he always slept either in Ben's room or in our room on my side of the bed. One of the first things I noticed after he died was that I get out of bed every morning in such a way so as to avoid stepping on him. I never even realized I did this, until the first morning after he died and I slowly put one leg down very close to the bed and the other leg way out far from the bed (as if I was stepping over him). It was habit to get out of bed that way, and I never even knew I was in that habit until he was gone. That is just one example of many of ways that I missed him every day.

Also, while I did have to vacuum less (and I enjoyed that aspect), our kitchen floor was a disaster! I think I severely underestimated the amount of food Chien ate from under our table. And I severely overestimated the neat eating skills of my children!

So, anyway, I was on the hunt to find us a puppy. And we had some ups and downs along the way. We had a puppy that we were days away from getting only to learn she had gotten sick and wouldn't be able to come home for another month or so (we backed out of buying that puppy). And I learned a ton about breeders, certifications, and the entire process through a lot of help from Josh, Aunt Theresa's boyfriend. Josh, I doubt you read my blog, but hopefully Aunt Theresa will pass along the message that I truly appreciated all the help you gave me in finding a puppy. I would send him websites and he would let me know what he thought about that breeder. His points were excellent and I learned a lot from him, so thank you Josh.

Long story short, I finally found a puppy that was perfect for our family. We wanted a female this time around just to try something different. I found one that all the heart, hip, eye and elbow certifications and what sold me on her, was that she has a small cowlick on her nose! I loved that because Chien had a cowlick on top of his head and plus it makes her different (and makes her ours). Unfortunately she was located in central Michigan. So, we loaded up everyone into the car and left for Michigan after Ben got out of school on Friday. We debated about whether or not to bring the whole family, but I am so glad we did because the kids loved it and I think they will always remember going to get our puppy. Here they are meeting her for the first time.

Isn't she cute?

You can sort of see that dark stripe down her nose - that is her cowlick!

She is just a tiny furball right now and she likes to cuddle, which makes me happy!

So we brought along a laundry basket thinking she would ride in that on the way home.

But she very quickly climbed right out of the basket and look where she went...

Then we got a hotel (as it was too late to drive all the way back home) and made sure she had some food. Good thing we have lots of helpers to take care of her!

The next day we drove back and she spent almost the entire car ride in Ben's lap. He has been having a blast with her. They run around outside together and she chases him. She really likes Ben. She likes Abbey and Juliette too, but both girls are still a bit timid around the puppy (Abbey gets scared when the puppy chases her and sometimes says "She's trying to bite me". I can't blame her for being a bit scared considering she was bit this summer. But she likes to kiss her fur on the back of her head and pet her as long as she doesn't get too close to Abbey! Juliette pretty much just likes to pick up the chew toys and follow the puppy around trying to give it to her, which is also very cute. I am sure they will become more comfortable with her, but right now, Ben is the one who plays with her the most. Stay tuned as I am sure there will be a lot more puppy pictures to come!

Catholic Schools Week

This past week was Catholic Schools Week and Ben's school had all kinds of activities planned. But most importantly, it was the week that the kindergarten classes got to help out at weekly mass. They go to mass every Friday and each week a different grade gets to help plan/participate in the mass and I guess they saved the kindergarteners for the special mass that was celebrated for Catholic Schools Week. Well, guess who was picked by his teacher to bring up the gifts? That's right, our very own Ben!

He was very excited and honored to be asked.

You can see that look on his face...this is his proud of himself smile :)

Great job Ben!