More White Stuff

We got more snow! I think this is the most we've seen since we moved here and it stuck around awhile. All of the snow you see here appeared in about 24 hours. The last 2 or 3 pictures are the next day after it had snowed all night. Yep, life in Nashville shut down.

I didn't want to just make a long list of pictures, so I fiddled and created a slideshow. No music, so if you feel a need for a soundtrack, click Play on the music player to your right. Enjoy!

Snow! ...well, a sprinkling

The kids played in our first snow of the year! They loved it, and Katie ran around until she got cold. Josh played with Sarge (see video) and enjoyed every minute of it.

oh yeah, blame Miguel for Katie's dirty face.

Christmas arrived!!!!

It was a good day. My pictures uploaded backwards, so I will tell about the day backwards. While I made a ham (my first time in the 6 years we've been married, 'cause I think they're gross. Miguel likes them though, so this was one of his Christmas presents.) After dinner we decorated another gingerbread house. We really like the gingerbread houses. I think they're going to become an annual thing.

Here is Miguel while we were decorating the gingerbread house. So cute. Typical Miguel picture.

Here's the loot. The kids really made out this year thanks to the budget. Yep, we've put money away every paycheck, just for Christmas. Nope, I didn't wrap a thing. Not one single present. Yep, it's cause I am lazy. Work has been super crazy and no fun at all. I've been stressed out, strike that, I've been stressed-the-heck-out and just couldn't deal with it. I know, selfish mom. I'll get better, I promise.

Here's our Christmas tree. I loved having a live tree this year. The scent wasn't impressive, though, which was a disappointment. I think we'll go live again next year. In the spirit of the unwrapped presents, we didn't put any ornaments on our tree either. We have tons, we just didn't get them out. We only used the ornaments the kids made at church. I like our tree very much.

And lastly - the annual picture of the animals. The pretty one is also quite dumb, but thankfully he is calming down quite a bit. He is lazy and just doesn't learn the same way as the others. It's a really good thing he's so pretty. Sadie (the small one) still follows me around like the wonderful puppy she is. Sarge (the one laying down) is totally Miguel's dog and follows Miguel around the way Sadie follows me around.

Christmas 2009 was a huge success.

Random randomness

Silly kids, dog update and we got a Christmas tree!!!!

It's a real tree! We had a fake one we inherited from some friends, but one of the dogs destroyed it (sigh). Anyway, I'm really excited to have a LIVE tree and I'm looking forward to the homey Christmas-tree scent in the house. We haven't decorated the tree yet, but it will happen prior to Christmas day. What you see now is what the kids have been coming home from church with. Thank you nursery for providing us with new, home-made (church-made?) ornaments.

Work is nuts for me, but Miguel is feeling pretty good Thank goodness.

Katie has decided to potty-train herself. It's been interesting, to say the least. When she turned 2, she decided she no longer wanted to wear diapers. I haven't bought a package since. We do LOTS of laundry, but stickers seem to be the magic ingredient to potty-training success in the Felix house, especially if they have kitties on them.

Sherman (the "puppy") is HUGE. He's still a spaz, even though he'll be turning 3 next June. He has calmed down a little in the past 6 months, but he still bucks like a crazed horse when he gets excited. When he sees someone outside of our fence he will start jumping and barking at the same time. It's almost as though the two actions are connected, somehow. He'll jump so high his body easily gets above the fence. Thank goodness he's lazy and has never tried to jump the fence.

They're 3, and He's 2 and They're All Canines

For those of you keeping track, no human in our family has a birthday outside of February (Josh) or October (everyone else). But we have 3 dogs who all have birthdays in June.

I know, strange to know a dog's birthday. I'll get to why there are pictures of Transformers in a minute, for now I reminisce. Growing up we had rescues or maybe I just had parents who weren't fun. Either way, we never celebrated any dogs birthdays.

Enter married life, and into our lives come Sarge and Sadie. We "Rescued" them from a very nice lady who simply didn't have the room to keep her puppies (which she didn't mean to have) and wasn't going to take them to a shelter. For the first time, we have dogs of our own and even know their birthday! For their first birthday we attended a "family reunion" with a bunch of other pups from the litter. Great fun, not something we would have thought of on our own, but still fun.

Then we have another addition to our little pack of pups, Sherman. The older dogs' 2nd birthday came and went and there was a relatively new baby and a boy being potty trained and things just went on unnoticed.

Now the older dogs have turned 3 and Sherman has finally calmed himself into a decent (yet still annoying) older adolescent at 2. The kids are older and more self-sufficient and we found ourselves in the middle of summer, with nothing to celebrate between Memorial Day and July 4th, so we'll have a DOG BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!

Yes, it really is a simple excuse to buy cupcakes and party hats and an even better excuse to buy Transformers for my husband...I mean for my son.

It's always entertaining to put hats on the dogs. Doesn't Sadie look like she's saying, "This sucks!"?

And what birthday party would be complete without a meltdown from the resident 3-yr-old?

Isn't Sherman a pretty dog? See the dirt he manages to constantly get on my walls and fridge? Yet they are all so obedient they will eat from our children's hands (only with adult-supervision).

All in all, the kids had a great time and we enjoyed our little excuse for a party.

Water Guns in the Afternoon Sun

I love our backyard. The dogs don't add to the landscaping, but it's a wonderfully big space to allow the kids (and dogs) to run WILD, and they love it.

Of course my son loves water guns. He would play with them all the time if I allowed it and he just doesn't understand why not in the house? We had a lovely Sunday afternoon in the backyard after dinner and I was able to snap some photos.

Josh-isms

Just from today:

Miguel is cleaning up after the 3 dogs in the backyard, into an old USPS flat-rate box. Seeing this, Josh asks,
"Are we going to send the box of poop to Grandma in California?"
"No, Josh"
"Why, cause she will be mad?"

After Miguel picks himself up off the floor from laughing so hard, Josh runs back into the house to use the restroom. In an effort to get back outside as quickly as possible, Josh opens the backdoor and Miguel realizes he has nothing on but shoes from the waist down.
"Josh!!! Go put your clothes on before you go outside!"
"Why, cause I will go to Jail?"
Later in the day I asked where Josh got the idea he would go to Jail. I guess Miguel told Josh a few weeks ago he needed to put clothes on when he went outside or the police would take him to jail. I guess he remembered...

I love this age. It's my favorite kid-stage.

Sherman's a lap-dog?

...or something.

He is all of 10 months old and will do anything to get our attention. One night he wanted Miguel to play with him. Miguel didn't want to right then, and here is what Sherman decided he would do about it.

The Joys of a Good Rain

We've had quite a dry summer out here in Middle-Tennessee. You see, in the Mid-South, when you don't have a good thunder-booming rainstorm at least every other week, you manage to earn yourself the title of "drought" even when it's rained a few times and even if the lawns are all still green. This is quite a new philosophy for this California-girl. I like myself a good rainstorm, don't get me wrong, but when you have 3 dogs and the back-yard looks like you have 3 dogs, you end up with...

...mud.

Not just mud - but red clay that makes itself quite obvious as the wet dogs have shaken their coats in the ecru/almond-colored kitchen. Let's just say, I wait for it all to dry, sweep up what I can and then take bets as to when it will rain again and if it's worth it to mop now or later. Sadly, we end up waiting, but inevitably it rains the day after we mop. It's like when you wash your car. But I digress.

So this year, we're in a drought because it's only rained five times instead of twenty-five, and we FINALLY had our first good rain of the season. Sarge and Sadie, though they may be part Labrador, don't seem to appreciate the rain. Sherman, on the other hand, really seemed to enjoy it. And the mud. And rolling in it.

This picture was after he had already dried off quite a bit. Notice the ground is not soaking wet? We usually wait for them to dry and then brush them, but this was bath-worthy.

At least they left some of the mud outside...After Sherman's bath, we waited for the tub to dry completely and I was able to use a brush and dust-pan to sweep up the dirt Miguel washed off of him out of the tub.

We're still not out of the drought and yes, our lawn did eventually die along with everyone elses'. I no longer make fun of our Southern Drought, and I did learn a lot about perspective this summer. I also learned a third dog doesn't really make things that much worse when you have to clean up the mud after it rains.

Josh and Sherman update

Josh updates - Josh likes to "kiss the baby." He'll come over and kiss my tummy whenever I say that. In fact, the other day Josh was laying on the floor and Sarge was near him. I told Sarge to kiss the baby in an effort to get Josh's face washed. Sarge tried to lick him, but Josh was too busy struggling to push Sarge out of the way to stand up. He finally made it up and pushed Sarge aside and came over and kissed my belly. I laughed pretty well at that when I realized what had happened.

Late last week Josh just started talking more and more. He says things we've taught him on his own rather than being prompted now. He woke up from his nap on Saturday and told Miguel, "What's up?" We really have a great time with him.

I'm not sure if Josh really gets it that there is a baby coming into our house soon. He recently started pointing to babies and saying, "baby" but other than kissing my belly, he seems pretty clueless. We do our best to mention the new baby coming and that Josh's going to be a big brother. We've tried to stop referring to Josh as a baby - just a little boy or big boy when he does something grand. I don't know what else we can do, so tips are welcomed.
Sherman update - As you can see from the pictures, he's getting bigger and bigger all the time. The introduction pictures were from when he was 6 weeks old. This post's pictures he is 13 weeks. He's doing really well with his training. He is only pottying outside (if only baby humans could potty train by 13 weeks...) and he is learning from the older dogs all the time. He already knows he needs to wait until he is told he is allowed to eat something before eating it. He seems very smart is is OH SO CUTE!!!

I suppose that's everything new for now. No sign of the new baby coming yet. I'll be sure to have Miguel update this when she decides to show herself to the world.

Introducing....Sherman

So Miguel did it. He got himself a puppy. Wait, before Miguel gets defensive, Miguel got Josh a puppy. A little boy black lab puppy - very possibly a pure-bred. We found him on Craig's list and they wanted $50 for each puppy. I guess the dad is pure-bred, AKC registered, and has no family history of hip displaysia, thank goodness. The mom they aren't so sure about. She was a rescue who was supposedly spayed - HAHA - and also supposedly pure-bred. Regardless of blood-status, I wasn't about to pay for a puppy. Haven't you heard the saying, "There's no such thing as a free puppy?" So I said no. Miguel eventually talked the guy down to $30 and Miguel is paying for everything - shots, neutering, etc - out of his own allowance (yes, our budget gives each of us an "allowance").

Anywho - after 3 days of namelessness, I suggested Sherman. Miguel wanted something which started with an S to go with the other dogs (Sarge and Sadie), but we couldn't think of anything we both liked. I remembered Rocky and Bullwinkle and the "Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman" cartoon. I thought it would be funny to have a puppy named Sherman, and Miguel agreed. His reasoning was different from mine, though. He wanted to name him Sherman after General Sherman, as a slap-in-the-face to any Southern-pride rednecks. This makes me laugh, at least. Regardless of our reasons, we finally decided on a name and it's Sherman.

Sherman follows Josh around and pulls at his clothes. Josh thinks it is great to have an animal smaller than him. It hasn't taken Josh very long to learn to be gentle, so he hasn't tried to pick Sherman up by the hair (yes, hair, not skin) recently. Josh pets him nicely and loves it when the puppy "plays" with him, though the little needle-teeth come out sometimes and Josh occasionally ends up crying...oh well. They'll both figure it out. It's fun to watch Josh carry the dog toys around and the puppy chasing him with his little puppy run.

Sadie loves the puppy. She licks him and makes sure he is safe. She comes and gets us when he cries. She plays with him and lets him play with her. Sarge, on the other hand has taken awhile to warm up to the puppy. He would growl at him at first, but has since started playing with him and even allowing him to sleep next to him, so long as it isn't on his bed. He won't allow the puppy to take his toys either. It's pretty funny to see the 70lbs dog growling at the little 3.5lbs dog; and funny to see how stubborn the puppy can be. Sometimes it takes Sarge grabbing him by the neck and knocking him over before Sherman will belly-up.

Sherman is taking very well to potty training. As long as we're paying attention to him, we don't have any accidents in the house. He even lets us know he needs to go out sometimes, whining at the back-door. He's only 7 weeks, so we know we have a while of inconsistency to go, but we're pleased so far.

So no more dogs for us. At least, not until we have a bigger house...

Like a creepy cat lady, but with dogs...

Our house has recently been a foster home to random animals within the neighborhood. Miguel jokes that we are becoming "that family with all the dogs" and we'll end up with a huge pack of them and end up destitute. Ok, so we're not seriously that insane. We do like to help out animals when we find them or even foster for a few days when we discover or suspect mistreatment. We haven't kept one...yet...but I know it is coming, as Miguel seems to be on the prowl for another dog. I'm ok with our getting another dog, but I'm not interested in helping to house-train another puppy. We'll see what happens.

So our most recent acquisition has been a yellow-lab mix named Bella. She is awfully cute, has short short hair and is very energetic. Miguel found her on craigs' list and thought she would make our fun little family a bit bigger. She is about 14 weeks old and was kept from having to go to the pound when her owner was deployed to Iraq. The family who took her has 2 small kids and must not have had any idea what it would be like to house-train a puppy without a fenced yard. They decided as much as they loved her, it was time to pass her along because they couldn't handle her.

So our crazy-family enters the picture. Bella seems to get along with the other dogs ok, but she seems to be quite high maintenance. She won't submit to the older/bigger dogs (stubborn little thing), she gets upset if she is not able to sit on the couch and she has no concept of the word No. She doesn't act as though she has ever been disciplined, she digs and she is aspiring to become Houdini - she attempts to leave the yard at every available opportunity. She also proved her previous owner exaggerating when he said she is just about potty trained, as she gives no indication of needing to go outside, and when she is outside, she won't do her "business" until we've come back into the house. We kept her for about 3 days before Miguel decided he didn't want her and passed her along to someone new - someone without any other dogs and with older kids to tire out the high-energy animal. Bye Bye Bella, as cute as you are, I won't miss you.

We handed Bella off to her new owners on a Saturday morning. The following Tuesday, Miguel was in Petsmart and had both Sarge and Sadie with him. He sees Bella, but doesn't think it is really her because the owner is not who we handed her off to. Miguel is a bit puzzled because our dogs aren't going crazy, it's as if they know this little yellow thing, and Miguel mentions to the lady that we were fostering a dog who looked exactly like the dog in her possession. She looks a bit embarrassed and admits her husband found the dog with no collar and after having her for a couple of days decided they love her and want to keep her - but asked us if we wanted her back. Bella looked extremely pampered and happy, so Miguel told her the people we gave her to don't deserve her if they can't keep her in the yard and he let it go at that (and no, Miguel isn't heartless, but this dog was such a handful that I'm sure it's better this way). So Bella has hopefully found her permanent home.

Josh Loves the Dogs

I'm very excited about this post - I'm a nerd, regardless of if I try and hide it. I love technology.

I found a way to post videos of my kid on my blog.

So here it is - the first one. This was last Sunday after church.

Josh has learned a few things about the dogs. He knows he can push them out of his way. He knows Sadie will just sit there and let him use her as a step-stool. He also knows the signal to get Sarge to speak. The other night I was changing Josh's diaper. He was not where he could see Miguel, but he could hear him; Miguel was telling Sarge to speak. What does Josh do? He started making the signal! I laughed pretty well with that one.

I laughed again today. Miguel took Sadie to the vet (her eyes have been weeping and we can't tell why, though she is not acting sick). Sadie barked while they were in the waiting room and Josh told her to, "Shut up!" What terrible parents we are that we have told the dogs to Shut up enough that Josh knows...And sadly, there was no way for any onlookers to know that we don't actually tell Josh to shut up! Thankfully he didn't say it again. I suppose we get to really start thinking more about what we say before we say it now, here we thought we had been being pretty good about teaching our kid manners. I'm sure this is just the beginning...

Felix Family Animal Rescue

So the cat left us on Saturday morning. Wednesday comes around and Miguel notices a dog hanging around our back fence in the morning. He saw it had a collar on, but didn't recognize the dog. Dogs are not unusual in our neighborhood; we can see 5 when you look out of our back-door, thanks to chain link fences.

The little boy next door knocked on our door in the evening and he had this same dog with him. Miguel went outside and took pity on the dog and invited her in so she could eat. She drank a lot of water and ate all of the food she was offered. Her tag was from the Humane Society and she looked very young. She played a bit with Sarge and Sadie and I noticed she has recently been spayed - her tummy was shaved and her scar looked recent.

The Humane Society phone number was on the tag, but they were already closed for the evening. So we got stuck with her for the night. We put her out with the other dogs for awhile, and they ran around and played like she'd been there forever. Later on when we brought them into the house is when things got more interesting. She would go up to Miguel to get petted, and Sarge would bark this low bark at her. It was not something I had ever seen him do. She finally got sick of it and tried to play with him and Sarge and her went at it. It was bound to happen - they all needed to determine their places in the "pack." It sounded like they were going to rip each other to pieces.

She won.

Miguel was very disappointed in his dog. Here are some pictures so you can understand why.

She isn't even half his size!!!!

So after she positioned herself at the top of the pack, we had a heck of a time getting the dogs to listen to us because she didn't know the commands we use. Thank goodness I was going to be at work the next day...poor Miguel.

He called the Humane Society and they gave us 2 phone numbers, neither worked. So he called them back and they gave us an address. Note to self - don't give Humane Society my information because they will just give it out over the phone to strangers. After I got home, Miguel walked the dog to the house (just around the block) and no one was home. We ran some errands and tried again and the woman who took her from us gave us the feeling it wouldn't surprise us if we see the dog again. We figure if she shows up again we'll just take her back to the human society.

So we're back to normal with our 2 dogs and 1 kid.

Brief Visitor

Last Thursday was an interesting day. Miguel woke up and...well, let me use his words:

I woke up and noticed the dogs weren't in the house so I went in the backyard to check on them. I noticed that Sarge had one of Joanne's athletic socks in his mouth. I instantly got irritated that he managed to sneak it outside of the house. I walked outside and gave him the command "Out! - Out!" which for him means to drop whatever he has in his mouth. After he dropped the sock I saw it RUN across the lawn. It scared the hell out of me. Both dogs took off after the moving sock again and cornered it. "Lay down! Stay!" I commanded. I walked up to the moving sock and realized that it was not a moving sock at all, it was a kitten!

I picked the kitten up and brought it in the house. It INSTANTLY ran to the dogs water bowl and drank for about 2 minutes. I then offered it some dog food and it ate way too much than what a kitten should eat.

Luckily my dogs didn't hurt it, and in fact my dogs just licked it. It was kind of cute watching the dogs play with the kitten. Sarge was licking it so much that the kitten looked like it fell into a pool.

So Miguel took care of the kitten on Thursday, and I posted pictures of it on Craigslist and Freecycle on Friday morning. We had responses on Saturday morning and by mid-day a seemingly loving family arrived and took the little beast off of our hands for good.

Needless to say, 2 large dogs (regardless of how playful and loving) combined with our toddler and a sleep-deprived Miguel don't mix well and the kitten spent some quality time in the bathtub on Thursday and Friday. He was much more playful and fun on Friday so we got our kitten-fix for awhile. Thankfully there were no "accidents" in the house, and hopefully 2 days of dog food won't stunt its growth too badly. Miguel ended up with battle scars from trying to "unstuck" the kitten from under the couch, but other than that, we came out unscathed. Hopefully Josh throwing the kitten into the fireplace once didn't cause any permanent damage...I think he does better with bigger animals at this age, though the path to "gentle" has at least now been introduced.

More adventures will be posted soon...as we've recently acquired another "visitor." Stay tuned.