More Dog-gone Fun

Oh this dog is just too hilarious. She amuses us everyday with her little puppy ways. We have had her for about a week now and it feels like three months. The people from the Humane Society weren’t kidding when they said adopting a puppy is just like having another baby. Except for the fact that I would never leave a baby locked up in a kennel for any amount of time, I have had just about as much sleep and have had to clean up more than a few accidents a day.

Echo is learning very quickly and is already far more behaved than my children for the majority of the day. (My children seem far more excitable then the dog as well.)  She is slowly learning to wait until we let her outside to use the bathroom and the messes we have had to clean up have dropped dramatically. She loves the outdoors and is very good about sticking to where her “pack” is staying. We have a couple of places to tie her up that give her pretty much free reign of the yard, but also let her go off the leash when Andy or myself are present. With the kids she must always be on a leash.

We have found that she loves sticks from the start and can now add tennis balls to her short list of favorite things to play with.

She is very good at playing fetch with the ball and is a work in progress on releasing the ball to the thrower as she tends to like to just sit down and gnaw on it for a while.

She is otherwise a very good and very smart puppy and still shows no signs of upping her level of energy that most puppies tend to exhibit. She is just as happy laying on the floor by the couch or by the tree as she is chasing things around and biting sticks. 

She did have a few adjustment issues because the kids were gone for the first few days after we got her. She barked and growled at them until she got comfortable with them again. After a few minutes they were all best friends again.

She is a very sweet and loving dog and just as mellow as can be. She puts up with the kids bothering her nonstop and even though she doesn’t like being by herself, she doesn’t whine continually to be let out of her kennel unless she has to go outside. I would say that we are very lucky to have found a dog that fits our family so well. (Now if I could just get her to sleep through the night without whining to get up and go outside to do her business then I would be set.)

Meet Echo

Meet Echo. She is our brand new 3 month old puppy that we adopted from the Ozaukee Humane Society.

She is such a doll and even though we just got her she has wedged her way into our hearts already.

The OHS thinks she is part Shepherd but I think we have decided that she may be a little Greyhound mixed with some type of Terrier. She is very mellow for a puppy and doesn’t bark much at all.

She doesn’t even mind that the boys constantly want to be near her, hold her, and play with her… even when she is tired.

She is currently being crate trained and has not whined once about being put in her crate at night. She has a small bed in the boys room for the daytime naps and then into the crate she goes at night.

We have let her get used to the house and new surroundings the last two days and have even taken her off the leash and let her run in the back yard. We only allow her off the leash when an adult is present for safety reasons and she seems to be pretty good at staying in the yard.

She likes to chase birds and sticks and is fairly adept at returning the sticks to her human. She still needs a little work on dropping them.

Mostly she just likes to follow her humans around.

Or if she doesn’t want to follow them, sometimes they pick her up and carry her to where they want her to go. She has been such a good sport about it and seems to just go with the flow.

The kids just adore her and can’t get enough of her, even though I am sure that will wear off in time.

She hasn’t been getting into a ton of trouble like I thought she might being that she is still a baby.

The hardest part is the potty training, but even that isn’t so bad with hard wood floors.

We aren’t quite sure how big she will get, but we are guessing medium sized, which is what we are looking for since she will mostly be an indoor dog.

Welcome to our family Echo.

A Story by Jack

This was just too cute not to share. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in the mind of my little child and now I know. He has a giant fascination for wildlife, bugs, and all the gross outdoor things that Mommy’s do not like. Good for Dad though.

Swimming party

My friend from work, Cherice, invited us over to her mother’s house for a swimming party for her little girl who is five years old. I asked my kids if they wanted to go and they said yes without a second thought.

I have to admit I was a little nervous that they might be too scared to go in, but that was put to rest nearly immediately after we arrived.

Poor Andy was the designated life guard, but I think he enjoyed the water nearly as much as the kids did. The pool was three foot deep on the shallow end and gradually went out to ten feet at the deep end. She had it heated to about 84 degrees so even though it was already a warm day the water felt nice and not the normal freezing that you usually feel.

Alex was just fearless. I ‘m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but he jumped right in and had no problem navigating the three foot depth on his tippy toes.

Andy was there for their entertainment, but there was also plenty of toys to played with too.

Jack was even brave enough to try out snorkeling.

He actually did pretty well once he was able to blow the water out of the tube.

Of course, whatever Jack does so must Alex, but not quite so efficiently.

Alex had no qualms about his Daddy catching him when he jumped in from the side of the pool. He even went under water a couple of times.

Once the kids saw how much fun Andy was, they migrated to him like bees to honey. He was very nice to have put up with it all, as he is not a super fan of children other than his own.

Cherice’s family was so nice. Her two sisters ended up coming over with their kids as well as two of the neighbor kids. It was nice for the boys to spend time with other people. Good times were had by all and the boys did not want to leave when the time came. Alex cried even after Cherice’s mother told him he could come back any time.

Peas in a Pod

We got a new hammock for relaxing outside now that the weather has finally warmed up enough to to do it. Of course, I have yet to be able to find the time to actually use the hammock, but my kids have had plenty of opportunity and take it every chance they get.

After a little bit of research I decided to get the kind of hammock that has no spreader bar and is not made from rope. This kind tends not to tip over like the hammocks with the spreader bar and is way more comfortable than those made of rope. (No waffle butt either.)

I just thought it was so funny when I finally saw my kids in it after Andy got it all set up at how much they looked like two peas in a pod. Even more so by the fact that the hammock is green.

I did try it out, but not by myself. It is, luckily, strong enough to hold me and my two children with a lot of moving around.

Jack’s Kindergarten Mini-Graduation

I guess it’s official. My oldest son has graduated kindergarten. I was so scared for him that he just wasn’t ready for all the things they told me they would have to accomplish in kindergarten like reading, writing, and math. I swear when I was in kindergarten we didn’t learn any of that. I think it was mostly cutting and coloring. These kids are amazing at how fast they learn.

Jack’s class held a little Writer’s Workshop and Mini-Graduation a couple of days before the actual end of school. I think it may have been like that due to scheduling conflicts in other classes. Anyway, one parent was allowed to participate due to limits on room in the class. We sat down with our respective child and had them read a story that they wrote themselves to us. They had to have an interesting opening sentence and it must be in sequential order as well as being illustrated. I will post his story in a separate entry because I think it is just too cute not to share.

After we were done we switched to a total of four more children and did the same thing. His classmates are just adorable and I made sure to sit with a couple of his friends. His teacher, Mrs. Korom was kind enough to take our picture together.

Afterwards, Mrs. Korom handed out the graduation certificates along with a scrapbook that had all the neat things they did throughout the year. My favorite part was the picture taken in the beginning of the year and another taken at the end. You can see him change from the little baby faced kindergartener to a full fledged first grader. *sniff*

His certificate and scrapbook.

After the ceremony cookies and juice were served. This is Jack with a few of his friends goofing around. The one on the far right is actually the son of one of Andy’s high school classmates. Small world.

This is Jack with his friend Luke who is not only in his class, but also rides the bus with him and lives nearly right behind us.

I was excited to get a picture of Jack with his teachers. Mrs. Korom (on the left) was his actual teacher and Mrs. Bonilla (on the right) was the full time teacher assistant. His class had 28 children so I was really excited that Mrs. B was hired on as a full time assistant. It was like having two classes that were being taught together.

Congratulations to my little boy. I cannot believe he is already finished with one year of school. It went by so fast.

Jack goes to the Dentist

Poor Jack. I found out that he had cavities the other day when I was checking how loose his front tooth was to see if it might fall out soon. So we made an appointment with the dentist as soon as we could to get his teeth fixed before they got any worse.

He did really well at the dentist’s office and the Dr. Verhulst even commended me on my parenting (I didn’t want to say it is probably more to do with Jack’s personality and just accepted the compliment). He ended up having five cavities that were located between his baby molars that needed to be taken care of. He got two done on this visit and will get the other three on another visit. He also has another visit in order to get sealants on his adult molars that have already shown up. Three dental visits in less than three weeks!

He was a trooper though and was very well behaved the entire visit. They even used the drill (or as the dentist called it- The Whistler) and the big suction straw (otherwise known as Mr. Thirsty) and had a shot to numb the teeth (aka Sleepy Juice). The dentist recommended not telling him what the tools actually were and was clever enough to hide the giant needle so Jack never even realized that he had a shot in the mouth. He didn’t flinch even once.

I was so proud of him. He had his mouth open for the dentist for nearly an hour. Of course, the hygienist and front desk lady just loved him. They both thought he was just so adorable. Lucky for us too, his tooth fell out that morning so we didn’t have to pay for the dentist to remove it.

I took this picture of his missing tooth after we got home from the dentist. His mouth is still a bit lopsided from the Novocain so it is hard for him to smile correctly.

It all ended well for him. He got a couple of toys from the dentist’s toy chest for being so good and the Tooth Fairy came that night and he got a gold dollar for his front tooth.