Rigby

Meet Rigby. He is a mini-Schnauzer. Black, Male, 2 1/2 pounds. Nothing but cuteness!

I have been telling Cody we need a puppy for a little while now. I heard from a friend that a woman had mini-Schnauzer puppies and thought I better jump on that chance! I had 2 Schnauzers growing up and I love them and I knew I wanted a Schnauzer.

We went to pick him up on Friday, 9/11. He was 6 weeks old that day.
We didn't want a black dog, we wanted salt-n-pepper. We also wanted a female. Here's how that changed:
We went to the breeder's house and 4 cute little puppies came running down the hall to greet us. 2 of the puppies took one look at the kids and took off the other direction. They spent the entire time sleeping under the dining room table. The other 2 were a s-n-p female and this little black male, who was far smaller than the other puppies (the breeder thinks he will be more of a "toy" sized, not more than 10 pounds or so). Of course the kids were elated and very boisterous and loud around the puppies. The female seemed pretty trepidatious around them, but the little black male didn't seem scared at all. Finn sat down and he just went right up to him and jumped on his lap, then he did the same with Burgundy. Making the choice pretty obvious. We hung out for about a half-hour and that little black puppy just wanted to play with the kids. I kept trying to get the female to come over but she would come to me but then ran back to snuggle with the breeder when the kids came to pet her.

So, the breeder saw what was happening and said she felt bad because another lady had called saying she wanted that little black puppy. She said she would call her to see. The woman said she still wanted it. So the breeder was torn and didn't know what to do. She kept asking her husband and he said he thought it was pretty obvious. Our little Rigby wanted to come home with us! (not to mention the fact that we were physically there, with money in hand)

So she decided we needed to take him home, which we are so grateful for! She called me later that day to say she told the other lady what had happened and she understood, and that she would take the black female. Then another lady who had bought a puppy a day earlier called and said she couldn't stop thinking about the tiny black puppy and she wanted him too! When told he was sold, she said, well ok I'll take the other black one then. So now the poor breeder has some decision making to do! But I am certainly glad we went when we did!

So far, Rigby is a GREAT dog! He is very playful with the kids, and goes potty outside very well. The first 2 nights I put him in bed with me and he was very cuddly and woke me up every 3 hours by nibbling on my ear to tell me he had to go out. Tonight, I think we will try to put him in the kitchen in the puppy playpen with his little house and a piddle-pad. We'll see how that goes! I hope he doesn't get too lonely. Hopefully he is a little more accustomed to the house. I didn't want to throw him out there to start because I knew he was used to sleeping with his little brothers and sisters and he would be lonely. So hopefully he can adjust now.

Anyway, he is just a little bundle of cuteness and we are so glad we got him! Hopefully you can meet him soon!

PS - extra thanks go out to Jim & Paula for lending us all their puppy gear - that has been a HUGE help! (playpen, bed, carrier), to Cody for acquiescing to getting a puppy and for being so cute and cuddly with him, and to my mom & dad. Mainly, for raising me to be an animal lover and showing me how much fun a well-trained dog can be. My mom is GREAT with dogs and has a long history of really good dogs. She has been and will continue to be invaluable in giving advice and training tips! And thanks for giving me a pep-talk the morning we got him! (as I've said before, when you're a child and you want a puppy, it's pretty much a matter of "PLEEAASSSE!!". When you're a parent, you have a few more things to think of: time, money, training, etc.) So even though I knew I really wanted one, I was glad to have her tell me how it's a good time right now and how great it would be for my kids to have a puppy! I'm so glad we got Rigby!

Ketchup

So we've been busy as ever this summer. With a little one who now does everything she can to keep up with her big brother, we have been running to keep up with them both! Cody has had another busy summer as well. So here is our summer in pictures:

The day before my birthday we went out on Grampa's boat. We all had a great time. Finn encouraged everyone to get into the COLD water. The next day, for my birthday, we went to the RV dealership to browse and to dream, and then went out to dinner with a group of friends and then hung out for a little while. It was a lot of fun and since it basically lasted for 2 days, it was the best birthday I've had in a while!

We have a garden again this year, and again we have way more produce than we can consume! This is our first harvest.
Later that month, Isabel, Max & Luke were in town, and they, Toni & kids, Jim & Paula, and Finn, Indi and I went to Pioneer Village/This is the Place monument.

Burgundy loved the baby goats and lambs!

During that visit, Max & Luke got to hang out at our house for a day. Finn loved to play with his older cousins! We hope to be able to make a trip down to Arizona later this year... we'll see how it all works out!
Finn & Burgundy love to help out in the garden. Finn likes looking for ladybugs and Burgundy likes to chase and grab grasshoppers.

We bought a new "family" tent with two rooms, in the hopes that in the coming summers we can get out there a little more than we have in years past.
The kids took swimming lessons. This year, Finn was in a class by himself (without me) and he did so well. He loved it, and I loved being able to sneak peeks at him and see how well he was doing! Burgundy and I took the Mommy & Me class which she of course loved! I have a couple of little water babies! After the first couple of days, we found our routine, and after class, we would go directly to the showers to claim the big stall, then I would go to the locker to get our stuff. I came back to this darling scene: the kids hugging in the warm water so they could both warm up! (I just had to bring a camera and get a picture of this, I about cried the first day I saw them doing this)
Cody went on his annual birthday camping trip the first weekend of August and luckily didn't see any bears. The next weekend we were going to go camping, but the weather turned chilly. We decided to take a road trip to Montana instead! The kids did great! They were great in the car and really had a good time.

Here we are at Aunt Abbi's house. We went for dinner the last day of our visit.

It was super-duper cute to watch Finn & Burgundy play with cousin Lily. Lily is 3 months younger than Burgundy. Last time, Indi wasn't quite sure what to think of Lily, but they got along swimmingly this time!

We finally got around to making some salsa, Cody's own fire-roasted recipe. I even canned it up and so we have about 7 jars to last us through the winter. I bought a new canner which is super easy and so I am thinking I might make another batch of salsa and possibly try to jar up our peaches once they are ripe!
We finally got to go camping and try out our new tent the last weekend of August. you can read all about that excursion in my previous post, but all in all it was great to get out there and we definitely hope to try and go once more before the summer is over.
I just had to put this on here. We have been meandering towards potty-training with Burgundy. She is now to the point where she will tell me when she is pooping which is a step in the right direction! We have had a few mishaps in the bathtub, this picture was taken because Finn got out saying he needed to go, then Burgundy said she had to go as well. So there they sat. And they were both successful! She still hasn't pee-peed on the potty yet, she seems to be tackling the harder stuff first!
Just this past week we went to the zoo for the first time this summer. Seems like we went a dozen times last summer. Burgundy was able to walk instead of just being pushed in the stroller and we all had a great time.

So that's it up to this point! Pretty busy it seems. Finn has been playing soccer for 3 weeks and next week his games start. I am the assistant coach for his team and we have both been having a fun time with that. I wasn't sure how he would take to it but I just keep trying to sign him up for things just to see how he does and what he likes. I really enjoy being able to participate in that with him. He has soccer Tuesdays & Thursdays through September. He also starts pre-school next Wednesday and will be going Monday, Wednesday & Friday afternoons. So it seems like we will be pretty busy from now on! His school is in the afternoon this year, right during Burgundy's nap time. I guess it is my last year to be able to sleep in. So hopefully that will be great - although I don't know what I will do with myself for those few hours! Maybe get some projects done that have been calling my name all summer!

Anyway, I will be posting some pictures of soccer soon and when my friend Dave came to visit a few weeks ago (which was a lot of fun too!) he was generous enough to do a family photo shoot for us! So when I get those pictures I will be posting those as well!

Thanks for reading and catching up with us. We hope you all had a fabulous summer as well. See you in the fall!

Expect the Best, Accept the Worst

Super-long recounting of our camping trip!

We have been telling Finn since winter-time that we would go camping this summer, so we finally did it this weekend. It was a crazy adventure. (and I realize I haven't blogged in about 2 months, so I will catch you up on all of our other goings-on pretty soon!)

Firstly, we drove up to Aunt Laci's in Montana a few weeks ago (I'll post pictures of that soon) and the first night we were there the kids slept in the same room and had a hard time going to sleep, but the next night was better. So, I decided that if we have to go somewhere where they will be sleeping together I would have them sleep in the same room the night before to kind of let the novelty wear off. So Friday night we set them up in Burgundy's room. Well, it didn't go so well. At about 2am I heard noises, and it escalated until about 3am when I finally went in and put them back in their own beds. So we were a little nervous about the sleeping situation. But I am getting ahead of myself...

So, since we had been up late, we slept in later than we wanted on Saturday. So we definitely weren't getting out by 10 like we had planned. It seemed to take forever to pack up the car, and Finn was driving us nuts asking if we were ready to go, but we were finally ready at about 1:30. So we all get in the car, and... the car is dead. Ok, so at this point I am thinking, ok seriously, are we not supposed to go or what? So, Cody jumped it but decided that he didn't want to risk it being far removed in the wilderness so he wanted to buy a new battery. So, $106 later, he had a heck of a time getting the old battery out so that took about an hour to get accomplished. So we FINALLY got on the road at 2:30.

We found a nice spot to camp just before 6 o'clock. It was pretty flat and open. It was right off the turn-out road, but only 1 car went by the whole time we were there so it was really nice. So we set up the new tent and got a fire going. Finn had a great time helping Cody gather firewood and we made hot dogs then roasted some "mahshlooms", as Finn calls them. We hung out by the fire for a little while and got the kids in their jammies and had fun playing with glow sticks in the tent. At about 10 Finn asked to go to bed, so we got them set up in their room in the tent. They went to sleep pretty quickly. Cody and I were able to hang out by the fire for a few hours and relax. Cody had put a huge log on the fire pretty early and the ends of it stuck out of the fire pit. We didn't want to go to bed until the log broke in half so it was all contained. As Cody says, camping is always more fun with a mission, so that was our little mission: to keep the fire stoked and try to break the giant log! It was great to hang out just the two of us. We haven't been camping together since I was pregnant with Burgundy, so we were enjoying ourselves.

So it was probably after midnight when Cody and I decided to go to bed, and then the real fun began! I have this issue where I never sleep very well the first night of camping. For whatever reason. If we ever go more than one night I sleep great after the first night, but that first night is never too much fun. Anyway, it was stressful just trying to get in the tent, trying to unzip it without being all loud and waking up the kids, but we managed. We got on our inflatable mattresses which we just bought and were using for the first time. It wasn't very cold, so it was pretty comfortable. Right as I was starting to doze off, I suddenly had to pee like I hadn't gone for hours, even though I just had. So I had to get up and battle the zipper again, and luckily didn't wake anybody up. Then it seemed like every time I dozed off for a couple seconds, something woke me up. Burgundy kept making little noises and of course that woke me up several times. Apparently she is a very "active" sleeper. Very noisy!

So a bit later, it rained for about 5 minutes and that woke everybody up. After that, I was suddenly FREEZING. Like shaking uncontrollably. The kids were awake and I was trying to re-cover them up to make sure they were warm enough and told Cody how cold I was. We had bought a little camp-heater, so, great guy that he is, he went out and got the heater and set it up, so that helped a lot. Throughout the night, the tree we were under kept dropping pine needles on our tent like crazy due to the infestation of pine beetles up there so that kept me awake. Then Cody went out to pee and sat on my bed to get his shoes on. He came back in, and I realized that my hip was resting on the ground. Within minutes, my entire body was flat on the ground. So I got onto Cody's twin-size mattress and that was great. We were smushed, but having a king-sized bed, we never run into each other in bed! So cuddling with him was nice... & very warm! But he was getting very frustrated at how Burgundy was awake and kept talking. So he decided to get the air pump and go onto the other mattress to try get some sleep.

So I was by myself and finally, since it was obvious Burgundy was not going back to sleep and I was worried she was keeping Finn awake, I told her to get in bed with me. I guess I had resigned myself to the fact that I would not be sleeping. I loved having Burgundy in bed with me. Every few minutes she would reach over and touch my face, or she would hold my hand and rub it. It was just precious to me and I loved it. I think we both finally fell asleep for a few moments when Cody woke up with a terrible Charlie-horse in his calf! He was trying not to wake anybody up but he couldn't help it, he was in terrible pain. Apparently the mattress was totally flat, and so he decided to climb in bed with Finn. So fitting with the theory that our kids are totally mini-versions of us, Cody & Finn slept great and Burgundy and I did not. But luckily we didn't keep them awake and just got to snuggle together in bed.

So I guess we must have fallen asleep for at least an hour or so, and then about 7:30 some noisy chipmunks woke us up! (and by the way, I wish I had an alarm clock that sounded like that!)

So we got up, ate some cereal, and played a little. We started to get packed up and then something really scary happened. Finn and Burgundy were hanging out in the car with the doors open. Finn was playing his video game and Burgundy was resting and just sitting in her seat. Then she came to hang out by me and Cody while we were packing up the tent. We were folding the fly and after Cody got it rolled up, I looked around and didn't see Burgundy anywhere. I called for her and started looking around. She wasn't in the car with Finn and we didn't see her anywhere. So we were calling her name and just looking all over. I could feel the panic rising in me and was calling her name, which started to sound more and more frantic. Cody took off down the little road and after what seemed like forever (but was probably only a minute at most), he called to me that he saw her.

Somehow, while we were focused on folding up the fly, she decided to take a little walk down the path. She had gotten a decent distance away. When Cody saw her she was running towards him, apparently having heard us calling for her. She didn't seem scared at all. Of course once I saw her walking up the road with him I started bawling and couldn't stop for about 10 minutes. I was shaking and just couldn't believe how fast that had all happened. We all went for a little walk together to calm down. She couldn't have gotten that far away, but to suddenly look up and have her not be there and not know which direction to go to get her was very scary. I never had to deal with that with Finn, he was always pretty much attached to my side and now he knows not to wander off. This is actually the second time she has ever done this, once in the children's museum I was watching Finn for a minute and looked back and she was gone, having wandered off to another exhibit. Scary stuff. I would say I guess I have to keep a closer eye on that one, but gosh, I do. I am very mindful of it. But it only takes a second. Sheesh.

Deep Breath! Anyway, after we all calmed down and played for a little bit, we got in the car and left to come home. The kids went to bed early, they were worn out from the busy trip! And, to be totally honest, so are we... probably more so.

So that was our crazy excursion. Fun, frustrating, scary, tiring, precious. So when do we get to do it again?

When we first arrived, Finn went pee and decided he wanted to remain bottomlessOff to find firewood

Getting ready to start the camp-fire
Playing
This morning
Still in their jammies
Finn with his Mahshloom