AUGGIE!!!!

Jan 25th finally came and we got to bring our puppy home.  It was a 4 hour drive one way and it rained the whole way there .... and the whole way home!  I had contacted our vet for advice on picking out a puppy and he gave some excellent and very helpful advice.  When you are looking at 7 adorable puppies -- it is really hard to choose!  We had reserved a female, but we had first choice so they brought out all 7 and we began sorting.  There was one dark one, 3 medium and 3 light.  Brandon had favored the dark one from pictures but within moments we knew she wasn't the one.  She was very timid, and hardly socializing with the rest of the litter.  We liked the darker color so we eliminated the 3 lights, plus 2 of the light ones appeared to be fairly dominate.  So the medium brown seemed to have the medium personality that we were looking for.  We weren't going to wrong with any of them!  EB was holding one all crocked in her arms and she looked up at her with the sweetest most tolerant face!  EB thinks that is the one we brought home...it actually isn't, but she later held our Auggie in the same way and she did the same thing!  Brandon held her cradled in his arms and covered her head and her tail wagged for 2-3 seconds and then she became totally calm and submissive and I watched her body language and I looked at him and said "that's the one!"  Auggie is a F1B golden doodle.  Her father Buddy is a red toy poodle (a really cool poodle according to my dad, who got to meet him on his scouting visit to the breeders!) and Sonny is her mom who is a golden doodle.  Auggie is 75% poodle an 25% golden retriever.  I wore black pants all day today and you wouldn't know we had a dog!  It is so awesome not having dog hair!

Auggie did great on the ride home.  I was worried about her getting car sick but she was fine.  Elizabeth wanted to hold her the whole time and asked if could start training in the car on the ride home!  EB is all hands on deck with this one!  When we stopped in Springfield I moved to the front seat because I was getting queasy and I held Auggie the rest of the way home.  The kids must have asked four times if they could have her back...I told them no, it was my turn!

Sleep is not plentiful, at least not in our room, which is why after ten minutes of her crying the first night Brandon made himself a bed on the other side of the house! Tonight is night four and I told him I think he should try to sleep in our room again.  Each night she has made progress.  The first night was total flashbacks of having a baby!  She would fall asleep and then cry every half hour...just when I was really getting to sleep good!  The 2nd night was 1.5 hour stretches.  Last night was two 3 hour stretches.  I could do without the 5:30 wake up call, but that's what time B has been going to work, so I just get up with him and face the day!  Last night Auggie curled up with EB for a little pet therapy as she was going to bed.  She was upset about some trade she had promised a friend at school that she wanted to back out of.  She got upset when I  told her she couldn't back out unless it was mutually agreed upon, handed her Auggie and said "here, pet your dog and go to sleep"  Within 10 mins they were both out.  Tonight was Grant's turn.  He had a bedtime meltdown but with Auggie by his side he settled in and they both zonked out!  Now, if only she didn't have to sleep in her kennel at night and could just cuddle with us we would all get some sleep!  But rules are rules and she needs to be in the kennel and learn to like it!  After playing for two hours outside today she was wiped and I think she will rest better tonight (fingers crossed!)

Grant looks like he is 10 in this picture!

She is a doll and looks like a teddy bear.  I am not sure she can see that great, there is so much fur obstructing her view!  She got cold the other day and we wrapped her up and EB held her on her back just like an infant.  We had friends come over and we passed her through 3 people wrapped up like a baby and she was totally content!  We are working hard on her biting inhibition, as those puppy teeth are sharp and her mouth is very exploratory!  She really likes our boots and the new Soggy Doggy rug by the back door - but no damage has been done yet! She responds best to people walking away from her when she misbehaves and given a 2nd or 3rd chance typically self corrects.  It is just as much about training our guests as it is her!  I feel like I have a lecture to give anyone who comes to meet her, but don't want to be "that dog mom!"  (haha! I really don't care, I want an awesomely well behaved dog!)

We aren't sure she knows she is a dog!  She got cold and we wrapped her up like a baby and passed her through 4 people like she was newborn and she didn't stir! 

She is just what our family was missing and she is WELL LOVED!!! I look forward to warmer weather and long walks!! (once we figure the walking on a leash thing out - she thinks that is just fun chew toy!)

She loves to find a pile to curl up and sleep on!

Frozen on Ice

The day before we brought Auggie home Elizabeth and I went up north to see Frozen on Ice with a friend and her mom.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of time in a car that weekend!  It was a nice girls day and Brandon and Grant had a boys day (Legos & ChuckECheese!)

Elizabeth got to choose one souvenir to bring home and she picked an Elsa doll.

Kids School & Activity Update

Grant had his IEP meeting this week for speech and parent teacher conferences for school.  For a long time he has been working on his hard K and G sounds and his therapist has tried everything from A to Z with no luck.  He was not being defiant during his speech time but would openly say "I don't like K's"  It was mutually decided that a break would be a good option.  Experts in the field say that there is a level of maturation needed to make the tongue arch up in the back which is necessary for producing these sounds.  Hopefully with some time we will see improvement.  The fear of repeating words constantly the wrong way was also discussed.  So we will work on modeling sounds correctly for him and hope this is just a phase that he will out grow.  In the past he has had some minor issues with stuttering but each time it comes and goes and each stuttering phase seems to bring on a wave of new sounds.  All those neurons firing at the same time and not being to process it all type business!  In the last 10 days or so he has starting to stutter words at the beginning of a sentence. I am hopeful that history will repeat itself and perhaps this stuttering phase will be for new sounds.  We will have him screened again in the fall for sure, maybe end of this school year if we see progress.

His parent teacher conference went well. Academically he is doing great.  Apparently, I don't make my capital G the "right way" so he learned wrong is working very hard on trying to follow the standard! I know from Elizabeth's report card that he needs to conform (if only for a short time!) in order to receive full credit.  He's got his letters, shapes, numbers, etc... down.  He is respectful in class. The only concern is that he is pretty content to play alone.  When put into groups he plays fine, he apparently just enjoys doing his own thing.  The comment was also made that sometimes the other kids may have a difficult time understanding him and this may be leading to his solo play.  This breaks my heart, especially since we just concluded that there isn't anything we can do about the speech right now besides wait for his skills to develop.  I'm kind of bummed about this one, but all of this helps reassure our decision to wait another year before sending him to kindergarten.  We will keep a close eye on his social skills and make sure he isn't becoming a recluse!  He has a playdate tomorrow with two of his favorite friends so that makes me feel better :)

Elizabeth brought home her 2nd report card and it was all good.  She had improved her handwriting to receive the highest marks.  They are picky about this handwriting business.  It looked good last semester, but because the circle part of her g's or a's didn't fill the entire space she was marked down. This is when the back of my mind says "really, people is this the most important thing to focusing on right now?" but whatever!  Any of the anxieties that she struggled with at the beginning of the year have totally subsided.  She goes to school happy and willingly!  I was typically eating lunch with her on Tuesdays while Grant did his speech session and it gave me a great opportunity to meet her peers (as does art cart!).  Now that speech is over I know she is going to want Grant and me to go in and have lunch with her.  It can't be a weekly thing though, which she isn't going to like but will have to accept.

Grant is in an activity lull.  There was an opportunity to do soccer but we were going to miss two weekends and all I could picture was him crying unless I was on the field with him, so we passed.  I really wanted him to do a small golf session but it conflicted with EB's gymnastics.  I will sign him up for t-ball next week and he said he would do swimming lessons again, so I need to get him signed up for that ASAP as well.

Elizabeth is still really enjoying swimming and gymnastics.  They are both such good athletic sports and great exercise.  She has decided that she will do the summer swim team through the park district and will compete...which is a huge step for her!  When they swim against each other at DOCS she turns up the heat and you can she puts her competition cap on! All four of her strokes look good and I believe legal (from what I know!). Hopefully, we have a good experience this summer.  DOCS swimming will be over soon and she will have a break.  She wants to do Pixie league (coach pitch softball) and we are all supporting that!

Swimming puts Grant to sleep

Working on the dive 

2014 Funnies and that's a wrap!

The memory jar was slim this year...but this is what we collected throughout 2014 and then shared on New Year's Eve:

1/5 - EB: "Mom you are treating me like Cinderella!" (wish I would have wrote down what I was doing!)
1/6 - EB: "Grant you are going to be really good at school buddy!"
1/11 - Grant: "Lisbeth, come cuddle with me!"
1/12 - I say "Grant your pants are on backwards" he looks down "That's OK!"
1/14 - EB: "Grant, you are pretty smart - almost as smart as me!"
1/14- EB: "Mom I want to exercise." I lead them in exercises..about 5 mins in she says "When are we going to have a water break?"
1/21 - Grant: "But Mommy my tummy talked to me and it said it was too full!"
2/14 - Grant found a harmonica to play and EB said to him "Hey can I join your band? I'm a good whistler!"
2/24 - After eating a good dinner Grant says "my tummy is full" I ask "too full for ice cream?" and he responded with "I have room for ice cream right here in my belly button.  We always have ice cream at Ima's!"
2/28 - Grant "Mimi dance with us to this song!" (Wave the Flag)
3/14 - EB "excusez-moi!" Me: "you mean merci" EB: "No I mean excusez-moi - I just tooted"
3/15 - Grant: "Why we have no TVs in this house?!"
Brandon to Elizabeth "The first two rules of being a girl 1)look cute 2)wear comfortable underwear" (wait, what?!!)
9/12 - EB "That's just God's sense of humid!" (um...do you mean humor?!)
9/21 - EB "We can't play over there or the big kids might stample us!"

As always the year starts out strong and then fades!! Hopefully I captured more funnies in other posts!  Well that's a wrap for 2014!  Off to the printing press :)