Big day for a little boy...

Our little Punk is growing up in more ways than one!


exhibit A) Today was his last round of puppy shots!
I really think I must have blocked that whole time of my life out when we did this with Maddoxx. I TOTALLY forgot/didn't realize puppy shots meant making 3 separate trips to the vet in a short period of time. Thank goodness that is over! Oh wait, the doctor was quick to tell me that Maddoxx has to come in the next couple of weeks for her check-up! Goodness, I don't know if I can manage all these doctors visits...for the dogs! What is my life coming to?!?!

exhibit B) He gained .5 lbs. in the last 2 weeks!!!
Yay!! He's up to 2.4 lbs now! The last time we were in he had only gained a tenth of a pound in 3 weeks, I was getting worried for the little guy. He seems to be packing on the ounces now and he's looking good!

exhibit C) We got the go-ahead to get him fixed! Yeehaw!!
I haven't mentioned this here before....but I will now that it has all worked itself out for the best. (whispering) we were afraid the little guy wasn't blessed with the family jewels if you know what I mean. (end of whisper). But the doctor has assured us that he's a man's man and we can go ahead and get him taken care of! (breathing a sigh of relief!)

So there you have it, our little Punk may not be so little after all...

Fun day!

This is what 5 sleepy dogs look like after a couple hours of playing.

Today we went to Mike and Mindy's and it was busy! Eric and Mike were taking care of the 5 dogs running around and Mindy and I were in the back room taking pictures of her invites for her new website!

Let's just say that having 5 dogs in the same house is QUITE the experience! But a very fun one! Punk thought he was 50 pounds and played with all the big dogs with no problem. Punk and Betsy are about the same age and they had a blast playing with each other! Maddoxx had fun with Penny and running all over the back yard. Bandit just hung out and played when she felt like it, but she was perfectly fine observing from the perimeter.


All the dogs are in this picture. Can you find each one of them?

And this is what the girls were doing...setting up and taking pictures of all the invites Mindy has done so she can display them on her new website that will be making its debut soon! I was taking pictures and it seemed like I kept sending Mindy on mission's to find another backdrop or plexiglas. :) Thanks for being a good sport Mindy!
Until her official site is ready, she has a blog set up with scans of some of her designs. Go visit her if you're needing wedding or special occasion invites!

Happy Birthday Uncle Kirk!

Kirk and his family came to our house last night so Kayla and Diane could go on their ISU college visit today. It just happened to be Kirk's birthday yesterday too! Erin made her first angel food cake for her dad and we hung happy birthday signs inside and outside the house...we went for major cheese factor for his birthday!

You know you're getting older when everyone at the party has to help light the candles on the cake!

And in case you were wondering...the smoke detector did NOT go off, but we did have to take a step back and allow the smoke to clear before we could dive into the cake, strawberries and whip cream....YUM!

Happy Birthday to you!

Dream with me...

let's take a trip to our happy place. Yes, I am shutting my eyes and going to my happy place that I think looks something like this...green grass, green trees and blue skies.

Wow, what a concept...color! It seems like Iowa only knows how to look white. I'm so tired of white, I could scream! How in the world do we continue to wake up to snowflakes every morning?

If you were to find a place free of the white stuff, where would you go?

P.S. This is another picture from Eric's trip to Florida. Oh the envy at our house right now... :) Calgon, take me away!

So tired!

I think we might have the sleepiest dogs in the world! This time Eric caught Maddoxx yawning. The photo of them both resting totally cracks me up because they WERE touching eachother, but whenever Maddoxx notices that we've spotted them being friendly and touching, she removes herself from the situation. It's like she putting on this tough girl image around us, but she REALLY does love having Punk around.

As I was preparing the photos for this post, Punk was sitting on my lap. Maddoxx REALLY wanted to play, so she went and got a piece of fleece, which she knows Punk likes. Maddoxx then kept the piece of fleece in her mouth while she put her front 2 legs on the chair we were sitting on. Punk totally ignored her attempt to entice him off my lap. Then Maddoxx just placed the fleece on the chair so Punk could reach it hoping he'd grab it and jump down to chew it on the floor...I never thought I'd see Maddoxx begging Punk to play...NEVER! And here is proof...they really are friends!

Punk's first walk...

That's right, we went for a walk today!! Yay! Spring is just around the corner! By the time we got home I was carrying water in my shoe's...it was REALLY wet and messy, but it felt so good!

Punk was a rockstar walker. Much better than Maddoxx did when she was that little. Punk walked through every puddle we came across without hesitation. He walked like a pro!

This video isn't very exciting, but we had to capture their first walk together.

And yes, it's still windy around here as indicated by the picture above...his ear's are still VERY much folded back.

He's back!

Eric returned from his trip to Disney World on Friday night! Are you wondering why I only said Eric and not we? That's right, I didn't go...I got the "pleasure" of staying home and tending to the enormous amounts of snow that fell last week. It was the longest week of my life! Not only was it miserably cold and snowy, every day I was reminded by Eric's absence that he was basking in the sun in Florida!

OK, I'll stop my whining now and get on to the reason he went. :) Every year 7 kids from his school get to go on this trip. He was chosen as 1 of the 3 chaperone's for the trip this year. They had major problems getting out of Des Moines on Monday and missed their connecting flight in Minneapolis. But they finally made it to Florida 7 hours later than anticipated. They hit the ground running and visited as many parks as they could until they left on Friday.