My Halloween Pups

Just some cute pics...more to come soon.

7 Months....OOPS!

Well, I have realized that once I started school last January that my blog was the one who suffered. So, here is a quick rundown!

*Started school at Troy University. I had 3 math classes, 1 english class, and 1 computer class. I came out of the semester with a 4.0!

*Buddie, Baylee, and Phoebee are doing great and playing and wrestling like 3 siblings should.

*Randy is doing great at work. His facility got the recognition of facility of the quarter and he made the E-7 list for promotion. Now he is just waiting for his number to come up.

*My friend Elizabeth came to visit for a few days when she had to drop her sweet little Sami off at her dad's.

*Jared and Emma came to spend the summer with us! Oh boy the adventures!

*My Mom came down to visit and help out with the kids! What a blessing because I am taking 5 online classes and it is a lot of work!

*Last but not least...WE ARE IN DISNEYWORLD from July 6th-13th!!!!!!

*Coming soon---Taking kids back, Lorae visiting, and next semester starting.

My little volunteer

The week before Thanksgiving I started taking Buddie to the Enterprise Health and Rehab Center here in town. I had called the week before to find out if they allowed animals to come in and interact with the residents and they said YES! So our first trip there was kind of short but fun. We didn't go again until the week after Thanksgiving and have gone 3 times since then. Each trip ends up being about an hour. Buddie loves all of the attention and does so well with the residents. He will put his paws up on their laps or on the sides of their wheelchairs if they can't reach him and then when he is done he gets down and starts going to the next place. He is really beginning to know his way around the building and always gets excited when I pull into the parking lot. A lot of the people that we see are starting to remember him and even the employees love seeing him when he comes in and just think that he is so cute and fluffy.

There is one lady named Mable that just adores Buddie. She is one of the residents and the first time she saw Buddie we were on our way out to the car and she asked me if I would bring him by her room the next time I came. I told her that I would and let me tell you, when Buddie walked into her room last Friday she just lit up. She looked at me and said, 'I just knew you weren't lying to me, I just knew you would come back to see me.' She held Buddie and took pictures with him.

I knew that Buddie visiting would be a great experience but it has also made me think. How many times has somebody said to one of those residents that they would be back to see them and never came? How long has that person waited and waited just to be disappointed? By me simply following through on a simple request I was able to change that woman's life in a small way. There are 7 halls in the facility, all filled with rooms, sometimes with 2 people to a room. How many of them don't have visitors or don't have any family? To many times we as human beings don't realize how lucky we are to have the families that we have, the friends that we have, or the generally healthy lives that we have. What would it look like if for one day a month you would volunteer an hour of your time to read a book or play chess with somebody at a nursing home? What if we gave one hour of our time to volunteer at an Animal Shelter or Children's Hospital?

I am not saying all of this because it is the holidays and the season of giving. I think that it is important to help out those families in need during the holidays but I don't think it should stop there. People need support, help, cheering up, whatever you want to call it, all year round. Some of you may be saying, 'I don't have the money to donate or money to buy food to feed other people besides my family.' That is okay, help out at a soup kitchen, help with Special Olympics, volunteer your time somewhere that needs help. Take your kids with you! Volunteering helps kids learn compassion, responsibility, integrity, understanding, selflessness, and the list could go on. Don't be afraid for your kids, if they meet somebody who is different from them use it as a teaching tool and help them learn.

Don't make excuses as to why you can't. What if your parents or grandparents were there? What if your child was in a hospital for a long period of time? Doctors, nurses, and other employees are great but volunteers are there for that extra touch of home and heart. Please think about it, your life can't be so busy that you can't take an hour and give it to somebody else and if it is...slow down.

In the last 16 days...

...Buddie graduated from puppy classes with honors on the 15th!
...we have celebrated Randy's 32nd Birthday on the 15th.
...celebrated our friends son Dylan's birthday on the 16th.
...I decorated for Christmas on the 18th.
...On the 19th Buddie took his first trip as a therapy dog to the nursing home in town and loved it! (I tagged along)
...my friend Elizabeth (roommate from Ft Hood), her daughter Sami, and my new friend Michelle visited from the 20th-23rd. I miss her and we had so much fun!
...I got really sick from the 21st-26th...ughhh. I even had to go to the ER because my heart did not like the meds they put me on, I am okay though, just a very high heart rate for a few days. I think Baylee knew I wasn't feeling well the day I went to the ER, she just kept laying on me and sitting on my lap, I guess I should have paid closer attention to what she was doing since she usually only sits on Randy's lap.
...I made a Thanksgiving feast for 2, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing from a box, corn, rolls, pumpkin pie for Randy, and Chocolate pie for me.
...We saw a couple of movies; Twilight and Bolt (The hamster was hilarious!)
...We got Phoebee a cat climber thingy on Black Friday and some new dog toys, somehow they are destroying their old ones.
...We bought some new video games and played video games all weekend, so much fun!
...I groomed Buddie yesterday and Randy went skeet shooting for the first time.
...Buddie went for his 2nd trip to the nursing home today, the 1st of December. He loves the attention and is so good for everybody when they pet him. He isn't scared of anything and makes the residents smile, even if they don't want to pet him. I think we will be doing this for a long time. He even had one personal request for next time from a sweet lady named Maybel.
...We did the same stuff we normally do also; Randy worked, I cleaned, we talked to our friends and family, and we played with our animals.

We wish you all a wonderful Holiday season! Happy December 1st! I get to open my advent calendar today and eat the chocolate out of it!

Cherry Eye

Our little Baylee got something called 'Cherry Eye' last night. This is the definition from Wikepedia:

Cherry eye is the term used to refer to canine nictitans gland prolapse, a common eye condition in various dog breeds where the gland of the third eyelid known as the nictitating membrane prolapses and becomes visible. It appears as a red mass in the inner corner of the eye, and is sometimes mistaken for a tumor. After gland prolapse, the eye becomes chronically inflamed and there is often a discharge. Because the gland is responsible for about 30% of the eye's tear production, the eye can eventually suffer from dryness (keratoconjunctivitis sicca).[4] Dry eye may eventually occur in 30 to 40 percent of dogs that have the gland removed, yet it may affect about 20 percent of dogs that have the gland surgically replaced [5]

I bathed her and groomed her last night and she was fine and then 2 hours later I looked at her and she had a little pink bubble in the corner of her eye. I called the vet this morning and took her in this afternoon. She did not have to have surgery, which is the most common corrective measure. I have to put ointment in her eyes 3x a day for 5 days. Luckily she is a whole lot easier than Buddie when it comes to eye medicine. They repositioned the gland back into the pocket it belongs in with a q-tip with ointment on it. The vet told me that if the swelling doesn't go down and it pops out again we will have to decide on surgery or I can try and pop it back in myself. So, we will see and hopefully our little Baylee Bear will not have to have surgery. She is still so cute and precious.




Here are a couple fun pictures

My sleeping girls

My sleeping boys

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everybody! We are all doing well and enjoying the Fall here in Alabama. We have gone through a corn maze and Randy picked out his very own pumpkin. This blog entry has a lot of pictures...so hang in there.

It was his first time ever carving a pumpkin! He did a great job!

I then tried to take some Halloween pictures. Which as you will see, were a little more difficult than I anticipated.

We also went to a Howl-o-ween party at Petsmart last week. The dogs got treats, had a parade, and had a costume contest. They did not win but I think they were great

Last Saturday, Buddie, Baylee, and I went to a fundraiser for one of the animal shelters here in Enterprise. They had some contests and both dogs got lots of ribbons. Buddie got first place for best trick in the small mutt category! What a performer! Baylee got first place in the tiny mutt catergory for jumping! She jumped over one of those white pvc pipes they use in agility competitions (it was about 4 inches off the ground) but we are so very proud of her. Buddie also got 1st place for: Shortest small Mutt and Hairiest small Mutt. Baylee also got 1st place for: Shortest tiny Mutt

Last but not least, the pictures from Halloween night. They were so good even with the doorbell ringing. They didn't even try to dart out the door. I do have to say that their costumes were better than some of the ones that I saw come to my door. Also, I think that My animals must have been possessed last night, their eyes were glowing in almost every picture!

We hope you all enjoyed the pictures and catching up on what has been going on in our lives over the past few weeks. Have a wonderful holiday season!

It is not Halloween yet

I tried to tell my dogs that it was not Halloween yet but they did not listen to me or apparently don't really care what holiday it is or isn't...and did their very best to dye themselves orange Phoebee on the other hand is already orange and is ready for any holiday that includes the color orange.






Phoebee is doing great and getting along with the dogs most of the time. Baylee is still overly excited every time she sees Phoebee but it may go away or it may not but at least they are not biting her and she is not hissing at them ...well maybe a few times. We even had thunder and lightning today and she didn't even get spooked! I am still very optimistic for a long term friendship!

From Luau's to Peanut Festivals

Well we have been in Alabama for about a month and a half now and I have to say...there is not much to do here. The surrounding areas have grown a lot but it is mostly stores they have put in and I haven't been doing to much shopping lately. I even mowed the lawn tonight, who knows, maybe I will take up gardening/yard work...uh who am I kidding. We are loving our house and enjoying being able to drive around instead of just driving in circles or running into the ocean. :-) We went to Panama City, FL last weekend and just relaxed. We rode go-karts, went to a water park, played miniature golf, and went to a brand new movie theatre. I even got to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings!!! (If you don't know, I love chicken wings and they have my favorite sauce...mango habanero!) The dogs got to go to doggie day care and had a blast. Even little Baylee played in the big room with the big dogs. On a side note, she had her last booster shot today for Parvo and they weighed her and she is a whoping 7.3 pounds! She was 3.14 pounds when we got her. She still isn't very big but she is definitely growing. She has lost about 7 teeth in the past week! Buddie is doing well and enjoying having a friend around all the time, you would think he doesn't get enough attention from us every day. He has also started a new behavior, it is like that of a lion. He will crouch down and walk really slowly towards Baylee and then run and pounce on her. Or he will lay on the ground and crawl towards her and then run and pounce on her. They are very silly!

Oh yeah, as for the title of this blog. For those of you who do not know...Alabama is the peanut capitol. They have peanut festivals and everything. What a change from beautiful luau's to painted peanut statues and boiled peanuts (still haven't tried them.)

5 1/2 pounds of fluff

Our little Baylee Bear has become quite the fluff ball. I am almost positive that 3 of her 5 1/2 pounds is just pure fluff. She is a very sweet little girl, most of the time. She is also quite the bully and will get a running start just to jump on her sleeping Buddie. She also thinks that she is ultimate guard dog. Buddie will sit at the door looking out the window while Baylee sits their and does the barking. It is almost as if Buddie gives her this look and she starts barking. I think they are communicating telepathically. This is what I think the conversation sounds like:"Okay Baylee, you bark at what I am looking at. I am older now and they know that I know better than to bark all the time.""Alright, but if I get squirted for barking you better not fall asleep, I will pounce on you and this time I won't let go of your ear."She is quite the instigator but I think Buddie is catching on pretty quickly. She is a little ball of fire but she has the cutest little eyes. When she looks up at you she either has one of two looks; the 'I don't know what you're talking about look' or the 'you have got to be kidding me look'. Here are a few pictures of our new guard dog.I know I am cute and know you can see my eyesGoing crazy after my bathMe and my BuddieVogueing for the cameraEnjoying my new backyardI had to take a picture of Baylee after her bath just like we did with Buddie so here they are, they are so quiet in these pictures.