Dog Walking

Every morning of our camping trip Pepper, J, Jay's sister and I took our dogs for a walk. We took 3 dogs with us, although we could have taken more since both J and her sister have more than one dog. (We have more than one cat..... see previous blog to know how I feel about that!)

Anyway, we walk along our usual route which is mostly side roads with lots of fields and cow pastures. J and her sister are training their dogs to follow without a leash.... I don't take the chance with Kirby... she still has the attention span of a nat. (picture Doug from the movie "Up") So both of the other dogs are bipping in and out of the grass by the ditches and Kirby is zig zagging between them. J's sister and Pepper are making comments about how Kirby is going at least double the distance of the rest of us because she is going back and forth so much across the road. Although I am being innocent and quiet here, just minding my own business and not saying anything J pipes in with, "Yeah, Kirby takes walks the way Ilene canoes!!"

Is that even fair? I canoe just fine! I was just being quiet and innocent, enjoying a morning walk....see how they pick on me?!! :(

Repainting the bathroom

We have a rather old house. When we moved in it had been remodeled due to a fire. The carpet and the walls were white. It made the house look big and clean.... And plain.

It did not take long before we started painting. We have a bright yellow kitchen (Pepper believes all kitchens should be yellow). She found a book about specialized designs that you can do with paint. So our TV room is this cool looking textured paint that looks like dark green suede. Our hallway is this funky brown that Pepper made using different paints and brown paper grocery bags. It took awhile for me to get used to because it looks like tree bark. But I like it.

Our downstairs bathroom was all me. I saw the color combination in Pepper’s book and picked out the colors. I read how to do the design. In the book it was a cheery yellow that faded into a lime green toward the bottom of the walls. It looked like bottled sunshine in the book. It did not end up looking that way on our bathroom walls. It looked more like a clown’s dressing room!

Repainting the bathroom has been on my list of things to do since before the lime green paint dried. It kept getting put off because there were so many other things we wanted to do in the house…. Or needed to do.

Enter…. Kirby. Our loveable little puppy looked too cute to stick her in her cage while we ran out for a couple hours. I decided to put her in the bathroom so she would have more space and it was my first step toward leaving her out to roam around the house while we weren’t home. Kirby did not see getting to stay in the bathroom while we were gone as a promotion. She took down the vertical blinds, chewed up the bin we kept towels in and ripped quite violently at the shower curtain. She bent the shower rod and shredded the curtain liner.

"before"


Pepper and I spent the last couple days making some changes... I am much happier with the results this time. :)

"after"

Not a Llama anymore...

She is looking better! By spring she will be her ol' cute self!! :)

Kirby and her feathers...

We've had a comforter that we bought years ago that Pepper and I have both really liked. It wasn't too hot or too cold. We made the mistake of leaving it within reach of Kirby's cage earlier today. We put her into her cage so we could run out with the kids for less than an hour after dinner. She went for a car ride this morning, a walk and then to the ball field to watch Dill and then Pete play baseball. She should have been tired after having so many things to look at and so much good fresh air. Instead, she slid the bottom of her crate out from the crate so that she could 'walk' it across the floor. She scooted the crate to where the comforter was and tried to pull the entire king size comforter into the crate so she could chew it.

By the time we came home from the ice cream store, feathers were everywhere! This picture was after most of them had settled, but they are still all around the cage. It was quite funny to walk into the room and see feathers drifting around like snow (well at least after the surprise wore off!) As Pepper carried the shredded comforter outside it looked like a huge duck fight followed her. Puppies do keep life interesting!! :)

The head of a dog...

I thought this was so funny when I saw Macy and Kirby laying on the floor like this I had to take their picture. Kirby continues to grow and loves rolling around on the floor with the kids. Macy thought it was a cool picture too! :)

The kids decided they all wanted friends to come over tonight. So after a long day at work, with lots of testing, reports and meetings with parents, I came home to 1 senior, 3 juniors, an 8th grader, two 6th graders, a 5th grader and a 2nd grader. All hungry. Pepper and I made salad, spaghetti and garlic bread. The garlic bread was a hit, spaghetti went fairly well and I have a lot of salad left over!! The potato chips and double stuffed Oreo’s are totally gone. The older kids all watched a movie and were so quiet at times I had to peek in on them… or send in one of the younger kids to do my dirty work! The younger kids spent the evening playing outside with bows and arrows practicing target shooting. Pete’s friend asked if he could bring his gun as well for some target practice… I was a bit worried about WHO the targets would be, so I said no to the gun, and only agreed to bows. (I knew Pepper and I had a limit to how much activity we could supervise tonight… guns were WAY over the limit.) Everyone got along amazingly well, and I am happy to report no injuries or casualties and everyone seemed to have a good time. Even when the dog jumped on a couple of the older ‘love birds’ lying a bit too close together on the floor! Such a good watch dog she is becoming!! It was a fun evening even if I felt like the Old woman that lived in a shoe that had so many children she didn’t know what to do!! ☺

SNOW DAY!!

Gotta love those unexpected days off!! Just think instead of TV and the computer Dori and Macy COULD be sitting in class. If we all had school, Kirby would be sleeping in her crate... miserable. Sleeping on the couch is sooo much better!! :)

While watching Curling on the Olympics: Dill: I think those Canadians are cheating! 

Pepper: Honey, you don’t know enough about curling to say they are cheating. 

Dill: Well, they are really killing the American team… they must be!! :)

Kahlua teases Kirby

First the GREAT news... Kirby slept the best ever last night! We decided to move the cage right up next to the bed (not that the room is that big!) so that Kirby would be closer to us. She whined for about 2 minutes then fell right to sleep. She slept until almost 4 AM and cried to go outside. The bad thing about her being so close to the bed is that when I didn't get right out of bed to take her outside... she bit my toe!!! When I put her back into the cage Kahlua climbed on top just to tease her. (Pepper was sound asleep and would never believe that her cat could be so mean, so I took pictures!!)

Kirby the Therapy Dog

Pepper and I took Kirby to school. She was petted and touched and waved at by over 350 students and had a ball! She loves going to school with us and cries when we leave for work without her. Kirby went into every classroom and was very well behaved. Pepper and I did a speech lesson on puppies and Kirby loved being the star attraction! She is a great addition to the family... now if she'd just sleep through the night!! :)

Kirby Update

This is a picture of Kirby right after a bath. She dries up very beautifully... although I love the wet dog look too!! She is growing quickly she will be 13 weeks old tomorrow. We have been working hard on the potty training.... she does pretty good but accidents are definitely still pretty frequent. She loves playing out in the snow and is starting to get a little too brave and wanders away a little farther from me then I am comfortable with. Pepper picked up a 20 foot lead line today... I love it. She gets a little freedom but she can still be kept safe when she ventures to far.

She has been to the vet twice since we've gotten her. The vet was very impressed with how well behaved she was the first time we brought her in. He checked her all over and said he couldn't get enough of her puppy breath! This last time she was in the vet was amazed at her disposition. He said she is a great puppy. Very tolerant, easy going and happy.... even after 4 vaccines a nail trimming and getting her ears cleaned!! Of course, since we were writing him a big check at the time it might have influenced his opinion!! :D

Our cat, Kahlua is becoming more accepting of the puppy. I wouldn't say they love each other... but this is pretty good... :)

Princess Kirby

Megamom gave us a great Christmas present this year. She and I drove all the way up to the top of Michigan to get her yesterday. Isn't she adorable? Her big brother was whiny and chewing on carpet... but not our Kirby! She was much too ladylike to behave like that! On the way home she either wanted to sit on top of my shoulder or she sat up with a very regal look. She already loves sitting on Pepper's lap, although in a few months as Kirby gets bigger Pepper may have other things to say about the arrangement!! She did not like her crate last night and cried for about 30 minutes before she settled in. This morning she loved playing with the kids before they left for school. Today we are getting her a new collar and tomorrow she meets our vet. Wish us luck on the housebreaking!!! :)