Goals for 2015

Here I am on the last day of 2014. It has been quite a year that seemed to just fly by!
We had great times with friends and family and some great times just hanging out by ourselves.

That's what we'll be doing tonight to ring in the new year. Last year, Trent wasn't feeling the best, so we partied at home by ourselves, and this year, it's me that is sick. We were supposed to make a quick trip up to Minneapolis to party through the night with friends, but we will be having pizza, little smokies, and some Sierra Mist while watching the ball drop and maybe putting a puzzle together here at home by ourselves!! Call us old, but that doesn't sound so bad to me! Then we'll have one more relaxing day before it's back to work for me! (Boo!)

This year, the only documented goal that I had this year was to read the whole Bible in chronological order. Trent and I both made that same goal and I finished mine today. I am going to do something similar next year, but I haven't quite decided what it's going to be. If it's going to be the whole thing or just parts of it so I can focus more on certain parts or something like that. I guess I probably should decide soon!

So as we look forward to the new year, there are just a couple goals that have been on my mind that I wanted to write down and accomplish this year. 

1. Take a course on how to better use my camera
I bought my Canon T5i early in 2014 and I haven't adequately learned how to use all its functions. So this year, hopefully sooner rather than later, I am going to take a class, probably online, on how to make the most of it! So if you have any suggestions, feel free to pass them along!

2. Knit something (Hopefully more than one thing, but I'm shooting low)
My Grandma Kock passed along some of my Great Grandma's knitting needles and some yarn to me this past week. My plans are to learn how to use them and knit something! Easy enough, right?! Now I just need a rocking chair to sit and rock in while I watch my Wheel of Fortune and knit... and I need my puppy to learn to not try to eat all the yarn!

3. Finish my 2011-2014 Photo Year Books
This year, I finished the first of the photo year books that I wanted to do. I did one for 2009-2010, the first year and a half of Trent and I's relationship. My goal for this year is to get all caught up and then hopefully just do them as the years go on and stay up-to-date from now on.
I know I can hear you all laughing right now at my wishful thinking!!

4. Go hiking at Dayton Oaks where we got engaged
This is something that I have had on my mind to do for a while now, but I have never made it a point to find time to go and do it. I would love to go back to where we got engaged and go hiking again and hopefully it would be on a day that is less rainy.

If I get those things accomplished among all the other great things that I know will happen in 2015, I will be one happy girl!

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve, everyone!
Here's to an AMAZING 2015!!!
I know it's going to be a great year!

Merry Christmas from the Fredericksens!!!

Millie and Mattie Monday!

OK, so maybe Millie and Mattie Monday isn't a real thing, but it is today. 

Since I just finally posted yesterday about when we picked Millie up on the last weekend of November, I wanted to post a few of the many random pictures we have of Millie and of Millie and Mattie together from the past two weeks.

ONE.

I had said in the last post about Millie, that Mattie didn't like her so much when we first brought her home. Mattie seemed quite stressed for those first days. Now though, Mattie will play and at least entertain Millie's puppiness! 

This video was taken on the Monday after we brought Millie home. I had taken the day off work, so I spent the day with the dogs. We spent some time in the backyard and this just shows Mattie's aversion to Millie. 

We've made quite a bit of progress since then...

TWO.

Millie loves to hide under our chairs. She crawls under there quite often to nap... She'd better savor it while she can though, because soon enough, she won't be able to fit!

In this instance below, Millie took advantage of being able to fit under the chair to torture Mattie.  At least Mattie is wanting to play now and isn't wanting ignoring Millie completely!

THREE.

 Millie can't get up on the furniture because 1) she's not big enough and can't jump that high yet and 2) we are trying to make it so she doesn't ever think that's okay for her to do (we'll see how that goes since Mattie is allowed on the furniture). So for now, that is Mattie's refuge from Millie. When Mattie's had enough of Millie, she'll jump on the couch or the chair and Millie tries her best to get her until we tell her to get down. Hopefully we can keep up the fight of making her stay off the furniture when she's big enough to make that leap!

FOUR.
My mom's turtle, Bill, was nice enough to send Millie a card welcoming her to the family. I read her the card and then let her see the picture on the card so Millie could see what Bill looked like. I don't think Bill would fare very well if he really was on the floor with Millie.

Here's Millie in action meeting Bill (or a look alike of him)

FIVE.
Trent let Mattie run around outside last weekend and Millie took advantage of that opportunity to dig. So that meant Millie got her first bath at our house.

SIX.

And now there's these pictures which makes it look like we're hosting dog fights at our house - but I promise it's friendly playing, no matter how mean they look.

And then they calm down and just play with their toys next to each other and all is calm for a short while!

SEVEN.
We took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to grill and play with the dogs outside. It was really the first time we were able to let them both run around and play outside and have them both be civil with each other. I'm sure it was just a glimpse of the fun to come!

EIGHT.

I wanted to take a picture of them each week sitting next to each other to gauge Millie's growth... but since Mattie wanted nothing to do with Millie for the first week and because it's just pretty impossible to get a picture of them both sitting still, that's been pretty hopeless... I did get a picture of them kind of sitting by each other on Sunday, though. So I'll take it.

NINE.

I also got them laying by each other... one on the inside of the patio door and one on the outside! :)

Puppy Pick-up Day!! Bringing Home Millie!

Get ready for a lot of puppy pictures!!

Finally, after what seemed like the longest wait ever, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Trent and I along with his parents and his sister's family, made the little over an hour trip to pick up Millie and her sister Maizie to join our families forever!

We walked into the house and they had both of the puppies out and ready for us. They handed Millie to me right away and I almost started crying because it was so crazy that the day was here and we were taking her home! 

The puppies just walked around and checked everyone out while we talked with the breeders and asked some questions.

Before long, it was time for us to head out and take the puppies with us!

The ride home started out with Millie being quite a bit squirmy, but eventually, she fell asleep on my lap and was just as cute as ever!

We made a brief stop at Trent's parents' house on our way towards home, and Mattie and Millie got to meet for the first time. Mattie wanted nothing to do with Millie and would run away and/or growl any time she got close. That sure made me think that their road to being best friends was going to be a little rougher than I had originally thought!

Mattie running away from Millie

Here's a few videos from when we got there to pick them up and Millie, Mattie, and Casey playing at Trent's parent's house. Sorry for the not so great focused camera work!! And for my talking and laughing!

We made one final stop at Trent's sister's house, where the puppies got to hang out for a little while and we all had a quick supper. It was quite a revolving door with there being four dogs there and two of them being puppies. There was always some dog that needed to go outside to take care of business!

Millie on the left and Maizie on the right

The two hour trip home to our house was pretty uneventful. Millie slept most of the time, which was nice so I didn't have to worry about her moving around and possibly peeing on me! :)

Our first night was pretty interesting. We didn't do very good at introducing Millie to her kennel where she was going to sleep, so when we put her in there, she screamed bloody murder. It was pretty horrible! I looked at Trent and said, "This is way worse than I thought it was going to be!"

Luckily that didn't last very long. After she cried for a while, we took her outside and then moved her to a little bigger kennel and tried again. She only cried for a short while and then she went to sleep. That first night, we were up between every 45 minutes to 2 hours, which was a little exhausting. Thankfully, Trent's parents had come with us to our house, so they watched Millie in the morning after they got up and we both slept for a few hours without having to worry about her! That was amazing!

That Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were spent getting to know Millie and trying to get her acclimated to her home with us. She had her first vet appointment here in Omaha on that Monday and everything went well with that. She weighed in at 13 and a half pounds. She goes back right after the new year, so it will be quite interesting to see what she weighs just a month later! She sure seems to be getting bigger each day!

Shes a lot easier to photograph when she's sleeping if you couldn't tell!

I am happy to report that Mattie has grown to be able to tolerate Millie now. Millie attacks Mattie every time she's around, but instead of Mattie barking at her and getting angry, she plays right back, so that's progress! They even napped by each other this weekend!

We're down to getting up just about once (sometimes twice) a night with her. She usually gets up between 1 and 2 and then she's up for the day around 5:30. On work days, we both get up at 5:30, and I'll get ready for work first while Trent goes down and lets the dogs out and feeds them, then I'll come down around 6:15 and hang out with the dogs while Trent gets ready for work. He'll leave when he's ready and I'll stay until about 7:30 when I need to leave. It's usually a battle to keep her awake until it's time to go into her kennel for the day, but we do our best since she has to be in there for most of the day. We have dog walkers come and let her out twice a day now while she's little, and we are so thankful to have them!

On the weekends, one of us gets up with her at 5:30 to feed her so that stays regular for her, and then we let her fall asleep around 7:30. At that time, whoever got up with her will go back to sleep until she wakes up again. It works pretty well for us, but I'll be very happy when we can trust her in the house like we can trust Mattie. We've got a ways to go before then, though.

It sure has been a struggle at times dealing with the unpredictability of having a puppy and with how demanding they are, needing your attention at all times, but I know it will be all worth it to have such an amazing new member of our family!

And here's our two girls from from a few days ago! Pretty soon, Millie will be bigger than Mattie!

Thanksgiving 2014

This year we spent Thanksgiving day with family in Sioux Falls. We all gathered at Bill and Angie's house for some awesome food and lots of fun (of course). Here's a collection of pictures from the day!

Before lunch on Thursday, we all got into several different trivia games on our phones. We all sat around playing each other and helping each other with our questions and really looking like we were super antisocial and lame. But we were having a great time. We are a trivia-loving family and technology was just making it easier!

Beautiful ladies in my family!

Deep fried turkey

An army guarding the bathroom!

It wouldn't be a family get-together without a picture of Uncle Paul taking a picture of you!

The Aylward cooking crew!!! Made the amazing food!

Nap time!

Getting the shopping strategy figured out!

My amazing hubby!

Our family who was in attendance

They wanted a family picture, but their dad was sleeping, so they did what they could.

When they pretended to be asleep, he woke up. Creeepy!!

Grandkids and Grandma! (minus Trent - who took the picture)

Look who's awake now!

And this work of art made by Kenzie!! :)

It was a great Thanksgiving spent in Sioux Falls! We went out on Thursday night to do a little shopping and then my mom and I were up early on Friday to hit up some of the deals at the mall. And soon enough, it was time to head to see Trent's family and anxiously await puppy pick-up day!!! 

More on that later!! :)