Five on Friday and a Favorite Song {03.13.2015}

This was supposed to go up last Friday, but it ended up being a super busy day at work and that just carried into the evening, so it never got done. So I mixed some of last week's stuff with this week's stuff and called it good!

ONE.

Last weekend, some of my best friends and I met up in Omaha for a little girl time. We all met at the mall and did a little looking/shopping and a lot of talking. Some of us then got our nails done and went out to eat at Roja before retiring for the night at Lauren's. These girls' weekends are usually very late nights, but I don't think many of us made it to midnight... we decided that we need to start our girls' weekend earlier in the day next time!
 

 

TWO.
When Mattie and Millie eat, they usually like to take turns so that they can watch each other. This really makes the whole process take longer than it needs to, but as long as it gets done, I guess... I think it's so cute and funny when Mattie's eating and Millie is watching her because Millie will get as close as she can to Mattie and her bowl of food. This happened, as usual, the other evening when I was feeding them (I usually only feed them in the morning because Trent gets home from work before me), so I had to get a picture of it.

 

THREE.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it will be like to actually meet our baby. It's crazy to think about them actually being here (on the outside of me) and seeing their little face and hands. When I think about it, I really just feel like I am going to cry every time I see them! I just cannot imagine what it will be like to hold a baby that is all ours and we will be their mom and dad!! August really feels so far away! I love this baby so much already, I just can't fathom what it's going to be like to meet them for the first time!!! Ah!

FOUR.

Last week, I purchased the Eyefi Mobi SD Card for my camera. It basically acts as a wi-fi hotspot so when you take pictures, it can connects and uploads them right to your phone without having to get out my computer and upload them there before uploading them to my blog. Normally waiting to upload them isn't such a bad thing, but I bought it for when I take my weekly pregnancy update photos in the mornings so I can get the pictures and the blog post posted during the day without having to hassle with getting out my computer in the mornings (because I would never have time for that anyway... I like to sleep too much). It's not quite as slick as I was hoping it would be, as it kind of takes a long time to connect at times, but so far it has gotten the job done. I think it will be fun to use when I want to take pictures of our little baby with my good camera and be able to share them without having to find time to get my computer out and all that jazz.

 

FIVE.
This song is on Jeremy Camp's latest album and is, of course, a new favorite. (Is anyone surprised? I didn't think so...) I put some of my favorite lyrics below, but it's definitely worth a listen!

Same Power - Jeremy Camp

The same power that rose Jesus from the grave

The same power that commands the dead to wake

Lives in us, lives in us

The same power that moves mountains when He speaks

The same power that can calm a raging sea

Lives in us, lives in us

He lives in us, lives in us

 

We have hope. That His promises are true

In His strength. There is nothing we can’t do

Yes, we know. There are greater things in store

We will not be overtaken. We will not be overcome

 

Greater is He that is living in me

He’s conquered our enemy

No power of darkness

No weapon prevails

We stand here in victory

Five on Friday {02.20.2014}

ONE.

We have a graduate in the house!!! Millie graduated from Beginner Puppy Training on Sunday! They had a little final where we went around the PetSmart store and took turns doing all the things they'd learned and then celebrated with some puppy-safe ice cream. Only three of the dogs from her class were there that day, but I kind of think that was better because it was hard enough to get those three to sit still for the picture!! She's still got a lot of puppy in her and a lot to work on, but it was a nice start to get her trained and more Mattie-like. :)

Millie with her graduation cap on!

Millie and two of her classmates and their owners

Eating her ice cream

TWO.

Lauren sent me this picture last weekend showing the size of our little baby! That's still so hard to believe!! I can't wait to snuggle our little baby for real (when it's much bigger, of course).

THREE.

I didn't have to work on Monday because it was President's Day! That meant I got to stay home with the dogs all day. The days always go by so much faster when I'm at home!! 

I'm sure me being home messes up Mattie's routine for the day, but she still found plenty of time to sleep on Monday I think.

FOUR.

I started my new Bible study at Christ Community Church at the end of January. I was reunited with most of the ladies that I did the Bible study on 1 and 2 Thessalonians with back in the fall and it's awesome. This study is once again done by Beth Moore and this one is called A Woman's Heart: God's Dwelling Place and is all about The Tabernacle. I have already learned so much in the first few weeks and I can't wait to get even farther into it. 

FIVE.

I may have bought these headbands yesterday... juuuust in case we have a girl :)

I figured I could always give them away if we don't have a girl, but they were too cute to pass up!

I probably should start working on getting useful things that we need for the baby rather than things like this that we have a 50% chance of needing in the end... but oh well. That'd be far to practical!

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!