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!

Five on Friday {11.14.2014}

ONE.

I've been in Okoboji since Wednesday night on a little mini vacation. My ended up renting this week's use of my Great Aunt's time share from our CJD fundraiser auction last year, so her and some other members of my family have been up here on and off this week to spend some time relaxing with this nice view.

It has been just a tad cold, but that just made it even better for having an excuse to relax inside! We've watched back to back Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel the past two nights (I may or may not have stayed up until 3 in the morning last night watching them..) and I am really loving it! Yesterday we went out and got manicures and pedicures. It was Grandma's first time getting her nails done, so that was a lot of fun! She said she needs to be careful or she might get addicted to it!

More family is coming up late tonight and then we are taking of for Minneapolis tomorrow afternoon so we can go to the Garth Brooks concert tomorrow night!!! Ahh!!! I can't believe it's finally here! But more on that after it happens :)

TWO.

Yesterday I got to take advantage of being in the area and I visited with my friend Grace for a while in the afternoon. This was the first time I've seen her since the summer of 2011 and this was also the first time I met her son! (And I got to meet see her adorable baby bump) It took him a little while before he was okay with me being there, but after a while, I think he decided I was alright! It was so great to see Grace and get to talk to her for a bit - oh how I wish I could see her more often!!

Here's us (along with Lauren, of course) back from our college days! Such fun times!

THREE.

We now know what puppy will be coming home with us in TWO weeks!! The one with the red collar is our new family member!

This is her!

And here she is at 4 weeks old at 1:30 in this video.

I can't wait to meet her and love on her and snuggle her!!! I'm looking forward to get our little family all together and start working on our new normal!

(In case you were wondering - the puppy talk is just beginning!)

FOUR.
Since we painted our bedroom last weekend, I now need to get serious about hanging things up on our walls FINALLY! I have a few ideas including using what I hope will be a great family picture we will take after we pick up our new puppy and this quote below. I am also on the search for a few other things and hopefully it doesn't take me two and a half more years to get them up on the walls :)

FIVE.

And with it being cold... I think this is genius!!!

Five on Friday - On Tuesday {11.11.2014}

I missed the boat last Friday to post my randomness, so I'm just going to do that today!

ONE.

We handed out candy at our house for Halloween again this year. It was quite chilly, so we did it from inside the house rather than sitting on the front step, but it worked! We were open for business from about 6:15 to 8:00 and counted around 179 Trick-or-Treaters. It was about 100 less than last year, but that could have been because of the weather or because we closed up shop around 8. We got rid of the majority of our giant box of Peanut Butter M&Ms, so it was successful on our end. I did the candy-handing-outing while Trent was the tally-er of the Trick-or-Treaters and Mattie just wanted to get outside to see what everyone's costumes looked like!

TWO.

On Halloween night, we left our house around 8:30 and went to Ankeny, so I could go to the annual craft fair there with the girls bright and early in the morning. Trent and his dad went hiking in the morning and then watched some football in the afternoon.

Here's our one picture from the day! The kid taking it really didn't do a very good job (like, really, dude, back up a little bit!), but we'll take what we can get!

Here's one of my purchases that I got at the craft fair from a little business called Summer Snow. I can't wait to hang it up this winter!!

THREE.

Last Tuesday was the last of the nine-week Beth Moore Bible study on 1 & 2 Thessalonians that I was a part of at Christ Community Church. I am SOOO glad that I chose to do it! I met some of the most amazing women that I am so thankful to have met. It's amazing how much life can happen in just 9 short weeks and how relationships can blossom in that short of a time! There is another Beth Moore study starting in January called A Woman's Heart that explores the building of the Old Testament tabernacle and most of us are planning on doing that one as well, so I am already looking forward to that! 

On the last night of our study, Beth asked everyone to take a pen and write on the palms of their hands - On the left hand "For not all have faith" and on the right "But the Lord is faithful". (As we were doing that - I said "My dad would NOT like this!") Those phrases are taken from some of 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3. She then gave a list of about ten scenarios where something bad may happen like: a bank is robbed, someone we love is sick or hurt, someone says something unkind to us, etc. We then could answer that scenario with the words "For not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful!" It's so true that we can not put our trust in the things of this world, because those things may fail us, but the Lord never will! The Lord is always faithful!

FOUR.

We painted our bedroom on Saturday. FINALLY! It's crazy how just a coat of paint can change the way you feel about a room. It's pretty much just a lighter tan than what was in there, but it sure did brighten up the room and make it seem more clean. Much better than the flat, gross tan that had been on the walls for the past 8 years that the house has been standing!

We painted it a color called Hopsack by Valspar. It's the color that is one shade darker than what we have in our Living Room/Dining Room/Hallway, so it goes nicely!

One of our big motivations for getting the painting done was so we could rearrange the furniture in our room at the same time and make a space for another dog bed/crate that will be in there at the end of the month!

FIVE.

Speaking of another dog! Our puppy is now 5 weeks old!! We are still getting updates in the form of pictures, videos and emails each week and the puppies are getting cuter and cuter every time we see them! We will be going the Saturday after Thanksgiving to pick up the new member of our family and I'm getting more and more excited as the day comes closer!

There were 5 girls in the litter that our puppy is in and two of them have already been chosen, so after the next family picks out their girl, which will hopefully be before the next update, we will know what two puppies are going to be in the Fredericksen family (because Trent's sister's family is getting a female puppy from the same litter) and know that one of those two will be living with us!! YAY!

Here's a picture of one of our puppy's siblings at 4.5 weeks (it's not ours because it's a male) and a video of the puppies from this past weekend!

A New Member of Our Family!!!

That's right!! We will soon have another member added to our family!! In my last post, I said that our exciting news wasn't about a baby... and that wasn't exactly the truth. We're getting a baby dog!!!
The weekend after Thanksgiving, we will be bringing home a new golden retriever puppy. Mattie is going to be a big sister!

Our puppy was born on the 5th of October. She has 11 other siblings: 7 brothers and 4 sisters.
The breeders we are getting our puppy from send us updates with a few photos and a video or two each week so we can see our puppy as she grows. They actually have pictures of the puppies from before they were even born!

Our puppy and its siblings in their mommy's belly

The puppies on the day they were born

To add to the excitement, Trent's sister's family is also getting a puppy from the same litter, so when we get the puppies together, the two siblings will be reunited!

All the puppies at one week

The female puppies at one week old. Two of these cuties will join our family in a little over a month!

 We are so excited to be adding to our family but we are well aware that getting the new puppy all trained and used to living with us will be quite the adventure! We aren't 100% sure how Mattie is going to handle having to share the house with another dog, but my hope is that they become best friends before long! :) I'm certain Mattie will just need to have her own space away from the puppy a lot of times, especially while the puppy is young and energetic, but I'm sure they will get used to each other as time goes on.

Two week old puppies

We will know after the 10th of November which two will be joining the Fredericksen family. We will get to see pictures and videos of those two and know that one of those two will be coming home with us. Then, the weekend after Thanksgiving, we will go pick her up, and the real adventure will begin!

Below is a picture of our puppy's parents. Her dad, Herky, and mom, Gypsy.

Here is one of the videos and a picture that we got today of the puppies. They all now have their eyes open are are getting a lot better at walking. They're figuring out that they can bark and learning to play with each other. So much cuteness. They're like little drunk dogs!
You can visit the breeder's YouTube page to see other videos back to the day they were born.

And lastly, a close up picture of one of the puppies from today and a picture I took of Mattie modeling out on the deck this afternoon. I can't wait to take picture upon picture of our two little babies together!!