Goodbye old friend...

Rookie-1996-2007

Allison learned that Rookie had a quick tongue

Rookie never missed any meals--especially around the kids.

Allison gives Buster a big hug. Picture taken 9/06

Today sucks. We lost our Rookie girl today.

She was with us for 12 years and she was a big part of our family. She has been sick since Halloween when we discovered a mass on her head. We've been back and forth to the vet countless times and I've spent a lot of time on the phone with the vet's office pouring my heart out. Because of her age and the location of the mass, there wasn't anything we could do other than make sure she didn't suffer. A combination of pain and anti-inflammatory medicine helped her get through the rough spots. She started having nosebleeds and we helped her through that too. Today, the mass on her head combined with the cancer that was apparently ravaging her body was just too much. We watched her battle through a seizure and come out of it ok, but the second one was too much to bear. We said our good-byes and let the kids say good-bye too. Allison is too little to understand, but Cole is grieving with us. We will bury her tomorrow in a special place next to her brother, Buster, whom we lost this year too, in April. Losing 2 of your family members in the same year is hard and these dogs were our babies before we had kids. Buster was the dog we rescued from a Humane Society on our honeymoon. Rookie was given to us by special friends. They were more than dogs--they were a part of our family.

We thought of lots of good memories today and it was very hard to come home without her greeting us at the door. It will be harder waking up in the morning and not carefully stepping over her on my way to my closet. Rookie was not petite by any means weighing as much as 100+ lbs. in her prime. She had lost weight after Buster's death due to her grieving (we had never witnessed an animal grieve before that and it was extremely sad) Her declining health brought her down to 80 lbs. ---still a big dog that yearned to be a lap dog. She loved to jump up in our laps for "lovin's" as often as she could.

We really don't want to believe she is gone, but know that she is not suffering and in a better place. We hope that she and Buster and running around in Heaven chasing all the squirrels. God gained another good dog today.

A visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus

My work had a special Christmas party in which Santa and Mrs. Claus made a special visit. Allison was not particularly interested in sitting on Santa's lap until she saw Cole do it. After that, she was ok! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Cole on Santa's lap because I was trying to keep Allison from running in front of the camera while the professional photographer was taking his picture. I will post his as soon as I get it back! Allison told Santa that she wanted a baby doll for Christmas! Cole hopes that he gets more trains!

Allison's 3rd birthday!

We celebrated Allison's birthday a little early this year and she really had a blast. She is very much into princesses and her dress made her feel the part. She loved wearing it and prancing around in it all day. If she would have had her choice, she would have gone to bed in it! She really thought her cake was neat and it was fun to see her reaction to the Barbie doll cake. It's shameful to admit that she received so many nice gifts and with Christmas only a week away, she will get so much more. That's the trouble with December birthdays. But, I was intent on her having her own special party this year. She has been singing "Happy Birthday" for a few weeks now and was getting excited. Her actual birthday is on Christmas Eve. To see captions with the slide show, click on view all pictures.

Check out my Slide Show!

I asked for a simple train layout under the tree...

but what I got was this.....
I should have known better than to ask an expert track layer to create a simple oval under the tree for the train. Cole got out every piece of Geo Trax to create this elaborate design.
Just another view showing the tracks just didn't stop at one level...
The track layer's assistant must have been overworked....can't believe she fell asleep like this on the stairs.
Took this one a few weeks ago and forgot I had it in the camera. Our yard always gets a ton of leaves thanks to huge oak and maple trees in our yard. And since our yard is fenced in, we get the joy of raking them to the side of the road until the town picks them up.
Dingo at play....

Just pics

Once again, I am way overdue in posting anything to the blog. I must try to do this more regularly! Hubby had a very busy work schedule in October that had him driving to Indianapolis to teach 3 times a week. I got a real taste of what it would be like if I were a single parent trying to get 2 kids to the babysitter on time, to school on time and me to work on time. The added challenge of getting both kids picked up, dinner, homework, extra curricular activities, etc. etc. Let's just say I am glad October is over.

Allison was a princess for Halloween. We went to a Halloween party early in the month and it was a little cool out for her dress. She and my nephew are pictured above.
This is the first time Hubby and I have ever dressed up for Halloween. It was a lot of fun putting our Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife, Beth, costumes together!

Our friend, Levi, helped Cole and Allison decorate Halloween cookies.

My baby is growing up--it's the first year that he chose a scary costume instead of something cute or original. He was a scary grim reaper with a "bloody" chainsaw. Allison was too busy trying to open a candy bag to look at the camera. No, that's not our house in the background! It's the neighbor's house--they are installing new siding!

I'll do better at posting pics this month!

Has it really been a month?!

I knew I was behind on posts, but didn't realize until I logged in tonight just how far behind I was! Sorry! September was filled with family obligations, homework assignments, remodeling woes, a minor surgery for me, welcoming a new member to our family, and one crazy weekend in which a friend and I stayed awake all night and the next day in order to complete a HUGE project. The results are awesome. I'm too tired for lots of words, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves!

Here is the new cabinet with the new pass through to the dining room. This is where my refrigerator used to be. You can see the oven is located to the left of the new cabinet.
This is the new porcelain tile that my friend and I laid in one weekend. We did the entire kitchen, hallway and backsplash. We started working around 8 p.m. Fri. night and didn't stop until 6 p.m. the next day. Ok, ok, she did trick me into going to sleep so I slept for 2 1/2 hrs. on Sat. morning thinking she was too. I got up when I heard my kids awake to discover that she had continued to lay tile!

Meet the new addition to our family....Dingo! He's a Blue Heeler mix that we rescued from the Animal Control Shelter. He's about 12 weeks old in this picture. Look at those ears! I know, why on earth would I agree to a new puppy during all the remodeling chaos? Well, it just seemed to make sense to housetrain a puppy when my floors were all torn up rather than finished and pristine. Cole chose the name for his dog and he is learning how to be responsible taking care of a pet.
Sharp puppy teeth need things to chew on!
His favorite spot, laying on the cool tile in the bathroom. Now that the cool tile is in the hallway and kitchen, he lays just about everywhere.
The cool backsplash behind the stove. We played with design ideas for quite awhile before we came up with this one. The picture doesn't do it justice because the tiles stand out from the wall.
Here's a long shot of one entire side of the kitchen with the backsplash. Do not notice the 2 missing drawer fronts on the lower cabinet near the sink. The cabinet company made a mistake and I'm still waiting for drawer fronts!

We decided to use different tile in the same color family as the larger pieces behind the sink.

The major project woe is the dining room and front living room floors. The hardwood floors need to be sanded and stained at the same time in order for it to look right. When the wood floor professionals came out to examine the front living room floor, they deemed that it would need to be completely replaced. It was not possible to sand it any further, it had been done too much already. So, our dilemma was how to make both floors come out looking the same but staying within our budget. We decided to purchase a wood laminate floor and are in the process of installing that now. Once that is complete, we can finally move the dining room table out of the living room! The chaos that comes while living during a remodel is not fun at all. We are ready to be done.

But, once the main floor is complete, then we have to move upstairs to work on the bathroom where the source of all the problems began. One step at a time.