The Runt

This poor little thing is just so sweet! She is less than half the size of the other puppies! She seems to be growing and fairly healthy, but we keep her inside a lot now so she can get more to eat and more attention. She is just so small! So small, in fact, that she just can't keep warm, so she likes to sit in front of our heater in the hallway.

Jonathan told me that she also likes to sit in front of the heater when she is out in the garage, and when it goes off automatically, she walks away. When it comes back on, she gets right back in front of it! What a smart little girl!

If we didn't already have dogs, I might consider keeping her. She is just too sweet, and we are becoming very attached. I'm not sure how big she will get, but she will make someone a very good, snuggly pet. I'll definitely make sure it is someone who can give her plenty of attention and maybe even keep her indoors!

Puppies!

These are our puppies, the 2nd litter of our female dog. We have a male and female Red Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog), but as you can clearly see from the pictures, they are not full blood!!!

Here they are 5 weeks old. There is a 6th puppy just out of the top of the picture. She looks like the one on the far left. There were originally 7, but one of the 5 girls somehow got separated from the rest of them on a cold day (in the garage) and didn't survive. :(

Check out the one in the middle there. I've seen runts before, but this little girl is literally HALF the size of her siblings! She seems to be doing just fine, she's just tiny! In fact, we call her "Tiny"!!!

Puppy update

It looks like we might have another litter of puppies in a couple of months! They are just so cute! I have a blog just for the puppies (easier to place an ad with a link), so check it out! I just received this picture from one of the new owners. His little girl is now about 6 months old! (Well, I guess they all are!) Isn't she beautiful?! :) I added this picture to the blog too, female #2.

Kittens :)

They will be 4 weeks old next Monday! We are down to 5 now. There were 7 born on May 4th. The kids only knew of 6. I woke up before them the following morning and found a 7th baby that didn't survive. :( Then last night the kids thought they'd try sleeping with the kittens (I was already asleep when they decided this), and one of my kids unknowingly smothered one of them. :'( They were sad, but at least they will listen to me next time when I tell them the kittens are too small and too young for things like that! My kids are very sound sleepers too!

So here they are, 2 girls and 3 boys. Aren't they pretty? The one that is the most colorful (a girl) Jayla has already named Tigerella, and we may end up keeping her (though I am fighting it hard.....I love cats, but I need a break from POOP, for Pete's sake!!!! So we'll see.) The other girl they named Gloria. :)

They are laying boy-girl-boy-girl-boy.....anyone want to claim one?

sleeping HARD after filling up his belly

Re-homing the pups

Now it's time for the hard part. The puppies have been fairly easy to care for so far, but the challenge is in getting them to their new homes. We already have tears. It looks like Jayla's favorite puppy of them all (the one in the picture) will be the first to go. :'( I had warned her it could happen because she is the only one with a spot on her head, so she is unique.

At least she has the rest of today to play with her! Life can be hard sometimes, and my kids, especially Jayla, get so attached to animals. They usually recover quickly though, but it is still hard to say good-bye. I'm just trying to focus on the positive about how she will have a great home and be very happy. Also, this person is right on the way to my brother's house, so there is a possibility we could stop by sometime to see her! I'm not going to tell her that part though!

Puppies are 6 weeks old today!

We are trying to find new homes for our puppies now, so I've created a new blog just for them! If you know of anyone looking for a Red Heeler / Australian Cattle Dog, send them HERE!

Life Moments

I just wanted to capture this "moment". :)

Right now Jonathan is playing a simple song on the piano that I taught him. He is experimenting with the pedals and varying the notes and rhythm. I'm enjoying listening to his creativity!

Jacob is playing with his wooden tracks. He actually hasn't played with them much in a while until this week, now he's getting all the pieces he can find (including buildings) and making really cool tracks! This has always been one of his favorite things to do!

Jayla is playing with the dogs and taking care of the puppies. They are digging now, so she is making sure they are all in the yard and have food and water.

Jack wants to play with Jacob but is hesitant because Jacob doesn't like him to "play" with him (because he often tears up Jacob's creations). He is playing with the Legos some too as well as cleaning up cat food and dancing to Jonathan's music. Wow! All of that as I was typing it! Ha! Busy kid!

Howling puppies

The pups were only about 2 1/2 weeks old here. I'm not sure what got them started howling, but it was cute, so I had to get a video. :)

Catching up on photos -- May

Playing outside

Jayla has recently learned to ride without training wheels!!!!!

bringing the outside IN

Puppies at 2 weeks


Smokie the day before she had her kitties

The kittens are FINALLY born!!! (Don't look too closely at this picture or it might make you sick. I just thought it was funny.)

Jonathan pointed out the one "long" puppy, so I had to get a picture. :)

Ladybugs in the process of transforming....so cool!

Jonathan's first time to mow!!!! He did great but said it was harder than he thought! (Check out his face. He was crying! He actually enjoyed mowing, but when I got these pictures he had just accidentally popped his jaw with the pull when he tried to start the mower. :( He allowed me to get a couple of pics and then stomped inside. LOL!)

First crop of the season! :) Very tasty!

Our two cats

I keep saying I need to weed the garden.....

Several other plants growing. I'm not sure what I planted and what just fell here, so it's ALL staying for a while!

First "swim" of the season.....we had to clean out the pool first. The boys never have enough mud to play in. Seriously! And it's hard to get completely out of there too!

Spidergirl

My new haircut.....it's basically the same on the top but longer in the back since I am growing it out AGAIN. I wish my hair would stay this curly (sides and back) as it grows out, or at least be completely straight!

I made the older two kids a baby sling when I was pregnant with Jack. He quickly got too big for them, so it's nice to know they can still use the slings for live babies! :)

Bath time for puppies

Five weeks old already!!!

Today

Myles and Jonathan have the camera at Cub Scout camp, so I couldn't get any pictures of all the fun we had today!

So if you will imagine with me what I would have taken pictures of......

Imagine freshly dug up ground, dark brown to almost black, about 3 feet across and 10-12 feet long (I didn't measure). I am sitting right in the middle with Jack. He is "helping" me pull weeds but mostly throwing tiny handfuls of dirt. :)

Another snapshot: Same scene but now we are covering each other with this dark, rich, soft soil. He started it!

Now picture, if you will, a feeding trough that is all rusted, sitting in the middle of the yard. (The yard, by the way, is full of weeds and desperately needs to be mowed.) In the trough is dirt left over from last year's garden (the kids planted some things in it) and a few weeds and over 100 bugs. Jayla counted 108, mostly ladybugs, grubs, roly polies and earth worms. This is their new bug collection. The bugs they had a couple of days ago for some reason were gone (hmmm, wonder why....no lid?), so they had to recollect them!

Okay, back to the garden where I am sitting in the middle still. Violet came outside for a bit. She heard Rocket barking at the neighbor and had to investigate for herself. On her way back in, she sat right in front of me so I would pet her, and she wouldn't move!

Next Rocket came and joined her, right smack dab in the middle of my beautiful dirt.

The garden is next to the wooden fence, and right on the other side is somewhere around 200-300 chickens and a few turkeys. They can be pretty noisy! Jack recently rediscovered them (I'm sure he didn't remember them from last summer), and he is really enjoying looking through the cracks to watch them walk around. Another snapshot moment. :)

Well, I had more, but it has been hours and I can't remember what the other snapshot moments were now. We had a great time outside though, and loads of fun inside too, but it mostly consisted of the Wii and pogo.com and Jack and I singing together. :)

More fun tomorrow! The kids have their first track & field meet just as soon as the boys get home from camp!!!! They'd better hurry, 'cause I want the camera for that!

It's raining cats and dogs!

It feels like it anyway! This is our cat and dog a few days ago.
Pregnant bellies!
Violet is a full blood Red/Blue Heeler, a.k.a. Australian Cattle Dog

And this is Violet this morning.

She's so exhausted! She's a good mama. :)

Look at that little pink nose! So cute!

Here is a close-up of the "blue" on one puppy.

There are six total. It looks like maybe half of them are going to be very red like their mama and the other half will probably be lightly spotted or just lighter red. And two of them have some "blue". Violet has a blue mama herself and she has some blue on her nose (which is why we came up with the name Violet!).

So we're waiting now for the kittens. It could be any time now. Most of the time animals seem to have their babies in the morning (anyone know why?), so maybe tomorrow morning we'll discover some new kitties when we get up. I won't be able to take any more pictures until Sunday though because Myles will have the camera with him at camp with the Cub Scouts.