a boy and his dog

These pictures were taken right after Hyrum came home from the hospital in the beginning of February. He didn't move around much, but he did like to sit and watch the cars go by outside, waiting for the occasional fire truck or police car. And Kip would keep him company.



See, they like each other.

(side note: these were on February 4th, I would like my Montana family members to notice the absence of snow out those windows! ) =0)

Some older pictures

Brielle is showcasing the fun animals on one of her trips to visit Hyrum in the Seattle Children's Hospital. The hospital really was a very cute place, this is the Giraffe section (african animals), over in the Whale section they have tons of salt water aquariums, and then there's the train section, etc.....

It's not truly Easter until you put up the Easter Tree

My Easter Tree. I love it so!

As a kid we always blew the yolks out of eggs before dyeing them so that we could hang them on an "Easter Tree." They stay preserved very well that way, we still have eggs from 20 years ago or longer! It's one of my favorite traditions and so I was eager to start it with my little family. Growing up, the tree chosen for the honor was arbitrary, my Mother has a green thumb and our house was filled with trees, any one of which would do.

But I don't have the gift of keeping plants alive, so the children and I gathered sticks, then I bought a pretty little pot at a second hand store, with some floral styrofoam and a bit of Easter grass, and VOILA! My very own Easter Tree for less than $5.

Now if only the children would stop snapping the branches off and smashing the eggs.......!!

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."

Just so you know, even though the dog keeps doing the same bad things over and over, it's NOT because we keep making the same mistakes over and over. Well, it's not always because of that. We HAVE been altering our patterns of behavior in a manner optimal to sustaining a suitable coexistence; we ARE evolving here! For example:

We no longer keep the shoe rack by the garage door, now it's by the front door instead.

We stopped putting things on the chairs or edges of tables. And now we've stopped putting things on the tables at all. (for the most part)

We built a new coat rack for the wall and placed it at an adult's eye-level. The dog can no longer reach it, neither can the children, so I have to gather and replace all of their jackets.

The play room is kept immaculately clean with no toys on the floor or out of their container. Incidentally the children no longer play in there and now they mess up my living room every day.

And to fix the problem with the beads that kept spilling, I stayed up late that night and made colorful jewelry for Brielle, using every last bead.




If only the dog would stop finding new ways to do his naughty things!


(To clarify from the last post: I don't like the dog, however my husband and children adore him. So don't worry, there's no danger of us getting rid of the dear thing.)

The Dog is My Enemy

I do not like our dog. I USED to be a dog-lover, I'd take my family to dog parks on weekends just to see other people's dogs! I'd drive slower to look at a well-built Tibetan Mastiff, or to ascertain if a pooch being walked really was a rare Bergamasco or just some type of mutt. I would map out when all the close dog shows were being held, and I'd consider it close if it was within a few hours! The day after I got home from the hospital, following Hyrum's birth, I took my 18 month old daughter and my 2 day old son to a dog show in Bozeman, just so I could see all the breeds. I USED to love dogs.

But no longer. Our dog's name is Kip. He is 6 months old, and he is a degenerate creature of darkness sent to destroy me. Our dog is only allowed in the rooms with a wood floor, so the living room, and the bedrooms and den, those are all off limits. Though often the children will leave the gate ajar, and within seconds of doing this Kip is through the forbidden portal, and perched up on the middle of my couch, chewing on a leather shoe that he nabbed from the hallway on the dash over. Shoes are his favorite, I've moved all of our shoes to a spot not in Kip's domain, if he DOES happen upon a shoe Kip will immediately snatch it and race out the doggy door, at which point the entire back yard must be searched to find where it's been hidden. I tried to cure him of this bad habit, but though extremely intelligent he did not choose to be taught. Then I tried a bitter spray, Kip doesn't like the taste of it, but it's not bad enough to keep him from his footwear. Instead the bitter spray would stick to the children's hands and mine, and for days that's all we'd taste when eating finger food.

The dog's goal is to one-up the children. If they scatter the My Little Ponies on the floor, then he will take them outside and scatter them in the mud. When Hyrum floods the kitchen with the water dispenser in the fridge, Kip outdoes him by digging in the garden then racing inside with muddy paws on my freshly cleaned floor. When the children make us late to pre-school by refusing to get dressed, then when we go to the garage Kip will race out and run round and round the van, ducking under the car any time we come close to catching him. This can go on for a long, LONG time.

He can't reach our dining table, but the shorter kitchen table is fair game. Anything left on that surface will be stolen, taken outside, and destroyed. Preschool art projects, stuffed animals, folded kitchen towels, even the planting containers we started all of our garden vegetable seeds in. Daily I have to sweep the back yard for pilfered treasures. On a normal day I'll find several toys, a few kitchen towels (I like them hung on the oven door, so does Kip, easier to grab), at least one shoe, several socks, a shovel, a bowl or cup, a few pieces of silverware, the spine of a hapless book, and some random items from the recycle bin (only accessible when the bin is full enough to leave the lid cracked open). He's taken meat set out to thaw, a pound of cheese, a whole set of musical instruments, half a basket of clean laundry, EVERY SINGLE winter coat, and currently I need to go out there and pick up two dozen plastic Easter eggs that he swiped off the counter (apparently part of the bag hung over by the merest of fractions).

Often at 3:00 AM he will start barking. For no reason. Then I must get out of bed and spray him with a water bottle and tell him "No!" The second time I grab him by the extra baby skin on his neck and hold his head down (submissive form) and tell him "No, NO, no!" The 3rd and 4th times I do one of the previous, and generally on the 5th time I push the entire dog crate, puppy included, out of the playroom, through the kitchen, and into the garage, where either he chooses not to bark or at least I don't hear him.

Today Brielle spilled open a bag of beads. 500 small multi-colored beads. It took forever to pick them up. Fifteen minutes later from the other room I hear a dreadful sound, the sound of tiny beads hitting the floor AGAIN! Kip had jumped onto a chair, from there on to the table and grabbed the bag of beads, which he then ripped spilling them all once more.

I do NOT like my dog.

Saturday

On Saturday our Church had an Easter Egg hunt (I know, absurdly early, but the kids loved it!) They've been begging to find more eggs every day since.

Then we went to one of our favorite parks. There's a playground there, but we usually skip that and just hike the trails. Hyrum likes to find sticks and rocks, and Brielle hunts for slugs, snails, mushrooms, and recently flowers for her wedding.

Here's our dog, Kip. He's a Mini Australian Shepherd.

A few more pictures of Kip, since I haven't posted any of him yet. It took us almost a month to name him, Russell and I had a hard time agreeing. Finally we chose Kip. If you ask me it's short for Kipling, as in Rudyard Kipling, and if you ask Russell it's short for Kiptyn, as in one of the final three contestants in The Bachelorette Season 4. (it's his favorite show, he was really bummed when Kiptyn was sent home.) ;)


Brielle posing with her "wedding" bouquet. Russell told her that when she got married she couldn't live with us anymore and that really concerned her. She asked if she could live with Grandma and Grandpa when she got married. We said that would be just fine!!


A few more shots from our hike. The last several weeks have been so sunny and nice. I love Springtime in Washington!

Price of Pneumonia

$27,570.26


And the bills are still rolling in. Pretty impressive considering Hyrum's only treatment was I.V. medication!!

I can't imagine what it would be like not to have health insurance.

Nursery

I love sending Hyrum to his nursery class on Sundays. He's always excited to go, I'm happy to have him gone, in fact it's a positive experience for everyone. Except perhaps his teacher! =0)

His favorite part of Nursery is the singing time. Every week they start by singing "Here we are together" and each child has a turn singing their name into the song. However without fail when it's Hyrum's turn he always insists that his name is "Baby." And no amount of persuasion on his teacher's part can convince him otherwise. In fact if you ever ask him his name, he'll tell you "Baby", perhaps I should start calling him "Hyrum" more often.

Now Hyrum has me wrapped around his little finger, but even as his doting Mother, I can see that he's a bit active. And loud. And mischievous. And stubborn. And often disobedient. Other than that of course he's a joy to be around. But I still feel a great deal of sympathy for his teacher.

Take last Sunday for instance. When we went to pick up Hyrum he had just finished a time-out for hitting another kid. Upon seeing us he zips to the back of the room to grab his drawing, then on his way back to the front of the classroom he purposely knocks over two stacks of boxes containing the nursery toys, then without any warning LUNGES into his teacher's arms and gives her a big slobbery kiss right on the lips. After that he grins, hollers "Bye Bye Teacher!!" and runs out the door before Russell or I can stop him.

This kid is going to be trouble.