I love this poem

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Puppy, week #2

Okay so I knew that blue heelers, in general as a breed are high energy, high intelligence dogs.  I knew that I'd have to spend time every day wearing him out both physically and mentally.  Thankfully he's still just a baby so wearing him out physically isn't too hard and the mentally part follows the physical.  But what I've found is that I have to do it a few times a day even!    

Sweet little stinker likes to shake?  Nah, he likes to slap with a paw.  E can attest to that, he's sporting quite the scrape on his face thanks to Lil' G there.  He told the guys at work that it was from rough sex though.  Awesome.

Our biggest issue is G.  Big G.  As in the human G.  He will not leave the poor puppy alone.  He loves him but he also seems to think that the dog is his play toy.  We are constantly telling him not to pick up the dog because he likes to pack him around.

Lil' G likes to attack G because G runs and screams, etc.  I have said, "Calm and gentle, son.  Don't rile him up."  It's like I am talking to myself.  He screams and laughs and the dog is sinking his teeth into his arm.  In fact I was folding G's clothes today and several of his socks now have holes in them up around the ankle or in other places that don't normally show wear and tear.  I have explained to G many times that when Lil' G starts to bite he needs to tell him no and get away from Lil' G.  That way Lil' G knows if he bites (even in play) that the fun will stop.  Instead G just laughs and screams, "Ow!  Stop biting me!  Ow!!!"

This training thing is going to take awhile I can tell.  But it's not Lil' G that's going to be the issue, it's the human G that is.  I was afraid of that.

Now Miss Siren has not a single mothering bone in her body.  She never has.  She has more of the crazy uncle bones.  She's laid Lil' G out more than once and he has no question as to who the boss is among the two of them.  He does the typical puppy thing of running up to and biting at her, barking, trying to get her to play with him.  Sadly he doesn't know what to do with her when she does start to play with him.  Boxers play weird.  She boxed him once and sent him flying across the living room.  He got up, cleared the cobwebs and hid from her for the rest of the evening.  

I guess that tag means he's official, right?  I've put our name and phone number on him so even if he manages to escape us, he'll get sent back.  Poor little mite!  He despises the tag.  But he also desipes the collar.  He just don't like bling I guess.  

I weighed Lil' G tonight.  He weighs in at 12.6 pounds.  Heelers are supposed to top out at 50 pounds for males.  He's 8 weeks old.  What the heck?

Merry Christmas!

I got to do something that I haven't been able to do for awhile now. I got to attend a Christmas Eve service at church. We had intended to do a few errands in town and then attend the candlelight service but our errands didn't take as long as we had planned and we had hours before the candelight service was set to start. So instead we went to the children's led service. You know the one, where all the kids from Sunday School put on a play depicting the birth of Jesus. For some reason when I saw all those little children come marching into the sanctuary in their little costumes I choked up. G wasn't amongst them and I still wanted to cry. What the heck happened to tough C? 

After the service (okay and during) G had so many questions. So when we got home we got out some books and read him a couple of versions of the story of Christ's birth. Even though I've read these books to him more times than I remember this time he actually seemed to put two and two together. It was very sweet to see. 

We let G pick a gift to open. He picked "the big one from Nana," that he'd been eyeballing for a month. Nana didn't disappoint, he loves this set!


Poor Gunner thought he'd be clever...and he got stuck!


Do I know my E or what? Yep, that was one of his gifts from me.

That's our gift to G, a Nintendo DSi. At first he said, "But it's not a 3DS," and I almost blew my cork but then he got pretty excited about it.  I'm just happy to have another "tool" to shut him up.  Yep, I said it.



Aunty Isa & Brooklyn sent him the Thomas set he wanted! It's a super cool one, I even played with it.


We managed to have a lovely and quiet Christmas here at home, with just the three of us. But I have to admit something. I miss the loud Broden Christmas Eve's from my childhood, I appreciated them then but even more now that the loud is gone. I miss hearing different aunts or uncles reading the story of Jesus' birth from Grandma's bible. I miss picking a cousins name and then having to figure out the perfect gift for him or her. I miss telling them thank you for whatever they deemed perfect for me. While I love my little family of three I miss my big family at the holidays especially.

G #2!

Meet Gunner (spelled that way specifically even though everything Scandanavian inside me says it's supposed to be spelled Gunnar).  He's our new family member.  Isn't he sweet?  He's a blue heeler.  G is head over heels for him!

He was born on Halloween which means he's only 7 weeks old.  So young!  I've never had a pup this young but he's doing great.  He's had a few accidents in the house but he's picking up the potty learning thing fast.  Really it's more about us learning to watch him for signals.  He's a smart little critter and a little headstrong.

I picked him up from a lady on Craigslist in Washington.  The drive home was a little slow because I stopped often to let him out to potty.  And because anywhere I stopped where there were people the people had to go ga-ga over him.  He travels realy well, keeping my lap warm for the whole drive!

Santa #6

While waiting in line to see the mall Santa...

G: "And I'll tell Santa about Lego Chima. And about my pet penguin. And about all my friends, real and imaginary. And I'll tell them that we put the tree in the front window so he can see it when he come to our house. And I'll tell him about how sometimes I am bad but I don't want to be bad, it just happens. And then I can tell him about how maybe Siren will die and we'll get a new puppy. And that I don't like candy canes. And how much I love Lego Star Wars. And do you think he'll like me mommy? Is he a nice guy? I can't forget to tell him about Skylanders Giants and how we can trade them, I'll teach him how to play."
Stupid grown-up elf: "Okay, bud, it's your turn."
G: *statue*
Me: "Come on kiddo, it's your turn to go see Santa. Let's not hold up the line."
G: *statue*
Me: "Uh...you don't want to see him now? That's cool, we can leave."
G: "I'm not so sure about that guy mommy."
Me: "Son, I'm not so sure about that guy either."
G: "Will you go with me?"
Me: "You bet. Let's go say hi."

Santa: "Ho ho ho."
G: *statue*
Me: "What did you want to talk to Santa about?"
G: *statue*
Santa: "You don't want to talk to me?"
G: *statue*

Me: "How about we take your picture first, get that out of the way, then you can chat with him."
G: *cheeses it up for the camera*

Santa: "Good smiling! Now, let's talk about what I can bring you for Christmas."
G: *statue*
Me: "Oh for the love of pete. Do I need to tell him everything you want?"
G: *nods his head, has gone completely mute."
Me: "I'll send you an email."
Santa: "Sounds good."
G: *statue, takes candy cane offered to him even though he does not like candy canes.*

We walk away.

G: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I forgot to tell Santa about Lego Chima!"
Me: "Dude."