Get moving....

I have two more reasons to get my butt out of bed in the morning and out the door to exercise....

Not only do I need to get an exercise routine going and keep it on track. These two adorable pups need to drop some weight too.

The cute chubby black and white one, Marti (or fatty patty as I lovingly call her), well in dog terms she's obese. Marti should weigh 14 pounds and she weighs about 19. It's pretty harsh really. How would you like to be considered obese when you are 5 pounds overweight? I noticed that she is having a bit more trouble getting her bottom half on the couch when she jumps up. I don't think that food is really her issue. She would sleep 23 hours a day if we let her. She is LAZY and proud of it.

The white cutie-pie is Mandi. She should be a little dog and her fur sometimes hides things. But she can't sneak through the pool fence anymore. She probably weighs 10 pounds and shouldn't be more than 8 or 9. She isn't lazy so much as she is a piggy. She stalks the boys when they are eating to get whatever scraps she can find.

So until we get a routine going, I am alternating taking one of them on a walk each morning. They are a bit impossible to walk together and I need to want to get out of bed in the morning and being dragged by one dog while the other one lallygags along isn't going to make me race out the door.

So first up was Marti, she enjoyed her walk this morning. Mandi on the other hand was very mad that she didn't get to go. Tomorrow will be Mandi's turn and I am certain that our LAZY Marti will stay in bed under the covers and not even know we are gone.

What I Have Learned as a Mother

Today on Stacy Julian's blog I saw this post about 22 Things I Learned Being a Mother which was inspired by  Amy Krouse-Rosenthal who I remembered from doing an Encyclopedia of Me (A-Z) inspired scrapbook a few years ago based on the book by her, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AN ORDINARY LIFE.  So I took Stacy's challenge and wrote down my 22 before reading Stacy's or watching the video by Amy. My list was a bit different since my two boys are still toddlers, but I think it will make great journaling for a scrapbook page.  So make your list of 22 Things and then read mine and Stacy's and watch Amy's movie. I am sure that we will all find little nuggets in common.

22 things I have learned as a mother

1. You can’t protect them from everything
2. Independence is a good thing at any age
3. There really is nothing sweeter than hearing mommy 100 times in a day (one day you’ll miss it)
4. When your children do something that you are really proud of you know you must have done something right
5. Routines are important
6. I look forward to hearing “mommy’s home” when I get home from work at the end of the day
7. Watching the world through their eyes as they explore and learn is very cool
8. When your child is hurt or sick or struggling you would do anything to take their pain away
9. Snacks are a good thing
10. Sometimes (okay most times) it is just easier to let your very picky eater have chicken fingers or hot dogs than it is to have a melt down
11. When you hear “I love you mommy” for the first time your heart will immediately melt
12. Children do things at their pace not yours
13. They grow up too fast
14. It is really cool to watch your sons bond with their daddy
15. It is okay for daddy to be the main caregiver and have mommy go to work everyday
16. You do not need to yell at your kids to let them know you aren’t happy with something they did
17. Barney, The Wiggles and kids TV shows in general are not terrible and you are not a bad parent if you let them watch
18. Getting your baby to consistently sleep through the night makes for a much happier home
19. Sometimes bribery is okay to avoid a public meltdown
20. Your house will never again be as neat as it once was and it won’t matter
21. You won’t have all the free time you used to have and sometimes you’ll miss it
22. But, when those little guys crawl in your lap and want to cuddle with you, you will forget what life was like before they were here

This Weekends Cooking Adventures and Other Ramblings

It is hard to believe it is Sunday evening already. So catching up from earlier this week, I did get this page done to commemorate Nicholas's achievement this week. We have had one more success, so I am holding out hope it won't be much longer and we can say goodbye to diapers for one boy in this house. Mike asked me if I was going to take a picture of the toilet to scrapbook, but I didn't have to I had these from a few months ago. LOL!

 Studio Calico January Kit and Add On's (October Afternoon, Basic Grey Studio Calico PP, Bazzill CS, October Afternoon Rub On's letter stickers; American Crafts Thickers; Jenni Bowlin Die Cut; Maya Road Chipboard Scallop Oval; and vintage "N"), plus Fiskars and EK Success punches, Keller Creations chipboard star, Maya Road Cherry & Blue Raspberry Mists American Crafts Slick Writer and Making Memories Paint.

Thursday Mike met his parents at the park.  Nicholas had a ball playing and running all over, Jackson on the other hand is not as adventurous, Mike had to hold him or push him in the stroller the whole time. As adventurous as little J is at home, he is quite intimidated by new situations when he is out of the comforts of home.  Mike e-mailed me this picture of Nicholas from the park, and although he didn't even think of it at the time it will be a perfect photo to use to document one of Nicholas's favorite book, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (coming soon).

Saturday morning Nicholas and I went out to pick up a few birthday presents for Mike and to Michael's to get some kids craft stuff. Nicholas's report from pre-school this week was that he needed to work on cutting with scissors. We didn't have any kids scissors, so I figured we should get some. We spent a couple of hours Saturday afternoon doing crafts.  We practiced cutting shapes with his scissors and decorated an egg with glitter glue and stickers.  I found this paint with water book (I loved these when I was little).  He kept asking to paint yesterday and made 3 of these. 

The biggest part of our weekend has been Adventures with Food.  Earlier this year we bought a TV for the kitchen and Mike has been DVR'ing some cooking shows. One of the bonuses I ended up with after Mike became a stay at home dad was that he started doing a lot of the cooking. Now he loves to cook and experiment with new recipes.  I happily support this hobby and that was part of the shopping Nicholas and I did Saturday was buying Mike a few cooking tools for an early birthday gift.

He really has liked Tyler Florence and his show Tyler's Ultimate.  Last week one of the shows was called Ultimate Sunday Dinner and this week it became our Saturday night dinner.

• Pot Roast with Vegetables
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter
• Herbed Butter Parsnips
• Chocolate Cracked Earth (Flourless Chocolate Cake)

I took on the Flourless Chocolate Cake and Mike was in charge of the rest.  The Pot Roast took about 3 hours to cook, so he got that started first:

Lots of yummy vegetables and herbs in this and the house smelled wonderful while it was cooking.

After he got the Pot Roast going I got started on the Flourless Chocolate Cake.  It was actually quite simple to make, and absolutely full of rich (aka fattening) ingredients.  

First you melt a pound of dark chocolate with a stick of butter in a double boiler.

While the chocolate is melting, separate 9 eggs.

The egg yolks are whisked with sugar, and the egg whites are beaten until they make a meringue.

Chocolate is melted (doesn't that look yummy)

The chocolate is first mixed with the egg yolk mixture and then folded into the meringue mixture.

Pour into a spring-form pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with whipped topping.  The recipe called for making your own whipped cream from heavy cream.  But we aren't whipped cream fans much, so I just got fat free cool whip. The only thing stopping me from devouring the whole thing was knowing how much fat and how many calories this had in it. 

While my cake was baking and the pot roast was simmering, Mike was back to work on the side dishes.  He got to play with one of his new birthday presents, a Cuisinart 11-Cup Food Processor. Mike loves to cook, but chopping and anything that requires using knives, he's not so much of a fan, so this is going to be quite a good tool for him. He was all set after watching the how-to DVD that came with it.  Slicing parsnips was quick work as was the fresh herb mixture that went on them.

Parsnips on the stove in his new chef's pan in his herbed butter mixture.

Next was the Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter. I am not sure where the butter came in, I saw him using honey and olive oil and topping them with cinnamon and salt and pepper.  

And shortly afterwards we had this beautiful dinner that tasted so very good. 

Although I decided I was not a fan of parsnips, I did like the herbed butter they were cooked in.  The roast was tender and flavorful. The sweet potatoes were pleasantly sweet and the flourless chocolate cake was decadent. And now we have leftovers for the week.

It was a fun evening, just cooking and hanging out. With 2 little ones we have only recently been able to start doing this again. This is definitely one of the things I missed from our pre-kids life, although now it is even better, because I don't have to do all the cooking.

You would think Mike had enough after that meal he made last night. We all slept in (with Nicholas in our bed) and Mike got up and made us Melt In Your Mouth Pancakes, it's basically a recipe from the Bisquick box that adds baking powder, lemon juice and sugar to the recipe and it really gives an added fluffiness to the pancakes.

While he was making pancakes I wandered out to the yard and picked some oranges from the abundance we had on the orange tree.

Sliced in half, ran through the juicer...

and a few minutes later we had fresh squeezed OJ to go with our pancakes.  It took 11 very juicy oranges to make that little bit of juice.

After breakfast I hung out with the boys while it rained outside. We played and I was even able to get a few good pictures of them.

While I was playing with the boys Mike was still the busy chef making this Pico De Gallo to go with Beer Marinated Grilled Skirt Steak for tacos tonight. Both recipes were from from Food Network's Mexican Made Easy show.

And just to leave you with a little scrappiness, I framed this cool paper from Graphic 45.  I cut out the middle and popped it up, but otherwise used the paper as is.  I made one for us and another for my MIL for her birthday. I am probably going to antique the frame a bit with some cream paint and crackle medium.  I love when a paper is so perfect you can frame it.

When I got the mail today I had two fun packages, a box of books from Amazon and my March Mosh Posh kit with lots of new American Crafts Dear Lizzy and Cosmo Cricket Material Girl. So I am off to play this evening.  I know I won't get any scrappy time next weekend, since we will have Mike's brother and his family here. Instead we will have a full weekend of Spring Training baseball, the zoo, and Mike's birthday to keep us all busy.

Have a great week.

How's that for Photo Freedom

And really loving your pictures so much you want to sleep with them. :)

I am repeating Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, which is based on the book Photo Freedom (which is sadly out of print). This time around I decided to go back through the parts that I had previously completed to see how well I have been doing on keeping my library flow.  I went through all my chronological binders to move them to 3 ring binders, which was a result of my huge mistake in buying the wrong kind the first time around. I cleared out tons of pictures I just don't feel enthused to scrap anymore.

I ended up with piles of pictures on the floor by me.  Nicholas came over and started looking through them and naming everyone and everything in them.  So we took one of my old binders and made this for him...

He now has his own photo album that we can add to as I have pictures I have no use for.  He doesn't care if the shot isn't perfect, he just likes to look at his family and places we go and things we do.

It's a rainy Sunday here in what is usually sunny Arizona.  Last night I made this Marmalade French Toast Casserole I found at myrecipes.com. It was quick to cut up the bread and mix together the ingredients:

Pour the mixture on top and stick it in the refrigerator overnight.

Sleep in this morning and stick this in the oven for 45 minutes and we had this yummy stuffed with orange marmalade French Toast for breakfast.  We skipped the walnuts the recipe called for because Mike doesn't like nuts and I don't need the fat in them.  Next time though, I will sprinkle some cinnamon on top. The nutmeg wasn't quite enough for me.

While it was baking our impatient guys had to have breakfast, while Jackson ate pancakes and cereal....

Nicholas stood by the window and watched the raindrops hit the pool (pancake in hand):

And to leave you off with a little scrappy fun...last night I found this layout in the Studio Calico gallery by Stephanie Howell and I lifted it to make this one with a favorite photo of my dad and Nicholas at Christmas.

Hope you have a relaxing Sunday.

Freedom...and other things I have discovered this month (long and photo heavy)

As February comes to a close I am still pondering the future, if any, for Color Me Daisy.  If you missed it, we announced with the release of our February kit that we were no longer going to offer monthly kits (the official announcement can be found here) with the original thought that we would do periodic kits 4-6 times a year. Life has changed dramatically in the past 2 years, we have an active 1 and 3 year old. My job is incredibly non-stop busy and I am working a lot more than I was a year ago. I don't want to miss anything with my two little guys and I want to enjoy life a bit more. I turn the big 4-0 at the end of the year and it is making me take stock of where I want to end up come the end of 2010.

I decided before I think about any future direction for CMD I need a break from kit planning and the business side of scrapbooking.  I got to a point where my heart wasn't in it, I wasn't scrapping and when I did, I was just slapping it on the page.  While life is still busy, I have had a lot more fun this past month with my family and my scrapping.

One of the things I did at the beginning of the year was a major scrap room overhaul.  I came across several class kits I never completed from past CKC's.  So one Friday night a week or two ago I grabbed this one and finished up these 2 class layouts...

These two were based on a  CK Sponsored class, but I don't remember which one and I am guessing it was a couple of years ago at least based on the products used.  But I think they are pretty timeless pages and I love them.

When I finished up these I had a sheet of Kraft cardstock still and lots of scraps, so I used them to make my least common layout for my Library of Memories class at Big Picture Scrapbooking that I am repeating as an Alumni this year.  My least common layout was People We Love and Why, this is about my nephew Andrew who is a big brother to two and helps his Dad (my brother), who is a single dad, a lot. I am proud of the young man he is becoming and the good example he is.

I have never been adept at creating a layout from a magazine ad, I usually look at them and can't see an actual layout. But after I finished my last issue of Real Simple this past month I did a quick flip through and landed on this ad (sorry for the pens in the corner, but they paper was lifting when I was taking the picture):

From this ad, I created this layout from our trip to California last July for my Grandfather's funeral.

One morning, when we didn't have to be anywhere early we drove down to Laguna Beach, grabbed Starbucks and had breakfast on the beach. It was Jackson's first trip to the beach. But the journaling is about how attached Jackson is to Mike. Everything is all about Daddy for Jackson right now. Most of the supplies used for this was from a mystery box I picked up from Scrap Attack Scrapbooking. I think for less than $50 with shipping I got a huge box of goodies with a original value of about $150.  I sorted through it, kept what I wanted and anything I didn't think I would use went into the yard sale pile for the LSS.  I figure I didn't take much of a loss and ended up with some cute things.  The Thickers and small letters were not from the mystery box.

I made this card for Mike for Valentine's Day. We had a crop over at Color Me Daisy this past month and one of the challenges was to make something with only what was within reach. It worked out for this card, ribbon, cardstock, a punch, patterned paper, foam dots and stickers were spread out on the desk and this came together pretty fast.

Since I am cutting back at Color Me Daisy I had to fill the void. I am still a huge fan of kits and always will be. I love to scrap with a coordinated kit, it helps me focus, I didn't have to spend the time to get the "ingredients" together. It simplifies the options in the room that I scrap, i.e., the mini store.  LOL!

Anyway, long before CMD was a thought in my mind I subscribed to Mosh Posh and still do. I never cancelled my sub even after I started CMD, I thought that for the most part the kits from Mosh Posh were very similar to my style and several kits overlapped what I did at CMD so they rounded out each other pretty well. So in February I got their kit featuring October Afternoon, Farm Fresh. Not really a line I would have picked, but I also saw a sketch on their blog that I liked and wanted to use.

So I ended up with this...

We were walking in the barnyard section of the zoo and Nicholas ran over to the turkeys and did this, and I actually got it on camera. The month before we fed the turkeys and chickens in a Zoo Animal Program and he had a ball. We went in the cages with the guides and he was able to pet the chickens and feed them. He wanted to pet the turkeys too, but they wouldn't let us near them. We just threw their food and stood back.  I guess they are aggressive with little kids. But when we were back on this day, he ran over and started talking to this turkey. And this paper that I never in a million years would have thought I could use, ended up featured on a page.

Another kit club I have joined to fill my CMD void is Studio Calico. I had heard of them, I don't live under a rock :)-, and checked them out several months ago. When we decided we were going to cut back on the CMD kits I was looking for another kit club so I could get a monthly fix. I like that their kits are so different from what I would put together; but, I love all the products that are in them. I knew their kits would stretch my scrapping style.  It took me a couple of months to get around to using one though.

They have challenges on their blog each week, the perfect thing to get my scrapping. This challenge was to use baby colors on a layout. The layout didn't need to be baby themed and since right now I am over those pages, I did this one instead.  The DT over there mists a lot, and it is inspiring me to give it a try.  I was looking at one of the SC exclusive papers in the kit and noticed that the circles on the paper created a perfect frame on the edges. So I cut out the circles, misted my cardstock using a chipboard piece from a Maya Road Mini Book and placed the semi-circles around the page.  This is to tell the story about Nicholas and books right now, he loves to read and I love it when he comes over and says "Read to Me".

They also have a weekly sketch challenge on the blog at SC and this was from this past week. I love these pictures of Nicholas on my laptop. He loves to watch YouTube videos of the Wiggles, Barney and Blues Clues on my computer and one afternoon last summer I caught these pictures of him.  I also got to try out my new Martha Stewart Butterfly border punch. Love it!

Rounding out my recent scrap adventures....I got a box in the mail a few days ago with all this new Jenni Bowlin goodness. I can't wait to get these on a project!

And lastly, I recently received this in the mail. Assuming there really is a next Color Me Daisy kit I am quite certain something from this catalog will be in it....

If you are still here...have a great Sunday!

December Daily 12/2-12/7

I've been keeping up on the pictures even though I don't have my book ready yet. It's been a busy December already, I am just glad my shopping is done.

December 2 - A typical morning the boys eating breakfast together and me heading off to work. Nicholas had a doctor's appointment and he weighs 27 pounds now. He still is pretty little for an almost 3 year old. But a cutie just the same.

December 3 - A typical night after I get home from work. After dinner the boys play a bit before bath and bed time. Jackson is such a character.

December 4 - This week was not a good one for naps. But they can only fight it for so long. Nicholas conked out watching a movie. See his bear?

December 5 - We started a busy weekend off with Nicholas and I doing the Sunrise Safari at the Phoenix Zoo. The other family did not show up so Nicholas and I had the tour guides to ourselves. Nicholas fed chickens, turkeys, horses, sheep, cows and goats. He had so much fun. Mom made dog treats and a sock puppet because Nicholas was more interested in the trail mix they had for a snack. We did a bit of shopping after the zoo, I cleaned out my closet and made Snickerdoodles in the afternoon.

(oops! I didn't rotate before uploading)

December 6 - We went to the mall for Christmas pictures. Jackson was a bit out of sorts and Nicholas didn't like his sweater, but all in all we were happy with the pictures. After pictures we had lunch at BJ's Brewery and did a bit of Christmas shopping.

Coming to a Christmas card soon.

December 7 - A cold rainy windy Monday. After work I met up with my old freind Suleman for dinner at Oregano's. Great food and catching up. After I got home, Mike checked his stats on Live 365 and found his alternative radio station "Flashback Now" is in the number one spot. So cool!

Now I am caught back up. Hopefully this week will not be as crazy as last week!

Thanksgiving is over let the Christmas rush begin

My weekend was interrupted on Friday, by work. No fun, but a necessity, given that it is year end and at least some of us need to be there. But nonetheless I still enjoyed the rest of my three days off.

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house. We all shared the cooking duties, so it allowed some time to enjoy the company of our families. I did get out of work early on Wednesday which gave me plenty of time to make the pumpkin cheesecake, clean all the veggies and prep the turkey.

Mike's parent's brought a birthday gift for me on Thanksgiving day, which I promptly put to use. An ornament display stand that will be perfect year round for the different holidays and a Michael's gift card, which I used on Black Friday for the new Sizzix Texture Boutique.

The traditional annual picture of me and my mom.

After we had everything underway, we went out in the backyard to watch Nicholas play. He decided he liked to sit on the rocks and we even got a few poses. We did get him to sit long enough for pictures with his Nana's, he loves his Nana's.

Nicholas and his Nana (Rettberg). My mom and Dion watched Nicholas and Jackson on Saturday for us and they all had a fun night.

Nicholas and his Nana (Carr).

Nicholas also hung out with his Grandpa's. Although he has decided he likes saying Dion so Grandpa Rettberg is called by his first name.

Jackson enjoyed eating Thanksgiving dinner, pretty much cleaning his plate.

And what would Thanksgiving be without a little rough housing.

After dinner, Nicholas wanted to go out and work off the dinner he did NOT eat.

Jackson of course needed a bottle shortly after dinner to wash down all that turkey and fixings.

After everyone was thoroughly stuffed, it was time for a catnap. Nicholas crashed in my arms and then was handed off to Nana, so I could pack up leftovers.

On Friday I got up early to hit some sales at Michael's, JoAnn's and Bed Bath & Beyond before heading into work and doing a bit of online shopping at Amazon in between my "way too busy day for a Friday after a holiday". While I was out, Mike got all the outside decorations done. He did the backyard too and it looks great. It's nice we get to enjoy his efforts and not just the neighbors. When Nicholas saw it Friday night, he just stood by the window for a while and smiled.

My birthday was Saturday and Mike and I enjoyed a rare date night. We had dinner out at Brio at San Tan Village and saw this:

I definitely still like Edward better.

Saturday and Sunday we had plenty of time for our hobbies while the boys napped and played. We also got the store updated for December. So all in all a fun and productive weekend.

I finished up an advent calendar using the Color Me Daisy December Kit and lots of Thickers. I have lots of fun surprises planned for Nicholas to put in the drawers. So I can't wait for Tuesday, he has already been pointing at the calendar and counting the numbers.

Deck the Halls....

Mike spent this week getting the trees up and decorated. After getting the two trees up on Tuesday, we both had second thoughts about not doing a tree in the family room. But....I did not want to put up the big tree in that we put in the Family Room. It is a 9 footer "old school tree" that takes about 6 hours to put up. You know the kind, individual branches that have to be put in the tree and fluffed out, and no lights so you have to string them yourselves. Do you remember those?

So, there I was on Tuesday night at Target and Michael's looking for a smaller pre-lit tree so we could add one more tree to the mix. I was in meetings all week and out late for dinners with the out of town guests. Fast forward to Saturday morning, Mike has all 3 trees up and we spend today putting out the rest of the indoor decorations. This year I cut back (for us) and didn't put our all the decorations we normally do.

So as of tonight our indoor area is decorated, I am half way done with Christmas shopping and determined to make this December the most for the boys.

Here is the living room tree. It is our formal tree, lots of red, white and silver.

Here is the family room tree...lots of Disney ornaments on this one. We moved it to the corner because the family room is also the main play room and has a lot more toys now than in years past. So the corner is a better fit now.

Here is our stockings and one section of the Santa's...I collect Santa's and with little ones I have had to alter the way they are displayed. So they are in a few sections in the house now, instead of all together but I really like how it turned out.

Nicholas is enjoying the Christmas trees. Tonight, he crawled up on the couch and was looking at the living room tree. He kept telling me he was hungry, but wouldn't leave the couch to come eat his dinner that was waiting for him.

Happy Holidays!

Trick or Treat

Our Halloween festivities started this afternoon with Nicholas helping to carve the pumpkin. No touching pumkin guts or seeds, but the pumpkin was okay.

Of course it was a puzzle, we had to put the cut parts back where they came from...

Almost done...

After all that work the pumpkin has to be thirsty...

We had our traditional pizza dinner, although this year we ordered it early as we had to take kiddos out to trick or treat instead of eating it while sitting in the courtyard passing out candy. Nana R came by too to see the boys in thier costumes. Both the boys woke up with colds today so we had to dress them a bit warmer tonight.

Time to trick or treat. It didn't take long to catch on how this works. We had to let Nicholas ring the doorbell at each house. A lot of people weren't home tonight but he still hit 3 blocks of houses tonight.

Let's race to the next house...

HOLY CANDY BATMAN!!! We had some generous neighbors, one giving full size candy bars!

After 3 blocks of walking the wagon came in handy!

Good thing Daddy wasn't as tired as we were!

Back at home we sat in the courtyard and handed out candy to the other trick or treaters. "Robin" had a cold but he stuck it out for handing out candy.

Nicholas likes to sing the "nananananananananananaa Batman" song from the old time TV show. Candy from trick or treating is pretty good too! Nicholas even wore his mask, although it fit funny so instead of over his face it was on his head.

This reminded me of when I was a kid. I had to dump out the candy and sort it for my favorites. Nicholas isn't too experienced with candy, but he still had fun sorting the candy, counting it and putting it back in the bucket (of course Marti wanted to help).

But with all the excitement our good little sleeper would not go to bed. It was after 10 before he went to bed tonight. I am tired too!

Hope you had a great Halloween!

Happy Thoughts for Our Marti

We have had a very scary weekend with our little sweet Boston Terrier, Marti. She started throwing up a week ago on Friday sporadically. After a vet visit on Wednesday they thought it was a stomach issue and told us to do a bland diet and gave us some medicine to give her. On Thursday the vomiting got more frequent after giving her the medicine, but then stopped. Friday we were gone for a few hours and got the test results for her blood work on our way back.

They suggested we bring her in for a IV to get her some fluids, because the results showed she was dehydrated. When we got home we found her laying by the door, barely moving and she had thrown up several times and it was rust colored.

Mike took her to the vet and they thought she could have an obstruction so they x-rayed her again and gave her barium. After the results we found she had a blockage but they couldn't see what it was on the X Ray. They recommended we take her to the emergency animal hospital for exploratory surgery.

On the way to the animal hospital

I picked her up and took her there. The doctor thought she was throwing up blood and was concerned part of her stomach was dying. They called about 2 hours after I had dropped her off. She had been very unstable and they recommended we bring in a specialist to do her surgery, because of the anticipated complications.

I went back to the hospital for the surgery, and was able to hold her before she went in. It was so terribly frightening as the doctor had told us she only had a 30-50% chance of surviving the surgery and if she lost part of her stomach she could survive the surgery and not survive the post-op.

After the 2 hour surgery they found no obstruction in her stomach, only that her intestines were in bad shape. She was out of it when I saw her and looked pretty sick. I got home at about 3 in the morning, and waited to hear an update in the morning.

In the morning she was doing better, but still throwing up blood. The doctor on the day shift had started to think her liver was failing. After a lot of talking about possible things that could have poisoned her, we came to the Sago palms by the pool. She normally can't get to them, but one day the pool fence was open and she probably chewed on them and got enough to poison her.

They changed the direction of her treatment and she is so much better today then yesterday. She isn't throwing up blood and the tests came back showing the treatment is working. It looks like she is going to be okay and should have no long term affects. But she will probably be in the hospital until at least tomorrow. It will take a few weeks for her to fully recover but to know she should be okay is the best news we could possibly hope for.

She is such a huge part of our family, she was our first dog and we got her before we had children. She is the sweetest most loving dog I have ever known. Our house this weekend has not been the same without her here.

Please pray for a quick recovery for our sweet "stinker binker". Here is one of my favorite pictures of our sweet little girly girl.