Happy Anniversary!`

Chris and I have been married 12 years 2/25/95. How'd that happen. My SIL Lugene sent us the most adorable/ funny card.

Lacy it is!

We have finally decided on a name for the puppy: Lacy. Lacy's White Lightening. She is a lively little pup. Very curious, exciteable, cute, kissy and adorable. Abby has been soooo patient. She rumbles a warning growl both for the puppy and us. Kind of like, "She's touching me, Mom!!!! DAD!!!! the puppy is touching me!!!" Yesterday she gave the pup her first spank, but nobody saw it. Both were fine afterwards and the pup thought twice about trying to nurse or chew on Abby's ear.

We have now had her 1 week and I have only had to clean up after her a handful of times, mostly our fault for not getting her outside in time. I awoke Saturday morning 5:55 a.m. to hear Hans say, "Mom is going to be mad, she peed in our room!" Alan had gotten up and let her out without putting her outside. She holds it all night long and well that's all we can expect!!!

Lacy's family is fine too. We are keeping busy with basketball clinic for Collin and Hans and Erin is doing a little cheerleading clinic. Those are at 9, 10, & 11 a.m. on Saturdays. At noon mom crashes :-) Chris got the tractor out yesterday and is heading out to spread some ferilizer today, Lord willing. It must be spring. It snowed some Saturday night, for a short while the wind howled and it snowed almost horizontal to the ground for about an hour and then quit. Weird weather, at least we did not get the tornadoes other states did.

Yeah! I'm a Design Team member!

Scrapbook websites or stores use a design team to develop layouts and challenges. I have applied for several, but often do not get the position. I have recently applied for 2. One is a store in Larned KS getting ready to open April 2 and one to a Scrapbook blog called Crop a Latte! Well, I got notice yesterday that I was chosen as design team member for Crop A Latte. I have a whole new excuse to scrapbook now!!!!!!!!! to add to all the others of course! I have posted to URL above in case you are curious.

More cute puppy pictures!

Well, I simply cannot resist the camera these days. All the pets are in an upheaval and creating great photo opportunities. The puppy who has several names at the moment. Lacey (Erin's choice), White Lightening (Chris' choice) or Pee Widdles (Chris' fun name for her) or just plain puppy. Anyway, Abby has been really put out and our cat Socks will not come down from the shelves in the "rec room". Abby has been creative in finding places to rest where puppy cannot find her. She has been patient, but lets out a warning growl everytime Lacey comes near. And the pup just runs right into her and grabs her tail or tries to nurse and well what can we expect of poor Abby who demands respect and control? So here you go, some pictures:

Lacey trying to peek out under her "Welping Box", she can climb over it already!

I'm so cute I cannot stand it!!!

Lacey helpin' with groceries?

We have a baby!

Since we could not be long without a dog for the kids and Abby is just not up to all the love Alan has to share!! We started looking for puppies and found one this weekend. She is 6 weeks old AKC lab pup and C-U-T-E! We brought her home yesterday 2/17/07 and she has been a good little girl ever since. She woke us up 3 times last night to go out, but I have had no piles or puddles to clean up...yet. I know that is a big "yet". Lol.

The kids love her, but Abby is not speaking to us! She even gets free roam of the house at night and she is still mad. Abby has been good and just tried very hard to get on the other side of the house when she sees the pup coming.

No name yet, Alan wanted to call her "Nibbles" (I thought he said something else at first and was highly offended, but it just sounded like that). Erin wants to call her Lacey, there are several of us that like that. The jury is still out. So here are some pictures:

She had been sound asleep on Chris' arm, but caught me snapping the picture!!! Abby was disgusted, "On the couch already!!!!!!!!!!!" She slept behind the couch and would not even get on her chair. Any guesses on how long it takes her to relax and play with the cute little, fat little pup?

Cute, eh?

I went for cute this Valentine's Day! Chris my "retreiver"

Happy Valentines Day

I cannot believe how perfect this winter has been!! Perfect? It has been bitter cold the last 2 days--single digit cold. That is not unusual for KS, in fact it is very close to me and Chris' Anniversary which is often a very cold time of year. Last year we went to Wichita for a weekend get away and it was 3* when we ventured out of our hotel. IT was 6* this morning. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But then this afternoon and evening it snowed again and I JUST LOVE SNOW!!!!!!!!! There's got to be a poem in there-- it is so quiet and surprising. It was kind of grey and cloudy and almost foggy and then snowflakes, small flakes were everywhere. Very cool. The tiniest flakes I've ever seen just kept falling and falling and snowing. When we went to church tonight there was maybe an inch or more. I told the kids, little flakes did this because they were persistent and kept falling. Awesome.We are fortunate that we do not have 13 feet like NY, just beautiful snow. Please God help me remember this in the summer when it is sweltering HOT.

Ramble ramble. I want to post some adorable photos I have!

Alan is missing Chance!!!!!!!! Common sense alone keeps me from calling the Lyons pound to see if he is still there. He went into town 4 times in one week! But we can be thankful for the few months (and many photos) we have of him! He was so sweet and so maddening! He also had a bad trick of going down to the family room and peeing, so I had to be so vigilent!

Erin's grandma gave her this stuffed horse for christmas and she sleeps with it every night. The other night I had to just laugh when I went to check her. Isn't this the sweetest picture?

OK that is enough for the night!

What a week!!

The past week, February 5-11 has been a "hum dinger". It started when I got a flat tire in Hutch then got home in time to rush to Bible study. Got out of Bible study late and rushed home only to pulled over for speeding! I was behind the bus by a mile and was trying to catch up. OOPS. She let me off so I could go catch the bus, but chewed me up a bit first. That's OK I deserved it. Then the week just got busy, busier than I like. I had to be gone almost every day, which messes up my rhythmn. Throughout the week Chance kept running to town. HE discovered how to go all the way to town and was being found at: the Medical Center, in the High School, the neighbors (2x) and on Friday he pulled the Straw that broke the camel's back. (I am sure chris will not mind being the camel). I was at a "Women Managing the Farm" conference and Chris was home with Alan. Well, he went to the garage for something and left Chance out to do his business...in 5 minutes (or so) he was gone. When Chris found him in town again, he took him straight to the pound we got him at. Imagine my surprise when I got home!!! Although I was very angry at first, I agree that this most be done before he gets himeself and us in more trouble. Imagine my surprise again when I see the kids had rented the movie "Old Yeller" Friday. They only started it Friday and ketp bugging me to finish it. I kept putting it off expecting lots of crying. We finished it Sunday and I think I was the only one who cried. I think it reminded them of RJ more. So it is now Monday again. I am thankful for the mercies of God that are new every morning! The grace of God that gives us (me) new chances when I mess up and the love of God that holds us through!

Alan's Go Car Track!

Happy Birthday Clifford, the Big Red Dog

Hmmm, lots of birthdays this week. Alan and the preschool and kindergarten celebrated Clifford the Big Red Dog's birthday February 1st. They read books and did art work and made li'l doggies out of all of them!! Alan is a ham so he enjoyed having his picture taken as Clifford. We also had Clifford visit at lunch and dinner last night. He played with our two dogs and was an overall good dog yesterday!

Kansas Day

"I've sung this song
and I'll sing it again
Of a place where I've lived
on the wild windy plains
Of a state that's called Kansas
A county called Grey
And this is what all the people there say:
So Long It's Been Good to Know You!"

Happy Birthday Kansas

KS had its 146 Birthday this week. On Monday the 29th our grade school had a KS celebration put on by the 3rd graders. Therefore Erin got to play a part in this. She had a speaking part about Amelia Erhart from Atchinson KS and she had a solo in the song "So Long It's Been Good To Know You!" This was her first solo and she did a great job. They did a whole lot of Kansas or prairie songs and the audience got to participate. Alan and I had fun watching. The clip is not great but worth a peek. Here is a still image as well.