back to school

truly her father's daughter, our little girl started back to school (training classes) on february 17th. she has already attended two classes and seems to be doing fairly well. as you recall, she took the puppy classes before we got married and we promised to enroll her in further classes to teach her to be a well behaved little lady. this series of intermediate classes teaches doggies to listen even when there is distraction (i.e. other dogs, people, toys, plastic bags, bunnies, squirrels, leaves...whatever....) and more behavioral/socialization lessons like we learned during the puppy classes. we have already started to incorporate some of her new tricks into our daily routines (like "wait" which is less than a "stay" but similar) and are practicing rewarding her for things like coming when we call her so that she learns to come to use right away every time. we know the classes won't lessen her energy, but hopefully she will be able to follow the commands even when she is "wound up." and, just a few updates, on may 2 she will be ONE year old and at her last weigh-in she was 76.1 lbs! you can see from the picture that she is definitely bigger than the little pup we brought home, and she is most definitely a daddy's girl!

a trip to the ER....and not for work

on monday i was supposed to go to work for a meeting at noon, but shortly before i was getting ready to leave the house, i received a call from shari saying that my nephew, ben, had cut his ear open and they were on their way to the ER, would i meet them there? i told her that since i was going up to my hospital for a meeting anyway, i would be happy to meet her there (instead of an ER closer to her house in plano). to make a complicated story very short, i ended up not going to the meeting because of a miscommunication and got to spend the entire time with ben and the rest of the childers' clan in the pediatric ER at my hospital. i had a physician's assistant (PA) friend of mine look at ben's ear, who determined it needed stitches for sure, but thought because of ben's age (5) we should probably sedate him before putting the stitches in so he wouldn't be inclined to squirm and wiggle. the only problem with that is that you can't eat for at least 4 hours before being sedated and ben had eaten about 2 hours before going to the ER. so we waited. finally it was time and they came to put ben's IV in so he could get the necessary medications. he did SO well that the PA decided that he didn't need the sedation if we didn't want it. shari and i talked it over with each other and with ben and decided that we would try the stitches with just some "local" (lidocaine only in the area of the injury/stitches). i don't have any pics during the procedure (which some of you probably don't mind) because i took alex and alia to the waiting room so they wouldn't be bothered and so shari could focus all her attention on ben. he did beautifully and, when all was said and done, had 6 stitches in his right ear. it should be noted that the most distressing thing about the whole event for ben was the fact that he got blood on the new shirt his mom brought him back from new mexico, and the most exciting thing was that he got a wrist-band with his name and birthday on it, nevermind the injury and/or the stitches! gotta love 5 year olds! you know the drill...click here!

valentine's day

since matt was supposed to be at work all day, and we had made plans to celebrate on the 15th, i made plans with sarah to bake some valentine's day cookies. we got together valentine's day morning and what started off as a sweet valentine's day gesture turned into a small cookie fest! we decided to make some chocolate chip cookies too, and had the ever-useful help of olivia after she had awoken from her nap. she really enjoyed frosting the cookies, or...just the frosting ;) we all had lots of fun and the cookies turned out to be VERY yummy (just ask our husbands!). matt and i celebrated the holiday on friday by going to see a movie, spending some time goofing off in barnes & noble, and going out for dinner. hope your valentines day was happy, too! see the pics here

babysitting liv

here are some pics from when i babysat olivia so sarah and ray could go interviewing home builders. she was great for me, but lexi was a little too excited about having a new "toy" in the house to interact with. fortunately, liv was a good sport about it and didn't mind having a big doggie run all over the place.

superbowl sunday!

here are some pics from superbowl sunday. we went to mom & dad's to watch the game on their big projector screen and enjoy some tasty treats. the whole family showed up to watch the great defeat of the patriots and enjoy the "football food," as it is referred to in our family. and of course, after the superbowl, we're all undefeated! go cowboys! ;)