Welcome Home Gypsy

Meet our newest family member, Gypsy. She's a Miniature American Shepard...aka Miniature Australian Shepard. She's perfect! My husband loves to do his research. I'm not going to say that he's obsessive...no, I won't say that...but seeing my sweet husband staying up late night after night on the computer looking at puppy pictures makes me love him more.

We were very particular in what we were looking for. Finding the right puppy for your family is very serious business. We have been thinking about this for months. My 9 year old son is a bit on the hyper side and his older brother is NOT. My daughters are a bit young to play the way Anthony wants to play...and, well, he's a boy. We needed a dog he could play fetch and Frisbee with in the back yard. We needed a dog that would have the energy to keep up with him. That was the first criteria.

Secondly, we have been wanting to get really involved in Agility Training ever since we went to a show and met the dogs and their people. We have training courses close by until we build our own. I am going to train Cricket my Coton - Zhu, but she isn't what you would consider high-energy. She is a companion dog and has been calm and easy from the day we brought her home. She's great at tricks and being by my side 24/7. She's more of a 1 person dog...mine:)

We also didn't want a dog that would be so big they would knock the girls over. I've had a Lab and they are wonderful, but they would be a bit big for my 3 and 4 year old girls. We do have a little bit of land for running, but we didn't want a big runner. We also didn't want a hunting dog that would be apt to run off on the scent of something. My husband has had Beagles. They are loving and sweet but once they want to chase they tend to go. Hunting dogs and gun dogs were out.

Next, our chickens and cats. I LOVE Terriers. They are fun and loving and crazy smart. They are also amazing killers when they want to be. Of course Cricket is also and she's not a Terrier. She can find and kill a mouse before the cats have a chance. She is great with the chickens though. I read too much about most Terriers having a hard time being part of the chicken and cat family.

link to when Gypsy meets the chickens on Yellow Hen House

 We don't mind the grooming, in fact we like it. My husband sits with Cricket every night and we found a great local groomer to take her to for the bells and whistles. That opened up more choices for us.

Back to the chickens for a second...if you read my blog and have ever seen my other blog Yellow Hen House then you know I LOVE my chickens.  My Dad has Border Collies and he bought them sheep. Australian Shepherds are also herding dogs that will round up the chickens. Voila...perfect match.

Why we found the Miniature Australian Shephards to be a perfect match for our family:

Great with the family and other pets including chickens.
Will play ball and Frisbee with my son - a LOT
The breed is on the top 5 of Agility Course Champions
Very Smart so we can start Obedience Training in a few weeks.
We love the herding type dogs like my Father's.
The mini size is perfect for us and won't take up the whole sofa
I'm home all day with the girls so she will get lots and lots of attention to be well trained.
The breed is healthy - (this knocked out a few other breeds that were in the running.)
Last but not least....look at that face!!!! Pure love!!

Just Praying for the Families

I never really speak of religion as I believe it is a private matter and we all have the freedom to believe in what works for each of us. However, it is in times like this when we see the news reports coming out of Newtown that we all go inside ourselves to our own faith.

We pray, we hold our own children closer, and we cry for those who have had their lives ripped apart by evil. But mostly, we must pray for love and healing. I've held my children and we have cried. We discussed our faith in being eternally connected to the universe and to each other. We hope that our tears, our pain that we feel for the families will help lessen the burden on their hearts. We pray that our love and hopes for their strength will help support them through this time. There are no other words except that the world shares in the loss and the pain.

NYC in One Day

Rockefeller Center Tree

 I have never seen so many people in one place doing nothing in my whole life! It was wonderful!  Scary, but wonderful. There was a time when we were leaving that I wasn't being moved by my own effort...simply pushed along in the crowd. I didn't like that, but strangely, my oldest son did. He is convinced he wants to live in NYC. He's the boy who doesn't like the crowd at the mall, but increase that 100 times and stick him in the city and he's in heaven. I don't get it. What I liked is that people were happy. We were all there to see the Christmas tree, how could there not be an overall atmosphere of cheer?

Brynt Park....LOVE it!!

We took a bus through the school with the money going to support the Fine Arts Boosters. I'd support that cause over any other with the school. They waste so much money yet don't support what, I believe, is the most important aspect of school...the HUMANities. Art, band, choir, drama....the stuff that makes us human. That being said, I would never take a tour bus again. Next time...we drive in to find a train. My husband and I are both sensitive to chemicals and you simply can't ride in close quarters with 60 people and not expect the bus to fill up with conflicting perfumes and third hand cigarette smoke. It was hard to breeth and I felt sick the whole 5 hours each way. I wish people would hold off on perfume when they know they will be in confined spaces.

 

My little monkey.

My handsome husband<3

this is my BABY boy....at 13

The best Christmas souvenir! Portraits of both my boys. Amazing!

I really wanted real NYC diner food...but the meal would have been over $80..for burgers.

Our new tradition..Angelo's Pizza every time...57th St. 2 blocks from Central Park.

Sparkling Christmas Tree Ornaments

My girls love glitter. They could put glitter on everything if I let them. For these ornaments I cut half circles out of card stock and glued them into a cone. I glued ribbon with a small knot in it on the inside of the cone for hanging.  I did the prep work a head of time to keep everyone happy once we sat down to the craft table. My girls are 3 and 4 years old. My 4 year old is very good with her hands, but I still find that it keeps her interest more if I do the prep work when there is drying time involved. 

Once the cones are done I hand them over to the girls and let them do all they want to them. They painted white glue all over the outside of the cone and then held it over the glitter bowl.

 To add a bit more bling they added some sequence with dabs of glue around the ornament. Once they dry they can go right on to the tree or to a Grandma:)

 

This is how my Coton de Teluer and our kitten sleep all the time now. They are the best of friends.

3 of my babies