Lesson 154: Getting Ruby ready for baby

Following in her brother's footsteps, Ruby is all signed up for her beginning dog obedience. I have been wanting to get her signed up for a while now and the tipping point was the realization that if I don't tame her destructive and stubborn ways at least somewhat before baby comes then I am going to GO CRAZY! I am already on the bus to crazytown and am about to take the entire Opfar family with me. Signing up for this class gets me excited though. :) I really like dog obedience classes I think they are a lot of fun. I hope Ruby enjoys them, it will be interesting to see how she does.

 

ALL I WANTED WAS A PICTURE TO POST WITH ME AND RUBY, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK????

ME AND MAX ON THE FIRST TRY

 

 

 

Lesson 153: Cheap date idea for the husband

Tyler loves to wander Home Depot as a Saturday evening activity. His attempted selling point to me is that it is good exercise... and boy is it! We will walk the isles over and over and over. He loves thinking about all the projects we can do on our house. Most of the time I say, that sounds good... put it on the list. (the loooooooong list). 

And Ruby :) 

Lesson 162: caught in the act

Max and Ruby like to pretend they don't want anything to do with each other but every now and then I catch them in the act of actually getting along. It may just be the winter morning chill but today I walked out of the bathroom to find these two snuggled up together.

Lesson 161:How to feel like you got a lot done while simultaneously feel like you wasted the weekend

 

This weekend, like pretty much every weekend, my plans were to clean house. While I did not clean (other than laundry) I did get some stuff accomplished. First off I literally chopped down (part of) a cherry tree! We had a monster tree in our front yard and I began work getting rid of the large branches that hang over the road.

 

I also am almost completely done with the blessing romper. It just needs buttons on the back.

The dogs and I also took a trip to Joann Fabrics and bought some cute baby teddy bear fabric.  

 Ruby has been especially ornery this weekend so she now has to wear a color and hopefully this will stop the constant barking at me when I go to let her out. The tipping point was the other morning when Tyler let her out and she did not make a peep. This has confirmed there is something special about me that makes her particularly obnoxious.

Lesson 160: Trying out new baby gear... on the dogs

Yesterday was a big sale at the local children's consignment shop. I arrived 15 minutes after the store opened and the parking lot was already jam packed! My one goal was to pick up some baby carriers. This would have been a great opportunity to stock up on clothes but I had to get to work... and get out of the madhouse. I ended up with a small front carrier and a larger back carrier (one of those framed hiking kid carriers). I also grabbed a monkey leash that was the same my nephew Cooper used and loved...as much as a kid can love a leash.

I could not resist trying out the new gear... on my poor dogs. I apologize for the cliche camera phone self picture but Tyler was not around to capture this amazing moment.

When Tyler did get home I showed him the carriers... and somehow Max got trapped into wearing the monkey leash. Just long enough to take a humiliating picture and then he was free.

My sister reminded me that I bought these items for the baby not the dog. My response to that was our dogs ARE our babies :) She then pointed out there is going to be quite a bit of jealousy come babytime. Yes... I can see that happening.

 

Ruby randomly attacks couch cushions. She was even able to pull the cushion completely off the couch.

Lesson 159: New Years Resolutions

I am an avid believer in New Years Resolutions. I love setting goals and the idea that a new year can be a type of fresh start. My favorite year for resolutions (and consequently the one year that I actually completed  my resolutions) was 2010. 

1) Go to Europe

2) Reach my goal weight

For 2013 my goals are 

1) walk the dogs everyday (already broken, maybe I need some sort of smaller steps to my goal) 

2) fit into my jeans by the end of the year (I can't really start this until after June but I can help by not making this task any harder than it needs to be with my new prenatal workout DVD) 

3) learn Italian (Tyler bought me an Italian education CD set)

Tyler and I made a trip to Joann Fabrics to pick up notions for my baby blessing outfit in progress. I sewed some buttons and made Max model. Poor poor Max... 

Lesson 158: Baby clothes and my sewing room

Ted has his first outfit thanks for his Aunt Elspeth. It is really cute and restores my faith that there can be cute clothes for little boys. My mom and I made a shopping trip to Nordstrom this past weekend. About 3/4 of the baby section was adorable little girl clothes. Then there was a rack of boys' polos and sweatpants... it was kind of depressing.

 

My sewing room is coming together. :) No picture is complete without Ruby in it. You can see she is still a little tired as this was taken early in the morning.

 

The blue and red are the two shelves and mirror that I painted. My wall mounts are on their way in the mail which is why everything is propped against the wall.

Random things: the pug picture on the floor was a gift from Elspeth I LOVE it!, she also gave me the weener dog candy dish. (it is important to represent both dogs hahaha), the framed signature is from Lauren Conrad and the framed pug was a birthday card from Miranda.

In the above picture the white material is scraps of fabric from my latest project, not tissue which Ruby is notorious for collecting.

 

Also this past weekend I started Teddy's blessing outfit. :) I have more than what is pictured completed. I just love how the mock vest looks.

Lesson 157: How to spread the news

Tyler and I had our ultrasound this morning to find out what baby is and the result.....

 

A bouncing baby boy!

Tyler and I wanted to think of clever ways to tell people. Since the clinic we went to is across the street from the hospital my mom and sister work at we went straight there from the appointment. We stopped by the gift shop and bought a couple little blue bears that says "it's a boy" on them. Tyler picked out this metal scroll holder thing. Originally it is intended to hold the birth certificate. We put the rolled up ultrasound pictures in the tube and then had people guess what the baby is. After they guessed, we let them open the scroll holder.

Next stop was to visit Tyler's mom. It just so happened that Tyler's sister was also visiting at the same time we arrived. It was very convenient.

I called my dad and Miranda. Tyler called his dad. We could have been clever with them too but I think we just wanted to get the word out instead of making people have to wait until the end of the work day.

I bought these cupcake to bring into work for my coworkers. :)

It is so exciting to know what we are having and it was really cool to see what the baby looks like. He was moving his arms around while the tech was trying to get pictures. I love the profile picture of baby with his little nose.

Lesson 156: If you give a pill a pill...

Ruby and Max had another nail trim vet appointment on Friday. Fail :( The vet assistant claimed Max was biting and had to be muzzled and Ruby was still not sedated enough!

Their doctor and I had a conversation about the options from this point. It was either increase sedative for both (Max was currently not on anything) or try desensitizing them to nail trims through positive reinforcement. I chose the latter. The vet emailed me a video of a dog that clearly has nothing on Ruby. First of all, there is no treat in the world that will distract Ruby enough to let you touch nail trimmers to her paw. But I am going to give it a try. I am will also be taking the dogs by the vet every now and then and just giving them a special treat so they don't always think vet= bad.

On another note I have been finally decorating the two spare rooms in our house! No longer will they just be holding shelters for things we don't know what to do with. The smaller room will be my sewing room and the larger is going to be baby's room. Tyler has claim over the entire downstairs which was dubbed the man cave when we moved in so don't think he does not have a space of his own. ;)

I still can't figure out why my blog has randomly stopped letting me post pictures from the computer so here is a link to a new pattern I bought last night.

Babies christening sets Sewing Pattern 2457 Simplicity

I am really excited! I also bought fabric but no notions since I don't know until TOMORROW what I am having. :):):)

 

Lesson 155: The Taming of the Ru

I completely forgot to post how we were finally able to trim Ruby's nails. By "we" I mean the kind vet assistant girls at Country Animal Hospital. I finally caved and inquired about using a sedative to calm Ruby before her nail appointment. The instructions I received with the pills was half a tablet 1 hour prior. This was done. The appointment came around and Ruby was as crazy as ever. They took her into the back while I waited out front with Max (who is a much better patient). I could hear the cries from Ruby echoing through the halls of the office and my heart was breaking and of course I teared up :(  (I am an emotional person and being prego does NOT help). They were not able to get a single nail trimmed, so we rescheduled. This time I gave her a full pill 2 1/2 hours prior.

About 30 minutes before the appt Ruby was running like a mad woman around the house. Ugh. I almost called the vet to cancel but decided to just give it a try anyway. It took a 3 mile car ride to the vet and Ruby went ZONK (that is the sound of pug energy level toppling from 1,000 to 10). She still squirmed (because nothing on the planet can completely knock out Ruby Kinkaroo) but there were no pug squeals and everyone survived. :)

(for some reason blogger is not letting me post pictures right now)

Lesson 154: It finally happened

"Whitney, are you pregnant?"

One of our patients asked if I am pregnant today. What I love about working in a small office is being so close with the patients. Of course this also means they are all close with me too. They all knew when I got married, they ask about my new house, my dogs, and now the first one noticed I am looking"thicker". This was her justification for asking if I am pregnant. I am certainly glad that I am!

This is a milestone day because this patient is the first person to have the guts to come out and ask. I am just shy of 19 weeks. I don't know when the typical length of pregnancy is before you start showing more than just looking chubby. And people can feel confident to ask and not just assume.

Lesson 153: How to build a playhouse

http://referafriend.sportsmansguide.com/a/clk/4S3bBf

I had more time over the break to add to the playhouse. I don't have a clue what I was thinking when I decided to build this. It is painted red and blue on the outside with green walls on the inside. I think I might put wall paper on the inside to cover the painted duct tape.

 

Let's take a short tour with Max and Ruby....

 

Ruby enjoys going inside the house and sitting on the carpet. Max will have nothing to do with being trapped in a box. 

Ruby having a sit on the fleece covered foam chair. 

Lounging around the house

 



Lesson 152: New Years with the Opfars

The traditional winter trip to Seaview :) This year we went for New Years since it worked better with everyone's schedules. It was so great to just relax and get away. My grandma lives in Seaview and this is one of the two times a year we get to visit her. There were no kids this time, just dogs. Although, as you have probably gathered from my previous posts, dogs seem to be almost as big of pills as children can be.

 

On one of the days we drove to Cannon Beach and looked around at all the shops. I loved that so many people had their dogs to walk around the town. I didn't buy anything that day but Max got a new toy he picked out of the pet store.

This picture is from the trip down. We stopped at Dairy Queen in a small town along the way. We each got an Orange Julius. I commented that mine tasted like straight orange juice. Tyler pointed out that he watched them make our drinks and they seem to have left out the key ingredient of ice.... oh well.

 This is the house we spent a lot of down time at. There is a family that lets us stay here during the winter as it is their summer home. Pictured if my dad, Max and you can see Benny's head in the corner.

Ruby discovered she likes to walk around on the coffee table. 

 Tyler and the pups

 Serious Tyler and the pups

 Ruby also discovered that she loves to sleep on puzzles. Putting together puzzles was our relaxation activity of choice. We did this puzzle in an evening so I decided to buy another puzzle in town. The next puzzle was crazy hard and was made even harder by Ruby stealing pieces and eating them. In the end the puzzle was missing one piece completely and had to mushy wet pieces.

 Max snuggling on the couch.

 Me and Tyler :)