Gymnastics

So, today was the last class of Katie's 7 week developmental gymnastics class. We told her that it was the last one, and she was sad, but otherwise okay with it. We also told her that at some point down the road we'd consider signing her up for another class, but that for now she had swimming to look forward to in a few weeks. That was all before class started.

But then!! Then, my sweet little, trouble making, mischevious little monkey went in to class and for the first time actualy participated for the whole class. She usually avoids stretching like it's the plague, but today she went at it with gusto, and it was great. As daddy and I stood there, watching her stretch, then tumble and do kart wheels, and walk on the balance beam and hang from the rings and bars, we decided that we just couldn't end the classes.

So, as a surprise to our sweet little girl, she will continue to go to gymastics. She has no idea, and won't find out until Friday when I pack her and her leotard in to the car and tell her we're going grocery shoping, but instead I'll take her back to gymnastics. I can just imagine the look on her face and the excitement in her little voice.

Oh the fun I will have for the next couple of days!!!

My Tumbling Tyke

Katie's gymnastics classes are drawing to an end. This coming Saturday is the last class. The sad part is that she is just now really starting to get in to it, practicing what they teach her all hours of the day. Yesterday she did about 300 summer saults. She's so funny, she tells us how many she wants to do and then asks us to count them as she goes. She doesn't really realize she's doing it, but about half of the time she does a hand stand mid roll. I'm amazed at her balance. Yesterday I got on the floor with her and atempted to show her a hand stand, didn't work as well as it used to when I was a kid, LOL!!

No baby for now

Well, the long awaited answer is here, I'm not pregnant. It's been 10 weeks 3 days since i've had a period, but my docs did an ultrasound today and theres nothing there. I'm sad I admit it, but I've been preparing myself for the fact that this was the reality for weeks, so it's not really a shock to me at all. Our options now are very limited since I can't have hormones, so we'll see where we go from here. When we initially decided to try for another baby we said we would put it in Gods hands, and that we would get pregnant if he willed it. I didn't necessarily expect to get pregnant right away, but there is literally no history of fertility problems in my family, pretty muc everyone gets pregnant at the drop of a hat, the term 'fertile mertile' comes to mind. I don't think I'm ready to completely give up yet, but I'm wondering if God is trying to tell me something. I can tell you that we won't try for any more than a year, I won't put myelf or Daniel through that.



For now: I'm going to loose some weight, seriously, I am getting my butt in gear NOW!!

Happy Birthday Daniel

Today is Daniels birthday! He's 26. He took a day off earlier this week on a whim because he needed to go renew his drivers license and tabs. He also has Saturday off, wich we planned, so that we could spend a day together as a family and celebrate his birthday and Valentines day. The best part is that he will actually get to go to one of Katie's gymnastics classes before they end next weekend.

Happy Birthday Hunny! I love you!!

Alphabet Song

So, Katie has known the alphabet for quite some time, but she refuses to say the letter L when she sings them, so the letter M doesn't come out right either because of it. It's pretty funny, but it bothers me a bit so I always stop her and correct her then let her move on. Here is Katie's version of the alphabet:

abcdefghijk EMMA nopqrstuvwxyz

By saying emma instead of L M she occupies the same amount of time, so she always ends the song at the same time as everyone else, but it's a habit we're having a really hard time breaking.

Tell me that next time you sing the alphabet song you won't atleast think about saying EMMA!! LOL

Cocoa Update

I'm sure most of you remember, but a few months back we adopted a Chocolate Lab mix named Cocoa. For the most part she is a happy healthy energetic puppy, who is also very smart and is learning commands at the drop of a hat, well, really the drop of a treat. I mean honestly, she was the same age when we got her as our corgi Yoshi was when we got him, but it took him 3 years to learn to sit, it took her about 20 minutes.

Anyway, the point of my post. When we got her we took her to the vet because she had a small amount of hair loss on her face and legs that was either from mites or a fight she got in to with another animal before she was rescued. It turned out she had mange, a high amount of mites (which all dogs have) with an allergic reaction to them. Per the vets recommendation we treated her for 3 weeks and then went back for a follow up skin scrape. Over the course of the treatment she had scratched several areas of her face and body bald because of the itching from the mites. By the time the follow up appt came around she had grown a bunch of her hair back and the skin scrape came up negative for mites. WOOHOO!! She was clean and in the clear. By new years all of her hair had grown back and she was as cute as ever and she was most importantly healthy.

Or so we thought! Last Thursday I gave her a bath and everything went down hill from there. I took her to the vet again yesterday and the mites are back in full force, not because of the bath, they were still there before it, but thats when we started noticing the changes again. Most dogs fight off the mites on there own, but for some reason Cocoa just can't do it. The thing is that she has them so bad she is causing self inflicted wounds all over her body. She looks so uncomfortable. We are back on the meds for atleast another 3 weeks, but probably 6. We have to give her a special sponge bath every 5 days to help stop the itch, we have to give her an anitbiotic 4 times a day, and we have to feed her a high fat diet. The biggest, and by far he hardest, thing the vet said to us is that skin infections like the one she has created for herself with all the scratching can be deadly and we have to get it under control before it kills her. The poor girl. She's only 8 months old and whenever people see her they make all sorts of comments. I would hate to think of what she would be going through had she not been rescued, or had someone else adopted her. The people at the vet office keep saying that it is the worst case of mange they have ever seen and that she is lucky to have us as her owners because so many people are not willing to deal with a dog with this type of problem. The treatments aren't even all that expensive either, which makes it even more sad that someone would potentially abandone a dog because of such a little thing

The thing is that with the proper treatment she will make it through this, and once we get rid of it completely it won't be a problem for her anymore, it's just a matter of killing all of these mites once and for all. She is the sweetest most loving dog ever and I can't wait to have my snuggly little puppy back. In case anyone was wondering our other dog and our cat are not at risk, the mites do not transfer from one dog to anotherthe way lice move from person to person.

Daniel, the vet and I are all in agreement though: right now, with everything going on, she is just ugly, she's just not cute enough to make you want to pet her, but you can't help but make her want to feel better because you know that underneath all the problems is that sweet little chocolate puppy with the eyes that could melt your heart.

So, if you all hav time, please pray that our puppy makes it through this and that we are able to get rid of this once and for all.

Thanks!!