Puppies on Halloween

Our first trip to the vet on Day 3

Craft Fair Weekend

We had a big time today in Springdale and Rogers at the craft fairs. Mom, Hillary, Madelyn, and me left this morning and drove from Van Buren for a full day of shopping! Madelyn was really good the whole time (except when she told Hillary "hush" when she was told to walk and hold her hand when out of the stroller!) I took lots of pictures and will have to get them posted to our photobucket site soon. Tomorrow will be an early start to the day with the drive home to Ada to take the puppies to the vet, but I hope to take a good nap later on. If I can get pictures posted tomorrow I'll be caught up!

In Memory of Little Bit

Ben's trip to Idaho last weekend

Oops, they did it again...

Yes, that's right! Puppies....again!

When Myrtle was gaining weight even though we had kept the dogs apart during her heat, we took her to the vet to make sure she was OK. After a fairly thorough check-up, the vet determined that it was probably a "false pregnancy" and that some dogs' hormones just kick in and prepare their bodies for puppies. Since Myrtle was such a good momma dog, we figured she just really wanted to have puppies again and was tricking her body into it.

Then when I FELT and SAW the little ones moving on Saturday night, I called Ben (he

was in Idaho at the time) and he was as shocked as me. So the next day I got the

middle-sized crate back out of the laundry room and we kept Myrtle separated from the boys.

After two nights of random barking in our bedroom, we moved Myrtle's crate

back out to the dining room last night. When she started barking again,

we moved her crate in the living room next to the other one.

That seemed to calm her down and we all went to sleep.

However, we were awakened at 4:45 a.m. to nonstop barking and Ben came out to see

what was going on. I listened from the bedroom and came out when I heard

a little squeak! We turned the lights on and discovered six little totally clean,

precious Boston Terrier puppies next to Myrtle in the crate. She had taken time

to clean EVERYTHING up and then she proudly made her official announcement.

With four boys and two girls, they are quite the sight, and seem to be doing well,

thankfully. One of the girls is about half the size of all the others and we've had to try supplementing her food with milk replacer. She also has a little wound on her belly

that we will get checked out at the vet's office first thing in the morning.

She is so tiny, but hanging in there and trying to make it work with four big brothers

and a big sister!

I'll be heading to Arkansas tomorrow for the craft fair weekend, so Ben will be on patrol

until Saturday morning. I will miss them over the next few days, but I'm just glad

that I was here when they were born (even if we were all asleep!)

Sunday afternoon

Ready for another week...

This weekend has been eventful! We have had extra events in our schedule this last week or so and then I had a little stomach bug yesterday on top of it all. Today was much better and I worked in overdrive to get the house clean and the laundry caught up. We've had dinner, walked our 45 minutes, finished lesson plans, and had our piece of freshly made chocolate cake (so much for that walk) so now we're beginning our favorite Sunday night show, Mad Men.

Today Ben's jazz band played at the Miss Ada Pageant (yes, I said, "pageant"). This is a great little money-maker for the group, but it's three and a half hours of Ben's life he will never get back! One thing you have to say for it, however, there is no lack of entertainment the entire time!

I just love this picture. Sometimes when I'm on my way to school in the mornings the sky is so pretty. I was leaving Starbucks and heading to the school when I thought I'd grab my camera and snap a few shots. An old college friend was telling me this past summer that some of the best pictures of landscapes were ones that had sunlight peeking through the clouds in the early morning or later in the evening when the light is the softest. I have tried to take pictures from time to time during those times using natural light and he's right...they always look great (this one included, aside from the buildings and cars and stuff...)