Graduate

Dallas graduated puppy class last week.  It was an interesting experience.  Id say he was the best in his class.  He learned to sit and stay and drop it and lay down.  I didnt sign him up for the next level cause he's a pretty good boy and most of the training you have to do on your own anyways.  But Im glad we did it.  It gave us a good foundation and support in our early puppy days.

Here's our class.  I usually brought at least one of the kids with me and often two.  On the last day it was just Makenna.  The other dogs were Lucky, Shadow and Asher.

Spring Break 2014

We weren't going anywhere exciting this year for Spring Break so we tried to make it fun in Omaha.  Luckily we had some nice weather some of the time so we had a lot of park time.  We went to the zoo on Monday, we went to CoCo Keys with the Riklis on Tuesday, we went to the park on Wednesday,  the Mall with the Roblyers on Thursday and then on the last Monday we went again to CoCo Keys but this time just with our family (we had some groupons to burn).

The bottom right picture is the elaborate teepee the kids made in the small "forest" by the park that we spent many hours at.  They had quite a blast building it and others like it.

 Above: Here they are at CoCo Keys the first time with their friends Adrianna, Meredith and Sam.  Brayden didnt opt in to this trip.  Emmitt had a blast on this trip because the lifeguard on the bigger waterslides was a bit more "relaxed" than others and he let Emmitt go on the slides he usually isnt big enough for.  He LOVED them and did it over and over and over- which is good he got his fill because when we went back just a few days later they wouldnt let him on :/

Below:  Here is our second trip to CoCo Keys as a family (minus dad).  We stayed 5 hours so its no surprise Emmitt was asleep seconds after our drive home began.   



And on to the mall:

 On the day we went to the mall, the big boys roamed while the moms stayed a the play place with the rest of the crew.  I think Brayden enjoyed his independence.  When it was time to eat though we had the big boys take along their little brothers.  They loved this and wouldn't even let us sit with them at the food court.  Too cool for school.

All in all, a successful staycation. (not as fun as DisneyWorld but we did our best)

Dallas' First Full Body Haircut

So I have aspirations of doing my own "Dallas- grooming" but I thought I should take him to professionals for his first full body "do."  This happened a couple of weeks back.  Here is the before and after. 

He sure looked different after but its grown back fairly quickly.  It will be interesting to see just what his coloring ends up being.  He's like a surprise dog- we just dont know exactly what we are going to get.

My friend Snail... and a few other things about Emmitt

Emmitt is really keeping us on our toes these days.  He makes us laugh, keeps us busy and tests our patience to the extreme.  He's my most loving snuggler but also my most aggresive fighter.  Hes a whole lot of energy in a little package.  Heres some Emmitt snippets for posterity:

- He has a friend snail.  I dont know where it came from but one day he was going for a nap and he asked me if I could hold his friend snail for him.  I put out my hands and he put his snail in them and ever since then his friend snail has been an active participant in his life.  His snail is also his best scapegoat.  One day when Kevin was questioning him about some missing candy, Emmitt told him that his friend snail put it in his mouth.

- Emmitt hates pants.  I dont know why but he just prefers to be without.  When we come home he often takes off his shoes and pants together and then comes into the house.

- Emmitt is a bad guy and dont you dare tell him any different.  He likes to play the villain or he can compromise as long as he gets to fight the bad guy.  He loves to kick and punch and fight.  Once at the playground he was playing an angry chase game with a kid that he had just met.  The other kid asked if after this if they could play a nice game to which Emmitt adamantly replied "No I cant, I'm mean."

- He has his opinions.  The other day he told me he wanted me to go take a shower.  I asked him why and he said "I just dont like your hair to be that way." 

- He has to know what street you are on at all times while driving in the car.  He also insists on knowing the title of every song playing on the radio- and much like his sister Brielle he loves to sing along.

Heres a clip of him singing along with the movie Frozen.  Usually he belts it out more but I never catch those moments on film.  Its still pretty cute to me to watch him sing along:

http://youtu.be/Lxy5ttSkGyM

I just like this picture...

A Sad Goodbye

Well, last month we bid farewell to our Omaha "family" the Thomases, as they are beginning a new chapter of their lives in Texas  (Why oh why did you have to leave us.)  Luckily they stayed with us for their last night so we could make one more Culvers trip together. We had many many good times together and we will miss them so much!