I Should Have Known Better...

As 2016 approached I made the mistake of declaring that 2016 would be our year.  Yes, 2016 was going to go much more smoothly for us that 2015.  This year was going to be a piece of cake!  I made bold declarations such as...We will be able to sell our rental, and it will all work out beautifully.  We will be able to rebuild our savings.  I will get serious about my health and start acting my age and learn to like vegetables!  The children will have no issues and life will be all rainbows and unicorns.  Yes, this year will be nice and easy.  And I assumed it would be because I declared it.  And if you declare something it automatically happens right?!

I should have know better.

2016 came in like a whirlwind.  In one month we had to replace a dishwasher and range at our rental. We had to replace our furnace.  John, Emmie, and I all got the flu from #%{^.  I don't normally swear but it was that bad.  John and I were sick for well over a week.  John still isn't completely better. And coincidently the furnace went out while John and Emmie were sick.  Fevered and cold with no heat.  Nice.  John's car decided it didn't want to last as long as we wanted it too. My toe is still broken and I have thrown out my back twice.  That hasn't happened in years!  And I just ate almonds dipped in Nutella for lunch instead of carrots.  So that tells you how my love of vegetables is growing.  And for some reason I decided to get a dog (luckily he is good :).

All of that in less than 30 days!  Thank heavens things are going well for our children...knock on wood...

Lesson learned.  I shall never again make bold declarations about how rosy my life will be.  Well played universe...well played.


Disclaimer: things really aren't horrible...I'm more just amazed at the irony of it all :)

Meet Milo

 For the last few weeks I kept having the thought that a dog would be good for the kids.  They are always begging for a dog.  John and I are always saying no.  I'm not a huge dog/pet person.  And yet I have memories of all sorts of different pets when I was growing up.  And I guess I wanted my kids to at least have memories of at least one pet. 

So I started looking on craigslist.  My list of requirements for a dog were pretty high so I really had no expectation of finding one.  I wanted a dog that didn't shed, was small, not a puppy, potty trained, good with kids, easy on the eyes, and cheap. Essentially I was looking for my sister's dog Max.  We've watched Max multiple times and it's always been easy and low maintenance.  Mostly.  He's a 7 year old Shih Tzu.  So last Wednesday, as I was preparing for ski night, I got an email about a new dog listing.  I checked it.  It was for a 7 year old Shih Tzu.  I txted the owner and asked for more info.  I was told the dog was coming from a family with children ranging from 5-12.  He had been his mother-in-law's dog for the first 4 years of his life and then when his mother in law passed away they took the dog.  The family is moving to AZ in a month and the dad declared that the dog would not be making the move with the family.  I go the impression that they were a little overwhelmed with the move and everything that was going on.  I told him that I was headed up to ski night but that I would contact him again in the morning. I kind of expected the dog to be gone by then.  Shih Tzu's for sale don't last long.

I kind of forgot about it but decided, what the heck, maybe I'll go out and meet the dog.  So I txted Thursday morning and asked if I could drive out to meet the dog while Emmie was at school.  He did one better.  He was headed toward Boise that morning and could bring the dog to me.  Easy peasy right?!  I immediately called Kortney and asked her to come help me meet this dog.  I wanted an opinion of someone familiar with Shih Tzu's who could help me watch for any reason I shouldn't keep this dog.

Shortly thereafter a man showed up at my house with this shaggy dog. He was so fluffy and big!  He came into my house and was well behaved.  He went straight to the back door and went exploring outside.  His name was MoJo.  He had been living in a house with a dog door so he wasn't used to a kennel or asking to go outside.  And he had been on a strict diet of people food.  So those things had to change!

We analyzed the dog.  The nice dad told me that he'd prefer to make a clean break so if I wanted the dog he'd just assume me keep it.  But he also assured me that they weren't actually moving for a month so if there was any problem with the dog or we changed our  minds he would come pick him up and find another home for him.

And then came the clincher...I asked him how much they wanted for the dog.  He said nothing.  They just wanted to find him a good home.  So either he was telling the truth....or he really wanted to get rid of the dog!

With Kortney's approval I took the dog.  Even though I had nothing for the dog!  The little fur ball was mine!  The previous owners gave me food and a bed and dog dishes and then he was off. Kort and I immediately bathed the dirty dog and then I handed her my credit card so she could go buy me dog treats, a bed, leash, etc.  The poor thing was obviously depressed.  He spent his first full 2 days here laying by the front door waiting for his family to come and get him.  It broke my heart!

We also changed the dogs name.  We (I) tried to think of something similar but a little more us.  And Milo it was.  He's starting to respond to his name.  So it's working!

And then, after a crazy morning and afternoon,  I called John.  Whom I had yet to tell I had even been looking at dogs on craigslist.  Oops.  While I can't say that John was excited about the idea, and maybe even slightly annoyed, I can say that I'm convinced that he and the dog with be best friends shortly.

John was convinced that his previous owners just wanted to dump off the dog on someone and that even if we did change our minds there was no way they would actually come get him.  But the first night we had him we were sitting watching TV and I got a txt from the old owner asking me how everything was going.  He apologized for being annoying but had promised his wife and kids he would check.  He let me know that they were taking it pretty hard but wanted to know that "MoJo" was doing ok.  I reassured him that MoJo was doing great, and that we promised to take good care of him, and it was obvious that he missed his family.  Then I got an odd txt where he told me "Brinlee has been crying all afternoon and she asked me if I gave him a hug good bye.  I had to lie and say yes and I got teary eyed."  Then I got another txt "I'm so sorry!  That was meant for my  mother and not you."  And then I started to cry thinking about this woman and four kids crying at home and I looked around the corner and Milo was laying by the front door depressed and sad looking.  It was heartbreaking!!

If I'm being honest I've had a couple moments where I though, "what am I thinking!" But I really think we got lucky with this dog. We were able to get him groomed Saturday morning....he looks like a completely  different dog! I'm slowly getting more endeared to him. He just looks so dang cute! They had to cut his hair super short because of how matted and nasty it was...but here in a couple weeks he'll be fluffy again. Just not shaggy :)

He has actually been a really good dog. He pee'd on my carpet once the first night he was with us.  But I have to take part of the blame for that one.  I didn't make him sleep in his kennel the first night and he just goes to the back door and sits when he needs to go outside.  He won't bark.  So I think he went and sat by the back door and when no one came he went ahead and did his busniness on my carpet.  But other than that we've had no accidents.  I think we'll have to train him to hit a bell or something when he needs to go outside before we can let him sleep outside of his kennel again.

And for not being kennel trained at all he has done great with that!  He moaned for about 2 minutes the first night we put him in there but that was it.  He has been sleeping great and is a perfectly quiet and mellow dog!  So I guess for the time being...he's a keeper :)

 

April and Reese

April and Reese are slowly becoming part of the family. Emmie had a gift card from Christmas so she bought them pajamas.  They were sick of sleeping in their clothes.  And you know what...those pajamas cost more than pajamas I buy for my own children!  So we are going to start getting creative for doll furniture and clothing. 

John knocked it out of the park with his first 2 attempts.  He made the dolls a couch and a place to hang their clothes out of scrap wood and paint that he and Emmie found in the garage. 

Nailed it!

Owen's School Ski Night

Owen has been waiting for years to be old enough to go up to Bogus for the school's ski night.  And this was his year!

The kids get a lesson and gear rental with their ski night package.  This was his second time skiing so I signed him up for an intermediate class since he did so well last time.  While he took his lesson I went skiing with some friends.  There were 4 of us...2 were good skiers and 2 were very beginners. 

This is Mandy and I ^ We are the beginners.  They convinced us to go down this "really easy" blue run for our first run, instead of warming up on some easier hills. And so we did.  Mandy did pretty well and only fell a couple of times.  I, on the other hand, struggled the. whole. way. down.  I was dripping sweat by the bottom and my legs were shaking.  I think I fell 5 times.  A few of them pretty hard.  One into a boundary surrounding a pond.  And another one such that I was sliding headfirst down the mountain and ended up with snowpants full of snow.  It was lovely. I still can't decide it I want to work at it and become a better skier or just declare myself a green run girl for the rest of my life.  After the sore neck I had for 3 days afterward I'm starting to lean toward being a green run girl.

Anyways, after that rough run I came back to check in on Owen.  I noticed that his teacher was taking his class away from the bunny hill to try a slightly harder run. The aptly named "sunshine" I couldn't believe it!  He was headed toward a run I had done before so Mandy and I decided to follow so that I could spy on him.

He did amazing!  I was so proud!  He was going down the same run I got stuck on last year and he got down it without falling once! I snapped this picture of him while his instructor was helping some other kids.

What a stud!  Later that night I saw Owen attempting to go down a blue run. I assumed he was with his instructor still.  So I followed... After I stood at the top for a while and worked up some courage. It was steep!!!

I made it half way down and then got to a point that made me nervous so I just skied off to the side and sat down to try to figure out how I was going to get myself down.  When I looked across the hill and noticed a familiar face across the mountain. I called out to Owen...we were stuck in the same place!  He, however, got his skis back on and got down the bottom of the hill more easily than I did.  But we did it!

After a break for dinner we met up with Dan and Bria and Bailey who decided to come up with us for the night too. We took them over to Sunshine.  The kids and Dan did great!  I was so impressed! They loved it and we did that run four times in a row.  And I only fell one more time because....I don't know why...it's just what I do.  They have now all surpassed my skill level.  Which isn't much, but they did it in 2 days of skiing!

My Awesome Gift

I forgot to mention the awesome gift that John had made for me for Christmas.  I absolutely love it.  He took pieces of wood from our old fence and had someone put them together and cut an Idaho out of it. I love that  now a piece of this house will always be with us.  And I love that it's Idaho!  I kind of makes me want to go back and take something from our first house so I always have a piece of that house to take with me too! 

Student of the Month

Emmie was nominated for student of the month...This is what her teacher had to say about her.  I thought it was very kind!

I wanted to let  you know I am nominating Emmie Dinger for the November Student Recognition.  Both Emmie is such a helpful student, both to myself and the others!  Emmie is always so willing to help get our classroom cleaned up at the end of the day, whether it is pushing in chairs, taking down milk sticks or erasing the board.  Whenever another student is having a hard time completing a task, Emmie is the first to volunteer her help! J  I am very THANKFUL to have such polite, kind and helpful kindergartners!  It is so much fun to be Emmie’s kindergarten teacher!

 

Mrs. Griffin

Ainsley's 12th

Ainsley turned 12 last week! My little girls is now in Young Womens with me! I love it and hate it all at the same time.  I just seems like she shouldn't be that old.  But I am loving watching the amazing young woman she is becoming.  She is kind and thoughtful and a good friend.  And she is getting old enough that she actually enjoys shopping with me (sometimes) and we can watch tv shows and movies together that aren't cartoons!  I love it!

Ainsley's actual birthday was on a Wednesday.  So she got to go to mutual on her birthday. How cool is that?  She had a combined birthday party with her friends the week before.  Ainsley has a gang of 5 girls that she hangs out with at school.  And four of them have birthdays between January 10th and January 20th.  Weird right?!  So the girls got together to celebrate all of their births.

The party was supposed to take place at our house...but unfortunately John and Emmie and I all had the worst flu that week.  I think we are all still recovering.  We were seriously near death.  Luckily other moms were willing to step in and help.  So Ainsley went off and had fun with her friends while we sat home and coughed and drank medicine and slept and watched TV.  I have zero pictures but Ainsley came home all smiles so I think it was a success!

Happy Birthday Ainsley!

Emmie's Room

Emmie is now 6.  And I have never decorated a room or done anything special for her on her walls. I hated the way the paint looked when we painted the house as we were moving in.  So I always just thought I'd wait to hang things on the wall until I repainted....flash forward 3 years...I still have not repainted!  On top of that she typically gets Ainsley's hand-me-downs.  My goal is to do something for her by this spring!

In the meantime, Emmie has taken it upon herself to fill her room with her treasures. And honestly I love it.  I don't know if I can take it down to paint her walls!

The decorations on her walls are constantly morphing and changing.  I love the random things that she finds worthy of a coveted spot on the wall.

And just because:

I found these pictures on my phone.  Emmie took them. They do a beautiful job of showing what is important to her right now.  She asked for an American Girl Doll for Christmas.  Although, she doesn't know what an American Girl doll is, other than the fact that it's an 18 inch doll.  Santa must have realized that, because in stead of one doll he brought her 2 my generations dolls, and a horse, and a bed, and a new outfit.  And she loves them all!

She is very good about making sure that her dolls, Reese and April, are constantly entertained.  She puts them to bed each night and gets them dressed and makes their bed each morning.

She is also good about taking the horse out for walks regularly.  I'm am loving how much fun she is having with these dolls.

Family Ski Day

Our family gift for Christmas this year was a family day up at Bogus skiing.  Except for Emmie. She has no interest in skiing.  She opted for a movie day with Grandma instead.  The plan was to go over Christmas break, but due to a really cold front and John's on-call schedule we postponed it to the Saturday after Christmas break. 

The good news is that Bogus has had tons of snow this year!  The bad news is that everyone in the valley wants to take advantage of the good snow.  We drove up with Kortney, Dan, Bria, and Bailey.  We were expecting it to be busy.  But it was insane!!! I couldn't believe how many people were there!  We just bought tickets for the coach lift since John hadn't skied for over 20 years, Ainsley and I have only been skiing twice, and everyone else was on the mountain for the first time.

Even though we had to fight crowds and most of the kids (and Dan) were learning to ski the day went really well.  Everyone was successful!  Owen is a little speed demon.  And Ainsley picked up right where she left off.  Even John had a blast...which was shocking seeing as how he didn't even really want to go!

Christmas 2015

It seemed that the time between putting up the tree this year and taking it down went way too quickly this year.  The month was full of fun and crazy.  We set up the tree as soon as we got home from Salt Lake. 

I'm not sure why Emmie is holding these particular ornaments in this picture...but I'm glad she is.  I don't know that I've ever mentioned the angel on the top of our tree (or maybe I have and this is just repetition!).  For years I looked for the perfect topper for our tree.  I considered all options.  But nothing seemed quite right.  Oftentimes the topper I loved wouldn't even stand up on the tree.  I bought and returned quite a few.  Then one December, when Ainsley was probably in kindergarten or first grade, she brought home this beautifully colored angel.  And since we had no tree topper, it took it's place on top of the tree that year.  It has somehow become a tradition.  I even found an angel that I loved this year while Christmas shopping but I couldn't bring myself to buy it.  For now, and for who knows how long, we will have a paper angel on top of our tree.

Flash forward to Christmas Eve!  Where Ainsley was in much better spirits than in the previous picture.  The kids all got Star Wars pajamas this year.  John took the kids to see it the week before Christmas...they were all fans.

We spent Christmas Eve with the entire Welch clan at my parents house.  We feasted and the kids put on an incredible program.  I'm so mad at myself for not taking any pictures!  But he performance Emmie gave portraying Frosty the Snowman is one that will be remembered forever.

We spent Christmas morning at home and had a great time.  Santa must have nailed it this year because each of the kids gave audible gasps as they came down the stairs this year.  John and I were completely blown away due to the number of thank you's we heard come out of Owen's mouth.  It was amazing!

After opening gifts my parents came over to join us for breakfast.  The kids and I spent the day being lazy but John had to go into work for a few hours (he was on call this year...it was a bummer).  We got to talk to John's parents in Australia which was nice.  And I spent my day drawing on Emmie's Boogie Board.  Kortney's family and my parents came back that night for dinner and to hang out.  It was such a nice day.  So nice that I didn't get around to doing breakfast dishes until 5:00 that night. I wish everyday could be like that!

15th Anniversary

John and I celebrated 15 years of wedded bliss last month.  And I didn't take a single picture of our Anniversary.  I was clever enough to get married less than 10 days before Christmas, and on my mother's birthday.  So celebrating has proven hard over the years.  This year we spent the morning of our anniversary at Costco, and then I went to lunch with my mom.  We did take time to go out the following weekend though.  And while I should post a picture of the happy couple...instead I'll post a picture of the awesome gift John gave me this year.  He surprised me with an anniversary band to add to my engagement ring and wedding band.  I love it!  John has always wanted me to have a more "impressive" ring.  I've always been happy with the one I've worn for 15 years now.  I thought it suited me well.  But I must admit that I'm in love with the sparkly new addition.

Thanksgiving and a Farewell

For Thanksgiving this year we were able to go down to Utah to spend the holiday with John's family. We also went because John's parents were leaving on their mission and their farewell was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Alene's birthday was also on Thanksgiving this year! So there was a lot to celebrate at the Dinger house! We had a fun week! The kids played with cousins and we had time to catch up with family that we don't often get to see. There was lots of food and lots of crazy. But I think everyone had a good time.  

While we were there the kids got to play in the snow.  Our car died so we got to buy a new battery.  Yay.  We got to visit Temple Square.  And we got to hear John's parents speak in church.  They both did an amazing job.  We're so excited for their adventures in Australia!