Lucy's 10th birthday!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful Lucy that is 10 years old today.
DOUBLE DIGETS!!!!

She wanted to take friends to go see the new Monster's Inc movie so we did.

Such a cute group of girls. They we just laughing and giggeling.

And eating monsters!

Keaton's accident

We been raising children for 15 years now and never have any of them broken a bone until now. Our little 20 month Keaton broke his tibia on the trampoline. As sad as this has been, I keep thinking that this was a huge blessing.

Everyone adores Keeter, but Lucy is especially obsessed with him. She plays with him all the time and he adores her. Keaton will try to follow in whatever she is doing or try to repeat what she is saying. Lucy is also obsessed with gymnastics and the trampoline. She loves doing flips and round offs and bouncing all day long. Keaton wants to be on the trampoline with her but most of the time he just gets to watch her from the patio door. We have explained to Lucy over and over that bouncing Keaton too high could cause serious injuries.

When the accident happened Lucy was standing up holding his hand bouncing softly. She let go of his hand and threw herself backwards and bounced on her back. This was essentially causing Keaton to be double bounced and threw him up really high and he came down with his legs crossed and the weight of his body landing on the bottom leg. 

For such an active little guy that loves to run and be outside, having his movement restricted so drastically has been really frustrating for him. He is not really old enough to understand what happened or articulate his frustrations. Luckily he only has to wear a cast for 4 weeks because babies heal so quickly.

Why do I view this as a HUGE blessing for Keaton and Lucy? Because luckily he ONLY broke his leg, and he will only be restricted for 4 weeks. He could have just as easily landed a little further forward, broke his neck and been in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. As painful as this has been for Lucy, she learned a HUGE lesson about her actions and consiquences . The torture of seeing her brother struggle for a few weeks is nothing compared to what it could have been. 

So thankful for these blessings!

Happy Father's day!

We could not ask for a better dad, seriously he is amazing!

Not only is he patient and kind, forgiving and willing to sacrifice anything for us, but he is hilarious and has such great style :)

Big Eric and little Eric

We LOVE you!

Haley's new whippet Paisley

As we were driving home from our last dog show Haley was in the car looking up whippets on her phone. She informed me that she wanted her own whippet. She was tired of going to the shows watching everyone else show and have whippets and she just has to stand there holding leashes for people. She said that she wanted her own whippet. 

(deep breath)

I tried to blow it off and explain that she doesn't have the time for a dog. I tried several other reasons it would not work out and she continued to shut me down. I quickly realized that she was probably going to get one and that brought several problems to mind. First, I wanted to make sure that she got a Starline whippet because of their quality and temperament. Second, Eric has said that we have a 3 dog maximum at our house so one of our dogs would have to go to a new home. Third, dog showing was Ruby's deal first so we had to set up boundries and draft a contract that both girls would be comfortable with. Fourth, she had to pay for her own dog... and they are not cheep.

In the meantime I texted Jaime (Penelope's breeder) and asked if she knew of any Starline puppies available. She quickly texted back that they were looking for a home for Lalique (Lala). She had previously been sold to another breeder with Chinese Chins and the placement was not working out because Lala viewed the Chins as play toys.

After a couple of months, tons of phone calls, text messages and Haley digging irrigation ditches to earn enough money, we signed the contract to purchase Lala. The only problem was I had to fly to the Seattle area to pick her up from a show. So I did.

She seemed really sad to leave her Starline family with a total stranger, get in a car for an hour then take two different flights. I don't know if she was just terrified, but she was so well behaved and sweet I could not believe it.

She slept under my feet on both airplane rides. Never fussed at all.

When we got home and she was soooo happy to see another whippet. It was like they were twins separated at birth that had just been reunited.

Haley was in heaven, but it took a day for Lala (renamed Paisley) to fall in love with Haley. 

Babysitting

Keaton was pushed into Haley's room with this taped to his back.

It must have been a doozie to offer $10!