Ruby girl turns 1!

My Ruby girl turned one at the beginning of May!

My puppy is no longer a puppy.

Psh...who am I kidding, of course she still is!

To celebrate, we made hamburgers for dinner and made a mini-cheeseburger for her.
Dan and I even sang Happy Birthday to her.
She just looked at us with her head cocked to the side, probably thinking we're a bunch of crazies and to just give her the dang burger already.
It was so anticlimactic.
I honestly was a little disappointed.
She practically swallowed the patty whole!
We looked at each other, exchanging the "well that was real exciting" glance.
And then it was over.
We didn't do presents or even get a birthday hat for her.
I knew she wouldn't sit still long enough to get a picture in the hat, so I bagged the whole thing.
We did end up giving her another mini-cheeseburger, in pieces this time so it hopefully digested a little better.

We did try to take a family selfie.
Here's how well that turned out.

Turns out its a wee bit difficult to get a puppy to focus on the camera.

Dan and I sat down later and poured through our phones (okay mostly my phone) looking at all the pictures we have of her from this first year.
I knew the instant I started taking pictures of her that people would laugh at me.
She is a dog after all.
But there is something to be said for getting a dog before you have children.
The dog becomes your child.
And in retrospect, I wouldn't take back any of those pictures, because I can look at each one and smile.

Miss Ruby may very well have been the one of the best decision we've made thus far in our marriage.
She's teaching us to be better parents, and especially about patience and problem solving.
Hopefully some of what we've learned will translate into parenting our own children some day.

Some of the highlights:
1. She was obsessed with biting at my ankles for the first few weeks after we got her.
I was CONVINCED she hated me, or was racist, because she never did that to Dan.

2. Potty training in the middle of the night.
Good  hell...I am so grateful we got her when we did, and that it was summer and I was only working two days a week.
I got so little sleep that first week because I was waking up every 2 hours to take her out potty.
Thankfully, it was worth it and we had her potty trained by the end of the first two weeks, and down to only one potty break at 3 am.

3. Falling asleep literally everywhere, in every position.
She initially would fall asleep on her back, which I thought was the weirdest thing ever.
Eventually she started curling up in a ball, and will occasionally stretch out on her belly with her legs outstretched.

4. We moved her from her small kennel to a big one way too soon.
Huge mistake.
She's never slept in a kennel since, but has taken to her dog bed quite nicely.
And then around 6 months old, she decided she needed to sleep in our bed from 3:30 am till we got up at 6.
We've tried to break it, but now we're to the point where I'm so tired that I don't even care if she gets in the bed or not.
Dan swears with our next dog, they will be sleeping outside to avoid the above problem.

5. She always wants to be with us, and be close to us.
Literally.
If you move and she is snuggling next to you, she will get up and move closer, sitting on top of you to be close to you.

I love that she always wants to be with us.
It's only frustrating when she's whining because she knows we're leaving...even when we're taking her with us!

6. It's one of my favorite things to watch her track birds, especially when we're on walks.
She's done this since she was tiny little.
It's hilarious because we'll be on a walk around the neighborhood and she will stop dead in her tracks to stare down the birds.

We've been so blessed to have this beautiful little lady in our lives.
I can't even begin to picture my life without her.
Happy first birthday Ruby girl!

Christmas 2014

This year was an all-out boycott against Christmas.

Really, I've never felt more like a Scrooge in my entire life.

It was all for good reason you see.

We're making a trip in March to see my most favoritest nephew ever get baptized.

After much discussion and deliberation (flights ain't cheap!), we decided to forego Christmas this year.

We didn't even put up the tree.

This part was pretty unfortunate in retrospect.

I think it would have felt a lot more like Christmas had the tree been up.

But I just didn't trust that this little lady would leave the tree alone.

The absolute LAST thing I wanted to deal with was a destroyed Christmas tree among other things.

Also, starting a new job + finishing school doesn't lend itself well to preparing for Christmas.

Honestly, it was a minor miracle that I even sent out Christmas cards.

Trying to figure out what to get Dan just about sent me over the edge.
All these things combined led to the decision to boycott Christmas this year.
At least the presents aspect of it.

It was one of the most low-key and relaxed Christmases I have ever had, and probably will ever have in my life.
Aside from wishing I had put the tree up, I don't regret for a second the decision to boycott presents.
There was no stress as far as trying to get presents for Dan.
No anxiety the night before over said presents.
I was actually able to sleep the night before.
Minor miracle.

The only real stress was sending out Christmas cards, and Christmas goodies.
And making sure I didn't forget anyone.
In case I forgot you:
Merry Christmas!

This year for our neighbors Dan wanted to make homemade peach jam and Hawaiian sweet bread.
Since Dan was working like a fiend right before Christmas (all those good sales on cars are difficult to pass up!), it was left up to me to make the bread.
I have never made this bread before in my life.
Dan's dad makes it perfectly!
Needless to say, I had a pretty high standard to live up to.
Thankfully, everything turned out just fine.
Total bragging, but I received several compliments on that bread.

My sister had her baby two days before Christmas, so my family was here.
We went to my grandparents, opened a few family presents, and just relaxed.

The low "key-ness" actually gave me an opportunity to reflect on the most important things at Christmas.
Family. Faith. Friends.
The presents are nice.
The tree is nice.
But it's not important.
I looked at my little nativity sitting in the window many many times through December.
I actually never took it down from last year.
It helped me remember that Christmas is about Christ, and the ones we love most.
I count myself blessed to have my little Ruby and my sweet Dan to hold each night.

Destruction at it's finest

Lately, Miss Ruby has taken to being a destructive little crap face. 

And I say crap face with the utmost love for her. 

But really. Dan sent me this picture last night while I was working at the hospital.

Yeah. She tore open the couch. 

To what end, I'll never know nor will I understand. 

She baffles me when she acts out.

She really never destroys anything. Not even when she was teething. 

And now, at almost 5 months old, she's taken to being destructive. 

Go team.

Thankfully 98% of the time, she's cute and snuggly like this.

Oh Ruby girl. 

You slay me sometimes. 

Here's to much more frequent and longer walks to get out this excess puppy energy. 

Meet Miss Ruby

We became a family of three on 6.14.14. 

We added this sweet girl to our family. 

Meet Miss Ruby. 

Since I have been absolutely horrendous about blogging, we're playing catch up. Fair warning: I take wayyy too many pictures of Ruby and I'm sure a fair amount will end up on this post.

 She's my fur child. Enough said. 

We always peruse ksl looking at the cute doggies and puppies that are for sale. Dan and I both grew up with dogs and we knew it was only a matter of time before we got a dog of our own. 

Obviously, we didn't plan on getting a dog before we bought a house or had a bigger yard, but we would look anyway. It's like looking at pictures of houses you know you can never buy, or afford at this point. But you look anyway. Dreaming makes all the struggles of being poor and newly married worth it. 

On this particular day, we came across a picture of a 6 week old "redbone pitbull." Disclaimer: Dan and I have talked about, on several occasions, getting a pitbull. All those rescue videos always bring me to tears and they are such sweet loyal dogs, and fantastic with kids. I had never heard of a redbone pitbull though. So we googled it and got results for both redbone hounds and pitbulls. After much deduction and deliberation *sarcasm* we realized she was a mix. 

Dan called the lady who was selling her to find out the info: why she was getting rid of her, etc. It boiled down to the simple fact that Ruby was 6 weeks old and just required a lot of attention that the lady did not have to give Ruby. 

Side note: we're not allowed to have pets at our apartment. Our awesome upstairs neighbors though encouraged us to call and ask anyway. We had lived here for a while, and not to brag, but we're pretty good tenants. Bottom line: it couldn't hurt to ask, right?

A very nerve wracking conversation (our landlords are fantastic, I just really didn't want the answer to be "no"), and an hour or so wait to hear back from them, they said we could get a dog!! I grinned from ear to ear, and jumped up and down while laughing and telling Dan to call the lady and tell her we would come get Ruby. It really was absolutely insane and completely impulsive.

On the drive out to get her, we stopped and got a little bed and a collar. We got a size small, and it was so stinking tiny that Dan and I both questioned whether or not it would be too small for her. We also quickly ran through everything to make sure we would be able to afford having a dog. We threw around some names as well. Dan came up with Ruby, because she has a red/brown coat and he wanted her to have a girly name. 

When we finally got to the house, Ruby came outside and ran across the side walk. My heart melted in that very instant and I'm pretty sure it was love. She was the cutest little puppy I had every seen in my entire life. We went straight over to PetsMart after to pick up some food and grab some puppy toys for her. I carried her on my forearm through the store. *This detail is important to me because now when I carry her anywhere it's extremely difficult. She's too heavy. 

That first night was super rough. We didn't have a kennel yet, but she slept in her bed. She cried a lot and we ended up leaving the light on for a while so she could see we were there. I didn't hardly sleep at all because I kept waking up each time she would move. I've never been a light sleeper, so this was a huge adjustment for me. Whenever we would leave the house, we had to barricade her in the kitchen and used one baby gate for each door. Within a month, she learned how to climb over that gate. 

Potty training took about a week to get down--a lot of repetition and potty breaks in the middle of the night. I was so excited when she finally was waking up only once to pee. She had been sleeping in her kennel, and then we moved her into a XL size kennel. All the advice books said to keep the kennels small  because it prevents them from peeing in their bed. Well, we didn't do that, and she didn't have problems with peeing. But she kept waking up and crying/barking in the middle of the night. 

Then she started sleeping in our bed. It didn't bother us at all, and she stopped waking up in the middle of the night to pee almost immediately. There she has stayed until very recently. For the last few days, she has started falling asleep in her kennel. I leave the door open and she stays there. Sometime in the middle of the night, she usually ends up in our bed, but I'm definitely okay with that. She's quite the little snuggle bug and I really love it. 

Right now she is teething. It's actually been fine except when we will randomly find blood on some of her toys. We've only found 1 tooth so far, and it was a really small one! 

She is almost 4 months old and weighs almost 40lbs. See what I mean, she's way too big to be carrying around, although we still do try. She is almost the size all my dogs were growing up. So from here on out, her size will be a totally new experience for me! We were told she would be about 50lbs full grown. Obviously that was wrong considering she is almost that big now. 75lbs is probably more accurate.  

At 11 weeks, she weight 22.4 lbs. Three weeks later, she was a little over 30lbs. We have already been to the vet because she threw up 5x in one night. Turns out puppies are not supposed to have bones to chew on unless they are really good and cooked. One expensive vet bill and obsessively waiting for her to poop and pass rocks, we came to the conclusion that her little tummy was just upset from the richness of the bone. 

She is learning and growing so fast and Dan and I have loved each and every minute of it. She loves going on walks and playing tug of war. We have fetch down fairly well, but releasing the object is something we're still working on. She points and loves to watch the birds. Dan can't wait to teach her to go hunting with him. She still has her moments, and tantrums. As I type, she's curled up in my lap. She still thinks she is that tiny little puppy who couldn't even jump up on the couch. 

I came home one day to find her walking on top of our table. I told Dan I would never have believed she could do it unless I saw it with my own eyes. The other day I actually caught her in the act and of course had to snap a picture. She also loves sleeping on top of the couch cushions. All the time. 

She has been such a blessing to us, and I don't know how we ever got along without her. She has taught me so much about being patient and reminded me how much love animals have. I love her fiercely wagging tail whenever either Dan or I get home. She is so genuinely excited to see us, I'm sure she'd lick our face off if we let her. We love you Ruby girl!!