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The Games Puppies Play
Enzo likes to play.
Enzo does not know how to play.
He doesn’t understand the concept of fetch.
His idea of running around the yard is to attack our ankles.
He thinks that biting feet and pants and fingers is a fun game. We do not.
So in an effort to play with Enzo and still keep all out fingers and toes, the Duck-On-A-Stick was born.
Veronica
We Thrive On Sunshine
Like everyone else I have talked to (by everyone I mean family, co-workers, random people at the gym and literally every person I have had a brief weather conversation with), the Turner household is SO ready for Spring! It is truly remarkable what a little sunshine and above freezing temperature does for the psyche.
On Saturday, the temp peaked around 40/45 degrees and you better believe that Sean and I were out of the house with Enzo in tow. Enzo has gotten this new wave of energy the last couple of days so Sean and I took him for a long (long for puppy legs) walk around the nearby neighborhoods. He has trouble leaving the the house but once it is out of eyesight he is more than happy to trot between Sean and I.
Sunday was not as warm but the sun did come out. I took Enzo for another long walk before my friend Lauren came over to eat lunch with me. Sean was at work so she came to keep me company and meet Enzo. As soon as Lauren and I sat down to eat, Enzo found his new favorite spot by the sliding glass door in the ray of sunshine and proceeded to sleep through our lunch. He loves the sunshine as much as Sean and I do!
Veronica
Dear Enzo…
Can we talk? I have a few things I would like to ask you about.
We will start off with an easy one: why do you want to bite my sweatpants? Although only $5 men’s Target sweatpants that I cut the ankle elastic out of, they are my favorite and I don’t want holes in them. Baggy with a little paint is fine, but holes cross the line.
How come you don’t enjoy taking a bath? This one boggles my mind. It’s warm. You essentially get a massage because you don’t have opposible thumbs to be able to do it yourself. And you leave feeling clean. I don’t get it.
Also what is so appealing about the right side of your kennel that has made you decide to start chewing on it…today? It hasn’t changed since yesterday. You have a chew stick that you seemed to like.
How do you get the hiccups? Do you notice you have the hiccups? Do you care that you have the hiccups? Do you even know what they hiccups are? Okay, I will stop.
Do you dream? Sometimes you make noises when you are in your kennel. Sounds like you just got getting attacked or just got a treat – not sure.
Lastly but most important, why did you pee in your kennel yesterday morning? I took you for a walk. I gave you a treat. You were quiet when I left. Why so tricky?
Love,
Your (Human) Mom
A Family of Three
Sean and I have now been joined by Enzo. He is an 8 week old silver grey Weimaraner.
Sean found a breeder online in Smith Center, KS which is about 4 hours west of Kansas City. We made the trek on Valentine’s Day to pick him out. The breeders were super nice! We played with 3 of the male puppies but Enzo was the one for us! He was playful but calm all at the same time. Sean and I were so excited but we had to wait until the next week to get him.
The breeders delivered Enzo to our house exactly a week later. Sean and I have definitely had to make some adjustments to our routine but Enzo has been worth all of it!
Look for more updates as Enzo figures out how to be a Turner!
Veronica
A Very Logan Christmas: Day 2
The little ones were up bright and early at 8. Austin and Wyatt came into out bedroom first and snuggled up until Bettie came in. Then we all headed downstairs for some pancakes. Chocolate chip of course! Later in the morning Maggie and Mollie rolled out of bed looking for some breakfast.
Once everyone was clean and dressed, we did Gingerbread Houses: Round 1 – The Building. For the past 3 years, I have made gingerbread houses with the Logans. I buy the same pre-made kit from Michaels. It comes with the house pieces, icing, candy, the whole 9 yards! We have found, though, that one person does not have enough hands to put icing on the pieces while also holding up the already iced pieces so this year we broke up into teams. Bettie, Austin, Wyatt and I made each of their houses while Sean, Maggie and Mollie assembled theirs. It was smooth sailing! No sliding roofs or sagging walls! They looked totally legit!
We broke for lunch while the houses hardened enough to be decorated. I laid down a sheet on the kitchen table, opened up all the extra candy, made 5 pastry bags full of icing and then Gingerbread Houses: Round 2 - The Decorating began!
The boys did eventually decoarte their houses but since the sun was shining and it was relatively warm, they decided they would rather play horseshoes. Sean obliged and taught them how to play.
For me, the highlight of the whole weekend was ice skating. We took all 5 to the ice skating rink that is literally 2 minutes from our house. I didn’t know how Austin and Wyatt would do since it was their first time but everyone had a great time!
Sean took Wyatt’s hand and showed him how to balance and move around the ice in his skates. They slowly skated around the rink. It was maybe 30 minutes in until his eyes lit up and he figured out that he had gotten the hang of it. He still held tight to either Sean or my hand, but he enjoyed every second of it.
Bettie worked the whole time to learn how to skate backwards. Since this was her second time ice skating, she had the forward part down!
Besides being absolutely beautiful, Maggie and Mollie raced around and hung out with all of us.
Austin took maybe a minute to adjust and became a skating machine. He was the only one that skated for the entire 2 hours. Sean took the other 4 kids back home while Austin and I continued to skate around the rink.
Once we all got home and warm, we sat down for dinner. We added a few extra seats to accomodate, and it was a wonderful dinner together!
The night ended with some fresh baked cookies and the rest of Up.
We all crashed as soon as the movie ended. It was a truly wonderful day! So many good times that this post could get really long.
Veronica
A Very Logan Christmas: Day 1
The Logan kids, yes, all five!, came to spend the weekend with Sean and I. Following a swim meet and a few other activities they arrived at our house around 5 o’clock Saturday evening. For all but Bettie this was the first time they had been to the house since we moved in, and they made themselves right at home.
We started by making dinner. I had to make 2 pizzas instead of the usual 1!
While the pizza was in the oven, there was quite a bit of concentration over a game of Jenga.
It was a good time!
After dinner we got out Apples to Apples. We had to edit some of the cards down to make sure that everyone understood but once the boys got the hang of it, there was a lot of laughter!
Maggie and Mollie knew how the game worked and were able to put down some pretty hysterical cards. Bettie was very literal and only picked the one that matched the adjective. There was no thinking out of the box!
Austin on the other hand was so excited to go out of the box with his cards! So much so that on many occasions he blurted out “That was mine” as the cards were being read because he was just so proud of his obscure selection. The best hand was when Sean laid down “Weird” and Austin laid down “Canadians”. Needless to say, Sean and the rest of us died laughing and Austin won that hand.
Even Wyatt had fun – he and I were on a team. I was in charge of reading the cards and he was the card-chooser. He cracked up the most when he drew the card “Being in Love”. Apparently 6 year-olds find that to be extrememly hysterical. He could barely contain himself!
There was some snacking during the game. These kids demolished an entire bag of grapes in one night!
Next up was Kerplunk. This was a little bit of a let-down. It took longer to set up than it did to play but we stuck with it.
The most exciting part of the night was opening presents! As soon as the boys saw their names on the packages it was all they could think about- “Can we open them now?” “When are we going to open presents?” “Are we opening presents yet?”
To please Stephanie, each kid opened their presents one at a time and I took pictures. Every Christmas, their mom, Stephanie, makes them sit on the couch with all of their presents laid out around them to take pictures. It can be a painful experience so I did not make them do that but I did what I could!
If you coulnd’t tell from the pictures, we got them new pajames! Everyone needs Christmas jammies!
The last part of the evening was spent watching Up and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows. It was so incredibly wonderful to snuggle up with all of these kids. When I babysat them, my favorite part of the day was at night after they were bathed and in clean pajamas. I would sit in the big green chair and one by one they would come sit with me. One on my lap, one squeezed in beside me, one on the ottoman in between my legs. It was wonderful!
However back then there was none of this:
Caught ya!
Phew! I am worn out just recapping all that! And that was only half of a day. I will be back with the rest soon!
Veronica
Praise Report….
Hi Friends!
For those old school CFSers out there, my title is a little throwback to the elementary years. For everyone, I would like to report that I might just have found the best husband. Why you ask. The list could go on and on but here are a couple:
Every morning I walk downstairs – ok more like run downstairs because I am 30 seconds away from being late to work – to find my lunch packed and my breakfast neatly waiting for me in the refrigerator.
I am a little OCD – nothing new there – and Sean very lovingly washed all the grapes last night so that they did not have any dirt on them.
I am currently sitting at my desk at work eating my clean grapes and wondering how in the world I managed to get so lucky!
Hope you have a great Wednesday!
Veronica
A New Addition!
Sean and I have recently adopted a new member of the family…. a Garmin Forerunner! (No, not a dog like you might have been expecting – and certainly no babies in our near future!) After reading so many blogs where people were able to document there mile splits, exact mileage and so on with such accuracy, we decided that it was time we checked it out. We decided on the Forerunner after trying it on at Best Buy. Had to make sure it wasn’t too bulky or uncomfortable!
Sunday was our first attempt at using it while we ran. We were in Columbia for MU Homecoming so we went to the Katy Trail – a little piece of heaven on earth! We decided that we would run 4 miles and begin slow – a 10:30 pace and then speed it up from there. The plan was great in all, but turns out that my normal speed is more like a 12 minute mile so the 10:30 pace felt like a sprint! That was a blow to the self-esteem! On top of that, the Forerunner is not instant – ie after about 30 seconds you get a true reading of your pace not right away. We didn’t really know that so we were slowing down and speeding up faster than the Forerunner could handle. It is comical now but definitely was not at the time. We did end up completing 4 miles, but it was not pretty and only slightly enjoyable.
Last night we decided to give the Forerunner another chance. We spent some time setting up an interval program – 4 min run: 1 min walk. Let me tell you – this little guy is a champ! We pressed start and it told us everything we needed to know. Run for 4:00! Speed up! In Desired Zone! Slow Down! It was like running with a personal trainer. I absolutely loved it. We did 2.66 miles in 30 min! We average a 11:16 mile and got up to a 9:54 pace for the last 4 min run. It was such a great experience. A far cry from the torture that was our Sunday run!
Happy Wednesday!
- Veronica
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