tressel

"How's the dog?" People ask me that all the time. About a month ago to say that I hate him would have been an understatement but now things are going better. He is potty trained and listens sometimes and it overall a good dog. He does know the meaning of the word "no" which is good. His worst habits are chewing (especially books and shoes) and eating out of the kids hands and off the counter tops if we leave stuff out. If I remember to tie him up when we go in the kitchen we can avoid both of the bad kitchen manners. He is getting bigger. Probably he's about 60 lbs. When we got him he was 18. Another challenge is getting him enough exercise. Really the only thing that adequately wears him out is playing with other dogs. I need to find a neighbor with a dog his age so they can wear each other out. All of the neighborhood dogs I've met so far (and you meet quite a few when you're out for walks) don't like to play with a puppy but it would be great to find one who would. We do go to dog park but you never know if there will be fun dogs there, so sometimes it is a waste of time.

Tressel does not like swimming. This minor hang up has not stopped (my bro) Scott from putting tressel in the pool every day. He still hasn't learn to swim to the steps..he just swims to the side that is closest to him but he can't get out unless he does go to the steps. So I suppose it is good practice for him in case he ever did fall in. I really doubt he would fall in. One good thing about him swimming is that he does get really tired!



ps. don't you think he'll look great in a sweater vest come fall? I think I might have to make him one

i lied

I have time to post a couple of pics from our mutual beach trip last night.

this is my orphan looking child, Alexey. She loves the beach and doesn't think that getting dirty dampens the fun at all. We went to the beach straight from another appointment where the kids had received Popsicles and that is why alexey is covered in orange goo. As a side note, her hair looked like it had a tint of red for the first time that I have noticed.

Calvin at the top of the people pyrimad.


Clare bear with friend lauren.


I love the evening beach trips. It is great to not have to use sunscreen and watch the sunset and roast hotdogs and smores. So fun! The only bummer is when the kids fall asleep on the way home and you have to decide whether to wake them up for a bath or put them to bed sandy. With the girls we always wake them up but sometimes Calvin goes to bed sandy (he is the least happy when he gets woken up and cares the least about a little sand in bed)!

no time to blog

Elder Holland is coming to town so we are putting on a stake pioneer concert this week and it will be amazing. I *accidently* volunteered to be stage/tech manager and it is keeping me very busy. As a delightful bonus I am conducting a family choir of about 45 people singing "homeward bound".

Here is a recording of BYU singers singing it. In our song we will use the primary age kids in our choir to sing the beginning and end instead of a soloist. We are also using bells as they do in this recording. It is awesome!

brothers....

Before Dan left home (about a month ago) I told him that he needed to take the time to clean his room. He graciously agreed and spent an entire day cleaning ....so now his room looks like this:


can you imagine what it looked like BEFORE he cleaned? You wouldn't want to...

even so, we miss him terribly and would have him (and his mess) back if we could.

We are excited to have Scott (my bro) and Lance come visit this week and then Dave's bro Ben come out a little later so my project this week will be to get this room ready for people to live in!

at our house

Clare started dance class. SHE IS IN HEAVEN. She has been asking if she can have dance class for about a year. She has been wearing her ballerina clothes and shoes round the clock for weeks.




alexey loves to color on the wall. today I caught her and took her pen away so she cried. so cute. Tantrums are cute until about age 2. The big kids like to egg her on and teach her to do naughty stuff like color on the walls, hit the dog, yell at dinner, play in the toilet.... so they often get in trouble for her pranks. so,for those of you with just one I recommend making that kid a good one b/c he/she will eventually teach the younger ones all the bad stuff they do. For a while I was blessed with a great Clare after a difficult Calvin. Calvin is teaching her how to be naughty and mischievous. She will never be as bad as him but he likes to try.


tressel got neutered so he had to wear this silly thing for 2 weeks. It was a huge pain == so noisy and made him even more of a hazard for knocking the kids over since his head circumference grew by 2 feet and when he thought he'd just rush pass a kid, he'd actually run them over.