Weekend in Birmingham!

Last weekend we went to Birmingham and stayed with Chris' brother, Justin, and his wife Adriane. We had the best time catching up with them and watching Bailey play with their dog, Piper. They loved eachother-- though Bailey was definitely trying to be the dominant one. She would take Piper's toys from her and lay in Pipers bed rather than her own. Then, when Piper would walk NEAR Bailey's bed she would go and guard it so Piper couldn't get to it, poor Piper. On Saturday, Justin, Adriane, Chris and I took the dogs over to Samford and let them run around on the quad. They had a blast! Bailey kept chasing after Piper's tail (according to my father-in-law, Ed, she has major tail envy!) so we would throw a tennis ball and Piper would chase the ball and Bailey was chasing Piper's tail. They were definitely entertaining! Amanda met up with us for a little bit too. It was great to see her!

I loved being back in Birmingham and walking around Samford's campus. The campus is so beautiful and the fall foliage against that blue sky made the campus even more gorgeous than it already is! Chris and I got to walk through the new student center on campus and are really jealous they didn't build it when we were there!

Saturday afternoon Chris and I went to visit Luke and Ali and their new baby girl, Savannah. She is so beautiful and so tiny! I could have held her all day long. Ali was doing great- I'm so proud of my friend! Mae got home from an afternoon with her grandfather just before we left so she got to play with Bailey for a few minutes. I just love that girl! I wish we lived closer to them.

The weekend was perfect-- beautiful weather, fall foliage (we don't get to see that down here in FL), family and friends.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to our dear friends Luke and Ali Allen who welcomed Savannah Grace into their family today! She was born sometime after 3:15 pm central time today, November 10th and weighed 8 lbs 4 oz. More details to follow!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

How to entertain your dog...

One of many firsts...

Today was mine and Bailey's first trip to the vet together. Her previous owners took her for her 8 week check-up, but this was a first for me! She did surprisingly well--she will be 12 weeks on Sunday Oct. 25 and she weighs 14 pounds! Chris and I are absolutely loving her!!!

How a dog changes your life.

Ok, so we have had Bailey for two and a half weeks now and our lives have changed so much! She is such a joy to have around and we love watching all of her small improvements with training. We laugh though, because our lives have changed a lot in these past 2 1/2 weeks and she is only a dog! We can't even imagine how much life will change when a child comes along. We find ourselves calculating how much time we can spend out of the house before we need to be home to let her out of the crate and take her to the bathroom. We have also experienced a taste of "parenthood"... the first few nights we had Bailey we got maybe an hour or two of sleep a night. She just cried and cried. (Just a little practice for our future, I guess). Chris and I are still waking up in the middle of the night to take her out to the bathroom. We are pretty good about trading off every other night. We started the first few nights getting up at 1:30 and 5:30. Today we are getting up at 4 am to take her out and then again at 6 when we wake up for the day... yes, we wake up WAY too early, but when you work you have to sacrifice things... sleep being one of those things! (I'm not a morning person...obviousy). We are hoping that by this weekend we are no longer having to wake up in the middle of the night to take her out.

Life is crazy and we have had to adjust to BOTH of us working 40 hours a week, adding a new member to the family AND keeping our house clean, but we are surviving and we wouldn't trade this life for anything.

Bailey

Some of you have known for a few weeks now that we were going to be getting a boxer puppy. Well, last night was the night! Bailey was finally able to come home with us! Here's the story:

Chris and I have been wanting a boxer for a very long time. Once we moved into our new home here in Florida we began our search. We had no idea where to find boxer breeders so I called a local vet one day. I asked if they knew of any breeders in the area and their first response was "no" but then said that a lady had been in just that morning with 2 day old boxer puppies. They told me they would get in touch with her to see if she was keeping the dogs or selling them. I gave them my number and a few days later received a phone call that the pups were available. There were 5 in the littler--3 boys and 2 girls. We were emailed pictures of the entire litter and one week later we went to visit them. As it turned out, the family lives in our neighborhood and are only 1.5 miles away from us.... perfect for weekly visits! The family we bought Bailey from own both the mom and the dad-- the litter was kind of an accident. haha! It was great being able to see both the mom and dad and learn about their different personalities. Bailey seems to be more like her mom right now, calm and cuddly. The owners and their children are great and we have really enjoyed getting to know them. They welcomed us into their home on a weekly basis, allowing us to watch Bailey grow and even become somewhat familiar with us before bringing her home. We hope to stay in touch with them and are actually already planning to meet up in the neighborhood for walks. One of the boys is going to a family in the neighborhood as well and the rest are going to be within 30 minutes of us so the family we bought her from are already planning to get them all together for their first birthday-- how fun will that be!?!? Anyways, we brought her home last night and were pleasantly surprised at how well she did her first night away from her mom and siblings. Enjoy the pics and I'll let you all know how our first week goes so be sure to come back for more!!

Immediately after she was born

3 weeks old

4 1/2 weeks old

5 weeks old

Bailey's first night at home

Night number 2... Chris fell asleep with Bailey on her bed

weekend fun

This past weekend our dear friends Luke, Ali and Mae came to visit on their way to Gulf Shores! Luke and Chris met during their fresham year at Samford and soon realized that their girlfriends would be attending Samford the following year and needed roommates. The rest is history. Ali and I lived together our freshman year and had a blast! She and Luke got engaged not long into our first semester at Samford and married the following year. They now have a 3 year old (well, almost 3!!) and another little girl on the way! Mae, the 3 year old has such a great personality and she is SO beautiful. She sure does love Mr. Chris! They played together a lot! We had such a great time visiting with them. We spent most of the day on Saturday at the beach and the weather was incredible! We spent a lot of time catching up, playing the Wii and eating! Here are some pictures from our time together. I wish we lived closer to each other!