My First Mother's Day

My first Mother's Day was pretty neat!
I woke up and hopped in the shower to get ready for church. Scott came home with flowers and dark chocolates for me. mmmm..I love the new Snickers Dark!

I decided to make myself a cake, after church. So we went to church where I got lots of Mother's Day wishes and a flowering plant. It was my first time staying with Pixie for the whole 3 hour block! I didn't have to spend too much time in the mother's lounge, but she was pretty done by the time Relief Society rolled around. Aren't we all? :) Actually, I enjoy it now!

We got home and as I walked in the door the phone was ringing. It was Scott's Dad with more Mother's Day wishes! I checked the messages after his call and I got one from Scott's Grandma Maridee and our friend, Danny! Then after that Sam called too. I felt SO special! ;)
I made us a really good chinese meal. I recently bought Scott a Presto Cool Daddy deep fryer and I threw some egg rolls in there, along with some curry cream cheese wontons I made. Yummy! All made possible by Scott holding Pixie for me. Then I went to work on making my cake while Scott napped. However, since his family was all in town, they were getting together at 4pm and he went over there while I was finishing my cake. At 4:45 I got a call from Scott saying that everyone was leaving at 5:30 and some of them hadn't seen Pixie yet. So, I covered my un-iced cake to rush over there when I heard "something" and "felt" something on my hand. After a diaper change and trying to get the stain out of Pixie's new dress I bought her the day before, I loaded her up and made it over there with 20 min. to spare!
After visiting, I decided to pick something up at my sister's house and she invited us to stay for a lasagna dinner. I couldn't pass that up!
By the time we got home I was so tired and we went to bed.
My cake didn't get made until Monday morning. However, it was so darn tasty that I didn't mind too much.

White cake with raspberry filling and butter cream frosting. This was my wedding cake too! Oh Yum!

My Super Nova

6 months old.

So, I have a wonderful and crazy dog, Nova.

She is a two year old, 20 lbs, rat terrier/husky mix.
We have had Nova since she was 4 months old when we started shopping
around at shelters for a dog and she was the perfect fit..a big and small dog all
wrapped into one!

Helping us paint the house.

Nova has been my "baby" and companion for all this time. She snuggled with me under the blankets when Scott was working on cold winter nights. She even sat next to me all the times I threw up with morning sickness. She would sit and wait, then sometimes come up and lick my arm once, then go back to sitting with me.
I did my best to prepare her for her impending doom. Dun dun dun.......the BABY.

In trouble.

Look at that tongue!

To my surprise, she has been WONDERFUL with Pixie. The other day I was taking a
shower with the coveted 10 min. of goodness while Pixie was in her rocker chair.
I must have taken 11 minutes to shower because she was screaming when I got out.
Nova was lying near her and I got out and made an impression of Pixie for her.
"Baby Pixie just goes waaaaaaahhh all the time!"
Nova looked at me, then at Pixie, then back at me and she seemed to say
"yeah, you're telling me!"

Sleeping in "her" recliner. She also stands on the arm and puts her paws on the window sill to keep watch out the window all day.

A close up of her tongue sticking out while she was sleeping in the last picture.

We have accomplished a lot of training with Nova. She still gets really excited when people come over, but I would hate to see what she would be like without any training at all!

Our successful tricks have been:
House breaking!
Going to the bathroom on command and in under two minutes.
The usual sit, stay, down, and off.
Sit up, high five, fetch.
Teaching a non-howling dog to howl.
To only get on non-approved furniture when invited...unless new people are here..arg.
Teaching her "English".
"Paws Off", if she's standing on something.
To go in her cage on demand. "Go to sleep" or "Go to bed", if she's in trouble.
Saying "what did you do?" and finding out if she really did anything by her reaction.
To ring a bell to go outside. That didn't last long..it was being rung constantly.
Taking a bath without any struggle to get her in there.
To play "which hand?" (explained in the video)



So what else do you do to ensure the safety and the safe return of your beloved pet,
if it gets lost? We did the usual city license tag, a micro-chip, the vet number with her i.d.
BUT what if someone finds her and doesn't want to give her back? We don't have the money to go to the expense of a GPS tracker for her...so we got a medical alert tag and put our phone number on the back. That way people will think she has some awful medical condition and won't want to keep her!