Puppy Love

1 week old

We are all in LoVe!
We have lots of visitors everyday who come to see and snuggle the pups. 5 have already been claimed, but we aren't thinking about that yet. They are irresistible.
At one week old, they have more than DouBLeD their size. They have fur on their faces and ears now, and they have big fat pot bellies. We love how they cuddle up to each other and pile-up to go to sleep. Their eyes are still closed but they are starting to scoot and slide around a little bit. Daisy is getting cabin fever!

"They are trying to steal my birthday"

....Continued from last post:

Thursday March 18th (Will's B-day), started off like any other day. We got Millie and Sambo off to school, and as mentioned before, I started preparing to go out of town. The plan was that I was going to go on a girl's trip with 4 other friends to a cabin near Zion's park. BS was going to take the kids to St. George where he had some work on Friday (Uncle Denny and Aunt Marcia were going to take them to lunch and the park while Sam worked). I was going to meet up with the fam Saturday morning and we were all going to Vegas to meet up with the Clark aunts and uncles and grandpa and grandma.

Except, when BS went to feed Daisy at 9:00 am, he heard little squeaks coming from Daisy's dog bed. He looked in and this is what he saw:

He called me down and we looked at each other in disbelief. We felt excited and confused. To understand our confusion, you have to refer to here and here.

Daisy was in heat in January so we tried to breed her again. After spending 5 days at the stud's house, the owner told us that it wasn't successful...nothing had happened between the 2 dogs. We decided that Daisy just wasn't meant to have pups. Who knew that getting a dog pregnant could be so hard?

But, there was 1 instance (a couple days before Daisy went to see the stud) where I let Daisy out of the garage while I ran the kids to school. It was 15-20 minutes tops. I came home and there was a golden retriever named Chopper hanging around our house. Nothing exciting was happening between the 2 but I panicked for a minute and decided nothing happened.

Over the last couple weeks it has been pretty obvious that Daisy was pregnant. Except after the last attempt, we had a hard time believing it, especially since "nothing happened." Well, something did happen, we just don't know when or who.

Right now, it doesn't matter because we have a litter of the cutest, sweetest pups. When we looked in Daisy's dog house she had 4 puppies. We quickly set-up a space for them in the storage room, whelping box and all (BS built it last Fall). We made it nice and cozy for her. She took to it, and in the next couple of hours she delivered 6 more! That makes 10! We awed at the maternal instincts Daisy had. She had no problem and did such a good job getting them all clean.
When we showed Will the puppies, he smiled and said, "They are trying to steal my birthday!" We laughed at that.
There were 7 males and 3 females. 1 runt and 1 weakling. 8 are white just like Daisy and 2 are darker.
I never thought having puppies would be exciting but our whole day was consumed by it. It was clear that our travel plans had gone down the toilet. I went to the school (again, to take teacher appreciation gift) and told Sambo and Millie the news. Both about the pups and also about no vacation. They were happy and bummed. But when they came home and saw them, they were just fine with not going on a trip anymore. Millie did say, "Darn Daisy, you have bad timing."

Which is true, but if she had waited just 8 hours longer, we would have left town and left her to have puppies outside in the cold.


The first night I didn't sleep at all. It was like the first night after having a newborn baby. I kept checking on them, worried they were getting squished or that some weren't eating. I spent the whole next day (BS was in St. George again) checking and rotating the pups trying to keep track of which ones were eating well and which ones weren't. Some of them are definitely more alpha than others and Daisy only has 6 good teets. Millie and I used different colors of nail polish dots on their heads to identify them, and Millie made up a chart so we can keep track of their feeding. She has been very sweet and constantly nurturing to them.

The bad news: 3 have died. The runt died first after 1 day. He was half the size of the others. The 2nd one died last night after struggling for 2 days - he was very lethargic and weak. We tried to bottle feed it and assist it to nurse and keep it warm, but we knew it would die eventually. The 3rd (one of the darker ones) died this morning which was a sad discovery to us. Just hours earlier it appeared to be healthy and strong, eating and active. The only thing we can think of is that it got smothered or something. After talking to several experienced folks and research on the internet, this happens often. Basically in a litter as large as 10 puppies, you can count on some not making it. It just happens. We have already used this experience to teach the kids about life and death. This has been so great and fun for the kids.

The good news: We have 7 healthy adorable puppies. Hopefully the Lucky 7. 5 males and 2 females. Can't believe how much they have grown already. They have fat little milk tummies all of the time and they don't wimper anymore. Daisy has relaxed and isn't so awkward when she tries to lay down by them (she was sitting on them sometimes on accident). We could not get her to leave the puppies other than to go potty twice/day. She has been them non-stop since Thursday morning. She is exhausted but she has been the best mama. Tonight for some reason she picked-up a pup in her mouth and took it to BS and dropped it in his lap. I guess that's her hint that is was his time to babysit and that she needed a break! He took her outside and threw the ball 20 times. She ran like nothing had happened. Why can't it be so easy for us? She had 10, and all of them sucking on her teets 24/7, and she's acting like it's no big deal.

Well, here they are tonight. They are quite the event of the neighborhood. They have lots of visitors and everyone is in love with them. We will update often.

St. Patrick's Day

Today was crazy busy! It takes a whole lot for me to say that.
As each year goes by, I'm beginning to realize that we take this holiday a little more serious than others. I think that's why leprecans come to our house at night and turn our milk and toilet water green. They also leave little trails of chocolate coins and mess-up our shoes.
That's what we woke up to. Too bad BS was in St. George to miss it. Then we had green pancakes, and put on our green shirts for the day.

This year I made the kids some shirts. I bought some really cheap green shirts at Old Navy and made them festive using letters and bleach. Millie's was the first one I did, I used way to much bleach on hers. But I think the others turned out well. I had to make Will's go along with his b-day party theme. I crapped out at midnight and left Quincy's alone because it was cute enough by itself.



Anyway, we went to school and I watched Millie perform in her 4th grade play. It was on Utah history, so she got to wear Grandma Judy's pioneer outfit. She did great on her part and sang great too. She even got to square dance with a boy. I'm proud of her efforts and for having such enthusiasm about these things. I went to her other performance at 1:00 too. I also was in charge of teacher appreciation this week so I had to deliver some goods to the teachers.



After school Sambo had scouts and Millie and I had Activity Days (my church calling). I taught them how to sew a button, and using that skill we made "good luck charm" rings. Then we made shamrock soft pretzels.

As those 8 girls were leaving, all of Will's friends were showing up for his party. BS was running behind on his travels home so thank goodness 2 of my girlfriends Julia and Kelly helped me get ready for the party. Details about the party are in the previous post. During the party, Millie had one last play performance at the school. I had to miss that one. Thanks Debbie for taking her!

BS made it home just in time to start the games. As usual, he was extremely helpful and brought lots of fun to the party.

After it ended and the boys were gone and the kids tucked into bed, I could breathe a sigh of relief...but not for long. What a mess to clean up! And then, I knew I needed to start packing and preparing for our weekend in Zions, St. George, and Vegas. I decided to just go to bed and deal with it in the morning. I was exhausted. Whew!

Except....................we woke up to something unexpected and amazing.........

{ To be continued }

Mr. Krabs turns 6!

This is Will's usual routine every morning:
Wake-up
Eat breakfast
Watch Cartoons for a bit
Ask for his "money bag"
Play with his money, stack his money, look at his money, count his money
Ask every question you can think of about his money
After an hour, put his money back in his money bag.

Will. Loves. Money. He's like Mr. Krabs (from Spongebob). Except, he doesn't love it because he can buy stuff. He has quite a stash of money and he doesn't want to spend any of it. He wants to just keep saving it so he can have more and more. He knows the value of every coin and dollar bill, and he can add and count his money better than Sam and Millie. It's totally crazy!

2 months ago, Will says to me, "Mom, I want to have a money birthday party. I want to have a money cake, I want to play money games, and I want everyone to give me money for my birthday. At my party we can give my friends little bags with some pennies in them!"

I wasn't too sure about that, but then I decided that I should go along with what he wants. We had his birthday party on St. Patrick's Day. I played-up the whole money theme to go along with gold and money being "green."

We had 14 little leprecauns come to Will's party! First we ate all green food.

We played games to earn "money." We whacked a rainbow pinata filled with money. We threw darts at green balloons that held papers saying how much money we won. We found a hidden pot of gold (chocolate coins). We guessed how much money was in a jar filled with coins.

Then the boys went shopping at our "store" and used their hard earned cash to buy a prize! (It's amazing how much kids love toys from the dollar store). They were so happy! They even had a stash of extra dollar bills and coins to take home in their "gold" bags.

Then of course we opened presents and ate birthday cake. His friends gave him some cool stuff - some were fun toys and some were cash! He got $40.00 total from some of his friends. Check out this awesome money tree:


For his cake, I did green cupcakes topped with rainbows made out of "Airheads" candy and a chocolate coin.




This party was way crazy with 14 little monsters at our house, but well worth the effort! Will said it was the best party he's ever been to :)

Weekend Away

2 weekends ago we spent the weekend at the cabin with some friends. The kids were out of school on Friday, so our original plan was to head up to Island Park. But, we decided that it was too far to drive for 2 1/2 days, among other reasons. I love that whenever we want to get away, we can drive 1 hour to the cabin and suddenly we are in vacation mode.

Friday night after dinner we all went skiing at a tiny ski resort up Ogden Canyon called Wolf Creek or something (formerly Nordic Valley). They have cheap night skiing and good hills/jumps for the kids. The kids had a great time skiing with their friends (Addison, Tristan, and Jack). My poor friend Allison had to sit in the tiny A-frame lodge holding her baby for 2 hours while the rest of us skied, but she is a trooper.

Then we drove to the cabin and sacked out. Saturday we had a yummy brunch then took the snowmobiles out. We made some sack lunches, and Jack and Will wanted to write who's name the sandwich belonged to on the baggie. When it came time to write Sam's name, Will did not know what to do because he had already written Sam's name on a different baggie (because it was Sambo's). Soon he yelled out, "I know, I'll write B.S." We laughed and thought that was a perfect name for him...B.S. for Big Sam. I think I'll call him that when I have both Sams in the room :)
Since the snow was almost gone, we drove 10 min to the bottom of Big Mountain road which is closed in the winter and not plowed. We pulled the kids on the sleds all of the way up the mtn. trail. They had a blast! At the top we had a picnic in the snow and we talked about how this is where the Mormon pioneers first had a glimpse of the Salt Lake Valley. By the time we reached the top, Quincy had fallen asleep so she had a nice little nap on the sled!

Allison, who is from California, did great driving a snowmobile for the first time. The rest of the day was spent fishing in the fish pond (each kid caught a HUGE trout) , target shooting with BB guns, sledding in the field, eating, and playing games. Uncle Shad joined us for the fun too!

I was horrible at taking pictures, hardly pulled out my camera. Another super fun weekend at the cabin with some great new friends.

Clarks at the Cabin and a Jazz Game

I just barely realized that I never posted about this weekend at the cabin with the Clarks. We went in January (on Uncle Adam's birthday to be exact).

Uncle Sean came home from his mission right before Christmas. His mission Homecoming was in January so all of Sam's siblings were in town for the weekend. I planned a little get-together at the cabin and it was awesome because everybody could come (except Adam who had foot surgery)!

We spent all day doing the usual cabin activities...snowmobiling, eating, playing, fishing, shooting, napping, a bonfire, relaxing, and eating.

We also celebrated the January birthdays: Sean, Millie, and Sambo. Quincy too because she is the only February birthday in this huge family.

We're lucky to have such a great family - It was so fun being all together and I hope we can all go up again soon.

Hotch Potch on TV

Hotch Potch was on TV {again}
Heidi and I were invited to be on Channel 5 last Friday. We were on a segment of Studio 5 showing some of our baby stuff. We have had an awesome response, lots of orders! It was way fun and we felt way stupid :) See it here.
We kept laughing at ourselves before the show because we were trying to act normal but the producers kept saying "don't look at the cameras" and we felt awkward not knowing where to look. Good times. Check out the blog www.hotchpotchgirls.blogspot.com. I really need to get it updated with pictures of all the stuff we've been doing lately.

Quincess Cuteness

She's my little sidekick and she LOVES playing hide and seek in the house. I hide, she counts to 12 then yells "Marco" and I say "Polo" until she finds me. Then vice versa. Today, she discovered hiding in the dryer. But my favorite hiding place she has is when she climbs completely inside my empty pillowcase and lays on my bed. It's so cute when I say "Marco" and I hear her little voice coming from her hiding spot saying "Polo!"