In my efforts to blog "at least once a week" I'm successfully completing this week's goal on a sad note.

On Tuesday, May 15th, I said goodbye to my 10 year old Rottweiler, Rockwell just before he got into the car with my husband and made a trip to the vet/heaven. 

Rockwell was at the vet on April 21. I took him in because he was losing weight. He wasn't eating well and hadn't been for a while, he was skinny. We were at the vet for 2.5 hours. After bloodwork, xrays, stool samples, and lots of talking, we discovered Rockwell had a tapeworm, was anemic, had a mass on his leg (which we knew about) and x-rays showed masses on his lungs as well as air-filled intestines. This was a lot to take in for a woman like me. We started him on tapeworm treatment and began giving him an iron pill, I made hamburger and rice for his meals and he ate well for about a week. When he got bored with the hamburger rice meal, I added wet food to his dry. When he was bored with that, I was giving him anything I could find - do treats, people foods, etc. He was still doing well taking his medication now that we were stuffing it into hot dog pieces.

Last week I witnessed him have horrific diarrhea. I contacted the vet and on Friday he was given some antibiotics, good bacteria to sprinkle on his food, new food and a de-worming medicine. We were able to give him this round of new medication for about 2 days and after that, I quit. He wasn't taking hot dogs anymore, we were forcing medication down his throat.

One of my last food efforts was liver. I cringed as I opened the package and cooked it up. I offered it to Rokwell plain and mixed with rice. He didn't touch it. Then I tried baby food on Monday and he refused that as well. 

So my husband and I made the decision to let him go to heaven with is buddies Cletus and Diesel. We made an appointment to take him in on Tuesday night. And he was buried with Cletus and Diesel at my father-in-law's house.

Telling my 2.5 year old was probably the most difficult. Thankfully she didn't really get it. When we told her to "say goodbye to Rockwell" and that he was "going to heaven and never coming back" she said, "I go there?" She was more concerned about me being sad. When she woke up, she said "mommy's sad" and I said, "not right now, but sometimes I do get sad, and it's okay to be sad." This morning she said "Rockwell's in (something inaudible) and I corrected her and said, "Rockwell's in Heaven" to which she said "Yeah, In heaven with daddy." Since my husband left for work before she woke up, she was obviously thinking that he was in heaven with our dog.

I miss him dearly and am very sad, but relieved I don't have to continue to stress over his health and weight. His anemia had made him very lazy and sluggish and that was hard to watch. He was a goofy and fun dog - even my husband commented on his quirks, and he has had dogs before, I have not. There are a few things I already miss - one of them is him cleaning up after me in the kitchen when I am cooking and cleaning up after Rachel when she eats. Guess for now I'll have to break out the broom and dustpan. I miss not hearing him drink out of the toilet, or bark at it when the lid is down. I miss seeing him when I get out of the shower hanging out on my bedroom floor and most of all I miss being able to snuggle with him and pet him.

He will be missed.

Rockwell
August 2001-May 15, 2012

After washing, drying, sorting and organizing my smurfs, which meant laying them on the counter how I think they would look in a frame and estimating what size frame the smurfs needed, I purchased two shadow boxes at Michaels that measured 16" x 30". (I had to make one collection display for myself and one for my sister).

I picked up some trim at Home Depot that would work in the box. We measured the length of the shelves and added them all together. Then, in between each shelf, on the left and right side of the frame box, I have spacers that measure 2.125" tall. I glued them onto the sides of the frame and set the shelf on top of them. So the shelves themselves are removable. 

The boards we cut were spray painted a nice flat black - THANKS TO MY AWESOME HUSBAND! He is truly a SPRAY PAINTING GENIUS and I suck at it. I affixed the side spacers to the frame with tacky glue - because that's what I had on hand! I used glue dots on the feet of the smurf to affix them to the wood shelves.

Here is one of the finished pieces!

If you ask Rachel about the Easter Bunny she will say, "He's big." If you ask her if he is going to come to her house, she says, "yes." And if you ask Rachel what the Easter bunny is going to bring Rachel, she says, "Easter Basket."

We stayed home for Easter which was very nice. We got some yard work done, housework and relaxed. We began Easter day with the discovery of the Easter basket, which included a bubble machine, books a balance bike and rain boots. She was most excited about the bubble machine. She was cautious about the bike, but later sat on it by herself and said, "Look-it, mama."  Unfortunately she is about 2 inches too short to actually ride it. I am hoping as the summer begins she grows.  After the basket we had breakfast - complete with bunny pancakes made by yours truly. Then we had an Easter egg hunt and finished the morning with coloring eggs.

On Easter eve, we were enjoying bubbles on the deck with the grill cooking dinner when Rachel accidentally poured bubbles into her eyes. This lead to a very difficult, two person team, eye washing. At one point my husband said our daughter was "Freakishly strong." No damage done, but some irritated eyes and wet clothes.

On the night of Easter, Rachel swallowed a magnet. After 2 hours at the E.R. they sent us home and told us to wait for it to pass. Two poopy diapers later, and almost 48 hours later, the magnet is still missing. I searched through poo for a week and then gave up. Called the doctor and a few days later they wanted another xray to determine if the magnet had passed. Rachel did awesome with the x-rays, or "pictures of my belly" as she is calling them. And the most recent x-ray showed no magnet.

This photo of Rachel and the Easter bunny is on the fridge at home and Rachel keeps saying, "I don't like Easter bunny." 

You know, the car that my husband gave me as an engagement present, my 1966/69 Volkswagen beetle. I sold it. 

It was a very bittersweet moment. I thought I would cry when they drove it away, but I did not. 

It hasn't been driven since the summer of 2009, excuse me, my husband took it out once last year in 2011 and maybe another time in 2010. Although I loved it, it was a stick and I wasn't comfortable driving it by myself let, or with my daughter and I since I tote her to day care every day. And we never had time to practice in the summer/nice months during the week because my husband doesn't get home until late and our weekends are very precious and we often don't have time to spare driving around to help me learn to drive.

I call it a 1966/69 Bug because it was titled as a 1966 and most of the body work was 1969 - only bug people know this. But on a high note, the buyer was born in 1966 and his wife was born in 1969 and they've always wanted one...and now they have the perfect one. 

I'm sure my faithful stalkers just want updates on my daughter, so here are a few photos to keep you smiling. 

Here she is very proud of the tower she built and proud to say, "cheese" for the camera.

There is a "crack" in my bathroom and she crawled into it once and got "stuck." Now when she goes near it, she says, "don't go in there, get stuck." And I assure her she is correct. 

I found a whistle I had as a kid, okay, perhaps I was a teenager when I had it, but either way, I still had it and she loves it. She sometimes calls it her "paci" and I correct her and tell her she doesn't have a paci but she has a whistle. Currently we've misplaced it, which means she probably tucked it into something and will discover it in the future. 

Here she is just hanging out on the floor one morning going through her Sesame Street flash cards. 

My husband goes on short, quick trips to Atlanta so that throws a wrench in life. 

I'm trying my hand at digital scrapbooking and spending all of my free computer time whipping up layouts...starting with December 2009. I've made it through June 2010 just in time for my first eve scrapbooking crop this Saturday. My goal is a month a day so I hope to be caught up, or to the current year in no time. Yet so far this week I haven't worked on 1 month at all.

Rachel had a fever one week which allowed my husband and I to do the fun rotation - he works mornings while I watch her, then he comes home and watches her in the evenings while I go to work until midnight. It's not fun but it works and we really don't have any other options. 

The weather has been crazy nice and we've been going to the park on weekends for a quick mile walk and some time on the slide and swings. Rachel loves going there and last weekend while we were leaving my husband and I were swinging her by her arms. This resulted in pain, thus resulting in a 1 hour ER visit which resulted in Nursemaid's Elbow. We figured this was what was going on since we googled it so this diagnosis at the ER was to be expected. She was fine within minutes and running around the ER with her "monkey jammas" on.

We met a friend and went to the Ann Arbor Hands on Museum last week, and after I sort through some photos, I'll be sure to post how our day went! We had a great time, all five of us girls did! I wish we could do it more often! 

Next week is single parent week as my husband heads to Germany for the week! Which takes pressure off of me having to figure out what to do for Valentine's day. It's probably a win-win for both of us. 

I found some tutorials online (here and here) and in the end modified both to make my own creation I call the "modified beanie." The first project was a touch challenging because I had to use my button foot on my sewing machine to put a button hole in my towel. It worked awesome but I was unable to make it happen again so I just went with a different pattern.

The modified beanie pattern is my favorite, because it was the quickest to make. I used a lid to my medium size pyrex bowl to cut a nice semi-circle pattern. And I had leftover elastic in my sewing box. 

I need practice with this because my sewing isn't all that straight and I struggle sewing the towel together before adding the topper. But that's okay,they are functional and I have six more of my own to make as soon as I wash the towels and fabric. 

The amount of presents was enormous. We began the festivities around 2:05 p.m.

We took the first intermission at 3:05 p.m. We had potty breaks, dessert and beverages. 

We took the second intermission at 4:30 p.m. and Avery was kaput by then. 

The gift opening stopped around 5:20 p.m. But the festivities didn't stop there. We played games and had more snacks. And then after all of that we opened MORE gifts for Rachel's birthday. I'm exhausted just typing about it! 

Here are some additional photos of the holiday event! 

Avery just applied chap stick and then I took this photo. I think I need to suggest to her mom that Avery needs clear chap stick. 

Her last and favorite Christmas gift was the baby stroller. 

And after it was all done, Avery asked me to build her a tent. Since all of the chairs were being used at the table for games, snacking, coffee and visiting, we had to improvise. 

It measures approximately 18" x 22". I made sure my pallet wood was nice and flat and held it together with screws and two vertical pieces on the back. I sorted my buttons into piles - brown and green/blue and laid out the design on the boards following the idea I found on Pinterest. I glued the buttons on the wood one-by-one with tacky glue (this task took about an hour). I let it dry and hung it in my bathroom.

Rachel and Joslynn pose in front of the tree.

Grandpa must have given them some giggle juice!

Rachel loved playing with the Charlie Brown Nativity Set. She lays down all of the figures and says they are going "nite, nite."

One of my favorite photos of my niece, Joslynn. She was all over that box.

Once the presents were cleared away, Grandpa showed Rachel his train. But it wasn't working at first so the two of them had to figure out what was going on. She was following his every move.

And before we left, Rachel was snuggling with Patzi on the couch. 

My co-worker gave me a bread machine a while ago and I've been attempting to perfect cinnamon rolls. I make the dough in the machine, spread cinnamon, butter and sugar on them and roll and cut them. I then put them in a pan and freeze them. When I want to eat them, I take them out, leave them on the counter overnight where they rise and are ready to go into the oven in the morning. And they are delicious. I am getting better but the raw rolled cinnamon roll doesn't look very appealing. And I may have forgotten yeast in one of the batches for the teachers. Should still be tasty just not as fluffy as the others.

I wrapped them in foil tins I found at the dollar store and added a decorative top with instructions. I just hope they tasted okay.

Santa came on the morning of December 24th and Charlie, our elf, went home with him. I think as Rachel gets older, Charlie will be a tad more creative in how he returns from the North Pole rather than just hanging in a different place.

Rachel woke up at 6:15 am that morning and didn't go back to sleep so we just began the present unwrapping. I think she had six or eight things to open and she was somewhat into it and somewhat crabby. Even her dad commented and said something like, "Rachel, I don't think this how your mom and I pictured  you at Christmas." And I forgot to get out the camera until the very end.

Everything was done and cleaned up by 8 am. I made some dishes for the upcoming festivities - cinnamon rolls for breakfast at home, cheese potatoes and herb bread for Christmas Eve and a killer Peanut Butter Brownie Torte for Christmas day. It was just a busy day getting things ready and cooking and packing the car for Christmas Eve at my father-in-law's house. On Christmas day we drove to the Thumb to celebrate with my family and then on the 26th went to hang out with my aunt in Sterling Heights. It was busy and tiring and I'm kind of glad it's over. Every year I tell myself I won't travel as much the following year, and every year we travel.

Rockwell is always in the spirit!

Crazy excited to help her mom open her present! (You can see the tent Santa made for her in the background)

We've been wearing our penguin finger puppets and practicing our song so we shared it with our friends at school. She loves to sing it and so did the kids. It's so great being next door to her school!

 What on Earth do you do with....homemade Fish Graham Crackers...

...Penguin Cups...

...homemade penguin finger puppets...

...penguin sticker sheets and a thank you card with penguin songs....

...you put them all in a gift bag for friends!

And the penguin finger puppet is attached to the back of each bag with a piece of velcro so we could take off the puppet, sing our songs and put it on for each kid to take home.

A penguin party isn't complete without a penguin cake! This was SUPER EASY to make and I found the recipe here. 

 I followed the directions except, I used Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge Frosting, which means I didn't tint the frosting with black food coloring as the recipe stated. I also made the wings out of chocolate. I just melted chocolate chips in a zipper bag, cut the end and traced an oval pattern on waxed paper. Once they were dry, I affixed them with frosting, flat side down. I used necco wafters and m&ms for the eyes.

I made these super easy penguin olives and a cheese ball igloo for snack. I thought the Penguins were going to be very hard to make so I told myself from the beginning I would only make 12 - for the number of kids in her class. I used jumbo and medium olives, one carrot and half a brick of cream cheese, heated in the microwave. I then cut a triangle out of the jumbo olives and used a pastry bag with tip to fill the bellies with cream cheese.

The cheese ball recipe was very basic: 2 bricks cream cheese, 1 packet ranch and 2 cups shredded cheese. It's quite mild, so it might be perfect for toddlers. I put it in a bowl with plastic wrap and then let it set up/harden. I heated the other half of the cream cheese brick in the microwave and spread it on the igloo, then let it set up and used a skewer to make ice blocks on the igloo.

And of course my daughter wore her penguin tee shirt on her special day! Two penguins for a 2 year old! 

This year Rachel helped me. She even decorated one cookie for her "gam-pa". And when she was finished, she got to eat a cookies. The photos tell the story.