Birthday and Halloween Party

On Saturday we got the chance to have a two-fold party.  It was Mousey’s birthday, so we all gathered to celebrate her, and we combined that with a little Halloween party for Nina, Lyla, Emme, Ryleigh, and Layne. 

The girls played a parachute game with Mousey, ran in the field with Cayenne, and made a spider web craft. 

 

 

Then a special visitor arrived – Uncle Bo, of course.  Who else would arrive in a full bear suit?

   

Once it started to get dark, the girls got to go on the “spooky” woods walk in search of hidden bones. 

   

Cayenne came down to the woods with us and had a great time in all the fallen leaves.  Something about the dry leaves makes her go bananas, and she was having a blast down in the woods.  She was racing all over through the leaves then diving in and out of the leaf pile that Poppy had dumped in the woods. At several points, she was so deep in the leaf pile we couldn’t even see her.  She loved it though.

 

After the woods walk, we all sat down to a nice dinner together to celebrate the Mouse.  Would you eat anything this guy cooked?  It’s a rare occasion to see Bo in the kitchen (moreso in a bear costume), but his spicy bacon brussel sprouts were very good!

The kids had some fun food for their party dinner.

After dinner, we all went down to the woods for a bonfire and smores.  As always, each of the girls gave their own version of a scary story, and this year it all ended with them dancing to What Does the Fox Say.  Quite entertaining.

  

Getting the family together is a fun occasion, and we all really enjoyed the time to get together as a family and celebrate Mousey’s birthday and have some Halloween fun. 

It’s Getting Cold Out There…

…so the pup now looks for sunny spots on the carpet to take a nap.  She also looks for any opportunity to get into the girls’ rooms and snuggle under the covers.  If Cayenne had her way, I think she’d be sleeping with Nina or Lyla every night.  Since it will be awhile before that happens, we sometimes let Cayenne come into Nina’s room before school and “help” wake her up.  It definitely helps Nina get up in a happier mood for school, but the added distraction definitely doesn’t help in getting out of the house faster.  Who would want to get up and leave for school with that little puppy wanting to snuggle?

Cayenne–15 Weeks

Cayenne turned 15 weeks this past Thursday.  In the past seven weeks that we’ve had her, she has really settled into the family.  There have been times in the early weeks when I wondered why we gave up our freedom to be tied to the house with a puppy, but now it would be hard to imagine our family without her.  She stopped all the puppy nipping, so for the past couple of weeks, the girls love to snuggle and cuddle with her.  Cayenne is definitely a snuggly pup. 

She loves to nap on the back deck on sunny afternoons, she loves to go on walks and play with the girls, chase squirrels, and she’ll do almost anything for a treat.  She’s learned a handful of tricks, and she loves to walk up to the bus stop with me in the afternoon.  I’ll ask her is she wants to go get Nina and Lyla, and she jumps right up to get her leash on.  She normally sits patiently until the bus arrives, then once Nina and Lyla get off the bus, she gets all excited and wants to run to meet them.  Of course they love that!  So, she’s doing great, growing a ton, and fitting well into the family.

First Field Trip

This past week, Lyla went on her first field trip.  The Kindergarteners had a field trip to Cox Farms, and Lyla was very excited to go.  Since I was a chaperone, I wasn’t able to take my real camera (as my backpack was loaded down with sack lunches), so I snapped these pictures with my camera phone which isn’t the greatest.  Despite the fact that it had rained buckets for three solid days just before the field trip, we had a beautiful day for the field trip, and it wasn’t quite as muddy as I expected.  We rode all the slides, took a hayride, walked the Corn Maze, and Lyla even got to try milking a cow.  It was a very fun first field trip for Lyla!

  

  

Finally Some Sun!

After three straight days of rain, we finally have some sun!  To say this weekend was dreary would be an understatement, but that just made the beautiful day today all the better.  We did break out of the blah on Saturday evening to head out to a fun local Mexican restaurant for dinner. 

Other than that, we did a lot of hanging at home and playing with the pup.  She wasn’t happy about the rain either.  It definitely put a damper on her daily exercise, so we resorted to playing fetch in the basement and letting the girls chase her around the dining room.  Whatever works to tire them all out.

Eventually they did tire out…

So, today when the sun came out, we were all ready to just go sit outside in the sunshine, and that’s what we did.  Cayenne seemed so happy to be laying on the sunny deck, and she and the girls were all excited to be outside playing again (as were probably all parents of puppies and young children)!!!  What do parents and puppy owners in Seattle do?  I don’t want to find out!

If Dogs Could Talk…

…this one would be saying, “If it weren’t for the slow lady on the other end of the leash and the fact that her shoulder needs to stay in socket, I could have nailed about 20 squirrels on my walk this afternoon!” 

Squirrels couldn’t be in any more abundance than they are right now.  Plus, they’re so busy with all their work in the woods, that they’re not paying as much attention as they normally would to everything else going on around them. Cayenne wants so badly to catch one.  She is patient, she gets down low, she creeps along, she hardly makes a sound, then she explodes toward the squirrel only to find that I can’t run as fast as she can.  Talk about frustrating for a dog!

Fall Festival

Our community had its fall festival this past weekend.  Instead of feeling like fall, it felt like a hot, summer day!  If it weren’t for a few fall-ish decorations, we would have had no idea we were there to celebrate fall. 

The girls enjoyed the usual variety of festival entertainment – a concert, rides/inflatables, face painting, glitter tattoos, and balloon friends.

The ride we waited for the longest by far was this bungee apparatus.  It’s been there every year that we’ve gone to the festival, and every year the line takes forever, and every year they want to wait in it.  Nina, in particular, really wanted to be able to flip backwards on it this year.  She was all psyched up to do it but then started jumping and almost didn’t try.  However, she all of a sudden got the courage to try it, threw her knees to her chest, and over she went.  She was super excited and proud of herself.  After Lyla saw Nina doing it, she wanted to try flipping also.  I can’t believe she was able to do it also, but she was! 

    

VIDEO:  Here is a video of Nina flipping first, then there’s Lyla.

Even though it felt nothing like fall, we still had a good time at the festival!

First Friend

Last weekend, Cayenne met her first friend.  We took her out to my parents’ house for the first time and gave her a chance to play off leash.  As soon as we got there, she met Reagan, the neighbor’s Great Pyrenees.  Regan and Cayenne became instant playmates.  I wish I had better pictures to show show much fun they had playing together, but they played and played for almost two hours.  Cayenne was so worn out after the time at their house that she came home and slept for a couple hours.  I have a feeling she’s already looking forward to her next visit to the grandparents house!