Phoebe is growing....

I know that I've become absolutely terrible with this blog...I try, I really do, but I have a gazillion things going on and the blog gets neglected.
Phoebe is now 18 weeks old and I'm estimating that she must be up to 45 pounds. She has been growing five pounds a week and she was 36 pounds at 16 weeks. She's a great puppy aside from eating every Barbie Doll's hand, foot, and hair....oh, and shoes....yeah, right, and toilet paper..... but she's doing very well with housetraining and learns very quickly. She started school last week, so I'm looking forward to working with her a lot. It sucks because not only to I miss Amelia's birthday (she's 3 on Tuesday) for a work trip this week, which is horrible, but because I'm going to miss her class...she's going to be much heavier than me and I need to be able to control her :)
Libby is still loving Kindergarten and Amelia thinks it's way awesome that she's the big girl at daycare :)
Some new Phoebe photos:

First day of kindergarten!!!!

I can't believe it happened, but Libby started school yesterday. Kindergarten already!!!!

As predicted I cried a bit when I dropped her off... but she ran right in and joined her class. When I went back to pick her up, however, she cried. She didn't want to leave. Great sign that she loves it but a little heartbreaking for me, too :) She's such a big girl!!

A few photos of her with her daycare providers (who we consider to be family now) on her last day there Tuesday and some of her before we left for school yesterday morning.

Note that Amelia wanted to get into one with her big sister (it's a big deal for her, too, since now she's the 'big girl' at daycare)...just like Libby she is her own stylist and I love it. The Cookie Monster shirt with green floral skirt and tall brown suede boots on the wrong feet... that's a look that not many can pull off. I think she can totally work it, though :)

OH and still no sign of Mr BAG (Big Ass Gnome) which has us all pretty down.

Crime strikes our house...Reward offered

Well, I woke up to a crappy finding on Thursday morning. Mr BAG, our 48 inch tall chainsaw-carved gnome was stolen from our front step overnight. This was not a little garden gnome sitting out in the yard somewhere...this was a four foot tall chunk of a tree. It took both Chris and I to move it from the driveway to the front step, and it wasn't easy.
Whoever stole him did it in the middle of the night, taking him from THREE FEET from our front door... and it had to have been at least two people and a truck.
He was going to be a family heirloom that would get passed down to Libby and Amelia and their children, etc. As dumb as it might sound, he was special to us.
The girls are both very sad about it, as are Chris and I. They cannot understand why anyone would take something and hurt a family's feelings so much. All of us are shaken by someone being on our front step at night...

I have a couple of theories:

1: teenage boys, about to start school, took him to prank someone.... he'll show up on a High School football field or buddy's front yard.

2: Teenagers thinking it would be fun to cut him into pieces and use him in their next underage drinking bonfire

3: College bound kid choosing him to be the new mascot of their frat house

Since we do not live on a main street by any stretch of the imagination, and you have to be going somewhere to pass by our house. We are in a quiet neighborhood off of the beaten path. If it had been on a main street where tons of people drove by every day, I would have thought it could be anyone in the world... but this has to be someone who lives in the neighborhood or knows someone who does. There are a bunch of teenagers in the blocks around us, and I expect that it was one of them.

Apart from the fact that we cared for this big 100+ pound gnome, he was not cheap. And we had him for one month before he was stolen.

I am still holding out a little hope that he'll make is way back...if he was a High School prank I would hope that an adult who sees it would call the police and report it 'found' and they would get it back to us. If, however, he shows back up on my lawn in one way or another defaced or damaged, I will be angry. Furious if my daughters see it like that. They are bothered enough by the theft.

so, if you are around our area, please keep your eye out for Mr BAG. He's pretty hard to miss.

13 weeks....

No, not since I updated the blog, although I've been chewed out by several people about that.....(I've been insanely busy and barely keeping my head above water) but Phoebe is 13 weeks old today.
She went to the vet and she weighs..........
a little more than 25 pounds!!! She was 14pounds when we got her 2.5 weeks ago!! Yes, that's right, that would be 5lbs a week....and the vet said she's a little too thin and I should feed her even more. She'll now be up to twice the amount of food that the big dogs get!!! Can't wait to see what she weighs when she goes back in three weeks!!!!

Some new photos from the weekend. Sorry this is so short, but I'm slammed with work, photography sessions, and life!!!!

Growing, Growing, Growing.

My little squirt is growing like a weed. Well, actually two of my girls are. Libby has grown so much lately. She looks so old and ready for school....it's scary how fast that happened.
And the other growing girl is Phoebe. She is growing fast and is a very good puppy. I plan on taking photos of her each weekend to track her growth. Take a look and see if you notice a difference!
Things are good in the house--my photography business is thriving, Libby is super excited for school, Amelia has been a sweetheart (she's nearing three, does that mean no more 'terrible twos'?? Chumley and Holly are adjusting well to the new puppy. Holly wrestles with her and she follows Chumley around outside with a look of pure love on her face. But really, whats not to love about my old man???

Phoebe is here!

Well, thanks to her breeder, Kristie, and her 28 hour round trip drive....Phoebe has arrived in the house! Chris and I drove to Albany, MN to meet up, so we had about a 13 hour round trip drive on Saturday. We took the dogs along with us and they did fantastic in the car. The girls stayed home with their extremely generous daycare providers and good friends. I cannot imagine spending 14 hours with two little girls after spending all week with a ton of them....but they did and we are blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Yes, there are a ton of photos...but what do you expect when a pet photographer gets a new puppy?????
The first one is right before she was taken to the pound..... you do NOT mess with a gnome. And don't you forget it.

New and Exciting

All sorts of new stuff going on here these days!!
Libby is now riding her bike without training wheels!!!! What a big girl!!!
We got a 48" tall gnome carved from a log with a chainsaw!!! His name is Mr. Bag (Big Ass Gnome) and he's awesome. We ordered him while up visiting my mother and siblings two weeks ago and my mom brought him home with her yesterday :) We have the biggest gnome on the block :)
I'm going to drive to St Cloud, MN and back on Saturday because I'm meeting Kristie and my new baby, Phoebe!! I"m so excited I can barely stand it. She ended up not being able to fly her in because of the heat so we are road tripping it :) I feel a lot better about this anyway, since she won't be alone in her kennel all day in a plane. This way we can hang out and she can go outside...