Our Quail are Here!

It's a boy! And a girl! And a girl! And 12 more boys! And 7 more girls! And...

Actually, I have no idea how many boys and girls I have yet, but our quail are here! To refresh your memory, I was incubating 46 Jumbo Coturnix quail eggs. We noticed our first little pips (cracks or holes at the beginning of a hatch) on the morning of May 10th, and by that afternoon around 3:40, our first quail had hatched! It was so adorable and so tiny. Soon later it had a whole lot of brothers and sisters, too! Our final count was 36 successfully hatched quail, which was a hatch rate of 78%.  I'm very happy with that!

Lots of excited viewers!

My son was so excited about our impending hatch that he asked to invite his friend over to watch. He and his sister both came and enjoyed watching- especially his sister.

Here is the video of our first 2 hatching!

Here is the second video update a couple hours later.

I made one more video update yesterday. The quail have now moved from their little starter brooder, which was a plastic tote, and into a large cardboard box. They are 6 days old today and are doing wonderfully.

Check out this photo of their wing development as of today!  I can't believe how fast that start to feather out. All that feather makes for a lot of adorable jumping around and flapping, too. I just love to watch them run and play. It's like they are even surprised and impressed by their new abilities!

Most people who raise quail raise them in hutches, or small cages. I personally don't care for that idea. I wanted to give mine the opportunity to live on the ground, in a more natural environment. We are currently building them a beautful, large enclosure that is coming along great. I can't wait to get it finished up and move them into their new home!

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Our New Pet Journey!

For a long time now, I've been fighting the city in an attempt to get them to change their ordinance to allow for backyard chickens.  I was hopeful that they would see the light and give it a chance.  But... no such luck.  They didn't.  We had 3 councilmen vote in our favor and needed only one more.  This was our second attempt, so for now, I'm done fighting.  Maybe someday when we get a new council I will try it again.

As disappointing as this all is, I've come up with a solution that will work for me and my family.  We will be raising Jumbo Brown Coturnix Quail!  I did MANY hours of research to prepare for this new adventure and feel prepared and ready to go.  Quail are not mentioned as farm animals in our city's ordinance are are not specifially mentioned anywhere.


Last Saturday, Ryan drove me to Osseo, WI to pick up 40 quail hatching eggs.  The seller actually included an extra 6 eggs, so we came home with 46 new would-be quail!  I got them all rested, sanitized, and placed into the incubator.  Now it's been a week and everything still looks good.  I've been DYING waiting.  It seems like it's been so much longer than a week and I absolutely can't wait to see them hatch on or around May 10th.  How many do you think will hatch?  I really don't know what to expect- always a mystery.

Expect to see some cool hatching photos and/or videos as well as some pictures of tiny, fuzzy, adorable babies soon!

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I'm Back!

Hi everybody!

It's been such a long time since I've written a post.  Life with 2 kids, a pet, a house and all of the responsibilities that go with that has just gotten in the way of my blogging.  I don't expect that I'll go back to blogging several times a week, or doing many reviews and such, but my goal for 2017 is to try to write a blog post at least once or twice a month.  Maybe if I'm lucky it will be even a little more often than that!

A lot has changed since my last post in 2014! The kids are now coming up on 7 and 5 years old! This fills me with mixed emotions.  I love that things are getting easier, they are becoming more independent, and we are able to do a lot more things as a family, but I do miss having really 'little ones' around.

Brennan is in 1st grade and loves school.  He is both an excellent student and friend.  He he does quite well with math and science (taking after Dad), but also is a good reader has has an incredible vocabulary and all around grasp of the English language (Mom's traits).  He loves Legos and still loves dinosaurs.  He is cute, smart, funny, witty, clever, strong, and a joy to have as a son.  I'm remarkably proud of him and the little man he's growing into.

Bryleigh is in Pre K-4 and just like her older brother, she LOVES school.  She loves her teacher, she loves her friends, she loves doing crafts, and she loves learning.  She has been doing an excellent job learning her letters and their sounds, and she's already had her numbers and colors down for quite a while already.  She likes dolls and all stuffed animals, being outside, and going to Gigi and Juju's house (grandma and grandpa). She is funny, incredibly caring and loving, girly, beautiful, kind of a spitfire, goofy, smart, and so wonderful to be around.  

The cat, Rocky, A.K.A. The Rock,  is doing well. He just turned 3 at the end of December and he definitely isn't lacking in attention or love.  He gave us quite a scare last summer when he disappeared for over a full day.  He had definitely been gone for several hours or for part of a night in the past, but he ALWAYS had come back for his meals!  We were so relieved when he showed back up completely unharmed and happy.

Ryan just started a new job, but he is still at the Mayo Clinic.  He is now a Technical Specialist in the specimen processing area of Mayo's Biorepository. This was a promotion he has been wanting for quite a while and I'm thrilled for him.  He no longer works as a volunteer EMT in town, but instead he is on the city's ambulance commission and gets to help to make decisions about how the ambulance service runs and functions.  He ran for city council in 2016, but unfortunately was not elected.  The competition was stiff with 12 people running for 3 positions!

Ryan and I have both officially joined the 30-something crowd.  I'm busy as always between being a stay-at-home Mom/Jane of all trades at home, my part-time photography business, and telecommuting part-time from home for a company in Dallas, TX.  I've done quite a few home improvement projects and well as countless different crafts during my blogging hiatus.  I also worked hard in an effort to change the animal ordinance in our town to allow for raising a small flock of chickens within city limits.  Though it was originally voted down for some very silly reasons, we are now starting the process over with the new city council that just took over this month.  I'm very hopeful that within a few months I might have a few chicken of my own!  Get ready to start handing out name suggestions!  But perhaps my next news is more exciting than chickens.  I became a God-Mother twice over to our good friends' second son, Jaxon, and to one of our nephews, Beau.  It was such an honor to be asked in both cases!

My oldest sister dressed as Santa for this fun Christmas shoot
that my other older sister did.

That leads into another huge thing that happened during my blogging break.  My oldest sister had triplets!  This was such an incredible blessing after they lost their first son during labor and delivery.  (I did blog on this before.)  The triplets were born in June 2015 and are now happy healthy 19 month olds!  There are 2 boys, Beau and Wyatt, and one girl, Savannah.  We love following along with their lives through all of the many Facebook photos and videos, but do wish it was easier to visit!  Texas and MN aren't the closest...

We've also gained another niece and nephew during my break!  Reagan is 15 months old and lives in Texas.  She's Ryan's brother's second daughter.  She's adorable and I hope to get to know her more through visits over the years.  Tyler is 11 months old and is Ryan's sister's 4th child.  He's got a killer smile and his siblings can't get enough of him.

Both Ryan's and my families are doing well.  My Dad had a hip replacement last year at 60 years old. It's made a miraculous difference in his life.  It had gotten so bad that he could barely limp around. SO glad he got it fixed!  

Libby just days before
her surgery.

My parents' dog, Libby, is now 13, coming up on 14 years old.  She had a very close brush with death this summer after suffering of Pyometra. Pyometra is a uterine infection.  It was unclear for quite a while what was actually going on with her, but it was very clear that she was near death.  My Mom decided to try the surgery, which is basically a hysterectomy, in hopes that she would pull through.  This was an incredibly hard decision considering that Libby was an old girl and had already lived a long, full life. It turns out that Mom made the right call because Libby recovered well from the surgery, and has been acting more like a puppy than she has in years.She's always dragging toys around, jumping, and skipping everywhere she goes.  We believe that she had actually had a minor infection for a few years that had been making her feel somewhat sick, because she's a new dog. Hopefully she has a few more great years!

Well, that's enough for now.  Hopefully that sort of brings you back up to speed.  I definitely want to go back and post some photos of the projects I've done and tell some more detailed stories of other things that have happened over the last couple of years, but this is a start!

Thanks for reading!

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Emmy Found Her New Home

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post detailing all of the current stress I've been dealing with.  Well, I'm happy to say that it has been greatly reduced since then.  We are still working with Brennan and plan to bring him into a child psychologist in September, we still are looking into the possibility of moving, and I'm still excessively busy trying to complete my crafts I've got going, but we've knocked a lot of the worry off of the list.  Our annual 4th of July party is behind us and I'm happy to say that it was a ton of fun.  The house looked great and I am going to try my very best to keep it looking this way!!!  I finished stripping the deck and it looks way better.  We seem to have gotten our Earwig infestation under control, thank God!  But most importantly, we found a new home for Emmy!

I wrote my "stress post" on Friday, June 22nd.  Emmy found and moved in with her new owners on Sunday, June 24th!  It was fast!  Honestly, after finally deciding on rehoming Emmy and seriously putting her out there on Facebook, Craigslist, and Petfinder, it didn't take long.  Ultimately, Emmy's new owner found her ad on Craigslist and came to meet her.  They are a very nice middle aged/older couple.  They have a 12 year old weimaraner who is suffering from severe hip dysplasia and they know that his time is drawing to a close.  They unfortunately will be having to put him down soon and wanted another nice pup to fill the void.  That's where Emmy came in...She is now living in a home in Rochester, MN with a nice fenced in backyard and two people who are spoiling her rotten. 

I figured that she was doing well and was happy, but I hadn't heard anything from the new owners.  I planned to text them soon to find out.  I haven't been missing Emmy too much, but I had been thinking about/hoping that she is doing well and is happy.  I obviously care about her a lot and want what is best for her.  I mean- we've had her since she was 6 weeks old.  She was our BABY for a long time!  We never envisioned giving her up, but as she became testier with the kids, more aggressive towards other dogs, and started jumping our backyard fence, we didn't feel like we had a lot of choice.

Anyway, my Mom has been asking me all the time if I'd heard from the owners or not yet.  Finally, she asked me what their name was, and since I'd mentioned that the lady worked at Mayo (just as my Mom and Ryan do), she looked her up and sent her an email this morning, much to my surprise!  Here's what it said,

Hi,

You don't know me, but I am Emmy's "Grandma".  I am just wondering how she is doing.  I know Colleen is wondering also, but is a little worried to contact you.  I know we all missed her a lot yesterday because we always took her to the fire works with us.  I know we are interested in coming and visiting her with the kids-hopefully in a few weeks.

Thanks,

Sue

Now, if you knew my mom, you would not be surprised in the least that she sent this email... :)  She was happy to receive this response,
  

Hi Susan,

Emmy is doing great.  She was a little bossy with our other dog, Reebok is a 12 year old Wiemeraner, so we had a few moments.  Reebok is on his last leg so we treat him too much and spoil Emmy just as much, especially Greg who is around the dogs a bit more than I am.  They’ve taken to sleeping on the floor in the bedroom, side-by-side and love going for car rides.  We went to my mom’s house yesterday and her dog Shorty gets along with both.  We’ve not been able to take Emmy to the dog park yet as Reebok’s hips don’t let him run that much but hope to get her there one of these days.

They have a nice sized back yard to run in and even in this hot weather, lie in the sun and nap.

Thank you, Colleen and the whole family for giving us Emmy.  Let me know when you might be interested in visiting.

Sincerely,

Vicki

It was such a relief to hear this!  It makes me confident that we sent Emmy to a good home and that she is happy and doing well!  It was hard, but turned out great!

I've come up with a list of a few pros and cons about not having Emmy anymore:

PROS
-Goodbye dog hair!
-No more drool and dirt smears on the walls and floors
-No more risk of a child getting bit!
-No longer liable if she jumps the fence and hurts another person or dog
-She won't jump the fence and get hit by a car!
-Easier to go on trips without having to find someone to watch her
-Save money on dog food, treats, and vaccinations

CONS
-Miss the occasional cuddle she liked to give me
-My side of the bed won't be pre-warmed in the winter anymore :(
-No more watchdog (I'm a bit more nervous when Ryan is gone overnight now...)
-Kids aren't being raised with a dog (except my parents' dog, Libby)
-No more cute pictures of babies and the dog
-I have to sweep underneath the high chair now
-I never did take and post a video on You Tube showcasing the variety of ridiculous noises Emmy could make, thus receiving millions of hits and in turn, fame and fortune

All in all, I think it was the best decision for everyone!  Love you, Em!

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Our little family is growing!

Haha!  I bet I psyched you all out with this title!

We've got 3 new aquatic members of our family- one Mystery Snail and two Fancy Guppies!  Our new Mystery Snail is an adorable, yellow little guy (or girl... let's go with that) named Slimy.  She mostly enjoys hanging out in her shell on the floor of our aquarium, but sometimes likes to go for a long crawl up the walls and around the tank.

Our Guppies are so brightly colored and are fun to watch swimming around with each other.  I think they are good buddies.  The first of our Guppies is turquoise and yellow with a gorgeous yellow and black striped tail.  He is currently still unnamed.  The other guppy is orange with a little dark reddish/purple and a large orange tail.  His name, chosen by Brennan, is Da.  "Da" is Brennan's word for EVERYTHING, so that's what this fish will be called, too.

The fish in the first pictures is Da and the second one is our still unnamed fish.

Unfortunately, we already experienced our first fish tragedy.  Our turquoise and yellow fish is actually a replacement for an all yellow one we had named Mello Yello.  We got Da and Mello Yello (they are in the picture on the right) on Monday  night and Mello Yello passed away on Wednesday morning.  At least I don't have to explain death to Brennan yet!  I felt bad, but I think something must have been wrong with him.  The two fish we have now look happy and healthy and are getting along well together.

Wish us good fish luck!  These are the first fish I've ever kept besides several Goldfish and one Betta! 

Oh... and don't forget to enter my giveaway that ends tonight at 8pm!  Enter my photo album giveaway!

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Wordless Wednesday #2

Kids with dogs...

 

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My baby's favorite TV commerial

It isn't very surprising to me that most babies get sucked into movies that are made totally for them, like Baby Einstein.  My little guy has a Baby Einstein favorite: Baby Neptune- Discovering Water.  When I need to get something done or just have a minute to myself to relax or even shower, this Baby Einstein video is our life saver!  It grabs his attention and keeps him occupied for a few precious moments.  

Lately, there has been a new commercial on TV that grabs Brennan's attention just as well as the Baby Einstein video.  Unfortunately, it is only 30 seconds long, but it sure is funny to watch Brennan stop dead in his tracks to watch his favorite commercial.  It is the newest commercial for K9 Advantix II and it features a bunch of dogs.  No wonder my baby loves it!  He even recognizes the music.  He can be in another room and come running when he hears it!  Silly baby.  Here's the commercial:

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A Nice Little Mother's Day...

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Mother's Day!  Mine has been a very nice, laid back day.

The day started off with some HUGE cinnamon rolls from our local grocery store.  They are SO large and SO delicious!  After breakfast, we headed off to church.  Brennan gave me a Mother's Day gift by behaving through almost the whole service!  It was a really nice service that was totally centered around Mother's Day, with the Sunday School singing and everything.  Very cute.

After church we came back home.  I put Brennan down for a nap and I laid down, too, while Ryan went out and mowed the lawn and took the dog for a bike ride/run.  Of course, just before I fell asleep, Brennan woke up and started crying.  I went and took him out of his crib and brought him into bed with me.  He was squirmy for quite a while, but finally settled down and went to sleep... so did I.  We got to cuddle and snooze for a while and it made my day!  For the last several months, Brennan won't sleep if I bring him in to nap with me.  He just thinks it is playtime and wakes up, so this nap was really sweet and special.

This afternoon we went to Northfield, MN to watch my sister's gospel choir concert.  It was a nice concert with a ton of talented kids.  Great job, Haley, by the way!  After the concert we headed home, got some brats to grill up for supper, and have been relaxing this evening.

This year Ryan spoiled me with a beautiful bouquet of lilies.  I'll post a picture of my actual bouquet just as soon as it opens up a bit more.  These flowers all come in bud form so you get to see them at the peak of their beauty.  Mine are going to be the prettiest tomorrow or Tuesday, I think.  This is a stock picture of the bouquet Ryan picked out from ProFlowers.com.  Mine is a bit more colorful than this one...

Along with the flowers, I've got a promise of a second present.  I know what it is and per Ryan's instructions, I need to inform you that I specifically asked for this gift.  It's a pooper scooper.  Yep, that's right- I asked for a pooper scooper for Mother's Day.  When you have a dog of any size, but especially a huge on like mine, you'll want anything to make the enjoyable job of picking up their poop more convenient and easier.  I'm sick of carrying a big shovel around the yard to pick up the ridiculous amount of piles she leaves...

Anyway, today was a good day.  I have a post I want to write tomorrow about the creative idea I came up with for my Mom's Mother's Day gift... once again, it is VERY non-traditional!  Check back tomorrow! Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

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Does the 5 Second Rule Have Limitations?

A lot of times I just don't get babies.  Sometimes it seems like they cry for no reason, laugh for no reason, or throw a fit for no reason.  They do things that most of us would avoid, such as banging their heads repeatedly or sucking on a lemon again and again (try it with your baby... you'll be surprised that they seem to like it!).  My baby does something else that drives me crazy, too, and I'm sure he's not the only one.  He throws his food on the floor.  It's not like he accidentally drops it- it's intentional.  Sometimes he even fastball pitches it across the room!  This might make sense to me if he was full and he was getting rid of it to show me that he was done, but that's not the case.  The minute I take him out of the high chair, he begins crawling around, scouring the floor for the earlier rejected (or should I say ejected) food that our dog hasn't already devoured.  Does the floor add some delicious flavor that I'm not aware of?  I doubt it.  

Well, the funniest thing happened the other day.  The crackers were flying every which way.  I pulled Brennan out of the high chair just as I normally would, and he began his thorough search of the floor.  After finishing he started playing with some of his toys.  A few minutes later the dog walked past.  She looked confident that the floor was clean and that she wasn't missing any precious morsels.  It was right then that I noticed one cracker that she had missed... on her back!  She'd been walking around for probably five minutes and the cracker just sat there.  I went to grab the camera because this was just too funny a moment to not capture.  I thought for sure that I'd miss it, but for once I moved fast enough!

 

But the moment wasn't over just yet.  If you haven't already noticed, there are baby feet at the top of the picture.  Brennan tends to be pretty photogenic, so as soon as he saw the camera come out, he had to head my direction to do some "hamming it up".  That's when Brennan noticed the cracker...

Naturally, he figured he would just help himself to it.  Emmy is oblivious at this point, but...

 Can't you just see Emmy saying, "Hey... where did you get that?  Can I have half???"  So this leads me to wonder, does the 5 second rule apply to food on a dog's back?  I hope so.

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Happy Birthday, Big Dog!

I can't believe our dog, Emmy turned four years old yesterday!  Time really does fly when you're having fun!

Emmy was the first 'baby' in our family.  I've had dogs growing up, but Emmy is Ryan's first dog.  He always wanted a dog, so when the time finally came that we were ready for the commitment, we were so excited!  I found Emmy on Craigslist.  She was from a litter of accidents.  Her daddy, a black lab, got loose and paid a visit to her mommy, the Shar Pei down the street.  Let me tell you- this makes for quite a combination!

At the time we lived in Eau Claire, WI and Emmy was in Marshall, MN... a long ways from where we were.  I had been spending hours online looking for the 'right' dog for us.  When I saw the picture of Emmy, I knew I had to have her!  I showed Ryan and he agreed that she was really, really cute, but thought I was crazy for even considering driving to Marshall to pick her up!  Finally I decided to let it go and keep looking at dogs.  A week or so later Emmy and the rest of the remaining pups were relisted on Craigslist.  I told Ryan about it and begged and pleaded until he finally gave in- we could go get Emmy!  The lady who had the pups was kind enough to meet us part way and saved us about an hour of driving.

We couldn't believe how tiny she was when we first got her!  We needed to go back to the pet store to get a cat collar for her because even the smallest dog collar was to big!  I had also forgotten how much of a hassle puppies are.  They are ridiculously sweet and make up for being a pain in the butt, but that is what they are!  :)  

Anyway, 4 years later and here we are.  Emmy isn't so tiny anymore, in fact, my sister just suggested seeing if they make dog saddles!  Well, maybe she's not THAT big!  She is still a puppy at heart and we love all 75 pounds of her.  Happy birthday, Emmy Dog!

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