Tribute to our Sunshine Pup

Last Thursday, October 23, we had to put our sweet Callie dog to sleep. Two days earlier she had suddenly started throwing up, stopped eating and didn't want to move. We took her to the vet and her blood work showed kidney failure. The vet thought it had probably been progressing over the past month, but that she just kept going full speed until her body shut down completely. So, upon his recommendation, and with very heavy hearts, we said goodbye to our best little four-legged friend.

young puppy Callie in October 2004

Callie has been a part of nearly all of our family's life together. We got her as a 3 month old crazy puppy for my birthday in 2004, less than a year after getting married. We had just bought and settled into our first house, and knew that we wanted to raise our kids with a dog. Seth is a total animal lover, but I had grown up fearing dogs, and we didn't want our kids to repeat my experience. So, we decided to get a dog that day, drove to Spanish Fork (because it was the closest shelter with any puppies that day) and brought home Callie despite her overwhelming amount of energy. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing, and we were so unprepared for her. We didn't even have a crate for her, so that night we made a little makeshift bed/crate out of some plastic yard fencing and a laundry basket. She would not stay contained, though, and quickly found out how to get right out of that thing. The next day, we bought a crate...and found out that I was pregnant with Morgan...talk about timing.

Our family on our first "Conference Drive" in October 2004

We think that Callie had been abused before we adopted her. She came to us scared, anxious, nervous to be near us, and completely numb to pain. Our neighbor later told us that he was sure we were going to take her back to the shelter within a week because she was such a handful. It took weeks to convince her that we wouldn't hurt her, but eventually she stopped bracing for abuse when we would reach toward her to pet her. She became quite the little cuddle bug, though, burrowing her way under the covers of our bed all the way to the very bottom to snuggle by our feet. She had a slight identity crisis...she loved to climb up on the back of the couch and lie there in the sunshine like a cat...and she loved to rub up against your legs and arch her back up against you like a cat. She would find any inch of sunshine streaming in from the window and curl up right there on that spot to rest. After months of that, we dubbed her "sunshine pup".

Callie's first Christmas - she had just learned how to sit and stay

Callie catching snowballs

She was the highest energy dog we had ever known. She could outrun any dog we met, and would constantly jump in between dogs that were fighting at the dog park and get them to chase her to break up their fight. She was a jumper and a chewer. She failed her puppy training class because she just had too much energy! She ran into a moving car when we picked her up from the vet after getting spayed because she darted off and didn't see the car coming and ran right into the side of it. She chewed up vacuum cords, stuffed animals, frisbees, bras, diapers, balls, leashes, every shoe in the house, a couch cushion and even chewed a giant hole right in the middle of a brand new memory foam mattress topper we had just opened and put on our bed. She did eventually learn a lot of tricks though. One of our favorites was "velociraptor" where she would stand up on her hind legs and balance in the air like a velociraptor. She would also stand on her hind legs and give Seth hugs, he would then make her dance with him...but she did not enjoy that very much. She was in love with balls and frisbees and would do quite the acrobatics to catch them, but then would run away with it and never give it back. She did learn to come and stay and sit and lie down, but regardless of her training, she would bolt out the front door any chance she got. Man she was fast and there was no hope of catching her unless you could get her attention with a ball, frisbee or treat. We tried every kind of collar and leash to make walks manageable because she would pull so much, and finally found the gentle leader, which is the only thing that worked. Even still, she was always right out in front, leading the way.

Callie and baby Morgan

When we brought Morgan home, we were amazed that even though she would still run around like a psycho dog, she was very conscientious of him and very gentle with him. My family still recounts the time he was laying on a blanket on the floor only a few weeks old and she pulled the blanket out from under him, sending him catapulting over, but for the most part she was so sweet with him. We would find her under his crib while he was sleeping or following him around to keep him out of trouble. She didn't mind when he stole her food, bones, and toys, or when he grabbed her ears, poked her eyeballs, pulled her tail or later sat on her like a horse. She obliged him with sloppy lick kisses in his open mouth, and cleaned the spit up off his face. She learned the art of high chair floor clean up, and hovered around whenever he was eating.

Callie, Seth and Morgan in the backpack

She was our outdoor adventure companion. She loved to hike with us and would run up ahead to scope out the trail and then come right back as soon as we were out of sight to make sure we were coming. I think she traveled about 10 times the distance we did on those hikes with all her running ahead and coming back to check on us. She didn't love the water the first time Seth threw her in, but as she got used to it, she became quite the water-loving dog. She would go out on the canoe with us and then jump in and swim alongside us as we paddled. One time we got her some little "paw shoes" to protect her feet on our rocky adventures, and we laughed our heads off as she walked in them the first time. She pranced like a horse until she ripped those suckers right off of her feet. She was hilarious to take snowshoeing too. She would run so fast that she didn't even sink into the snow. It was like watching a twitterpated deer prancing around in Bambi. She loved it when we took her sledding because it was the only time we could keep up with her speed. She would run alongside us as we zipped down the hill.

Callie chasing Morgan and Seth on the sled

Callie and Roxy

Right before Chloe was born, we took in a puppy from a friend who had rescued a pregnant dog. Roxy was just 8 weeks old when we brought her home, and Callie took her on as her own puppy. She showed that little puppy the ropes of life with babies and toddlers around. She taught her all of the bad habits, and all of the good habits, and she played and played with that little Roxy until Roxy got bigger than her and tried to steal all the sunshine spots. Callie was not too thrilled about that. They were buddies though, and when we had to find another home for Roxy a couple of years later right before Brynn was born, Callie missed her friend. Callie continued to be crazy and energetic and fast, but with each little baby we brought home from the hospital, she softened and sweetened and mellowed a little more. She loved those babies of ours with all her heart!

Callie watching over newborn Ellie

Callie and Chloe

Our family picture 2007

Morgan, Chloe and Callie

Chloe and Callie

By the time we moved to Portland, Callie was a very good dog. She was worried sick as we started taking everything out of the house and loading it into the moving truck. Apartment life for 3 weeks was as awful for her as it was for all of us, but once we got to our house in Oregon and she had room to roam, she was a happy happy dog. She still loved to run out the door and got excited when people came over, but she would always come back. She loved our many trips to the coast to play in the ocean, drink the salty water, chase the waves and lounge in the sand. She loved our waterfall hikes and adventures, but mostly, I think she loved the landing of our staircase where the giant two story bay window was filled with sunshine on the non-cloudy days. I often found her curled up there soaking it all up.

Chloe, Brynn, Seth and Callie on the Oregon coast

We made her nervous when we packed up our world again, but Arizona proved to be a happy place for Callie. She explored the cacti at first...realized that wasn't a great idea, and avoided them in the future. She chased lots of lizards, and birds and even caught a pack rat for us. But her favorite thing was swimming. That dog love love loved to swim. She also loved to lifeguard and would always bark if she was worried that something the kids were doing in the water wasn't safe. It was kind of annoying, but also sweet and endearing. She pulled her weight though, and made sure to swim around and gather up all the toys when we finished swimming, so they weren't left in the water. This didn't go so well with the blow up toys...

Callie and Lincoln October 2014

But the thing I didn't really consciously realize was how much she was mothering my babies. In the days after she was gone, I noticed such a void. It wasn't just that she wasn't there sitting in the patch of sunshine, or that her tail wasn't wagging when I came in the room, or even that she wasn't there to greet me when I'd get home from errands...though I miss those things terribly. I was surprised when I noticed that I was so much more exhausted, and Ellie and the babies seemed like so much more work than normal. I noticed that in the morning when I brought the babies in my room like I always do, they were getting on the bed, climbing all over me and pulling my hair and driving me crazy...she used to be the one who did first-thing-in-the-morning play duty. I noticed that they wanted me to come and follow them around because Callie wasn't there to play chase with in circles around the house. I noticed that when I took them in another room to divert their attention while I got dinner finished or swept the floor, they just came right back in crying because Callie wasn't there to wear off some of their energy playing catch or lick or chase. I noticed that despite my best efforts and multiple times sweeping each day, the high chair corner was disgusting, and the rest of the floor wasn't much better. I noticed that I was on high alert when the kids would go play out in the backyard because my nanny-dog wasn't there to make sure they were safe or alert me if there was danger. I didn't realize how much I counted on her to make our household run.

Callie and Lincoln - October 2014

Chloe checking on Callie first thing in the
morning when she was sick. So glad she spent
time petting her and telling her she loved her.

The kids were all heartbroken over the loss. They knew there was a chance she would die when they left for school that morning because she was so sick, and we had talked about it. They had mentioned that at least she had gotten to have a really happy life with us and that we had gotten to have a really

Callie's Funeral

happy life with her. But when we made the decision to euthanize, the vet advised us not to wait because she was so miserable that each hour was like an eternity for her. So I went by myself while Seth was working, kids were at school and a friend was sitting with the babies while they were napping. I had the horrible responsibility of telling them about it in the short minutes after they got home from school and before the kids started arriving for dance. Chloe was the first to break down. She tried to be strong, but I could see it in her face that she was holding back the tears and as soon as I told her it was ok to be sad, she sobbed on my shoulder. The other kids seemed to be very sad, but ok when I told them, but after dance and dinner when we had our little funeral for her, I saw Morgan with tears streaming down his face watching us finish putting the dirt on her grave. I went to hug him and Brynn came over to join in the sobbing. Chloe joined us too, and we all cried. Poor little Brynn feels things so deeply, that she couldn't stop crying to go to sleep until very late. We looked at pictures of Callie in the scrapbooks and on my computer, and remembered all the wonderful things about her, which was fun to laugh and remember, but our hearts were still heavy and the tears came and went for days. Sometimes they still come in waves. Ellie has struggled to really process it. She still tells everyone she sees, "Our Callie dog died" or "We had to bury our Callie dog because she died." We found some digging by Callie's grave and are sure it was Ellie. The other morning she prayed that Callie would get better and we had to explain to her that Callie can't get better. I can't decide whether it hurts more to experience my own grief from losing her after 10.5 years of having her in my life or watching my kids experience the grief of losing the friend that has been a part of their whole lives. Either way, this is definitely the worst part of loving a dog.



We all feel a hole in our hearts that she used to fill. It aches each time the kids walk in the door from school and look around for Callie before they realize she isn't there to greet them at the door. It aches each time I lay down in my bed and see an empty spot on the floor by our bed where she used to sleep. It aches when the babies wake up in the morning saying, "Dog, dog" and looking for their friend. It aches when someone knocks on my door and there isn't any barking or sounds of pawprints running to greet them. It aches each time Seth walks in the door from work and I didn't realize he had pulled in the driveway because nobody alerted me. It aches when I do the dishes and have to wash crusted food off of them before they go in the dishwasher because Callie wasn't there to pre-wash them. It aches when Seth comes into our bedroom each night and he isn't followed by a four-legged shadow. It aches when we go out for a walk as a family, and there is no discussion of who gets to
hold the leash. It aches when I see the empty gray chair in the corner that she always claimed. Most of all it aches when we see little spots of sunshine throughout our house unclaimed.

So to you, our little sunshine pup, farewell! Thanks for teaching us to seek the sunshine, to live vibrantly, to love even when that love is undeserved, to serve willingly and indiscreetly, and to greet the world with excitement! We look forward to the day when you greet us with that excitement in heaven...thanks for letting us be your family.

snapshot of right now

At this very moment across the room from me Callie just stretched and went back to sleep mid-afternoon nap on the couch. Calendars and notebooks are sprawled next to me from going through my schedule and making sure I have everything written down where everyone in my family can see it (and most importantly, where I can see it so it doesn't slip through the cracks. Today is Thursday which means on a typical day I would be moving couches around and sweeping my floor to turn my front room into a dance studio for a 5 handful of 5-6 year olds and later a handful of 7-8 year olds (and tomorrow a bunch of 3 year olds), but today happens to be mommy and me class, so my house remains a house and dance will be held at the church. Two babies are sleeping in their room, tired from pushing chairs around, climbing in and out of their stroller and hanging on my legs during my dance conditioning exercise class this morning. Ellie is sleeping in her room, worn out from 2.5 hours of non-stop fun at storybook preschool pretending to be a frog, eating carrot "bugs" and raisin "Beetles", and being immersed in the brilliance of the classic book "Frog and Toad are Friends". 

In less than an hour, I will have two girls to hug and snuggle, schoolwork to appreciate, questions to pick out of the jar and ask during 10 minutes with mom and instructions to give. I will hear about tag at recess, who had the same crackers in their lunch today, and what songs were learned in music. In nearly two hours my little man will walk through the door and I will hug him and ask him whether he caught any passes or scored any touchdowns during the football games at recess that he so enjoys. He will tell me about after-school chorus and whether he got the homework he forgot to take this morning that I dropped off for him at school earlier today. 

And then we will all load up and head to dance. Brynn will go first, then Chloe and Morgan's class. Hopefully Seth will be there (with pizza in the car for dinner) to pick up the littles while I stay and dance with Morgan and Chloe since the babies will demand Mom the minute Morgan leaves them to join his ballet class. After dance, we will munch up pizza and baby carrots for dinner while homework is worked on, book report projects are finished up, spelling words reviewed and piano practiced.

We will swish some babies into their beds, read a stack of books, say a bunch of prayers, give a bunch of hugs and kisses and lock a couple of doors from the outside. And then it will be (mostly) quiet again...in between reminders to stop chit chatting and pretending and go to sleep. I will pick up some ingredients for funeral potatoes that are to be delivered tomorrow afternoon, balance our checkbook and pay bills, Seth will finish his charting and hopefully we will fit in some mindless tv watching and chat a bit before collapsing into bed ourselves, exhausted from the whirlwind of it all, to rest up for the start of a different but very similar whirlwind tomorrow. 

Lately I have been so busy doing all of these things and feeling utterly overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of how much has to happen every.single.day, that it has made me sick {quite literally - I am struggling to recover from a cold/flu virus I got over two weeks ago}. So this afternoon, I sat in the quiet and thought about what I could do to feel rejuvenated so I could take on the rest of the day without feeling exhausted just thinking about it. I decided to write it....record it so that I could remember this moment: the eye of the storm, and as I did, I was filled with joy. It seems so overwhelming when you are just going through the motions to survive the day, but when I started thinking about all the beautiful little things that come from the many many tasks, I just felt overwhelmed with gratitude. I am so grateful to have a body that can lift and lug. I am grateful for a house with space to host dance classes. I am grateful for a wonderful school where my kids can learn and play and excel. I am grateful for kind and caring friends that have crossed my path throughout the day. I am grateful for technology that keeps track of all the things my brain cannot. I am grateful for a husband who goes to work every day to provide for our family so I have a budget to balance and gas in my car and this lovely bag of baby carrots sitting next to me to munch on. I am grateful that I have the energy and means to serve and that people don't hesitate to call when help is needed. I am grateful for kids who love life...who find the joy in every little bit of it. I am grateful for the slobbery kisses and the sweaty hugs and the excited anticipation in their voices as they recount the day. I am grateful for the piles of books all over my house that are evidence of many many many moments snuggled and reading together. Truly this life is so filled with joy! I am so glad to think that the life I have been given is the one that will bring me the most lasting joy...and your life is the one that will bring you the most lasting joy. What a blessing it is to live on this earth! 

Hope the snippet of your life today is overflowing with joy! Happy Thursday!

Brynn's first day of Preschool

These are from August 2013 when Brynn started preschool. Love this girl and all her silliness...even if she didn't look at the camera once!

Newborn Pictures

My amazingly talented friend took the most gorgeous newborn photos of my babies in her studio. She captured them so beautifully and I love her to pieces for it! Check out her work (it is all amazing, but be warned that you will probably want to have another baby after you visit her site) at www.jenniferbphotography.com.

 

Remembering

Today is 9 months since Lincoln and Ryder were born. I am determined to get caught up on organizing pictures and making sure I know which baby is which, and as I have been sorting through tonight, I am more in love with those two little boys than ever. I am so glad that somewhere in the fog of newborn twins, I got out my camera and captured some everyday moments with them.

Like how tiny their little arms and legs were...

and the gorgeous little fuzz that covered their bodies and collected in a little whisp on their shoulders...

and, of course, the way they seemed to communicate with each other in their own little best buddy way, even before they were a month old.

 

Thank you exhausted new-Mama self, for taking these pictures in your sleep-deprived state.

So thankful for these boys and all the love and joy they brought with them 9 months ago.

xoxoxo

the best things in life are hard

Today I am home from church with three almost-better-but-still-sick babies who are resting, so I want to share some thoughts that have been flooding my mind lately. I know the thoughts are scattered and kind of all over the place, but that is pretty depictive of me right now. 

Being a parent right now is hard. It is filled with worry. Worry that you are doing it all wrong. Worry that you might mess up your kids forever. Worry that despite doing your best those kids have the ability to choose for themselves and there are certainly plenty of opportunities for them to choose the things you know won't make them happy...truly happy. Worry that the people around them won't love them for who they are, that they might get picked on or teased or worse. Worry that they might be the person who picks on or teases someone else. Worry that they won't make the right kind of friends. Worry that they aren't excelling in school. Worry that they are excelling too much in school. Worry that there just isn't time in those short hours they are home with you to mold them into the well rounded person you want them to be. Worry that you can't fit in piano and soccer and dance and football for all of them starting at age 4....or afford all of those things for 6 kids simultaneously. 

And so you are left to choose what is best. And I am glad to have prayer and communication with God to help with that. Time and time again, I find myself choosing to fit less and less into this life of ours. Maybe I am getting old...I am 30 after all. Maybe I am getting tired from months of sleepless nights and carrying two babies around all day. Or maybe I am just getting better at figuring out what really truly builds us up as a family. So, I say no to tennis, and later to piano and yes to having the missionaries over for dinner. I say no to a charter school because I am not willing to take the time out of our lives to spend it in the car back and forth every day even if it means removing the disaster of common core from our lives. I say yes to inviting friends over and playdates, but no to the science fair. I say no to just about anything that falls on a Monday night because that is family home evening and we need to yell, "Welcome to family home evening" at the top of our lungs together as a family so we can make it through the week. I say yes to a later bedtime so we can go for a walk around the neighborhood together as a family while the sun is setting, but no to later bedtime to go to an event at the school. And as I type this out, I am ridden with a kind of guilt for admitting it, but liberated by the reality that in making these choices I am doing what is best for my family.

I wonder if I would have figured this out without the struggles of the last year. As I have been reflecting on where we are now and where we are headed, I have felt such gratitude for the journey we have been on. When we found out we were going to have twins, my initial prayer about it included the words, "What are you thinking, Heavenly Father? How can I possibly handle having two babies?" And now my sentiments have changed so much. I can't imagine my life without these two sweet boys. What a horrible tragedy it would have been to miss out on all the joy and love they have brought into my life. I would have never known what I was missing out on, but now that I have it, I know that it would have been impossible for a loving Heavenly Father to not send them to me. I am sure he patiently smiled to himself, shaking his head during that first prayer on the way home from the ultrasound. He knew what he was doing and I had no idea what I was questioning. Thankfully, I am not in charge of the plan. 

Here is another not-as-fast-flashback flipagram of our twin journey: http://flipagram.com/f/RaKSVYoPhm

Each night at the dinner table we ask a "question of the day" and each person has an opportunity to answer. Often the questions are silly, "If you could be any kind of tree which one would you be?", and sometimes they are more serious, "What is your very best quality?" The kids love to suggest questions, and some of the things they come up with are quite fantastic. One of those included last night's question: "What is your favorite thing about the baby boys." The answers were all similar, but the love was palpable. I wish I could come up with words that would communicate how they have changed our family. Every single one of us. How they have made us love each other more. How they have made us see the world differently. How they have challenged us and shown us our weaknesses. How they have brought out our strengths and deepened our love for ourselves and for our Heavenly Father. How they have built confidence and independence and self-worth in each of our children. How they light up our home. 

I feel similarly about our job adventure. Fresh out of school 2.5 years ago, we thought we would take one of the many job options available, get approved for the loan repayment and 2-3 years later be debt free and ready to move back to Utah and start the rest of our lives. And while you will not find me knocking Utah (many out-of-state Mormons are not big fans of Utah, it seems), the part of my life I thought was going to be the "endure until I can get back to my real life" has turned out to be such a fun adventure. It has been hard in many ways, but again, worth it for the way it has changed us. 

Apparently I haven't actually shared this as I thought I had (probably because I don't actually sit down and blog very often), but the loan repayment thing still hasn't happened for us. When we set out to Portland originally, we really thought (based on what we had heard and read) that we would apply the second it opened and we would get approved and they would pay the money and we would fulfill the service contract. After the program changed and that didn't happen in Portland, we set out to find a job that was more likely to get approved, but we did know that it still wasn't a sure thing. We were approved for one of the repayment programs in the summer, but accepting it would have taken us out of the running for the other (higher paying) program. So, we prayerfully considered and both Seth and I felt like we shouldn't take it, and so we declined it. I thought this meant we were getting the other one and didn't worry. Again, the word came back, though, that we had not been approved. And while it should have sent me into panic mode, it didn't. The email came, the reality sank in, and I said ok, knowing that this was part of a bigger plan and that it would all turn out ok. And so, here we are, at the point we originally thought we would be finishing up our service contract, debt-free and headed back to "start the rest of our lives" and wondering what the next step is for us. We sort of hope it involves sticking around Tucson for a while longer (we are contracted through the end of September, so for sure until then), but the last few years have helped us to realize that we just want to go where Heavenly Father wants us to go and do what he wants us to do. It may not always result in the outcome we were seeking, but it always results in something better than we could have imagined.   

So onward, friends and family. Keep doing the hard things and we will too...looking back it is always the hard things that bring the most joy into our lives!

Looking back and Looking forward

2013 will go down in the history of our family as the craziest year ever! And with all the crazy, came more love and blessings than I could have ever imagined. It is so strange to think that just a year ago, I had no idea what was headed our way. Our word for 2013 was "Delight" and my goodness how it fit. We truly found delight in all that we experienced! Of course the crowning achievement of our year was welcoming Lincoln and Ryder to our family and from the minute they arrived they have brought us so much delight! We asked the kids to tell us their favorite thing that happened in 2013 and most of them said it was bringing the babies home from the hospital. Their very little lives remind us every day of the miracles we experienced getting them here and how much our Father in Heaven knows us and loves us. I am so glad that we were inspired to choose the word delight as our word of the year, because it was a constant reminder to enjoy every experience, even the ones that tried us to the very core. 

As I look forward to 2014, again I have absolutely no idea what is in store for my little family this year. We sure love this life we have here in Arizona, though, and we wouldn't mind a bit if this year was a little less eventful than the last one. This life of ours is a whole lot of work and everyone in the family has to pitch in and help, so as I was thinking about our word of the year, I felt like we should focus on making a little more time for fun. But as Seth and I talked it over we decided that what we really need is to find a happy balance between work and play, so our word for 2014 is "BALANCE". 

I downloaded the flipagram app to check it out because everyone on Instagram was doing it and you know what? Our 2013 in pictures literally flashing before my eyes captured my heart! I can't believe how much everybody has changed and how much happened! So, don't watch this if you are sensitive to flashing lights because it flips through more than 400 pictures in 30 seconds, but otherwise enjoy! 

Click here to watch

Wishing you a wonderful 2014 filled with love and happiness!

Today I uploaded pictures

from 3 months of letting them pile up on my CF cards. 

And picture after picture I relived the months that have gone by so quickly I can't even remember them. I kicked myself again and again for not being more diligent in getting out my camera and capturing this life of mine...these gorgeous children I get to call my own, the friends that make our lives so rich, the neighborhood that we have come to love, the fun times spent in our backyard, the hours of helping with homework and working on spelling words and the messes and moments that have filled our days. But every few minutes I would come across a picture that made me cut myself some slack because at least I captured a little bit of it. (I need  to take the time to post some of them here because it is evidence that we have indeed been enjoying this life of ours despite the survival mode mentality that has become our new normal.)

And then I came across this one...

 

...and my heart burst into a million pieces with love. 

There isn't anything particularly amazing about this photo, but in it I see the proof that there is a God and that this little family of mine was part of a plan. That these little people who fill my home with noise and chaos, chose this family...these siblings...these parents (bless their little hearts for that one). That this palpable love that all of them exude for one another existed long before they came to this world. And those two little miracle babies fill our home with so.much.love. Their bond is so unique and so sweet that I feel inordinately blessed just to witness it each day. They have captured the hearts of each of their older siblings, and that is a special thing to watch too. 

I am grateful every day when I settle exhausted into my bed to know that this beautiful, chaotic, loud, craziness of a life is mine! That I chose it, I love it and I would choose it again every time!