Millie Mae - Our Wild Animal

 

Millie Mae's been growing, learning, and pooping a lot lately. She is a sweet dog and is quickly becoming a part of the family. Millie had some vaccinations recently and her checkup went well. She's doubled in size since we got her and is a little over 5 pounds at this point. She still fits under the couch and ottoman, which is frustrating when you're trying to catch her. 

We've been working on training her and I believe the most important command is "come". Millie definitely understands this command and will perform it 100% of the time. But only when she wants to. She is a little stinker and if she doesn't feel like listening she will sprint away and is very good at evading us by slithering under the furniture. 

Millie Mae is getting good with a lot of her tricks. If you have a treat, she will sit, stay, come, lie down, and roll over. She's also learning shake and beg, but those aren't very consistent without a bit of help and encouragement. 

We've been taking Millie on walks and she's getting much better about her leash, but still will get tangled up in it if you're not diligent about controlling it. She doesn't love her walks, but she tolerates them much more and doesn't cry the entire time. 

Millie Mae had her first haircut this past week and honestly we're not crazy about it. The mobile groomer we used seemed a bit inexperienced and mostly just trimmed up a few things and didn't do a great job of shaping the hair around Millie's face. Millie is still cute, but honestly we thought she was cuter before her haircut. We've scheduled an appointment for April with a different groomer and hopefully we'll like them better.

Well, that's all I can think of for now, it's been a LOT of work and it's also been a bit of struggle to get the kids to consistently do the work with us, but we are having fun with our doggie. We love our Millie bear!

Paige - JCP Level 6 Tennis Tournament - 2nd Place Overall

 

On Sunday, Paige played in a tennis tournament at JCP. The tournament was scheduled over Saturday and Sunday, however it got completely rained out on Saturday so there were a lot of kids trying to squeeze in a lot of matches on Sunday. Paige's first match was noon and she didn't get done until after seven in the evening. There were only three matches overall, but because it was so busy they ended up very spaced out.

Paige played against Portland in the final match and although she was very close to victory at one point, Portland prevailed and Paige took 2nd place. 

Paige's baking and cooking

Paige has been enjoying all her opportunities to bake and cook lately. Over the weekend Andrea got her some cake mix and Paige had fun making cupcakes, a cake, and some cake pops. She also filmed the process a little for her TikTok page, she's been having fun posting all kinds of videos for her page.

Paige back in school - no more remote learning!

On Monday, March 1st, Paige went back to school for the first time in nearly a year. Paige finished her 4th grade school year remotely at home after the pandemic shut everything down and although it was optional we opted to keep her home this school year so far. Andrea and I both have had both vaccine doses and we've been considering having the kids go back in to school. 

Recently, Paige was having some difficulty staying focused during her classes and wasn't keeping track of her assignments. We know it's been hard for her to stay motivated and after a lot of thinking, Andrea and I decided it was a good time to let her go in to school. Paige was assigned to a classroom with some of her friends and so far it's been going great and Paige has enjoyed it.

School is definitely different than before, the kids are all still required to wear masks when they ride the bus and in school during many of their activities. They're also limited with interaction between classes, but Paige has been able to see some of her friends at recess.

Jogging with Dad in the rain

Connor, out of the blue, decided he'd like to go jogging with me. On Saturday I got up fairly early so I could take Millie Mae to her vet appointment and kind of expected that Connor would change his mind, but he was up and ready to go. It was a cool and drizzly morning and we ended up fairly wet, but Connor chugged right along and we ran the usual 6+ mile route through the neighborhood. I snapped a pic of him when we took a water break at the water fountain in the park.

Connor's 14th birthday

March 2nd was a Tuesday this year, and was a school day. We didn't do anything amazing that day on Connor's birthday, but Andrea did try to make it a special day by getting Connor his favorite treat Krispy Kreme Donuts. 

We also got Connor some Taco Bell tacos and he used some of his birthday money to buy a really nice over the door basketball hoop. It is probably the sturdiest and nicest hoop of this type I've seen, has a solid metal rim with springs in it, and the ball has a really nice weight to it. Unfortunately the ball's weight also means that when the ball bounces off things it can cause some damage and one of his trophies was broken, the walls are marked up, and some picture frames have suffered as well. He loves it though, so I guess it's worth it.

Golf Clinic in Neighborhood

 

The kids went to the neighborhood golf clinic on February 28th. They were the oldest kids by far and mostly focused on putting that day.