Happy 4th Adoption Day, Kusko!

Today marks 4 years since we adopted Kusko from the Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue. Many may not know that I dreamed of having a Great Dane for several years before I even met Milton. When I told him that I was going to have a Great Dane someday he thought I was crazy. He couldn't understand why I would want such a big dog. A month after we got married I started looking and Milton was convinced that he still wanted nothing to do with a Great Dane. Well, after realizing that I wasn't going to give up he started doing his own research about the breed and became interested. We then went to an event that the rescue was doing at a local dog show and Milton had his first Dane experience. He was hooked. A month after that we had the home check, paperwork all filled out and was ready to adopt our first dane. Luckily, the people at the rescue knew what they were doing and fit us with our perfect match, Bruno (aka Kusko).

The day they called to say he was ready to come home I cried and couldn't wait for him to arrive. Once he did though, the realization of how big they really are hit and we were all in for a bit of an adjustment.

However, it all went great and we have loved this guy since! The pic above was taken today. He really doesn't look bad for the condition his body is in and that he is 7 years old (which is pretty old for an extra large breed).

This pic was taken the night of his adoption after they had left. We let him on the couch for the first few days, but realized that we would no longer have one if it continued (he doesn't share).

Our adoption pic

I wish Costco still sold these beds! They were huge and very fluffy.

Kusko in his better days. He really had some moves for a big clumsy dog.

Kusko has always been the top dog.

Dane Deer

Hope we get to celebrate another anniversary with you Kusko...we know our days left are short, but are glad you've been a part of the family.

What a Monumental Day!

Our Ayla is such a big girl now! This past week I had to go through all her clothes to determine what fit and most of her 12-18 month clothes had to be boxed up. She's now mainly wearing 2T which is a bit surprising since she's only in her 20th percentile for weight and just turned 18 months on the 1st of February (which means I'm going to have to get her a belt soon for all her low riding pants).

I'm also super excited that we were able to get her hair into a complete ponytail today! I have no idea why it is so monumental to me but I couldn't be more excited! Hopefully she'll leave this hairstyle alone so we can actually have her hair out of her face for a change.

She is just so adorable and already knows how to "cheese" for the camera. We have one adorable little girl!

Ayla's 1st Real Snow Experience

Finally, it's February and we have enough snow and warm enough weather that we attempted Ayla's first play in the snow. She loved it much more than I thought she would and we ended up out there for over an hour today.

She was in explore mode the whole time. Since the boots I bought her are about 2 sizes too big, in hopes that they will fit her next year, she had a harder time walking in the snow so she mainly kept to the sidewalk (luckily we live on the corner lot and had a lot of sidewalk for her to travel).

In this video she points and says dog just before patting her leg when she hears one barking.

Mama's Little Helper

Ayla is truly my little sweetheart! Even though she can still be a girly diva she usually has such a sweet and loving personality. She's always good about helping me pick up her toys (even though her attention span may not get the job completely done), she loves to help me unload the dishwasher and now she is even starting to vacuum.

I have to be honest and say it's much quicker to do things myself, but I try to make it fun for the both of us and hopefully someday it will be easier to get her to do her chores.

I'm so blessed with such a wonderful daughter who is always so easy going and wanting to experience new things. She even started going to nursery a month early without any problems. She LOVES it and so do we! We love you Ayla!

A Visit From Aunt Rachel and Uncle Grant

Uncle Grant and Aunt Rachel were headed to their new home in Chicago so we were lucky to have them visit for the weekend. Saturday was a beautiful day of 60+ degrees and we headed to the zoo.

Aunt Rachel took Ayla for a ride on the carousel.

Ayla was spoiled as always and never had a moment without being held by either Aunt Ray Ray or Uncle Grant.

Sunday night we got together with Grant's Sister, Diane and her boyfriend for dinner and played a few games of Sequence. We had a lot of fun and the weekend went by way to quickly!

Diane and her boyfriend (I'm afraid I already forgot his name, but he was a super nice guy, sorry).

Ayla was so sad that night when we made her go to bed an hour past her bedtime. She really wanted to keep hanging out with Rachel and Grant. Monday morning they left before Ayla woke up so when Ayla went to knock on the guest bedroom door and realized they were gone she started to cry. She hates it when her Aunts and Uncles leave her! I really wish that we lived closer to my family, but now we are all spread out from California all the way to Illinois!

I almost forgot abou this video! We got to witness some monkeys at the zoo having a lot of fun and Ayla was all giggles watching them play.

January Just Isn't Ayla's Month

Poor Ayla hasn't had the best of times this month. I've always said how healthy Ayla is and that I've never even had to put her on an antibiotic, but this month I guess we played a bit of catch up...

To start off the month Ayla had her flu booster shot and 18 month vaccinations. We then had an appointment a week later for an allergy skin test, which confirmed that she is indeed allergic to peanuts. Luckily, the counts from her bloodwork were low enough that it is hopeful she may grow out of the allergy. She will need to be retested for the next couple of years and if the counts continue to drop then we will be able to do a food test and little by little expose it to her. Of course, the opposite could happen and she could get worse as time passes.

After the allergy skin test we got a little break and then Ayla had the news that she is going to have a little brother...I'm sure we'll find out how she feels about that in a couple of months.

However, last Friday as I am preparing food for the missionaries Ayla starts to fever and cough. The fever lasted all weekend and come Monday evening when Milton got home from work she was very lethargic and had a temp above 102. We decided that we may not want to wait and headed to the ER. Well, that whole experience lasted way too long! 5 hours later, chest scans for pneumonia came back negative, urine sample was ok and our initial assumption of a virual infection was confirmed.

Thankfully, Ayla woke up Tuesday morning with no fever and seemed to be getting better but she was abnormally cranky. This morning I decided to schedule a peditrician appointment to try and figure out why she was so unhappy. Sure enough, she now has her first ear infection and was prescribed her first antibiotic.

So, so sum it all up, we've made more trips to the doctors in just one month than the rest of her 1 1/2 years combined. Poor girl! I think that the picture of Ayla and Milton in the ER gives you an idea of how sick our little girl was (and of course how tired Milton was).

What Are Little Boys Made Of????!!!!!!

That's right, we're going to find out what little boys are all about! That last two ultrasound scans are pretty obvious (especially since one of his hands just happen to be down there too, lol)!

These scans were the first images we saw as soon as the tech started the ultrasound. He obviously wanted us to know without a doubt of his manhood, whether we wanted to or not.

We are so excited to have Arian Rosas (middle name to be determined) join our family! To correctly say his name it is pronounced in Spanish - trill the r and the second a has an accent (~).

Here I am at 21 weeks. I am much bigger than I was with Ayla and to think that I just passed the halfway point is a very scary thought indeed.