Magnolia Mom

Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been super busy with soccer league pictures. I finished up last night with taking the pictures. Now I’ve got to finish going through the pictures, editing, posting to galleries, sending emails, and placing orders. Then, start deliveries. Lots of work. I’m just happy that I was able to take all the pics on schedule. No rain outs!

I’ve got several posts in the works, but I just gotta find time to get them finished up and posted. I was looking at my blog earlier and realized that my header has a Corgi on it. WOW! I got a huge lump in my throat, realizing I don’t have a little black Corgi at my feet tonight as I sit and write this post. Tuesday after writing my last post, I cried much of the day. In my peripheral vision, I’d see something white and black on the floor. I guess, by habit, my mind would jump to the conclusion it was Rosie, and then I’d remember that she’s gone. Ugh! I’ve also heard lots of noises while home alone this week. Usually, I would have just assumed it was her, but now with her gone, I became quite curious what was making so much noise. One day, there was a cricket in the kitchen that kept hopping, which made a noise like Rosie’s nails on the floor.

Rob worked hard Tuesday and Wednesday digging a hole in the backyard. We buried her Wednesday and plan to have a funeral for her after the kids make a stone to put on grave. Oh how I miss her…

Anyway, Wow. I got off subject there. I love my header, so I’m not sure I’m going to change it because I know someday, we’ll have another Corgi. But, maybe I’ll find another cool pic to use instead. I’m also working to have some Menu pages with links to those in my sidebar. I’ll let you know when those are up.

So the posts that I’m working on include:
- Kids’ 1st day back to school
- TV Boy’s soccer pics
- Some new recipes
- Cub Scout Survivor Pictures
- Soccer Tourney pics (from this weekend)
- And…..probably more travel posts. I’ve got a couple more cruise posts that I want to share. Then, I plan to move on to Road trips!

So stay tuned.

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If you follow me on facebook, you are aware of how the last couple of weeks have gone. So very busy with school starting and all that goes with that. I’m also taking Soccer league pictures last week and this week. On top of all that, Thursday August 5th, Rob had come home for lunch and wondered why he wasn’t greeted by Rosie. I had remembered letting her outside a couple hours before, but she usually makes it well known that she’s ready to come in. We sent the boys out to see if they could find her and she was up under the deck, where she loves to lay where it’s shady and cool. The problem was she didn’t come out when called.

Thinking this was just a flair of up of her back problems that have been going on for a few months. For those of you who don’t know, dogs like Corgis, with short legs and long backs can have issues with herniated/pinched nerves. This causes them pain, paralysis, and loss of control of bowels, etc. We had this problem with our last Corgi, Jenny. So a few months ago when she was acting differently, we pretty much self diagnosed her, but took her to the vet to make sure. Turns out we were right. The treatment we chose for her in this case was crating. The only effect she was having was pain. She still had functionality of her legs and bowels. Stairs are also a really bad thing for dogs with this issue. Super bad news for us because we live in a split-level house with stairs in and out! Anyway, after some crating for a few days we saw a huge improvement in her and was able to let her live pretty normally. We tried to limit her travel up and down the stairs as much as we could.

So anyway, after bringing her back in that Thursday after finding her under the deck, she wouldn’t walk around hardly at all and she stopped eating. We brought her with us to our friends’ house in Atlanta, who we spent that weekend with. After getting back Monday, I took her to vet. She of course was dehydrated. She was hooked to a life-saving IV drip for several days and finally started to walk and eat. She came home Thursday, Aug. 12. She was walking and eating, but not really. She never finished 1 bowl of food over the weekend.

Yesterday when we got home for church, she was the worst I’ve ever seen her. She was pretty much paralyzed and we could tell nothing was going to make her better. Unfortunately, she suffered her last 24 hours. I sat next to her much of the day and evening to adjust her when she got uncomfortable, since she couldn’t do it herself.

Today Rob and I took her to the vet and the vet was shocked since she had responded decently last week, but the vet said she may have suffered a stroke or something with no return. We stayed with her as they put her to sleep. We brought her home and we will be burying her tomorrow so the boys can have some closure to the situation.

Ugh! You just don’t realize how much you expect to be met with such enthusiasm. I know especially for Rob, who Rosie would always greet with true excitement. Today, as I did stuff around the house, I would hear a noise or catch something in the corner of my eye and my mind would think, must be Rosie, then I would realize it wasn’t really her. As hard as this is going to be, I’m going to be listing all the memories of Rosie that come to mind. Memories of rosie…
-loved popcorn.
loved candy. She was so sneaky. No matter how well I thought I hid candy from the kids for like Easter or Valentine’s Day, Rosie would find it!
-was a bit OCD about marking her territory.
-loved to go for walks.
-loved to lay in her bed. We had one in the living room and one our bedroom.
-scared of thunderstorms.
-was a bit ditzy.
-hated having her nails cut.
-hated the camera.
-started to thump her leg as of late when we would pet her right below her neck. It was so funny.

Other facts about her…
We got Rosie after buying our first house in 2000. TV Boy was 2. Rosie was 3. Rosie was here to welcome Trey as a newborn. She would always get a concerned look when I would let him cry too long. Rosie came from award winning show dog parents, but her frame never grew to the accurate size, so she could never be a show dog. This was fine with us we had no plans of showing her.

Well, I hope all this makes sense. This was a hard post write……

Click here to see Rosie memorial page.

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PJ’s
1998

2004

2005

Santas through the years

This isn’t all the Santa photos. I’m missing 1998 and 2002, I think:-( If I find them, I’ll redo it! You’ll notice we’ve seen the same santa every year since 2001!

1. With Santa 1999, 2. With Santa 2000, 3. With Santa 2001, 4. Santa 2003, 5. Baby’s 1st Christmas – 2004, 6. Santa 2005

Kids sitting with their presents
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Christmas trees
2000

2004

2005

2006

2009

Christmas Tree Farm
2006

2009

Decorating
2006

2008

Mantle
2008

Old house snow decor

T’s first Christmas (pictured with me)

Portraits
2006

2007

2008

not sure when

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Today is Show Us Your Life, Pets edition. Here is Rosie, who is are Pebroke Welsh Corgi. We’ve had her for about 9 years. We were living in our first home, had only been there a few months. We had been without a dog for not quite a year after having our other Pembroke Corgi, Jenny, pass away.

Rosie is a lover of popcorn, candy (only because she’s good at somehow getting a hold of candy, which she’s not supposed to have!), sleeping, long naps in the sun while lying on the deck, and relaxing in one of the 2 ‘beds’ we have for her. She’s very tolerant of the 2 boys.

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This weeks posting is called “Let’s Hear It For The Boys!” in honor of Father’s Day. I chose this picture because it’s such a great tribute to Rob and the great father that he is. Here he’s laying in the ‘kiddy’ area with Monkey Boy. This pic has always been a favorite of mine.

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the other beautiful faces that have been entered into the contest!

This was taken at Schlitterbahn

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Yesterday a good part of the day was spent doing web work on my business site with Rob while watching Animal Planet. I think it was a Dogs 101 marathon. One of the shows that was on was about presidential dogs, which I found to be very interesting.

It was probably inspired by the fact that the Obama girls are getting a puppy soon. The show talked about what type of dog would be suitable for them. One of the commentators on the show was from the Presidential Pet Museum, which totally intrigued me and I SO wanna go. Staff there recommends a Portuguese Water Dog, because it’s non-allergenic, doesn’t shed, and is intelligent among other reasons. One of the main concerns of the Obama’s is that one of their daughters is allergic to dog fur. It’s amazing when I googled for information how many people have written articles about their dog selection!

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Here’s a pic of the elated TV Boy with his precious pet, who has been eating like crazy since we brought him home.

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I called this morning to check on Oreo and they said he was eating and jumping around. Yesterday he wouldn’t move hardly at all and just laid out. They said the doc wasn’t in yet, but they’d call me later. I just got the call and he’s fine, needs some meds for a few days.

I’m just so thankful. TV Boy and I just cried till our eyes were puffy before I left to take Oreo. He just kept saying, “Momma, don’t let him die.” It’s so hard to see your child in such grief stricken pain. In an hour when TV Boy gets home, I’m going to take him to pick up Oreo. I can’t wait to see the look on his face, when he hears he’s going to be ok.

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TV Boy called me while I was driving home, saying he thought Oreo (his rabbit) was dead. He was crying and it was very tramatic. I got home and looked at him and saw that he was probably not going to make it, but I would take him to the vet. I was praying they could do something to help. TV Boy got the rabbit for his 9th birthday back in January, so we haven’t had him that long. It’s TV Boy’s first pet that is just HIS, not a family pet.

TV Boy couldn’t go with me to the vet because he had a soccer game. The vet said that there were no broken bones, which is what I thought it might be, but really didn’t know. She said it was something wrong with his brain. His left eye was rolling back in his head. She said she could keep him overnight and give him fluids, steroids, and try and get his blood sugar up. She said he was on the thin side, which could be one of the problems. She said if he made it through the night, he’d probably be fine. Anyway,

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Where has the time gone? TV Boy is N I N E today! You don’t know how old that makes me feel. I’ve spent much of the day reflecting on this day 9 years ago. I look back and think how young and naive I was at the time, but SO didn’t realize it back then. I guess maybe when Monkey Boy turns 9, I’ll feel the same way about that time, too.

Then…

Now, here he is with his new pet that he got for his birthday.

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