Gable makes a friend!

We finally found some time for Gable's first puppy play date! Here he is with Daisy, Katie & Andy's year old golden retriever. Given this was his first time, and the size difference, puppy play date #1 was a success! Can't wait for these two to become even better friends! :)

P.S. Gable was 11 weeks when these pics were taken.

Meet Gable

We picked up Gable 2 weeks ago on April 13^th. He was still really little – only 7 weeks old and 10lbs. He rode on my lap, alternating between sleeping and licking me, all the way home from the breeder. After introducing him to ourselves, our house and backyard, he crashed from all the new things and we were able to get this pic. Seriously, he couldn’t be any more adorable!

The last two weeks have gone by SO fast. And it’s interesting how much can change with the entrance of a puppy. The day we went to pick up Gabe I posted on facebook how I would no longer only be responsible for myself. My sister has been teasing me about saying that but in all actuality our lives and schedules have changed a lot since taking on this new responsibility. Neither Matt nor I have ever had a pet and while you can hear stories from friends and read about it in books or on the web, you aren’t really prepared for what it’s like to have a dog.

We knew that he’d whine/cry/bark in the crate training process, but actually hearing him sound so sad in his kennel and knowing that I can’t let him out until he quiets down breaks my heart. And we weren’t quite ready for the lack of sleep that was headed our way. Because Gabe’s bladder is still so small, we Matt is still taking him out during the night and then I’ll take him out around 6:30am. This is a completely different sleep schedule for Matt and I am realizing how much I used to rely on the weekends to catch up on sleep.

So while books and friends didn’t really prepare us for some of the changes we’ve experienced since bringing Gable home, books and friends didn’t really prepare us for how quickly we’d fall in love with Gabe and how much fun it would be to have a puppy. Everytime Gabe crawls onto my lap to cuddle my heart melts. And when Gabe “retrieved” his first tennis ball for me, I was way more proud then I ever thought I would be for something that seems so silly.

It’s been hard to find time to post but there are so many funny stories and cute pictures/videos of Gabe that I want to get on here. Plus there’s other fun things going on in our lives too. But to make up for my absence the last couple of weeks, here are some more pics of the cutest puppy in the world! 

First Glimpse of Warm Weather

We finally got some warm weather on a weekend! It was so great to get outside and just enjoy the warmth... and get a little color. Plus I think it did our plants some good because look what I found in our front yard today --

I'm definitely excited to see some of the flowers blooming because it means we didn't totally mess up everything that our previous owners did. However I am somewhat concerned about what I should be doing to make sure everything looks as nice as it did last year when we moved in. If there are any expert gardeners out there I could really use a lesson or two... or twenty.   :)

Fun with my Gal Pals!

Sometimes you just need a night with the girls to giggle about stupid things, share exciting news and vent about boys. Friday was one of those nights for me and it was fabulous! Thanks to Emily & Liz for the rejuvenating night out!

A little rusty...

I'm pretty sure the last time I tried to paint anything was in my 6th grade art class...15 years ago. So with that in mind, I think my attempt to add some art to our kitchen was a success. 

Here's the before pic of the wall:

And here's the after pic:

I bought 2 plain white canvases at Hobby Lobby for $4.99. And I used leftover paint from all the paint samples we bought trying to figure out wall colors in our bathrooms, bedroom and family room so that was free. It looks like it shouldn't have taken me very long to do this but I would work on it for a little bit and then step back for a couple days to see what I thought. Then I'd go back to it for a bit and step back again. I'm not really in love with it or anything but I am impressed that I did this myself. Maybe next time I'll try something a little more complicated... maybe with letters or even a full word... baby steps. :)

Out with the old, In with the new

Matt bought this tv stand for $20 at Menards when he moved to Fort Dodge. It looked ok when paired with our old furniture but now that we’ve got our awesome new stuff, it looks so pitiful. It’s totally dwarfed by the furniture so it looks awkward in the room and we practically have to look down at the tv because the new couch is taller than the old one. We’ve been throwing around the idea of building a mantel with electric fireplace which would also hold our tv because we hadn’t found anything else that we remotely liked. But then we went to Ikea last weekend and everything changed when we spotted this…

Pretty sweet, right. It’s not what we thought we wanted but it’s got the height plus it’s substantial enough to balance out the new furniture. And at $99 it was a complete steal. Since it’s finished on all 4 sides and made to be used horizontally or vertically, there’s lots of uses for it if we decide to do change things up in the future. We really liked the idea of accessorizing the shelves and adding some storage space since there currently isn’t any in the room.  (Just to note - that is not what our wall color actually looks like in person.)  

And look what showed up on our front step on Monday –

Our friends Emily & Rob have a ladder shelf in their family room and after seeing it I knew we had to have one too! They can get pretty pricey so I’ve been scouring the internet and store ads for a few weeks before finding this one on sale on Amazon. I was a little nervous about buying it without seeing it first. I didn't want it too red since our coffee table is black/brown but it looks great!

So now I just need to tackle the daunting task of accessorizing these two awesome shelves. Yep, this is definitely a little overwhelming for me. I tried to go through the rest of our house and find things that could be used for either of these shelves but it seems we don’t really have anything good. Or I’m just not creative enough to figure out how to make it work. I’m searching for baskets this weekend and hopefully during that process I’ll find some other cute, inexpensive items to help complete the room. Wish me luck! 

Road trippin'

Friday night we hit up Gary Allan's concert at the Surf Ballroom with our favorite couple from Clear Lake. It was definitely a fun time! A few weeks ago I bought Gary's newest album (released last fall) and have been prepping for the sing along. I'm glad I did too because while Gary played all his greatest hits like Watching Airplanes and Songs About Rain, he also played some of his new ones such as No Regrets. That one's definitely going to be one of my new favorites.

Since we we're already half way to the Twin Cities, we decided to make it a road trip weekend and headed further up north on Saturday morning. We started our shopping excursion off with a stop at Cabela's on the way up. Then we hit up Ikea! It was Matt's first time and we definitely made it a good one. I'm not sure if Matt was more impressed with their 50cent hotdogs or the new tv console that we found, but either way it was a successful shopping spree. I'll have more about our purchases in upcoming posts-- we need to accessorize first.

Keeping with the shopping theme... we couldn't NOT go to the Mall of America. It had been years since I'd been there and Matt was a virgin for this too. We didn't really buy much but we had a great time people watching and checking things out.

This was the view from our dinner table. Pretty awesome ambiance. Did you know that Camp Snoopy is now called Nickelodeon Universe? I wonder when that happened? The only character I recognized was Dora the Explorer... I guess I'm getting old. Correction - we are getting old. I tried to convince Matt that we should go on a ride but he was feeling to old for that. :) All in all it was a fun weekend getaway! Just what we needed!