The Little Brides

Here is a slide show that I put together of the girls dressed as brides last summer. I posted it a while ago but thought that I would link to it now that I seem to have the blog and YouTube somewhat synched up.

The Girls Met Barbie

Christine had a wellness weekend with a friend so I got to spend some quality time with the girls this past weekend. On Saturday we went to go see Barbie and the latest Barbie film at a local movie theater. I initially thought that they would be a lot more excited when they met her. I had thought that they would have a ton of questions to ask Barbie but was surprised that they didn't ask a single one. I guess that it because Barbie looked more like a real person, than say someone dressed in some type of mascot outfit or costume, so she seemed more real to them and not the cartoon that they're used to seeing in movies.

Speaking of movies, if I live to be one hundred years old, I don't think that I'll ever forget the time that we took the girls to see Curious George (referred to as Coco in Germany for some odd reason) and Sarah decided to stick some in her nose! We all went to the lobby to have a look in the light. Christine took her to the hospital while I stayed with Anna. Anna was insistent on watching the rest of the movie. The Ears, Eyes, and Throat doctor was able to get the popcorn out and all was well, but we sure thought differently about popcorn for a while after that!

We've made an appointment to take the girls to see the puppies tomorrow. I'm looking forward to see the reaction of the girls to the puppies. Here is a picture of the girls with Barbie along with a couple of new puppy pictures.

The Puppies Have Been Named

The breeder posted the "official" names that have been submitted for the puppy papers on her website yesterday. I have uploaded the latest pictures to the "Our Dog" photo album at our MySpace. I just tried to compare the pictures of the named puppies with the ones showing their birth order and they didn't seem to match up and the colors don't seem to be right either, so I'll have to figure that out later. We have made plans to see the puppies on Wednesday. This will be the girls first visit, so it should be pretty fun watching their reactions! So without further adieu...


Kindly Keeper, Klassic Kocoon, Kool Knob, Keeping Kute, Kiss Me Kate, Kindhearted Kiss, Krispy Kream, Kall Me Kosmopolitan, Knick Knack, and Kiss N’ Kandy are the names selected by the breeder and will appear on the puppy papers.

Christine left for her wellness weekend yesterday and is meeting a friend of hers from Switzerland there. I'm taking the girls to see a Barbie movie today and there is supposed to be an appearance by Barbie, so I'm sure that they will have a blast.

We Saw the Puppies

Yesterday was quite a day but in the end we did get to finally see the puppies for the first time.

Our day actually started very early with Sarah complaining of tummy pain. She came down to our bed (she had actually woken up several times this past week complaining of tummy pain!). We rushed her to the bathroom, but of course she threw up in our bedroom and in the bathroom. She did finally get back to sleep. Christine took her to the pediatrician and was given some medication.

Since Sarah was doing better and things seemed to be going well, Oma thought that she would take the girls for the weekend as planned. In fact she talked to Christine into it, in true Oma fashion. I received a call at work, a colleague said that she had a call for me from the “Oma from Taunnusstein” and Anna was on the phone. Oma said that everything went well at the doctor and Sarah was doing fine, so the girls would stay with her as planned. Christine was teaching some students and I was surprised to find that she had a few panic calls from Oma. Sarah had apparently demanded to be with mommy. After that I was expecting that we would get another panic call from Oma, asking us to get the girls.

We drove to the breeder’s house and we greeted warmly by their three dogs (including the mother Mia), they were running around playing and excited to see us. When we were by the puppies, Mia was there the whole time. Pictures can be nice but so often they don’t convey the feelings that you have from actually being there. Of course you can tell that the puppies are cute from the pictures, but there is a connection that you have when you’re actually there with them and can seen the lighting of the room illuminating their tiny bodies. From the pictures that we had seen of the puppies, it really wasn’t imprinted on me how small they really are. At the moment they might be a little smaller than full-grown guinea pigs.

Christine and I have had several discussions about which puppy we want. Angus, the last dog that my parents had, was a Breadie and he is the main reason that we decided that we wanted to have a Beardie. As a result our preference has been to have a black and white colored one, but it is also possible to have a brown and white, as well as a fawn and white one. I have said that I wanted to wait to decide until we could see more from their personalities. We’ve been leaning towards two males, a black and white one and a brown and white one. Christine was afraid that we might need to make a decision about which one we wanted yesterday. Fortunately, the breeder didn’t ask us to make a decision and said that we had a little time.

We got to hold both of the puppies that we’re thinking about. I was glad that we got to hold some of the puppies, as the thought had crossed my mind that we might be only able to look at them. The puppies fur is very short (especially when you know how long gets when they’re older) and it is soft. While the puppies do sleep a lot and their eyes are still closed, they did move around a lot and there was the occasional whimpers and loud drinking noises.

We were surprised that we didn’t get a call from Oma on Christine’s mobile phone and there wasn’t any messages at home. It was too late to call Oma when we got home, as we didn’t want to wake up the girls. We’re wondering how the night went and I’m expecting that I will need to go pick them up, I guess we’ll see. The two of us were so excited about being able to see and hold the puppies. We’re looking forward to seeing them the next time, especially to see the girls reaction to them, knowing that one of them will be ours.

Help Us Name the Puppies

Our breeder is having problems coming up with "official" names for the ten puppies. Maybe you might have some suggestions to help with this problem.




With many pure breed dogs, the breeder will give the dogs an "official" name. One that might be used in dog shows and on their pedigree. Most owners of pure breed dogs would then have an everyday name that might be a shortened version of the "official" name or might be something totally different all together. Our breeder has taken and alphabet system approach to giving "official" names to their puppies. She has taken a different letter for every litter starting with A, and she'll use two words in the name that start with that letter.

With the litter before this one, the theme was the letter "J". Some of the "official" names included: Jumping Jack, Jive n’ Joy, Jolly Joker, and Just like Jazz. The theme for the current litter is the letter "K". I think it is possible to use words starting with "C" and substitute with "K".

The dogs will be registered in about a week or so, so we need the names by Feb 22nd. Be creative. We look forward to hearing the interesting names.

Puppy Pictures- Day 4

The breeder started supplementing the puppies nursing with bottle feeding. I believe that this happens fairly often. I imagine that it must be pretty hard on the dog's body to nurse ten puppies! I remember as a kid, that we had to bottle feed the Great Pyrenees puppies when our dog's milk went sour. As a result of the challenges associated with getting the puppies to take the bottle, there were only two pictures posted yesterday. Christine and I get to see the puppies tomorrow, we can hardly wait.

Puppy Pictures- Day 3

We talked to the breeder yesterday and made an appointment to see the puppies on Friday. We can hardly wait! Unfortunately, the girls won't be able to see them at this time as they will be at Oma's house. I've posted a few individual pictures in this post but have put all the puppy pictures at a photo album that I created at MySpace. One of the nice things about the most recent pictures is that you can see the puppies one by one and now we know the birth order, weight, and the colors of each puppy. Since the breeder is posting pictures in a puppy diary, I hope to post more pictures tomorrow.

Congratulations to Christine

Christine submitted the final part of her paper last week. Since last Summer she has been attending a seminar about teaching German as a Second Language every six weeks. Christine taught an intense German integration class last year. In the future people that teach these classes will need to have a Masters Degree in Teaching German as a Second Language or they will need to have completed the certification offered in this seminar.

Christine enjoyed teaching the intense German integration class that she did last year and would like to be able to do it again in the future. Since Christine already has a Masters Degree, taking the seminar made more sense than completing a whole other Masters Degree. Normally, it takes several months to get the results back, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. So, I just wanted to say that we're proud of her!

Here are a few more pictures of the puppies that were posted by the breeder. She didn't call us yesterday, so we're hoping that she'll call today, as we're looking forward to finally seeing them.

The Puppies Were Born.

We decided that we wanted to buy a puppy this year and were pleased to hear from Bearded Collie that one of their dogs had puppies this past weekend. The breeder will be calling us this week about when we can see the puppies, so we're pretty excited. I've included some pictures from the breeder from the breeder's website, including a picture of the parents taken shortly after conception.

The mother had ten puppies. There were six females and four males. There was also a full variety of colors, not just the better known black and white.

Sarah's Birthday

Sarah turned five in January. It is hard to believe that our baby is now five!

Sarah and Anna did their second Smurf dance performance at the local Kiddie Carnival. After their performance was done the mc made an announcement about Sarah celebrating her birthday, so of course the crowd cheered her. It was a really nice moment.

We had a nice little party with Oma, Claudia, Nicole and Christian, and Ruth and Dianna after the Kiddie Carnival. The next day we had the kiddie party.

I noticed how much older Sarah seemed at her kiddie party and also that the kids seem to be older as well. It seems that kids were more engaged in the activities than in her earlier birthdays. We did a little treasure hunt for the kids. I went outside and drew arrows out of chalk pointing to where I had the treasure. Christine told me about how excited the kids were following the arrows. Because I had changed colors a few times, Anna had said when there was a new color that they must be getting closer. We did a version of musical chairs using pillows instead of chairs. We did another game where one kid is blind-folded and they crawl on the floor using a wooden spoon to try to find a pot that is covering some candy. The only boy at the party really enjoyed the game and volunteered quite often to be the seeker or various other things. It was a really nice party and I was surprised that with all the kids at our house, that it wasn't louder. I'd say that Sarah had a nice birthday.

Carnival

The girls dance group performed at a local kiddie carnival on two Sundays in January. The did something called the "Schlumfentanz" or the Smurf dance. It was real cute and we were so proud. I was amazed at what a good job everyone did in putting on the kiddie carnival and how many kids we have in our little ort (village). I have posted several pictures at an album I created at Facebook. I also posted some pictures of the girls dressed in costume for their kindergarten carnival celebration. I took some video of them dancing but I still need to edit it before I can post it. The carnival season (the link is to a post that I did in November about carnival and St. Martin's Day with more information it if) started on November 11th and ended with the big parades over the weekend, Monday, and with Fat Tuesday. We took the girls to a smaller local parade on Sunday, but after waiting over an hour for it to start, Anna was cold and wanted to go home. The girls were able to dress up in their kindergarten on Monday and Tuesday, with a little party.

Christmas 2007

We hope that you all had a great holiday season. We were pretty busy this year. Anna and Sarah took part in a kiddie choir the Sunday before Christmas. Afterwards the made decorations and got to help decorate the church tree. On Christmas Eve they played angels in the family Christmas Eve service. The day after Christmas their kiddie choir sang along with a group of seniors in the service.







Although we didn't have a traditional white Christmas, the outside landscape was frosted for several days. Oma stayed with us for several days and we had visits from Claudia, and our former neighbors, Ruth and Diana. We had a nice New Year's Eve party with two other families and Ruth and Diana again. Christine handed out several weight watcher recipes ahead of our party and everyone made a dish or two. They all went over very well, tasted good, and everyone asked for the recipes of things that they didn't make.

I have posted quite a few things from Christmas at our various online accounts. I put several pictures from Christmas on Flickr. I created a photo album at our MySpace page. I also created a photo album at Facebook. At our YouTube channel, I posted 4 videos of the girls singing with the Kiddie Christmas choir; a slide show called "Kiddie Art"; 2 slide show tributes to Oma; slide show tributes to Claudia, and our former neighbors Ruth and Diana; "All Dressed Up" which is a slide show of the girls being all dressed up; "Nightmare" and "Facepainting 2" are all slide shows of the girls in their various face painting escapades. I had made a special dvd for Christmas and it included all that I mentioned at YouTube, except for the Kiddie Christmas Choir, unfortunately, because of standard differences I couldn't make the dvds for my family, their not able to watch videos composed for playback on PAL systems on the NTSC system in the U.S., they can watch the videos on YouTube however.

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and began the new year off with a good start. I'd love to hear about your holidays or how you're doing.