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.