Fleece Dog Toy

Braided Fleece Dog Toy

I had seen this idea on a few blog recently (sorry I didn’t save any particular one….) but we decided to make a fleece dog toy the other day for Sadie and Roland. I had some fleece in my fabric box that we decided to use. I bought the fleece at least a year or two ago to make a blanket….but it never happened. (I think that has something to do with Big Monkey saying we had too many fleece blankets!) We pulled out the brightly colored striped fleece and cut three very long strips that were about four inches wide. I wrapped a hair tie around one end and had Little Monkey hold it. I braided it and then tied multiple knots in each end of the rope. The kids were happy to play with the rope but it took a little time for the dogs to warm up to the idea. Eventually Sadie decided to play with it. It is a good toy for her to chew on with her sharp puppy teeth!

Sadie likes the new toy.

Roland and Sadie have even gotten into a little tug of war with it too. Easy toy and made with something we had on hand that wasn’t being used. Win win I’d say.

Sadie’s Gift

Last night the puppies were outside taking a bathroom break before the night ended. I went out to corral them back in and found Sadie playing with something. I finally got her to slow down and noticed she had a MOUSE! And it was not a cute mouse…it was an ugly grey field mouse. I don’t know if she or Roland caught it and killed it or if they found it under the deck (Sadie’s favorite hiding place) and it was already dead. I managed to get Sadie to drop it and got the dogs in the house. I had to get rid of the mouse because they would have just gone right back out there to play with it more, so I grabbed a bowl and the broom and swept it into the bowl. Then I put the mouse in a small trash bag, tied it up and dropped it in the outside trash can. I was headed back into the house when I noticed the bowl had blood in it. Lovely. I washed the bowl and then all was well. Sadie and Roland both tried to find the mouse outside.

If you don’t like mice…..close your window now!

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Gross!

Stitches!

WARNING!!! THERE ARE PICTURES IN THIS POST…..IF YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH BLOOD/STITCHES, THEN I WOULD RECOMMEND YOU SKIP THIS POST!

Thursday night, Big Monkey was working and the kids and I were hanging out relaxing with the pups. Since having a calm, boring night wouldn’t be any fun…Little Monkey decided to spice it up. (Okay really he didn’t, it was an accident but it certainly changed the evening.)

While playing with Little Monkette and the pups, Little Monkey ran across the room (Something he’s not supposed to do) and jumped onto the ottoman (Something he’s not supposed to do) and ended up hitting hitting his face on the marble window sill. He started screaming and then I saw it…blood and a deep gash on his cheek just under his right eye. I don’t deal well with these types of situations but I did my best. I grabbed Little Monkey, carried him to the linen closet, got a towel and told him to sit on the couch holding the washcloth to his wound. I grabbed the phone and called Big Monkey at work, no answer. I called his cell, no answer, I sent him a text telling him to call asap because we were headed to the ER for stitches. I grabbed some shoes for Little Monkey and Little Monkette and got some shoes on myself. (I was wearing gym clothes from having worked out earlier and was still so gross but it is what it is.) I put Sadie in her crate and we all got in the car.

I called my Dad to see about getting the number for Centra Care because I thought they did. Big Monkey called me back and we discussed that we could go to Centra Care and to just keep him posted. I called Centra Care but was place on hold and never picked back up  before we arrived. During the car ride, Little Monkey did great but when we went to get out he cried again. I got everyone in the building and started talking to the nurses. They got him an ice pack and then moved back quickly to a room while I was still filling out paperwork.

Before the stitches

We all sat on the stretcher and talked about what was going to happen. The doctor came in and looked at the wound. He decided that it was too deep for the glue, so we were in for some stitches. He also wanted to do an x-ray to make sure Little Monkey didn’t break anything. Big Monkey had told me this wasn’t necessary, so I called him and let him know what was going on. We decided to go ahead with the x-ray and then get the stitches. The x-rays came back okay. They don’t think that he broke anything. Little Monkey did a great job for the x-rays. In fact, much of the time we were there he was doing so well. I had some crayons in my purse (Thank goodness), so that kept Little Monkette busy coloring on the stretcher paper and putting the crayons in and out of the box. We talked about what was going to happen and how Mommy, Daddy and Mimi all had stitches before.

When it was time to get the stitches, I had to move Little Monkette over to a chair so that Little Monkey could lay down. I held onto his hands and let him know he could squeeze them if it hurt. (I think I was squeezing his hands more than he was squeezing mine.) He was a trooper. He did cry but considering the circumstances he did great. The doctor cleaned his wound and the put a piece of paper-like cloth with a hole in it on his face to focus on the area. I was standing over Little Monkey and the Doctor asked me to either move or get a mask because breathing on Little Monkey and the wound could get more bacteria in it. I decided to kneel by the stretcher and hold Little Monkey’s hands. The Doctor gave Little Monkey some novacaine and after it had a minute to take effect, he started stitching him back together. I could fully see what he was doing but Little Monkey didn’t like it. It seemed like he was stitching a lot and for a long time but in the end we only had two stitches. From the time of the accident to the time we left Centra Care was just over an hour.

After the stitches

Little Monkey was a trooper. He has been healing but he has a little bit of shiner too. We have talked about the accident many times since it happened and hopefully he has learned his lesson about running in the house and jumping on the furniture. Thankful that he just needed a few stitches!

The Newest Addition

Sadie and Mommy

So, for Mother’s Day, (Well she arrived the next day because Big Monkey was working on Mother’s Day) I got a new puppy. I’ve named her Sadie. She is tiny and oh so adorable. She is a Min Pin Cocker Spaniel mix. She came from some friends of ours from church. I had talked about maybe getting one of their dogs but just couldn’t decide. Then they were down to just one puppy, a little girl. I really didn’t think I wanted a girl, but I couldn’t get her out of my head. After finally deciding and telling our friends no, I kept thinking about her. I finally asked our friend (D) about the puppy, Did they still have her? And apparently, that is when all the lying started. A big group lie that everyone seemed to be in on. I’ll tell your their crazy story (That I somehow believed!) in a few days when I get a chance to write about it. For now, I’m cuddling my little Sadie.

Camping at Alafia River

We booked a camping trip over New Years with our friends. It was a great time to get away and relax some after the craziness of the holidays and before school started back up. We took a three night trip down to Alafia River. We headed down on Thursday and got set up before our friends arrived. We helped them get set up once they got to the park. It was nice that there was very little of an agenda…so everyday we all just hung around and did what we wanted. The kids (and some of the adults) did a lot of bike riding. Big Monkey went on some of the trails and took a nice chunk out of his leg. We are over a week past it happening and it is still painful, though healing up nicely.

I got to do quite a bit of reading (I took along the new book I got for Christmas and got about halfway through it! I need another camping trip so I can finish it up!). I also did some geocaching. Once with Little Monkey and Z, once with Big Monkey and another time with D. All told, we found ten caches and two travel bugs! Our friends had already found all the ones at Alafia River when they camped there before, so we are catching up on their numbers! There are many bike, hiking and horse trails at the park. Each day it was quite busy but the campground was still nice and quiet. We got to talk to a few horses, which Little Monkey loved.

It was nice to have a relaxing time. All the girls in our friends’ family were sick most of the weekend, so it was pretty calm and quiet. We plan to go back to Alafia River, just not during summer because there was hardly any shade in the campground.

 

(I was waiting and waiting to post this because I was hoping that our friend would send me some of the pictures she took….but she hasn’t. Oh well.)

Stephen Foster State Park Camping Weekend

Stephen Foster State Park

Over the weekend we headed up to Stephen Foster State Park for some camping. When we got up to the park, we hurried to set things up before it got too dark. We had a fire going and our friends arrived. Most of the evening it was spitting rain on us. We enjoyed some cake balls around the fire and stayed up way too late. (Little Monkey and Little Monkette too!) The third family in our camping group didn’t arrived until 10pm, so after helping them set up and hang out for a bit, we didn’t go to bed until 12:30!! It was VERY cold, but thankfully we have a heater in our little camper. The kids slept in the same bed this time (Yay for not needing the pack and play to go camping anymore!!!) and Roland slept near us.

Hanging around the campfire.

The next morning, everybody starting waking up at 7am!! Not what we wished for when we went to bed after midnight! We got moving and had breakfast. We checked out some of the park and found the blacksmith was open. A few of the kids got to make little hooks in the fire. The boys had planned a bike trip for some trail riding and the girls had planned some geocaching. (Of course the other girls had already camped at this park and had found all the caches. They went along to help me out!) We ended up finding five caches. Little Monkey was excited and found a few trinkets in the caches. Little Monkette stayed back at the camper with the teenagers for a nap. We had a long day but it was fun. The kids did a lot of playing around the campsites and at the playground (which was right across from our sites!).

We had a very big dinner with all three families and a few extra friends that came for the day. During the process of getting dinner ready, we discovered that our gas tank was out of gas. This is NOT a good thing when it is going to be REALLY cold at night. Thankfully we moved the grill over to another camper and cooked dinner while Big Monkey headed out to find a gas station that had refill tanks. He was back by the time dinner was ready and we didn’t have to freeze in our camper that night! After dinner we headed back to the park to check out the huge Christmas lights display. The park does this every year and people pay to come check them out. We didn’t have to pay for entry since we were camping. The lights were amazing. They also had free smores and hot chocolate and Santa was there to visit with the kids. Little Monkey talked to him, as did Little Monkette, but she was not too sure about him! We also had some fried oreos. Pretty good, but not something I HAD to have.

Little Monkette and me with the gingerbread girl!

After seeing all the lights, we headed back to camp to hang out. I was surprised with a cookie cake for my birthday! I had no idea it was coming and it tasted SO good. (I even had some the next day for a snack!) We hung out by the fire for awhile and then went to bed by 11:30pm. The next morning the kids slept in until after 9am (which meant so did we!). It was raining when we got up, so we mostly hung around the campers getting things packed up and trying to stay dry. We had a great time, even with the very cold weather and the rain. It is always nice to get out of the normal and head out with friends for some calm, relaxing, out in nature time.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

So good!

I found this recipe in an ad in my ReadyMade magazine (and several others since then) and pulled it out. Big Monkey loves mint chocolate chip ice cream…so I imagined that he would also love these cookies. I decided to make them to bring along for camping trip. Since this was an advertisement, they recommended using Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix, but since I’m cheap and Betty Crocker isn’t paying me to tell you about this recipe, I bought the store brand sugar cookie mix. The cookies taste great, so I think it is fine of course!

Recipes makes 36 cookies (ours made more, but I make little cookies!)

Ingredients:
1 pouch Sugar Cookie Mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon mint extract (I made them with 1/2–not too minty, it was good.)
6 to 8 drops green food color (I used 8 and they came out as you see in the photo above.)
1 egg
1 cup creme de menthe baking chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

Mix cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg in bowl, until soft dough forms.
Stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chunks.
Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon (I use the Pampered Chef Melon Baller. Works great and makes nice but small cookies.), drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes.
Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.
Serve warm or cool completely.
Store tightly covered at room temperature.

When making cookies, be sure that your dog is not left unattended. Roland managed to snag NINE uncooked cookies off the cookie sheet that were waiting to go in the oven while I was in Little Monkette’s room!

We give these cookies a thumbs up for sure. I plan to make them again. They are yummy and definitely festive for Christmas time.

Anastasia State Park Camping Day 3

We got up right around 7am thanks to Little Monkey and Little Monkette. Our friends weren’t up yet, so we tried to stay quiet and just get dressed and feed the kids. Z came over to hang out with us for a bit when we were making breakfast. Big Monkey made us pancakes and sausage. Z thought we should make him a Mickey Mouse pancake, so Big Monkey made him one. We let him know that he could eat it but that he must still eat breakfast at his campsite when the time came. (Did you know about this one D and M?) He pulled Mickey’s ears right off and ate him. And he even ate plenty of boyscout breakfast with his family when they had breakfast. Little Monkette got to have her first Mickey Mouse pancake too. She ate the entire thing and seemed to love it. (She had eaten pancakes before, just not a Mickey Mouse one.)

Chowing down on Mickey Pancake!

After breakfast, we all headed out to the beach for a bit. This time it was low tide, so there were some small tide pools to play in. The kids had a great time digging in the sand, playing football and soccer and throwing the frisbee around. Little Monkey got buried to his knees in the sand and then helped M to bury Z totally in the sand. The only part of Z that we could see was his head. Little Monkette liked the beach and the ocean a little bit better this morning. D brought her super nice camera with her to the beach and got some great shots of Little Monkette.

Little Monkette playing in the tide pool.

Eventually we all decided that it was time for some lunch and a nap for Little Monkette. We washed everybody down and climbed in the back of the truck to go back to camp. We got there and Little Monkey and Little Monkette both needed to be rinsed off a bit better before getting dressed. We decided we would rinse Little Monkette in the shower and Little Monkey with our garden hose. I headed to the bathroom with Little Monkette and told Big Monkey to let Roland out of the camper. I saw him open the camper and then saw Roland over at our friends’ site. I asked Big Monkey if Roland had run out but he said no. Then I noticed that Roland was in a crate at our friends’ site. Oh Roland. Not again is all I could think. We checked out the camper to see how he must have escaped. Since the windows had been closed, he didn’t escape the same way that he did before. I don’t know how he did it, but on the same side that he escaped before he managed to tear part of the canvas that was connected to the bottom of the camper and slipped out the side. Later on we found out that our other neighbors found him wandering around at our friends’ campsite. Our friends have dogs too but they were both in their camper while we were gone. They had a big dog crate under their camper that the other person set up and put Roland inside. Roland pooped in the crate (could have told them that would happen!) so Big Monkey ended up giving both Roland and the crate a bath. We weren’t sure if we should be thankful that he was just wandering around our campsites and that they locked him up. I mean really, this darn dog. I told Big Monkey that Roland would be lucky to ever come on another camping trip again. Now we have to decide what to do with him and how to go about fixing the camper. (Thankfully we didn’t already fix it from before. It is no more cost to fix it now since he did it to the same side that he messed up before.)

Our Geocaching Group

We all had lunch and put Little Monkette down for a nap. Some of us headed off for some geocaching. The first one was very close to our campsites but took us awhile to find. I think everyone in our group had even touched it before we found it. M ended up figuring it out. Then D’s iphone got stuck and my gps’ batteries were too low for it to work. We headed back to our campsites to get more batteries and for M to set up his gps too. We dropped Little Monkey back off at the camper with the other kids to watch Up! Big Monkey decided he would come with us. The older girls stayed back to keep an eye on Little Monkey and to take care of Little Monkette whenever she woke up. We ended up on quite the geocaching trek. I got bit by a lot of mosquitoes. We found all the caches we were after and two parts to a multi-step cache. We didn’t go after the rest of the multi-step cache because we had been gone a long time. We thought we might go after it on Monday before we left. (We didn’t because we needed a canoe for step three and an eight mile walk on the beach for step four.) We ran into another person who was geocaching and we let him tag along for one that we were after. Once we found that one (the last one we were after for the day), we tried to go back to our campsites but ended up backstage of the Toby Keith concert at the amphitheater next to the campground. The roadie security man shooed us away and we headed off. We weren’t really trying to get into the concert we were just tired and trying to get to our campsites in the shortest possible way. On our way back to camp, the long way, we found a gopher tortoise. He was very friendly and let me get close to take his picture.

Mr. Tortoise

We managed to find a short cut to our campsite that went through the woods. As we are trying to find our way, a police officer passed us and turned around to come back. He didn’t care that we were trekking through that way, (even though we had to climb over a fence) he just wanted to warn us about rattlesnakes. Oh yay. Thankfully we didn’t find any snakes but four of us ran into some plant that stung all of us. We had to spend some time washing our legs with dish soap to get rid of the sting. We came into our camping loop just a few sites down from our campsite. Unfortunately, there was a big scary dog watching us, so we snuck around to the next site and got back. In total we had walked/hiked 4.5 miles!

After some showers and getting the fire ready for cooking the corn and potatoes, we got the rest of dinner ready. We had a nice big dinner and Little Monkette proceeded to be D’s best friend since she would feed her whatever she wanted. Little Monkette has turned into a great eater. We spent some time around the campfire and D made us her famous yummy croissants. It was another fun and successful day of camping with our friends (minus the Roland versus the camper part).

Anastasia State Park Camping Day 2

The kids woke up bright and early, so we slowly started getting ourselves ready to go. We had planned to have pancakes for breakfast but Big Monkey wasn’t feeling it. So he started up a fire to make apple pies instead.

Apple pie in the fire

The pie was okay but I think it could have used some sugar and/or cinnamon. Little Monkey took forever to eat his breakfast (just like at home). I thought he might even fall back asleep in his chair.

After breakfast, Big Monkey and Little Monkey headed off to the beach. Little Monkette and I went out looking for some items we forgot to bring. While we were out, we came across two kids consignment stores! We ended up getting an umbrella stroller at one for $6! (Way better than the $18 and $22 Kmart wanted for a new one.) By the time we got back to camp, Big Monkey and Little Monkey had already made the long walk back from  the beach.

We had some lunch and then put both kids down for a nap. Unfortunately, Little Monkey kept talking and playing in his bed, so Little Monkette wouldn’t fall asleep. After awhile, we just had Little Monkey come outside to hang out with us. We played some soccer and took Roland on a walk. Once Little Monkette woke up, we headed back to the beach for a little bit before our friends were going to arrive. Little Monkette wasn’t too thrilled with the water at the beach but we had a great time sitting on our towel and rolling the soccer ball around. I snapped some pictures of her while we were playing.

Fun at the beach!

Of course Little Monkey couldn’t be left out of the photo ops, so once he came back up from the ocean with Big Monkey, I snapped of few of him too.

Little Monkey loving the sand!

After a bit of playing, we got cleaned up and headed back to our camp. Our friends were on their way but had yet to arrive at camp. We got changed and hung out, awaiting their arrival. We were planning to wait for them to eat our dinner. Once they got to the campground, we helped them get settled and get everything set up. Then we cooked dinner. We had burgers while they had nachos. Little Monkette ate her dinner but then managed to sneak plenty of food from Mrs. D. They became fast friends. We finished off the evening hanging out around the campfire and made some smores. Some of the kids watched a movie in our friends’ camper.

Anastasia State Park Camping Day 1

The plan was to wait on Little Monkey and Big Monkey to both get out of school for the day and then head over to Anastasia State Park. Big Monkey wasn’t scheduled to be home until 6ish but thankfully got out of school before Little Monkey! We got things packed up and were on the road by 4pm.  We had to stop for some ice and to fill the tires with air, but then we were well on our way. Big Monkey decided that since Roland had been doing well with car rides, we wouldn’t drug him. Big mistake. About 20 minutes into our 150 minute drive, Roland threw up. Lucky for the rest of us, I was watching and was able to catch all of his puke in the junk towel we brought along. After that, Roland appeared to be fine and even laid down for a good portion of the ride.  School apparently wore Little Monkey out because not too long into the trip, I looked back and found this:

And he's out!

After approximately 150 minutes, we arrived, with Chick-fil-a in hand at Anastasia State Park. Big Monkey got us checked in and we headed to find our campsite. Our friends would not be arriving until late the next day, so we were all on our own. We found our site and set up camp. It was starting to get dark as we worked to get things all put away and feed everyone. By the time I saw my dinner, it was cold but still good. (Well the fries would have been way better had they still been warm but oh well.) Little Monkette ended up in the camper while we were trying to get things put together and I kept feeding her fries. We forgot to bring the umbrella stroller so we were quite limited in our options of where to put her.

Little Monkette already loves Chick-fil-a!

Eventually we all turned in for the night. Nothing exciting to report for this day. Just got ourselves to the park, hung out, set up and had some dinner. Tomorrow’s plan included time at the beach!