Pepper

Meet the newest addition to the Rapp family! This is Pepper. The drive out to MS to pick her up was easy.  I think it was love at first sight for Adam!

I picked the kids up at the bus and when they came in, we told them that a present was dropped off for them.

We have a video, but all you really hear is Savannah saying "Awwww...it's a puppy" in a quiet, disbelieving voice.

Here Gage trying to force her to look at the camera. Poor girl!

They adore her...especially savannah..who seems completely smitten by her. She told me that her Christmas wish came true :-)

So, I took her to the vet this morning, and have stayed home to take her out every 20 min or so to work on housebreaking her. 

We have also done some playing...

Checked out her new toys...

And some chewing. She has tried to chew a lot of furniture legs around here!! Look at those sharp little teeth!

So, our first full day with her today has been great. Well, she did get beaten up by smidge this morning, but she probably deserved it. No accidents in the house. She figured out how to climb the small stairs I. The garage. We worked on sit training a bit today, and introduced her to her crate. So, all good good on the puppy front!! :-)

out-takes

It's that time of the year -time for Christmas card pictures. Oh, the joy!  I did end up with one good one, but here is a taste of what was going one while I was trying to get just one good picture. Savannah was amazing. Gage. Oh Gage. Silly, sweet, crazy boy.  He does make us laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dog sitting

Since our babysitter Jess is in Belgium with Adam this year, we are dog sitting for her doggie - Marley.  This is excellent practice since our puppy comes home on Monday...that's only 5 days!!  The kids have loved having Marley with us.  Savannah LOVES dressing Marley up in her sweatshirt.

 And they both take her out for walks a few times a day.

 The cats have even gotten used to her. I wonder how they will do when there's a crazy puppy in the house next week?!

Karate Ceremony

Last night was Gage's Karate Belt Ceremony.  He was sitting in line, and one by one, kids in his white belt group (Tiger Cubs) were called up to received their yellow belt. Well, they never called Gage and they moved on to green belt (the next belt level up from yellow). Low and behold, they called Gage. He skipped his yellow belt and went straight to green!  WOW!!

 Oopsies. Somewhere between the living room and the belt ceremony, Gage's white belt disappeared! 

 Here is is, bowing before receiving his belt.

Look at that....he skipped his yellow belt and was awarded a green belt. Go Gage!

 

 I think he was proud of himself, what do you think?

 

 

Crafts gone wrong!

Ah Pinterest. You give me such good ideas for kid crafts. But, sometimes things just go awry. Like today's ribbon tree craft. This is what it was supposed to look like:

So cute. Easy peasy. 

Well...this is what our best one looked like. 

Not so cute. It doesn't even rotely resemble a tree. Poor sad little excuse for a ribbon tree :-(

Karate

Gage just completed his first belt exam for karate...and he earned his yellow belt! Very proud of him :-)

XMAS countdown!

Our Christmas countdown has started! Every day the kids open an envelope for an activity or craft of some kind. 

We are running behind, though, so we just got to gingerbread houses today!

For the second year in a row...there was minimal fighting while decorating!! Yes!

Although most people build gingerbread houses, admire them, and nibble at them a little at a time...well...here at the Rapp house....

Tannehill

Savannah had a field trip today to Tannehill iron works state part.  It has long been on my list of things to do here in AL. It's the location of an old iron furnace. They have brought in old buildings (schools etc) to give a sense of the civil war period. She loved it.

Here she is trying to move a huge wheel in the museum.

Listening to a boy play the violin and talk about what XMAS was like during the civil war. He had them play some old fashioned games, and they sang songs. 

And here she is in the storytelling room. The girl leading the story asked what  the kids eat for Christmas every year. Savannah raised her hand and said "lobster". Everyone started laughing, and after we left she said she did not understand why people laughed. I had to explain that eating lobster on XMAS is it a tradition in the south!  It's our tradition , though!!

And here we are...listening to a soldier talk about his life. She was fascinated by that. 

So, it was a good day :-)

Superhero art

Every day, Gage comes home with a folder full of worksheets that he completed at school. My favorite part of looking at his schoolwork is turning them over to see what he drew on the back after he finished his work. It is always superheroes. Here's today's haul--

This is Batman and the Batplane

This is spiderman swinging from a web, fighting green goblin - who throws flaming pumpkins at people. And the bottom shows spiderman laughing at green goblin after he was thrown in jail.

This shows iceman freezing green goblin. And firestar shooting fire at green goblin. And spiderman surrounded by black smoke - because green goblin threw at smoke bomb at him, of course.

I love that he has these whole superhero scenes playing in his mid at school - so long as he does all of his work before he starts scribbling away, that is!

This is the xmen. beast - cyclops - wolverine - and their boss, Dr Xavier (the head of the xmen, who is in a wheelchair)

Zoo

It was a gorgeous fall day today (73), so we cruised up to the zoo.

My favorite thing there is feeding the lorikeets. I don't think they ever left Gage's head today!

The last time we were at the zoo...these pretty birds bit savannah - hard - but thankfully, she has forgotten about that!

She had 6 of them on her at one point!

Gage got a little tired of having birds on his head. Once he was finished with his cup of nectar, he stood with his hands covering his head to fend the birds off!

Not Savannah...she had me go back inside to buy another cup of nectar!

The flamingos are a close second. We love feeding these guys!