Sunday, January 4, 2009

A new addition

This weekend we adopted a new little puppy, and we would like to announce Ranger Kainer that we welcomed into our home weighing a whopping 7lbs. The first night we adopted him, he slept in his crate for 7 hours, and I thought that it was too good to be true. Well it was, since Ranger is only 3 1/2 months old, it was a fluke that he was able to sleep that long straight through. Saturday night after 45 minutes of crying he went to bed at 11PM and proceeded to wake up at 2AM, 5 AM, and 8AM. So far he's enjoying getting to know Brinkley, but the feelings haven't quite been reciprocated, as Brinkley is learning how to share her toys in her toy box and deal with something that's 30lbs smaller than she is. After lots of play time, he snuggled with Patrick for a nap as they both watched football. I snapped this one just as Ranger was waking up this afternoon.
We are enjoying the new puppy, and learning how to constantly keep a watch on him. He's already taken a nose dive from the couch to the coffee table, pulled the bathroom rug completely out of the bathroom, learned how to bark (it's a tiny bark) back at Brinkley, and pull every single toy out of the toy box. I know that this is just the beginning, but we're enjoying the moment!

Christmas a learning experience (by Kim)

We departed for our first official Christmas as the Kainer's with our first stop in Dallas. We had a great time spending time with my folks. For years I wrapped all of my dad's Christmas presents to my mom, but as I got older he began to attempt this task on his own. Ever year dad gets a little better at wrapping the gifts, but this year I noticed something strange. Dad had picked up the birthday gift tags instead of the Christmas tags, so I couldn't help but capture this. All the gifts that he wrapped to us and my mom had some form of birthday tag on it. Here's an example of what our gifts looked like. With Christmas wrapping paper, everyone of them had a Happy Birthday tag. After a good visit with my parents in Dallas, we loaded up the car and headed to Louisiana to visit my 94-year old grand father.
My grandfather was always know for finding new uses for everyday appliances around the house. Despite being in a retirement home, we realized that he still has his touch. We first noticed that he had replace the switch on his desk lamp because the switch was getting too hot, the second thing we noticed was he had twisted a hanger into an over the door hook for his clothes.The third thing we found was that they use was the chains used by the dentist when you get your teeth cleaned make great napkin holders to make a bib. At lunch my grandfather put his on, so that he wouldn't get anything on his shirt. Little did we know that he had one for each of us:
The final thing that we learned from my grandfather was that the bungee cord that my parent's gave him for Christmas could be used for a belt. I actually gave him the idea, and the next day when we came by, he was using his new bungee cord as a belt. Notice that the bungee cord actually comes above his waistline, but it still does the trick. We had a great visit with family, and are excited about spending many more Christmases together!