When I say Rusty I am talking about a puppy. Yep- that’s right. We decided that our dog, Jolie, needed a friend to help keep her occupied while the kids are at school (if they ever go back😩). Because now that the kids are at school full-time, Jolie gets really bored. She has too much energy to sit around because when she’s bored she gets her self in trouble. However, she is a big dog. She’s just under 50 pounds and that’s the biggest I’d ever want to go with the dog. But she is a Golden Doodle and I am obsessed with the Golden Doodle breed. I feel like there is not a better dog for kids in this whole world than a golden-doodle. They will take every hit, jump, tail-grab and blow the kids playfully give them and never snap or growl or lose their tempers. They are so loyal and full of love that I can’t imagine ever having little kids and owning and different kind of breed. Having said that… I didn’t want another 50 pound dog. So, we started looking at mini golden-doodles. (There are three sizes of golden doodles; there are “micro” golden doodles,“mini” golden doodles, and “standard” golden-doodles). We couldn’t get a micro doodle because Jolie needs a dog that will be bigger than 10 pounds to wrestle with and roll around with. So we started looking at the mini ones because those dogs are anywhere from 20 to 35 pounds. Which is perfect for Jolie. Long story short, we found one in Missouri. He is a red mini golden doodle which is my all-time favorite color of dogs ever. We looked at every color under the sun but I kept vetoing all the ones that weren’t RED. He’s not quite as dark red as some of the other golden doodles I was looking at, but his dad is a red toy poodle and his mom is a red golden retriever (which I had never heard of, but they do exist)! Therefore his hair is considered red. Like I said- red is my absolute favorite color of dog.
Anyway, Shawn and I wanted to surprise the kids so I told them I just had to run a bunch of errands and I went out to Missouri and picked him up. It’s a 2 1/2 hour drive but it was worth it! On the drive home I let him sit in my lap the whole way and talked to him so he would get used to my voice and bond with me. When I was close to the house, Shawn gathered the kids up and made them sit on the couch because he said he had something to tell them. I walked in the door holding the puppy and I got the best response I could have ever hoped for! The kids were ecstatic! Piper actually started to cry because she was so excited. Rusty has been such a delight! I am not a dog lover (despite having two dogs)… But this little guy… He is absolutely precious! He is by far my favorite dog I’ve ever owned. Granted, he he has only been living with us for 23 days, but I just adore him! I think everything about him is just the cutest and I can’t stop playing with him and staring at him and wanting to hold him all day long! He will be three months old on Christmas day. We brought him home when he was nine weeks old and I don’t think we could love him more!
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| By the way... when Shawn and I were thinking of naming the pup, he said “let’s name him Rusty.” (Because, red). And it just sounded perfect! So Rusty is is! |
It took a few days for Jolie to get used to having a new little brother, but she does love him now and they’re starting to play pretty hard with each other- which is good! (Oh! This is worth noting… We actually brought him home on Jolie’s birthday! She was really mad at us on her birthday because she did not want a new brother😆! However all must have been forgotten now because she does truly love him. They play together all day long. They both have so much energy so it’s great that they can wear themselves out).
Next! We had a crazy snow storm here in Tulsa. We got almost 8 inches of snow which is the most snow we’ve had in decades. It was amazing! It happened right after we got home from Boise, (where we paid to fly there for Thanksgiving instead of going in the summer so that we could see snow🤦🏻♀️…). We didn’t see much snow in Idaho except for when we drove to find some (which was great!), but we got home and then we got dumped on! It snowed all day long! It was seriously so beautiful and magical and fun. My heart was so happy! The best part is that it didn’t melt right away. We had snow lingering here for at least five days! The day after it snowed none of it had melted so we had a good 6 or 7 inches in our yard for about three solid days. It was a Christmas miracle! Most of the kids here in Jenks had never even played in snow that deep because it has never snowed that much in their lifetime. So it was pretty special.
And finally… The hot tub… Shawn and I have been talking about buying a hot tub for years. We have never been able to afford one and also we knew that our last house was not gonna be a house that we lived in for too many years. So we just held off. But once we moved into this house and knew we’d be here for a long time, we decided that we should probably start saving for one. Welllll, Shawn got a small bonus a few months ago and we took a portion of it, secretly did some hot tub shopping, found a great deal over Labor Day weekend and put a down payment on it. We knew that it was going to be a gift from Santa so we kept quiet about it all this time. Finally when it was time to have it delivered, I wrote a letter to us from Santa, put it in a sealed envelope and put the envelope in the mailbox. When we told Piper to go get the mail she ran inside saying “Mommy, Mommy! There’s a letter to you from Santa in here!” I acted super surprised and told Shawn that we all needed to come in the family room to find out what the letter said! So we brought everyone back to the couches and I open the letter. When I read it, Shawn and I just acted like we were amazed! I will post a picture of the letter on here. I had to kind of get specific because, if you know how kids are, you know that if you don’t provide lots of details they will start asking questions, like if ‘Santa can bring you a hot tub maybe he can bring me a horse!’ Things like that can’t happen around here, haha!
Anyway, the man that delivered the hot tub was so nice. When he walked in, the kids said “Santa hired you to bring us a hot tub!” And without batting an eye he said “yes he did! I talked to Santa himself!” And I hadn’t even told this delivery man anything. So for him to just understand that he should play along made everything so much better! Lucy keeps talking about how it’s so cool that we got a free hot tub, haha! So Shawn and I need to be really careful to never mention the financing that we did to get this thing. Anyway, it’s been awesome to have already! All of us are just obsessed with it and it is going to bring us many smiles for years to come!
So, there you have it! We got a puppy, a hot tub, and snow this December. 2020 is definitely ending on a good note in the Gilley household☺️
And, because I’m here, I’ll write about the Christmas events that happened with the kids! Even though we were in Distance Learning, we still had great celebrations! Two parades at both schools and two Virtual Christmas parties!
The Christmas parade at the girl’s school was adorable and so much fun! Thank you SO MUCH BWI/BWE for your cute way of celebrating Christmas with your students! 🥳🎉 Plus, Piper was able to get Mrs. Poston’s signature on her cast, which she’s been soooo excited about all week! Such a fun kick-off to Christmas break! And Sully had a virtual Pre K Polar Express party too! It was a “meet” he actually wanted to be at🤣🤣🤣 Thank you so much for giving him that, Mrs. Cotton! Now I hope every single teacher out there sleeps a lot and stays healthy and relaxed this break.😘
CE, you will always have a place in our hearts! We are so glad we got one more year out of you. Thank you for your Polar Express Event today! It was such a cute, fun experience! I missed snapping a picture of the sweet hug Piper gave to Mrs. Cotton, but let me tell you, it was a tear jerker. These events have meant the world to us! Merry Christmas CE! ❤️💚❤️💚
P.S. and Lucy had an ugly sweater school day so she was happy as could be about that 😁
