The Wall Bloggers

Today naturally set me in a thankful mode.  You see, it's Abel's second birthday, but only our first one with him home.  This time last year, we celebrated Abel's birthday without him... and that is not nearly as delightful as celebrating with him. The slightly dampening effect of the day appeared when coming home from our morning activities to Ruthie running out of the garage.  That, in itself, has been fairly common.  She knows how to push the door open between the house and the garage, if we forget to close it all the way.  The downer hit when I went to take her back into the house, and found the entire trash bag of stinky diapers and dirty cat litter spread across the garage floor, all chewed up. The odor made my head spin.  Even writing of it now returns the burning sensation to my nose. My hands could not bring themselves to clean the mess.  While both children were still safely playing in the car, I quickly grabbed a grocery bag and used it ...

This is a glimpse of what our family looks like in the evenings, as we read to the kids before bed...  Abel really does climb all over us as we try to read to Adrianna.   It's our poor Rusty who's feeling the pains of our growing family right now.  I woke up at four this morning and saw him looking forlorn in our doorway.  I didn't think much of it, until I got out of bed a few hours later, and found that he could not put weight on one front leg.  I don't think he and Ruthie had a spat in the middle of the night.  As they get used to each other, there has been an occasional growling/pawing match, but we always hear them and help them to "make friends".  So I don't know what could have caused his injury, but I am praying for a swift recovery.

Our sweet Rusty dog is nine now.  He's lost hearing and is slowing down a lot... So we couldn't help but look at some young Shibas to be good company for him as he ages.  We have kept our eye on the Shibas that have come through a Shiba rescue group in Texas for the last several months.  There have been several that we were interested in, but each time we prayed about a dog and asked about her, she already seemed to be adopted.   A few weeks ago, we saw one named Baby available through this rescue group.  She was a three-year-old Shiba-Chow mix.  This time, I asked about her, and she was actually still available.  I emailed with her foster owner several times and Baby seemed to be a good fit for our family.  When Scott's parents went to visit family in Houston last week, they arranged to meet her.  And the way things worked out, they were even able to drive her home with them in their RV.   While Rusty is usually defensive with new dog...