Hazel/Jenni Sleepover - Attempt 1

Last Saturday night, Meadow and Geoff needed a babysitter, and Hazel voted that instead of me just watching her, she should sleepover at my house. Now, I have always told her that one day she can sleepover, so I figured it would be fine.

Here is what we did. (Note, we also watch "mermaid" and read books but I didn't take pictures of those events)

She wanted to sleep in Nova's crate, I said no.
She then informed me, BUT I FIT! and told me to take her picture in the crate and as soon as she realized my camera was out, she closed the door. The best part of this pic is that she looks so sad, and she is the one holding the door shut. Silly girl.
Then we made some cookies. Man, making cookies with a kid that LICKS everything is HARD! it made me crazy and the cookies did not turn out well, because the dough got played with a little too much.
She told me to take another picture after the cute one above and this is how she posed. Hazel = Crazy Baby.
She also played with Nova. Luckily, Nova is a good dog and was happily chewing on her rawhide (first one ever and MAN are they GROSS!) and didn't mind when Hazel climbed on and yelled "JENNI TAKE MY PICTURE" once the picture was taken, Hazel also demanded that I make Nova stand up so she could ride her. I said "um, no"
Basically, it was a good time. We had lots of fun, wore matching sleeping dressed (thanks Meadow), but at bedtime I made the mistake of turning off the lights before she was completely asleep. When the lights went out HAZEL FREAKED! and did not want to sleepover anymore. She just wanted her mama and nothing I said could console her, so I called Meadow and they cut their evening short. But as Hazel was putting on her shoes to go home, she told me "we have a sleepover tomorrow and I will behave" Which I thought was hilarious, especially since she HAD been behaving all night and just got nervous when the lights went out. And as I was the kid that called her mom to come and get her at a lot of sleepovers I understood. But it was cute that she said that. And when I explained that tomorrow was not an option and that it was either that night or another time she said "another time".

So I learned that I could deal with having Hazel for a sleepover and that I should just wait for her to be fully asleep before I turn out my light, but still I think I can wait a while (a long while) before the next attempt.

Improvements!?!

Last weekend, I went to the Ikea and spent lots of money. Here are the results.

A fancy bar above my sink that holds a cutting board, hooks and a paper towel holder. AWESOME!!

And I got 5 bookcases. There are no books on them yet, but they are all assembled and against the wall. However, I need to shim some of them since my floor is not even and then I can anchor them to my walls. YAHOO!!

Now, I decided I need to do something with this wall, but I don't know what. Another bar? Some hooks? a picture?? It is in between my stove and my laundry area. What do you all think? Leave your suggestions in the comments. Note: the garbage can, recycling bin and Nova's food need to stay there.
Also, because I have a dog that LOVES, LOVES, LOVES kitty food, I now have to have KPP's dishes elevated. Damn dog...
Speaking of the dog, here she is looking all innocent. Too bad she had to be renamed Novapain earlier in the day, so I knew she was not innocent.
And here is a picture of how KPP and Nova are interacting now. I also got some awesome video, but will have to post that later. KPP has decided that she no longer needs to avoid the dog, because she just has to hiss and swipe and the dog avoids her.

Adjusting...

Last Saturday, this is how KPP was reacting to Nova.

She would find any possible little space to crawl into to hide when Nova walked by. She is getting better at accepting that we now have a dopey messy dog at our house. Last night I took these pictures.

KPP had been watching the dog from the crack in the door and Nova decided to join us in the bathroom (I was getting ready for bed).

Nova and KPP notice they are within a foot of each other. No hissing or growling involved. It was AMAZING!
Both retreat to safe places - I am apparently Nova's safe place, because on walks she will occasionally bark at GIANT dogs and then quickly move so that I am in between her and the dog. I do believe she would throw me to the wolves if she had the chance...
After this encounter, we all went to bed and KPP decided that since Nova was in her kennel it was a safe time to get on top of the kennel to hiss at her. I tried to explain to KPP that doing that was not acceptable, but that damn cat refuses to learn English!! So there is no reasoning with her.

And this morning there was much hissing and even swatting. I kind of feel bad for Nova, because I can tell she just wants to be friends and KPP is not having it. Maybe in another week or so they will be friends.... Or maybe they are not morning pets, they must get that from me...

But for now, I will just keep training Nova to "leave it". Speaking of training, tonight is the first class of Puppy Preschool. YAHOO!! I am a little nervous, but I decided as long as I don't have the naughtiest dog at the END of the class, it will all be good.

The Adventures of KPP & Nova

Well, I am all moved in, not all unpacked, but all moved in. YAHOO!!

The following series of pictures is Kitty PotPie's Tour of our new house.

Here she is modeling the master bedroom closet.
And the fridge
The tile floor and the doors to the master bedroom and bathroom

Here she is in one of the pantries (I have two, but the other I am using for random stuff)
The kitchen cabinets
And the closet again.
Now here she is showing my messy counter tops and Nova's back (behind the chair with my black coat on it)
KPP is not the greatest tour guide as she tends to just stick to high places, but still it was a good tour of my closet and kitchen.

Surprisingly, KPP handled the move really well, in fact she came out & about and didn't even hiss at my mom or Bernie the second day at the house, she just hung out. But then Nova moved in...

Nova is a great dog, but KPP is a little wary, so there is growling when she sees Nova, though she is comfortable enough to get pretty close to her. Now if only I can get Nova to stop reacting to her it will be all good.

Now for a Nova story. I love Nova, and she was SO good the first couple of days (beside a couple of accidents on my carpet) so I was thinking, man this is going to be so easy, but alas, yesterday was a different story. It was my first day at work since getting her on Sunday and she was not so happy. She prefers to be RIGHT by me, so I think she had a hard time with me gone for 4 hours stretches. When I got home for good yesterday, she was SO hyper! But after she, Hazel and I went to the park and played fetch I figured she would doze off like she had been doing the other days. But nope! she was wide awake and playing with the awesome squeaky toy Hazel got her. And then she peed on my carpet and got put outside, about 10 minutes later I heard her barking and whining and it sounded like she was in the front yard, so I FREAKED out and ran outside. But she wasn't out there, so I checked the back and NO NOVA! But I could still hear her, so I found my headlamp and followed her whining and found her in my crawlspace. I have two vents to the crawlspace, one of them I knew about, one I didn't. She had found the vent I didn't know about, which was under the back porch, and tore down the wire mesh covering it and crawled in and ended up by the other vent. Well, the vent I knew about cannot be opened, so I was freaking out, but luckily Geoff and Meadow got there to pick up Hazel (who I had told "STAY IN THE HOUSE!" (she was watching a movie)). So when I found the vent under the porch Geoff crawled under there and we used the squeaky toy to lure her out. The hole has now been covered with cinder blocks, until a more permanent measure can be taken.

MAN! I had forgotten how crazy puppies can be, hopefully, nothing will happen today. But really she is a good dog. I can do yard work outside the fence and she will stay right by me. And she sits about 85% of the time I tell her too. And there are many other good things about her, so I guess I will keep her. : )

Here is a picture I took of her on Monday, after a long game of fetch (which she is VERY good at). It is a good thing she is so pretty....