Lack of Enzymes Prove to be a Real Problem for Small Dog

As many of you know McDuff has been a sick little guy for awhile now. I don't think we have had a normal stool sample from him in over 5 months. The last two months things have gotten progressively worse. Easter Sunday things were at an all time worse and we didn't know what we were going to do about the problem.

We discussed things with the vet; as we had been for the last month, and he suggested we take some blood work to run tests on his bodily functions and see if it gave us any answers. If the blood work didn't give us any answers, the next step would be a referral to an internal specialist (yes, apparently they have these even for dogs!)
On Friday we got the test results back and they showed us the problem. Poor little McDuff has Pancreatic Enzyme Insufficiency. Our wonderful vet, was a surprised with the results as this does not usually happen with young or small dogs (go figure). However, it is a very treatable condition (that comes with a hefty cost of coarse). So McDuff has to be on special medicine for the rest of his life. He will have to take it with every meal. His mom may need to get a 3rd job to pay for it but at least she knows what is going on with her baby! The vet also thinks he has food allergies so he gets to stay on his hypo allergenic food diet for at least 6 more weeks.
We should get his medicine next week and we are VERY hopeful to have a solid brown log by the end of it!

Thanks to our super duper cool vet, Dr. Ulrich!

Tradition.......Tradition (the little tune from Fiddler on the Roof)

~Happy Easter!~

This time of year we have two traditions, and it just so happened that they both occurred this weekend. Tradition number 1: The first Friday of March Madness we also order take out, invite some friends over, and watch the games picnic style in our living room. This was our 3rd annual March Madness event and it was lots of fun! I have 3 brackets going this year and I am not doing super great on any of them. There are a lot of exciting upsets this year which is keeping things interesting. I am still rooting for my Cards! Go LOUISVILLE!
Good luck to all of you on your brackets! I LOVE March Madness!

Tradition number 2: The Saturday before Easter we make Kim Hoggan's famous sugar cookies and deliver them to our neighbors for Easter. This year we also decided to dye Easter eggs as well. Our friends the Hadley's came over for the festivities.

The Hadley's were in charge of Easter Egg dying and they brought a marble dye set and a Transformers set. Don't they look beautiful?

Then we all decorated the sugar cookies we made. We had egg, bunny and flower shapes this year. If anyone needs a good sugar cookie recipe, this is the one.

I also brought cute Easter sprinkles to go on them this year, fun huh?
Our neighbor's thought the cookies were great!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter, I know we did!

Questions: Who choses what day Easter falls on? Sometimes its in April and sometimes in March, it just seemed to come so early this year. I can never figure out how they decide when it will be.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

McDuff and I are dressed up and have no where to go!
Not only was it St. Patrick's Day in Boston but it was also Evacuation Day! Not sure what that is exactly, but it got me the day off of work so I am not going to complain.

Since drinking alcoholic beverages was not happening this holiday, we did the next best thing....drink "ectoplasm" juice.

You can't say we don't know how to party on St. Patty's Day!

Maple Syrup Adventures!

The last few Saturdays have been rainy days where we have been staying inside like hermit crabs. This Saturday was rainy and a little snowy, but we didn't let us keep us indoors. A few of us from my church and work got together and went to New Hampshire to the Parker Maple Barn in New Hampshire, to see how they make maple syrup and then eat some yummy food .
I seriously love New England for many reasons, but one reason is that there are so many cool traditions here. Such as apple picking, eating chili and cornbread, and maple syrup season. There are so many fun things to do and see in this area!!!
We were able to see how they make the syrup, how they collect the sap (see picture above), and partake of its yummy taste! We even got to bring some maple syrup home!
I didn't know that the sap from maple trees is so watered down, it really looks like water. It is quite an involved process and it takes a whole lot of sap to make a little bit of syrup.

Here is our fun group of friends. This barn had a tour that showed you how the syrup was made, a restaurant and a gift shop. Something for everyone!

Kate, Laci and Marci

My first thought when I think of maple syrup is Buddy the Elf, from the movie ELF. I am sure he would have just loved going on a trip like this. I did purchase some syrup, maybe we will try it on spaghetti some time!

We love this syrup! We cannot get enough!

It was a great Saturday adventure! We are so glad we could partake in this exciting New England tradition!

THIS WEEK

Sometimes coming up with title's for my blog is not easy for me. This posting just isn't going to have a snazzy title that is all there is to it!

It has been a busier week than usually this week. We are pretty good at keeping ourselves busy most of the time, but this week there were a lot of events that we had to go to that kept us from preforming our "normal" after work/school activities.
Tuesday night we were lucky enough to get free tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. One of Christian's piano student's parents have season tickets; they could not make it this week and thought Christian might like to go. They were right!

It was a lot of fun to go on a date with my hot hubby! The music was lovely and the hall was beautiful. It really was a great night.

Thursday we took McDuff to the vet again. I would say he is improving but not 100% yet. The vet thinks that it may be food allergies, so this week we have to continue to cook him turkey burger and rice. Next week he will start on a special dog food and we will see how that goes. I did a little photo shoot with him later that night, you know like parents do with their babies. He was so patient with me. He is so cute! Here are two of my favorites from the shoot.

My precious boy!

"I'm a stud!"

After the vet visit,I rushed over to our Enrichment night at the church, a night where all the women from the church get together for an activity. It was to celebrate the Relief Societies Birthday this month. The Enrichment Committee went way above the call of duty with the food, decorations and program. It was such a fun and wonderful evening.
Check out these beautiful decorations!

Heather actually grew all the grass at her home in 10 days. Everyone got to take one home with them when the event was over. She got the pots at Ikea, I think it was such a bright beautiful touch in the middle of a dreary winter!

The food was so great as well. It was all healthy and displayed so professionally! Kate, I seriously love these flags you made for the sandwiches, they rock my world!


Thursday night I spent alone, as Christian went to Hartford, CN to rehearse one of his electronic compositions with a friend that lives there. McDuff didn't mind because it meant he got to sleep in the bed. C-Dog made it back to me safely on Friday.

In other news, we have a new nephew!

Hey world! Meet little Hyrum Scott! Julianne gave birth to this little guy on the 13th in California. We cannot wait to meet him in June during the Gentry Family Reunion!

How Old Do I Look?

I have a funny story about when Julia & I were in NYC that I forgot to write about. Picture this, we were standing in the TKTS line to get tickets for a show. I am talking to Julia and one of the security guys, who is behind me, asks Julia, pointing to me, "Is this your mom?" I turned around thinking he cannot possibly be talking about me? When I turned around, he realized that I was just a young beautiful doe and said, "oh no." I felt a little better that he said this and just felt that maybe I have old lady hair.
Julia ran to get breakfast while I continued to wait in line. I started talking to the lady behind me about where we were from and what she wants to see and what not. I was talking to her, face to face, for a good 10 minutes. In walks Julia from stage right with breakfast. When my new friend in line sees her she says to me, "This must be your daughter?" REALLY? Do I really look like I am old enough to have a 30 year old? Do I honestly look like I am in my 50's? Or does Julia really look like she is 7 years old? I WAS SPEECHLESS! I couldn't talk to her the rest of the time.
All of this occurred within 15 minutes! Once we got the tickets, we headed to McDonalds to get Julia a Dr. Pepper and figure out our plan in a warm place. So I asked the cashier at McDonalds if I looked like Julia's mom and she said no. I totally trust her opinion!!!
What do you think, am I old looking or does Julia look like she is 7-9 years old?
Does anyone have any wrinkle reducing cream they would like to recommend? Doesn't Mary Kay have a line called Timeless? Obviously I need to do something. I am only 27 and I cannot have people thinking that my friends are my kids. This is unacceptable to me!
Suggestions?
What age do we look?

Poor Mr. McDuff

So my little man has been sick as of late. I wont go into details on the blog, but if you want to know more details I am happy to share. I will just say that he has had some issues with his stool and the amount of times the stool is occurring. Anyway, this has been going on for awhile but the last three weeks have not been good at all. Poor guy has been losing weight and everything. I finally took him to the vet yesterday after all of our efforts failed. The vet tested him for parasites and giardia and both of the test came back negative. The vet told me to change his diet in case it is food allergies; he is only to only have white rice, ground turkey burger, cottage cheese and boiled chicken. So yes, I know have to cook for the buddy. He loves the food but last night had a hard time keeping it down. Today he was able to keep it down however! The vet put him on some medication as well, and tomorrow I am going to call him and we can talk about if anything is working or not; and if not what steps we will need to take to get him back to normal.
McDuff has been a super good sport about everything, but he seriously HATES the vets office! This whole ordeal has gotten him a lot more snuggle time and TLC that is for sure. I swear having a dog is just like having a child; I have been so worried about him. I would do anything for my little guy and I really hope he gets feeling better soon.
Christian and I often find it hard to remember what our life was like before we had the Buddy; there was nobody to greet us when we got home, provide endless amounts of entertainment and comfort us when we are sad. McDuff is such an well behaved dog and he is so easy to love.

Hope you get better Buddy!