2 Weeks and GO!

Ummmm who made the month of December go by so quickly???? I looked at the calendar this morning and almost fell over in disbelief.  TWO WEEKS UNTIL CHRISTMAS???!!!!!  ACK!  Full Christmas panic set in.  I need to bake!  I need to shop!  I need to wrap!  I need to decorate! Mr. Yesteryear Acres and I spent our morning coffee time planning the next 2 weeks. If I keep to the schedule, which of course looks very much like.....do not sleep, do not rest, do not stop working, full steam ahead.....I just might get everything done.  First on my list, let Santa know that I need doodle doggie presents and doodle doggie stocking stuffers. It wouldn't be Christmas without the doodle doggie presents under the tree! I have it on good authority that Santa is working really hard right now to put a few Santa puppy surprises in the puppy care packages. I am so excited about that!  I can't wait to assemble the Yesteryear Acres Puppy Care Packages Christmas Edition. So cute! 2 weeks and GO!

sNOw School for Doodles!

Our phone rang bright and early this morning at 5:30am .....NO SCHOOL for today!  We got another snowfall last night and woke up to a beautiful winter snow-filled day.  The doodle doggies were so excited to see my son this morning, we just had to put on our winter gear and go for a snow walk.

I love walking in the snow....even though I am always the last one up the hill!

Oh boy! What's more fun than leaping over corn stalks in the snow!?!

This is how doggies say, "Thank you for taking us on a snow walk!!!"

Best game ever.... 'Fetch the corn stalk"

Let's Do it Again!!!!!!!!!

Tag! You're It!

Heading back home

Hey! Where did the pond go?!!!

And of course - no sNOw school day is complete without a man lunch of Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.  My son ate every bite!

We are heading out for round two......We have more doodle doggies to make SNOW happy!

Snow Puppies!

We had so much fun with our Monday Puppy Picture Update. I love winter wonderland puppy pictures. The puppies had fun too!  Here is this Monday's Snow Puppy Picture overload....

Cheyenne's Goldendoodle Puppies say,
"Follow the Leader is even more fun in the snow!"

Can we go on a long snow walk Mr. Yesteryear Acres? Can we?!

Hurray!

1,2,3.... GO!

Last one down the hill is a rotten egg!

Ummmm? Who me?  I wasn't eating the snow!

Round two!

Weeeeee!

Thanks for the awesome snow walk Mr. Yesteryear Acres!  That was so fun!

Sweet Pea's Puppies are just getting to the "We love snow" stage

They grew a lot this week!

Mr. Yesteryear Acres attempting to get one dozen Sweet Pea puppies in the picture all at once

And then 3 puppies ran off to play

10 Goldendoodle babies.......

11 Goldendoodle Babies.....

One Dozen Goldendoodle Babies! 

That's a wrap!!!!

Happy Snowy Monday!

School or No School?

Friday school was canceled here because of the big winter storm and now I am wondering about tomorrow! I had to run some errands this evening and while I was out, Mr. Yesteryear Acres texted me that it was pouring down ice.  I HATE driving in ice.  I hate freezing rain.  I would gladly take 2 feet of snow over 1/4 inch of freezing rain any day!  It makes walking to the car a nightmare and driving absolutely treacherous.  At one point our road was closed due to all the ice.  When Mr. Yesteryear Acres told me NOT to come home and to keep on shopping, I thought maybe he was kidding.  Nope.  Not at all.  I am happy to say that I did finally make it home.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres car looks like a carsicle.  It is completely encased in ice.  I took minute little baby steps to get to our door.  I am thinking maybe the packages can wait!  Or maybe I should go get them.  Who knows.  They might be forever encased in an igloo of ice! Looks like it is time to get out the spikes for our shoes.  Anyone want to go ice skating?!

Snow Fun

Everything is so beautiful and white and postcard picture perfect outside.  My son and I just had to go out and play in the snow.  We took a nice hike and then my son asked to borrow the camera so he could take some pictures.  He never takes pictures with my camera.  As in never.  I ran inside and grabbed the camera and let him take all the winter wonderland pictures his heart desired.  When I say he took 897 pictures of his doggies, I am not exaggerating.  I literally have an entire memory card full of doodle doggie snow pictures.  I have to say - most of the pictures look like doggies playing fetch in the snow but he threw in a few different shots for variety.

Olive the Other Reindeer

She loves the snow!

My son insisted that he get some pictures of me - after all - I am always stalking him with picture taking!

Winter wonderland of fun!

Snow puppy

I love my doodle doggies!

Snow Doodle tackle

I had to grab the camera and take a few photos myself

My son agreed to one pose and then.....

He retaliated with "FETCH!" as in fetch the camera from me!

Olive on the case!

She loves to play fetch!

Snow fun!

Undeniably Wonderful

Of course it is quite obvious that everyone here at Yesteryear Acres LOVES doggies.  We love doggies and kitties and horses and stinker doodles and all creatures great and small.  Having animals to love makes every day a good day. I can easily name 100 things that are wonderful about having a best furry friend and could spend all day talking about how much we love our furry companions.  Today I was watching my son with one of our doodle doggies and I thought about what an important part dogs play in his life. Here is a 17 year old boy, 6'4" tall, responsible, hard-working, and when looking at him - he looks like a man. Whenever we go out, people always assume he is much much older than he is. He works like a man. He acts like a man.  And he takes on his responsibilities at Yesteryear Acres like a man. Today school was cancelled and my son didn't sleep in.  My son didn't watch TV or lounge around the house.  My son started working the second he woke up. While all his other friends were bored with nothing to do, my son was hard at work. He often has a serious look on his face as he goes about getting all the farm chores done but that look changes instantly to a happy, care-free, all-encompassing youth-filled smile of a boy whenever he is with one of our doggies. Every day my son says something like, "Just LOOK how CUTE she is" or "how can this dog be SO adorable?" about one of our doggies.  He is always petting our dogs, hugging our dogs and is rarely without a furry shadow.  He always has a doggie on his bed to snuggle with and is surrounded by the love of our doggies every single day. I think that might be one of my favorite things about raising puppies.  How it can melt the exterior of a serious grown boy into a carefree smiling child full of laughter in less than a second. How wonderful it is to be able to freely express so much love and joy and immediately get it returned right back with even more enthusiasm. The same thing can be said about Mr. Yesteryear Acres. He is always walking into the house saying things to our dogs like, "OH you want a back scratch?" or "Do you need a hug?"  Sometimes he has to lie down on the floor after lunch so all the puppies and doggies can snuggle around him - because "the doggies asked him." He will look at me and say, "I can't get up. The doggies won't let me!" My older daughter often is enveloped in a serious military bearing, but give her 5 minutes with a doggie - and she totally reverts back to the little girl with pigtails who used to run around Yesteryear Acres with childlike glee. That transformation is a wonderful amazing thing. The unconditional happiness and love that a furry best buddy brings is palpable.  It is undeniably wonderful.  Having a doodle doggie to love...it is a beautiful thing.

Vacuuming happens

Every Thursday is "Clean the House Thursday" and every Thursday every room in the house gets vacuumed.  The puppy areas get vacuumed daily - sometimes twice daily.  Here at Yesteryear Acres, vacuuming happens.  It can in no way be considered a new and unusual activity.  About a month ago my very tiny doggie Scooter decided that he would defend my son's room against the giant evil vacuum.  Scooter weighs all of five whole pounds.  His defense against the sinister vacuum consists of him crouching down as low as he can get and then barking in his very scary all of five pounds bark. It is quite comical. It is so comical that I didn't stop the new behavior.  It only happens when I vacuum my son's room and of course - a tiny little dog barking at a vacuum is quite funny.  Well today as I was vacuuming my son's room, Scooter started protecting the room as is his usual new routine..."bark...bark....bark" (in a very small tiny doggie voice). I went about vacuuming and chuckling when unbeknownst to me, one of the doodle doggies decided that Scooter needed reinforcements. There I was vacuuming when "ATTACK OF THE VACUUM" happened. "BARK BARK BARK GROWLLLLLLLL POUNCE!" The barking along made me jump out of my skin! Okay. Okay. Game OVER.  The rest of "Clean the House Thursday" was devoted to the doodle doggies sitting politely and quietly whilst the vacuuming happened.  They looked at me as if to say, "This is not the fun game!"  "This is no game at all!" Poor Doodle Doggies. No Vacuum Game for you!

In and Out

With our little break from the winter weather, the puppies have been enjoying some extra "recess" time outside.  They are to the point now that they get excited when I say, "Do you want to play outside?"  I get a round of applause and tail wags in appreciation.  Nothing beats a good play session outside!  When the puppies come back in the house, they are so tired and zonk out until the next outside break rolls around.  I have gotten my exercise in today just by running the puppies in and out. The puppies aren't the only ones appreciating the warmer weather.  The doodle doggies have been loving it too. Even though it is a bit muddy outside, the hikes in the woods are too fun to pass up.  I feel like we have to make sure to get in all our outdoor fun while the warm weather lasts. I heard Saturday will bring below zero windchills.  I am guessing outside recess will be quick that day!  My son has been busy working outside today as well.  Good thing he has help doing the farm work. Gotta get the work done before the next arctic front hits.....

A farmer's work is never done!

Missed It

As long as I can remember, I have been the champion of Black Friday sales. I have been a die hard, get up at O'Dark-Thirty, stand out in the brutal cold, armed with my sales flyer, ready for the doors to open, kind of super bargain seeker. I have been rewarded over the years with the most exceptional sales and was able to provide the most awesome Christmas presents without going over budget.  This year however.... ZILCH.  Nada.  Zero.  My family was all together for the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend and I didn't want to miss a single second with them. This coming March, my older daughter is most likely going to be deployed for a long deployment.  I want to spend any available time she has with her so I did not get up at O'Dark-Thirty and I did not stand in a single Black Friday line.  Black Friday came and went.  I was actually so busy with my family and puppy families and puppies going home that I didn't even get to open the sales flyers. That was definitely a first! I missed Cyber Monday too.  I guess my family will have to be satisfied with the gift of time and lots of homemade goodies of deliciousness.  My guess is that they will love that best.  Our Christmas celebrations are always filled with, "Maybe Christmas....doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps....means a little more!" Looks like a yummy Christmas is in store for us!

Thanksgiving Undone

I think we are finally back to our regularly scheduled normal Yesteryear Acres routine.  The last of the Thanksgiving tables and chairs have been stored. The leftovers have been eaten. The Thanksgiving dishes and tablecloths have been put away. Our dining room look huge now with just one lonely table. Mr. Yesteryear Acres said that now he has room to start stacking up new "I'll get through that tomorrow" piles.  OH NO!  I will have to remind Mr. Yesteryear Acres to keep everything nice and tidy because Christmas is around the corner! So to start off the first Monday of December......Here are this week's puppy picture updates!

Sweet Pea's little Goldendoodle babies are just starting solid foods this week

They will really start to grow now

For today, they are still just tiny little fluffballs 

But this morning, they licked their breakfast plate clean!

Cheyenne's puppies are now professionals at cleaning up their plates

They love their doodle puppy food

And are big enough to start going outside for potty breaks

Happy Monday!

Here and Gone

My Thanksgiving weekend was full of "Here" and "Gone". My refrigerator was full of milk.  We had 12 gallons to start the weekend.  Now the milk is gone. My cabinet was full of clean glasses and within hours.... the clean glasses were gone. So were the clean forks.  Gone.  And the plates. Gone.  And evidently the ability to load the dishwasher - also gone. My candy jars were full of candy.  I had Toffee and Sour Patch Cherries and M&Ms.  Now the candy is gone. The Thanksgiving Turkey was Here - and now gone. The same goes for the rest of our food.  For example....I made a delicious cream cheese coffee cake

Here

ummmmmm Gone

The next day I made Cinnamon Pull Aparts. 

 I said "Here are the delicious pull aparts!"

and then I went to go get my helping

Gone.  In less than 5 minutes - ALL gone

We had a beautiful Thanksgiving Harvest Pumpkin here

And then after target shooting

Gone

The couches were full of family and doodles

Even the Yesteryear Acres Dog Bed was full

and now .....gone. 

My girls were here

and now....gone.

I definitely like "Here" better than "Gone"

Guess I will just have to count the day until "Here" comes back again!