Updating Little by Little...

So I realize I've been slacking a little on the whole "blogging" thing; my apologies to you all. I will attempt to do better.

My little Miss is settling into a routine, hence the reason I've attempted to blog again. She is such a good baby! And although she is only 3 weeks old she already sleeps 6 hours during the night! Woo hoo! I will post an update about her soon (and another about the house and another about the boys and maybe another).

But first I will update you all on our pet situation (exciting, right?!?). As most of you know we've had Mack for a little over two years now. He's been an amazing dog; we love having him as part of our family. He's great with kids, but can also be intimidating to strangers when needed. Since we will (hopefully) soon be moving to a new house, we've been thinking about getting another dog to help protect the place since we're kind of "out and away" from the gated CVE campus. And we are hoping Mack can help "teach" a new pup how to be a good dog.

Growing up, my family was (and still is) a German Shepherd loving family. Since moving away from my family, I have always wanted to get another German Shepherd. While Joel liked the idea of a German Shepherd, you would not believe how hard a dog of that breed is to come by in the Southwest. After many months of searching on Craigslist, Joel found (as he proclaims) his "dream dog," a German-Shepherd/Rottweiler puppy at 7 weeks old. (Many of the other "potentials" we checked out were either older than we liked or not a great mix.) So, about a week ago when we were in Tucson we picked him up!

Meet Hank! He's a pretty playful little dude.

And at the risk of sounding over dramatic, we're so incredible thankful to have both dogs. We actually nearly lost Mack right after Soraya was born. The poor buddy was the unfortunate target of a Rattlesnake bite. (Why does everything bad always happen to poor Mack? First he gets run over as a pup and then he gets bit by a Rattler...oh, the injustices of life! ;)

It really was touch and go for a while. Since we weren't present when he actually got bit, we weren't positive what had happened. He came back to the house one day holding up his hind leg. We could see blood and he definitely wouldn't let us touch him, but we weren't sure what the problem was. Several hours later, he was extremely lethargic. He wouldn't get up, wouldn't eat and wouldn't drink. So Joel took him to the vet, diagnosed him, gave him the anti-venom, but didn't give him too much hope of surviving the night. He said if Mack "maintained" overnight, the vet said he would probably eventually recover, but if he got any worse it probably meant he was going to die.

Well, we were very happy and thankful when Mack was still alive the next morning. Although his recovery has been slow (he's still extremely thin and not quite his perky self), we are praising God that he is indeed okay. Following are a few photos.

Check out how swollen his leg is! (This is actually after most of the swelling had gone down; it was seriously twice as big as his other leg.)

Doesn't this make you wish you were bit by a rattlesnake?

His skin died and peeled off and his hair fell out around the bite area; it was super nasty for about a week.

Like I said, he's still super-thin, but he is slowly recovering to his old self.

Thank you all for your continued prayers! We love you!

Blessings