The Koch Animal Farm

A couple weeks ago, Spot, the stray that showed up at my parent's door about 10 years ago, had to be put down. Poor guy suddenly became paralyzed from the waist down, and no one knew why. I felt badly for my parents because this dog was one of, if not their favorite pet. Probably also a little more difficult now that the commotion of children is not in their home anymore. My children were a mess when I told them what had happened, so we went over the night before to could say goodbye.
I was talking to Mom one day, and she and Dad had been trying to remember all the pets they had over the years. We started digging through pictures to try to make sure there were none we missed. Because it was always such an animal farm around that house, I'm sure there are a few we forgot. Scooter is in this list somewhere. He's the dog that would bite Adam when he was a toddler (thus the reason why we have no pictures of him). Here are some of the photos that we found. For those of you who were fans of the rabbits, hamsters and hermit crabs, I'm sorry that they are not included in this list.

Wookie (first dog)

Wookie & Cuddles

(only picture of this cat I could find.... it didn't last long)

Moose

Wiggles & Waggles with Michael

(we gave away Wiggles & Waggles later became Sugar)

Tiger (pre-chub days)

Sugar & Tiger

(a.k.a. - fat cat days....before being forced to lose

some weight while trapped in our trailer)

Snowball & Tiger

Taffy & Licorice when puppies

Rachel & Cosmo

Licorice & Taffy

I just love how raggedy everyone looks while holding the animals.

Sugar & Cosmo look especially thrilled to pose for the picture.

Hailey & Tammy

Thumper & Adam

(I mainly put this picture in to show off the stylin' do Adam had)

Thumper

One of the many rabbits Julie acquired. I have no idea what any of their names are. I think this is maybe Cleo? Don't bother correcting me if I'm wrong, since I'll end up forgetting it's name by tomorrow.

Buffy

(The dog that Mom ended up giving to Grandma Theresa)

Lucy (a.k.a. - Outside Cat)
This is a cat that shows up at my parents door begging for food. They've basically adopted it as their own. Julie named this cat Lucifer since it was mean and would bite anyone who tried to pet it. Now it's affectionately named Lucy for short. Daisy (Golden Retriever) & Brown Cat (aka - Lilly, Muffy, Inside Cat, basically everyone had their own name for the cat). Spot
The kids wanted to go over to say goodbye to him.

I'm Getting There

Before Rachel or anyone else lets me know they are sick of looking at Adam's face (now who could ever be sick of that!), I'm getting there. With the flu striking each person one at a time, and what I thought was chicken pox, but turned into actually being Shingles with Hailey, has left me trying to scrounge myself back to normalcy.

So anyways, I have a ton I want to blog. Just like a journal.....the more time you wait, the more you get behind.

This is ADORABLE!

Clara's New Glasses

Clara took a piece of plastic from an opened toy an put it over her eyes like glasses. For some reason, when she went up to Charlie, he burst out crying. She didn't do anything scary.....he just didn't like them at all. It cracks me up how Clara looks a little dumbfounded when he cries.

Punkie Adam

Here I am, testing out my brand new camera I got for Christmas. I don't quite know what Adam was thinking right then, but it obviously wasn't something too smart. However, I'm glad I have this moment on film.

Hats Around the World

I was looking through past pictures and happened upon a few Adam and Dad took while we were in Disneyworld 4 years ago. I laugh each time I see these, just thinking about the two of them wandering around, posing with hats at each "country".

Africa

America

Canada

China

England

France

Germany

Italy

Japan

Mexico

Mickey

Morocco

Norway

RACHEL MY LOVE!!!!

Since I'm very sporadic about posting on this blog, I felt that the only way to keep everyone excited each time they viewed my postings is to put this picture at the beginning. That way they are greeted by an amazing picture of my dear sweet sister Rachel.

I know that she will be thrilled that I dedicated this post to her. I also know that she won't tell me anymore that she's bored with looking at the same thing on my page. This could possibly keep her entertained for hours! (Love ya Rach) :)

Tile Board Christmas Gifts

This year I was able to make a few gifts for Christmas. Those are always my favorite gifts to give. I made one for my sister in-law Nicole (no picture). Here are the other two....

Nora's, with random pictures of their cute little family.

I also was able to make one for my mom with the grandkids' pictures. I just love this project because it looks just like tile, but it's wood, so you can make it whatever size you want.

Killer Katie

A while back, we noticed that Katie would snarl her teeth at the kids sometimes, particularly when they were hanging on her, and ESPECIALLY if food was near. I think she thinks the kids are competing for the food, so she needs to scare them away. At first it made us nervous (and I'm sure it does others when they first see it), but once we realized it looked worse than it actually was because she never bit, it became kind of funny. Seeing from the big smile on Ben's face, he obviously isn't fazed by her antics. He just gives her a big hug anyways.

In this video, Taylor has a plate with food near and Jordan is trying to hug her. Watch when he scratches her neck.

Temple Square

This year, we were able to visit Temple Square while we vacationed in Idaho and Utah for Thanksgiving. It was chilly, but it was made much more bearable since it wasn't packed with people yet.

I would highly advise anyone to take a tour of the Conference Center. It's absolutely amazing. Here we are being told about the 12 paintings depicting scenes from the Book of Mormon. I remember seeing these pictures in my Book of Mormon all the time when I was little. This room holds the original works. Also, the Hall of the Prophets is so neat. The feelings I experienced when were able to see the busts made of each of our prophets was indescribable.

Here I'm trying to wrangle Benjamin from escaping into the road. He got so excited each time the Metro would pass by.