Sadie

Meet our new puppy, Sadie. Yes, I said puppy. Believe it or not, she's even bigger now than she was in this picture. She's a yellow lab, and we think she may have some golden retriever in her, but we're not sure. She's only about 6 months old, so she's going to be a giant dog when she's full grown.

You may be asking, "What happened to Tess?" Well, if you spent any time at our house over the last 2 years, you know that Tess was not a good fit for our family. She was part terrier, so the constant yipping and hyperness were not ever going to go away. We finally decided in October that she deserved a better home, so we found an older couple with no children to take her and love her.

The kids were really sad, and we really did want a dog, so we put a lot of thought into what kind of dog to get. We decided on a bigger, smarter dog. And we decided we'd better get the dog acclimated to our family before the baby gets here, so we got her about 6 weeks ago. We were looking at little puppies, but I think we got lucky with a 4-month old, already housebroken dog. That took a lot of stress out of getting a puppy.

Sadie is super energetic and playful, and she drives us crazy. But she does settle down and snuggle, and she lets the kids do a whole lot to her. And we know that in a few years she'll be a very mellow family dog. I know a lot of my friends are not animal lovers and think I'm crazy. Actually, if you're my friend, you know for a fact that I'm crazy...