The Biggest Christmas Surprise!!!

After we came home from the Alamo Bowl, we had some big surprises in store for the girls and they had no idea! 

The first surprise, was that their cousin was here for a long weekend visit! They knew their Gee & PaPaw were coming, but they had no idea that Amelia was coming with them! 

But, that wasn't the only surprise the girls had! 

When we came home, the girls discovered they had one more present under the Christmas tree. 

We handed each of the girls a gift, told them to open them, and surprised them with.......

A PUPPY!!!! 

They were shocked and thrilled! I don't think I've ever seen Gretchen so excited! 

Back in October I told DJ that it would be really fun to surprise the girls with a puppy for Christmas. We had been talking about getting a dog off and on for the last year, but he always said 'no.' But this time, he said 'yes!" Before he could change his mind, I called my mom and asked her to call their breeder and see if she would have a puppy ready for Christmas. 

It turned out she had a girl puppy available right then! She sent us a picture, we said 'yes.' and then we had to figure out how to wait until Christmas. 

Thankfully my parents had a mini golden doodle themselves and they just so happen to have experience with dog training and boarding, and they agreed to keep her until Christmas. 

It was easy keeping her a surprise because my parents live about 9 hours away. We were in the middle of football season and we knew that we weren't going to be visiting them anytime soon. They told my neice that they were just boarding/training another dog and never told her that the dog belonged to us.

When my mom and I were on the phone, we would never talk about the dog. I was quick to tell her if the girls were in the car or if she was on speaker. She did text a few pictures over the months, but our dog looks so similar to their dog, that the girls didn't notice. I think once they saw a picture with booth dogs, and we just told them the same thing we had told my neice- it was just a dog my parents were boarding/training. 

Over the last several weeks the girls would ask for a dog and I was very adamant to tell them "no way." I was not interested in one, cleaning up after one, and it was just too much work. There was no way they would get one any time soon. In fact, the night of the bowl game, Gretchen and I were standing in line at the concession stand and she asked again for a dog. I told her not at all. 

Little did she know......

DJ and I named our dog Gabriel Forty Acres. Gabby for short. 

I had picked the name Forty back this summer, because I had told DJ that I should get a dog for my 40th birthday, and also, because Texas is called the "Forty Acres" 

Since we were getting a girl dog, I knew that Forty would be a better boy dog name, but we still wanted a name that tied to UT. DJ came up with Gabriel, because it's in our fight song "Till Gabriel blows his horn." But again, Gabriel's a boy name- but Gabby is the perfect girl name and abreviation for a girl. I left the Forty Acres part as a "middle name" of sorts because we had a labrador before and labs typically have long names. 

After our first dog passed, we knew that we would eventually get another dog. We loved Bailey, she was with us for 14 years and just the best dog. 

My parents had gotten their mini golden doodle last Fall, and we had fallen in love with her. Plus, they don't shed, which was a big win for me. I also wanted a smaller dog. While we thought about adopting, we just really had our hearts set on a golden doodle. 

She's been home with us for almost two weeks now and she's fitting in beautifully. We are all smitten with her and we are so thankful that my parents took the time to crate train her, do some small obedeince training, and potty train her. 

Now, if they had just taught her how to stay off the furniture we'd be all set! Ha!