Kiwi the Hedgehog

meet our new baby hedgehog Kiwi!! we've had her for a couple weeks now and she is the sweetest hedgehog ever. Jason originally planned on getting me one for my birthday in June but they were illegal in Arizona then so they were much more expensive and harder to find. we found a baby online in Denver that we were going to pick up on our road trip, but we changed our minds when we figured it would be difficult traveling with it. a few months after we got back though they became legal in Arizona and we started our hunt! we found a pet store that sold them but we had to be put on their waiting list. we only had to wait a couple weeks until they called to say they had more babies in. we chose Kiwi because she was the friendliest out of all of them. we picked up others and they would prickle up and stay in their ball (one was even shaking when we picked it up) but she came right out and didn't seem scared at all. she has been such a fun pet so far! 

 

we had a hard time thinking of a name for her so we spent a lot of the drive up to the cabin with Loretta, Ben and Madi coming up with names. we had a lot of good ones but decided on Kiwi because she resembles both the Kiwi bird, and the fruit! also, Kiwi birds are from New Zealand and they have hedgehogs in New Zealand (even though ours is an African Pygmy hedgehog). 

most hedgehogs roll into a ball when they are scared but shes rarely scared so she won't (only when she's sleeping). whenever we try and put her on her back so she'll roll she kicks trying to get up. in this picture she looks crazy trying to avoid it- ha!

 Tarley is obsessed with her and the first night we got Kiwi she kept whimpering all night in our room so she could go see her. Kiwi doesn't seem scared of Tarley at all which is great. Kiwi keeps trying to crawl underneath her to sleep and it pricks Tarley so she backs away.

I'm so glad we picked out a friendly hedgehog because some hedgehogs are naturally scared and grumpy so you have to work with them more. we try to hold her a lot so she'll be extra tame and not scared of anything. it's a good thing we're night owls since they are nocturnal and she usually isn't active until around 11pm. she loves to cuddle though when you are holding her during the day and she'll sleep in my sweatshirt hood or pocket. she makes the cutest little noises and is always sniffing since hedgehogs don't have very good vision. she is super sweet and an even better pet then we thought she would be!

Snow day

last weekend my parents got a massive amount of snow at their cabin in Strawberry so Jason and I decided to go up for the weekend. we went up on Saturday with Jason's sister Loretta, her husband Ben and their baby, and our niece Madi. most of my family went up for the day and had a great time playing in the snow and sledding. they made this sledding course right by our cabin that curved around the road and it was so much fun! 

all of my family left that night except my brother Clint and his wife Michelle. we had a great time that night playing games and eating brownies til midnight. the next day we did some more sledding and had a big snowball fight boys against girls. Clint's 3 year old Marlee kept shouting -girls win! girls win! for a while after, it was really cute. it was so beautiful with the snow and it started lightly snowing while we were out there. I couldn't believe how much snow there was and they said that it hadn't snowed that much in 5 years. 

 I love these pics I got of Clint and his son Nolan, so cute!

 it was such a fun weekend and I'm so glad we got to go play in the snow at least once this winter.

New Years Eve

Jason had to work most of New Years Eve night so I decided to have my family over for a little pizza and game night. it was the first time most of my family would see my new house (oh ya we bought a house!! I'll post about that later...) so I wanted it to look its best. I had only decided to have the party the day before and then that morning was a little crazy. Jason and I went to pick up a mid century buffet that Jason's sister had found for me the day before at an antique mall. I had been looking for one for months to use as our tv stand and she found me one for a steal at $100. when we got home I took Tarley for a walk and two dogs started following me so I had to find their home. by the time I had ran to the store and had everything finished my family started showing up. 

we ate pizza, played Rummikub and others games, had a backyard fire (one in our pit and a huge bonfire when we lit our Christmas tree on fire), lit fireworks and had an early New Years eve countdown for the kids at 9. we played games until Jason got home around 11 then we went to Jason's sisters house for more fireworks and the real new years countdown. it was a pretty laid back new years but still a lot of fun! I hope to have many more parties at our house.

 me with Brin's sweet baby Reese.

 our Christmas tree bonfire got enormous really quick and I was definitely nervous my house would burn down. 

 the kids watched a Madagascar countdown on Netflix for an early new years!