Jessie's first birthday

This week marked a very important family milestone... Jessie's 1st birthday! I can't believe my little bundle of fur is a year old already, particularly as the first blog post I wrote about her back in July still seems so recent.

She was spoilt rotten on her special day, and rightly so!

We bought a little doggy cake/biscuit from Pets at Home for Jessie to mark the occasion. She also had a few bags of treats and snacks which are being rationed accordingly, although she'd eat them all at once if she had any say in the matter. Perfecting this photo with her cake and 'it's my 1st birthday' card from KesseyCrafts proved to be very challenging... I had to bribe her with quite a few doggy chocolate drops while attempting to get her to sit still.

We bought three new toys for Jessie for her birthday, and she also had a toy from both sets of grandparents. She's destroyed lots of her existing toys in the last few weeks so her birthday was very well-timed. After she'd eaten some cake, she spent a happy couple of hours sniffing and chewing her way from one to the next. Her favourite toy seems to be the purple pig which sounds like a whoopee cushion... an interesting soundtrack to our evenings this week! 

My parents also bought a birthday card for her, but she isn't allowed anywhere near that or it'll end up being unceremoniously shredded within ten seconds. 

Jessie has brought us so much joy over the last eight months and I really can't imagine life without her. She's a little whirlwind at times who often occasionally tries my patience, particularly when she eats things she's definitely not supposed to, but one look at her beautiful face makes everything OK again. Our lovely puppy is a huge part of our family with her own unique personality and Jessie-isms, and she's got us both wound very tightly around her little paw. 

Has anyone else blogged about their puppy's first birthday, or am I alone in this? Send me your links! 

Jessie's first Christmas

The build-up to Christmas 2017 has been even more exciting than usual because... *drum roll*... it's Jessie's first Christmas!

I was getting quite stressed (me? stressed? surely not) about not being able to put up any decorations in case she chewed them/ate them/ran off with them, but she's actually been very well behaved on the whole. We've agreed not to talk about the occasion when she grabbed Piglet off the tree and sprinted around the living room for a solid 90 seconds with him in her mouth.

We decided to go for a slim Christmas tree rather than our usual huge tree, and we thought it would be wise to place it on a coffee table rather than putting it on the floor at easy jumping height. Although I really miss our big tree, having a smaller tree does have its advantages... this tree is entirely filled with Disney decorations as we've now got enough of them to fill a small tree!

Of course, I just had to get a few personalised items to mark Jessie's first Christmas. A Christmas tree decoration and a stocking seemed like the obvious contenders, so I browsed Etsy for those specific items for an embarrassing length of time. I eventually bought the Christmas tree decoration from JayneTappDesign and the stocking from Little Stitches. We're also considering buying a doggy Christmas jumper, but we're not sure if Jessie will take kindly to that idea and we should probably take her feelings into account.

I think the main festive disappointment for poor Jessie has been that she's not allowed to play with any of these new exciting things that have suddenly been deposited around the living room. I was expecting her to be a nightmare with the stockings in particular as they're just hanging there so temptingly, but she's only gone for them a couple of times. However, she did come to the end of her tether when she wasn't even allowed to play with the box the Christmas tree came in. Enough is enough! 

We've bought quite a few Christmas gifts for Jessie already and I still want to buy a few more... I need to remember that other people will buy her presents too. In my defence, she does need some new toys as she's destroyed quite a few of her old favourites in recent weeks since she's discovered the full strength of her adult teeth. We just need to make sure that all boxes, wrapping paper and everyone else's gifts are kept well out of her reach!

I mostly can't wait to witness Jessie's excitement levels over Christmas. She gets excited about mundane things like frozen carrots and crunchy leaves, so her Christmas excitement will be off the scale. 

Have you got any more ideas on how we can celebrate Jessie's first Christmas? Let me know! 

Meet Jessie the Corgi!

We're now the proud owners of a Pembroke Welsh Corgi! Jessie is sixteen weeks old and she's been in our lives for six days so far.

I've gone from never having a pet (apart from lots of goldfish) to not being able to imagine life without this energetic ball of fur. She makes me smile every day, however mischievous she's been, and I love that warm fuzzy feeling I get when she curls up on my lap to go to sleep. Even when I've frantically been shouting 'Jessie, no!' for the last hour and a half, it's all worth it when she settles down with me for a cwtch.

We obviously had to have a Disney name for our puppy, and we eventually decided on Jessie (Toy Story 2/3). They've both got red hair, after all. We bought an adorable Minnie Mouse collar when we were in Walt Disney World a couple of months ago, just to cement the Disney theme, and I'm completely in love with the way it looks on her.

I also bought some puppy milestone cards from Kessey Crafts ready for Jessie's arrival and I've managed to use a couple of them to document her journey so far. There's just one problem... I can't put the cards too close to her while she's awake because she tries to eat them!

Jessie loves to chew EVERYTHING and she's never happier than when she's galloping around outside, either in the garden or on a walk, and chewing an interesting leaf/flower/stick. She's such a friendly little thing and won't let anyone walk by without making a fuss of her, but she might try to chew their bag or their walking stick if they're not careful! Although she has her wild half hours, she actually sleeps a lot more than I expected. She's found some unexpected places to curl up, including on our fireplace and on the shelf underneath our coffee table.

We bought a few toys for Jessie before she arrived and she's also been lucky enough to receive lots of toys from our friends and family. She's very clever and quickly finds the squeaker in her toys, much to our delight!

I was determined that I wouldn't be one of those people who sets up a separate Instagram account for their dogs, but by her second day with us I'd done a U-turn on that because she was completely taking over my own account. You can follow Jessie on Instagram here - don't forget to watch her Instagram stories as well as checking out her photos.

Has anyone else blogged about their new puppies? Do you have any tips for me? Let me know!