Our puppies are 7 weeks old today.  Let me just begin by summing up photographing 7-week-old puppies with a word from Charlotte as she watches her siblings....

7-week-old puppies have no time for photo shoots!  There are smells, sounds, siblings, toys, food - just about anything is more interesting than that lady we've seen for weeks who tries to get us to look at her!  (The sounds she makes are soooo last week.)

The puppies are doing fabulous!  One big event in their life this week was a trek to the vet.  They were all very well behaved - no barking, whining, or accidents!  Below are some pictures of my puppies & helpers at the vet.

On a different note, we were quite surprised this week to see a change in Flower's ears.  Here she is at 6 weeks and 7 weeks.

I've read that teething can cause a mini schnauzer's ears to do odd things because the inflammation in their jaw affects the ears as well.  Teething begins around 6 weeks, and her ear change came right after teething started.  Ears can change a lot in the first year, but typically by 6 months you can have a good idea what your schnauzer's ears will look like.  We are eager to see just what Flower's ears will do.  One tip we picked up from another mini schnauzer breeder is not to have the ears clipped or groomed until after six months.  Just the slight extra weight of the hair can be enough to keep them down (if you prefer them down).

Since the puppies will be off to their new homes at 8 weeks old, this will be my last post for this litter.  I'll end with my favorite photo from this past week.  CJ is my perpetual early riser.  This morning as I was hurriedly trying to get pancakes mixed up before the hungry munchkins woke up, he was awake & ready to go.  To buy myself some more pancake-mixing time, I told him to play with the puppies.  He was delighted (as were the puppies)!

It has been awhile since I've "rambled" about our homeschooling endeavors.  Here's a brief glimpse into what's been going on around the homestead.

We finished up our penguin unit right before Christmas.  We took 2 weeks off for Christmas.  I had an ambitious to-do list over break, which included things like make 12 freezer meals, organize EJ's clothing, reorganize toys, wash bedding , scrub kitchen walls, and finalize the details of my "7 Days of Creation" co-op class that I'm teaching this semester.  I was able to cross off most of things on the list, with the exception of getting play dough made for my co-op class.  As I made my freezer meals, I found my new favorite freezer meal that I'm eager to share here on my blog soon!

On the school front, we've hopped right into our new unit on kangaroos.  We've been soaking up lots of kangaroo facts through all the books we're reading.  The most exciting part was, of course, learning just how far they can jump.  The boys were delighted as we measured off 25 feet across our basement and realized a kangaroo could jump further than the length of the basement.  They were also proud as peacocks to win a jumping a contest against Mommy (and I didn't even let them win!). 

One fun book we've discovered with this unit is Animals Should Definitely NOT Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett.  And, thanks to JJ snipping the cassette tape from the library, we now own our very own copy (translation: the library made us pay $15.95 for the book & tape, but allowed us to keep it and the ruined cassette tape).  My personal favorite page was the chicken trying to lay its egg with clothing.  Check it out if you're curious - it is a simple, cute book.

We will wrap up kangaroos the beginning of next week and move onto zebras.

Thanks for stopping by!

This post is linked to the weekly wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

6 weeks today!  In some ways, it is hard to believe we only have 2 weeks left with these little puppies.  We will miss them, but we are very excited about all their new families that are eagerly counting down the days until pick up time!

The puppies are now off of milk and on food softened with water.  Over the next week, we will reduce the amount of water and the soaking time to get them on dry food by 7 weeks.  We feed them four times a day - morning, noon, late afternoon, & bedtime.  Before going home at 8 weeks, we will eliminate their bedtime feeding.  Their teeth are coming in, and they enjoyed their first buffalo bully stick this week.

The puppies experienced (tolerated might be a better word) their first bath this week.  The first bath is easy for me because they are too shocked to respond.  They usually stand there and very meekly accept the circumstances.  Usually by the second bath before going home, they put up more of fight!  Below, Flower, Charlotte, & Sammy are snuggled up in a towel following their bath with Life's Abundance Revitalizing shampoo.

I'll wrap-up again with a few snapshots of the week...

Lastly, my favorite photo from the week - CJ with "his" puppy Flower.