Fur babies - yes they are our children!

My husband and I tried to have children - we wanted children and did what we could do fulfill that dream. We tried the "old fashioned way", did some fertility treatments (couldn't afford IVF), and even went the adoption route. Nothing - after nearly $50,000 (yes, fifty thousand dollars) we were still just two people with a lot of love in our hearts.

We decided to check out a local pet store who had connections with breeders and adopted Sugar and Twilight at the tender age of 8 weeks old. They were adorable little fluffballs. Sugar was a Bichon Frise and Twilight was a miniature long-haired Dachshund/toy Poodle cross. They were yin and yang as Sugar was white and Twilight was black. They were sisters from the start and filled our hearts and house with joy.

When the girls turned 5, I started to worry "what if something happened to one of them?". We decided to go back to that same pet store and we found two sisters from the same litter. We hadn't planned on adopting two but the looks in their little faces was too much! One girl was just so excited and the other had the most pathetic/sad look of "we're not going home". We were hooked and adopted both of them. Cleopatra (Cleo) and Coconut (Coco) joined our home. They were Shitzu/Havanese crosses.

Our family was complete. Don't get me wrong, that first year was sometimes a nightmare. Sugar and Twilight were not happy with having sisters, but eventually like all siblings, they calmed down and were family.