Christmas Was Great!

So far from what I've read, it looks like everybody had a pretty good Christmas. I definitely did! This is pretty much what we've been doing for the last 2 days.

Christmas Day Aunt Gillian came over and we ate steak and mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and cookies and candy and cheese and crackers and there was more, but naming everything is making me hungry again. Before that we got to open gifts!

This is what I thought of Dad's idea of waiting until after lunch to open gifts.

We aren't allowed to have wrapped gifts under the tree because supposedly we can't be trusted so everything gets put in our stockings the night before. Santa knows the stocking rule, too and I know which one is my stocking. My stocking has a green top and everybody elses' is white because I was adopted after Mom finished the white ones and she couldn't find anymore white ones when she went to make my stocking. I am totally okay with it because it is green and my favorite color is green camo! Plus I know which one is my stocking a lot easier. Grandma didn't believe we knew what the stockings were. First was our gifts from Santa. Gunnar got a new cat fishing pole with the ribbon and bells. That's his most favorite toy in the world and he's really hard on them so he goes through about 1 a year. I got a Frisbee rope toy with a squeaker in the center part. I love it!!! It no longer looks like it does in this picture because it's had 4 1/2 day of me loving it. It says AC/DC on it. Mom and Dad are AC/DC fans so I'm sure Santa was thinking of them when he gave us our AC/DC toys.

Sasha got a AC/DC toy, too. You can't tell, but it says T.N.T. on it, but it's right were the squeaker is so that's usually in Sasha's mouth. I'm not sure why, but Mom keeps singing "She's TNT, She's dy-no-mite" when she plays tug with Sasha and this toy. I'm guessing it's an AC/DC song and also that my mom is weird.

I like playing with the TNT thing, too, but Sasha loves it lots so she's usually guarding it like this:

Mom says Sasha's being cute, I think she's being annoying because she isn't sharing! We also got a could rubber chew toys from Mom and Dad. I got a blue nut and bolt thing and Sasha got a red wrench but they aren't as cool as the gifts Santa gave us.
Grandma doesn't follow the stocking rule. Good thing, too because Santa's gifts filled the stockings full so there wouldn't have been room for more! Plus I like making Mom laugh really hard when I stick my head in the bag to try to get my new toy out.

I got a green camo squeak toy that's really fun to throw.

And Sash got a pink camo t-shirt squeak toy but as you can see she prefers the TNT stick.

See that chewie candy cane? Mom says it's really disturbing seeing that thing undigested. If I get a little too excited after eating breakfast I usually end up not keeping breakfast down. Dad was sure he fed me early enough that I would have been okay, but I got a little overly excited I got sick and then did my normal "don't beat me" face. Mom hates when I do that face because it reminds her how much she hates the people that used to be my family. Mom and Dad made em calm down a bunch and then Mom started working on lunch and then Dad took the steaks out to bbq and made the mashed potatoes. (Mom isn't allowed to make instant mashed potatoes because they suck when she makes them. Aunt Gillian was making fun of her because I guess Mom hasn't been able to make them ever! She follows the instructions and she even follows Dad's instructions and they NEVER turn out. I won't even eat them!!!!) Then everybody ate and Sasha and I begged and then we got some steak, too! Mom made us be really calm after lunch because she said she didn't want to see the steak and the rest of the chewie candy canes.
We didn't get to nap all day long! Mom kept trying to convince me to take a nap so I wouldn't be so tired before bed, but I just couldn't do it! I was too excited. When I'm REALLY tired, I snore REALLY loud and it keeps Mom awake. I don't even wake up to being hit in the head with a pillow or shaken! Mom had to go to work Friday morning and she said it was a good thing she didn't have to do much thinking because she didn't get much sleep.
Speaking of sleep, I'm going to go take a another nap now before Mom gets home and I convince her I need to play fetch again.
If I don't get a chance to post again I want to wish everybody a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Stay safe and don't stay up too late!!

Look What Mom Did!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas Card

Hi everybody! Hope you all had a great weekend. I helped Mom make Chex Mix. Thankfully the oven lasted through that. I love helping Mom make Chex Mix because there's ALWAYS pretzels and cereal falling on the floor. Since the kitchen in the new house has carpet (which Mom HATES!) I make sure I clean up the messes for her before they get stepped on and ground into the carpet. I know Mom appreciates my help.

We had some issues sending the Christmas exchange email so if you are coming by to tell me it didn't work or it was weird, we're very sorry! It also left off the link to my site so some of you may not even know it was from me! We're not sure if it's a Yahoo email issue or a Mom issue. We're not going to try to figure it out because it will make Mom eat the entire box of chocolate that my Aunt Gillian gave to her. So, here is my card for those of you that couldn't open it and for those of you that didn't participate in the card exchange:

Okay, now it's not cooperating on here! Since you can't read the writting I'll tell you what it says. Under our group photo (which is our first ever picture with all 3 of us in it and probably the last since we don't cooperate very well) it says "We're begging you to have a Merry Christmas!" Then under our pictures it has our names "Lady Kaos, Sasha Doo & Gunnar" and then it says "Or else this could happen to you." Next year Mom is going to start a lot sooner, like maybe January 1st! She thought starting 2 weeks ago was time enough, but for some reason silly little things kept giving her a hard time. Dad ended up helping her with it yesterday afternoon because she was so frustrated with it and he was having issues with it, too. It finally emailed this morning and some of you say you got it fine and some say it's a weird .dat file even though it left Mom's email as a .jpg! Really weird.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas! I don't know if I'll be able to post much this week. Mom's crazy busy with work and I'm crazy busy trying to keep the house guarded through closed drapes all day. It's actually warm enough to have them open again, but Mom got in the routine of not opening them last week so now she keeps forgetting! Thanks to everyone that suggested she build a bigger ledge for me. It didn't work because then the Christmas tree and her plants wouldn't fit there so perfectly like they do now. She has an excuse for everything.

We want to thank everyone for leaving such wonderful comments for my mom last week. A lot of you helped her out a lot. She made it through Friday pretty well. My Aunt Gillian and her spent all day emailing each other silly things to help them both get through the day and they both did some baking therapy (although Mom's was more stressful than theraputic because of the oven).

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!

Guard Duty

You know what's really annoying? Trying to do guard duty with the drapes closed! Mom and Dad have been leaving the drapes closed on the big picture window and the patio door to help keep the cold air out during the day. Sounds like a good excuse doesn't it? It's not! It's hard to know what's going on outside if I have to wiggle through the drapes and then the shears. It's really annoying.

Sasha and Gunnar can get up on the window sill and walk because they're little. They are able to walk along the full length of the window and I can't!
Personally, I would think Mom should continue with her morning routine of opening the drapes for me so I can better guard my house. How intimidating is a little dacshund and a huge cat? Not as intimidating as a black lab!!!! Sheesh!

Thanks for sending nice words to Mom. She's doing much better the last couple of days. She says she feels okay enough that I can tell you what happened. You see, 1 year ago this Friday was the day her Mom died. I hated her mom because she was mean to my mom and she didn't like me. She thought my Mom was stupid for adopting a black lab because "labs are the dumbest breed." We all know the woman was WAY off, but I'm not going to get into that right now. Whenever she was around I would growl at her. Anyway, Mom didn't think the anniversary was going to bother her so much because her Mom hadn't spoken to her in over 2 years when she died. Sunday when the Christmas cookies turned into a disaster Mom was already kind of messed up in the head so all she could hear in her head was her mom telling her how she had screwed up and that she should have used her recipes since they always worked for her. Then Mom, Dad and Grandma started talking about what to do for Christmas dinner since the oven is pretty much dead and that got Mom thinking and of course made her sadder. Monday weird little things kept setting her off. Thanks to some very nice emails from Jamie (Sunny and Scooter's Mom) she figured out what was bothering her so much and why she was avoiding talking to people about what was upsetting her so much. Even though my mom's mom was really mean, Mom still loved her because she was her mom and she does have some good memories, especially around Christmas. This is actually the 4th Christmas Mom has had without her Mom and for some reason this one has been the hardest. The first 2 were when her Mom wasn't talking to her, then the 3rd was the one right after she died. This is the first Christmas that it's real for Mom that her Mom is really gone. Mom feels free now that her mom isn't around to tell her what a horrible person she is anymore, but deep down Mom had hope that her Mom would all of a sudden realize what a mean person she was being and apologize to Mom. It hit Mom pretty hard at the beginning of the week and combined with the confusion of how she was feeling, we were all very worried about her. Mom wants me to tell everyone thank you for your friendship and support and hopefully after we get through Friday, everything will be back to normal just in time for Christmas. Mom and I both are sending big hugs and thanks to Jamie. You helped Mom figure out what was upsetting her so much and that made her feel lots better.

I'm Here

Hey everybody! Hope you had a great weekend. It snowed BIG time here yesterday and it's really cold today. It was a negative 10 degrees this morning when Mom and Dad left for work! When they came home for lunch, Mom's boot got stuck to the concrete cuz it's so cold out! We haven't been able to go out and play in it very much because it's so cold. It makes Sasha's joints a little sore and I don't like the "bitter cold" (that's what the weather man calls it). Hopefully it will be warm enough to go play in soon so Mom can take pictures of me playing in the snow and then I can email them to my buddy Mona for her snow post.
Mom made a ton of cookies this weekend and was not happy. Our oven is officially dead and it died before she was able to make the dog cookies! Can you believe that? Mom said it was good that we got the ones done that we're sending to my human cousins and my great-grandma and she does have a good point, but still! Mom and Dad have known the oven was going to not last much longer for awhile, but they've been trying to wait to see if there are any really good sales on ranges after Christmas. The one Mom REALLY REALLY REALLY wants was $1500 when they looked at it a couple months ago and Grandma saw it on sale last night for $1000 ($992 if she wanted the black one) so we're keeping our paws and fingers crossed that after Christmas it goes down even more because Mom REALLY REALLY REALLY wants that model cuz it has 2 ovens! Think of all the baking of treats she could do then!!! So far the burners on the old range are still working, but the one big one up front is not doing so good. We're pretty sure the range and the fridge are older than the house so we kind of knew we'd have to replace those when we bought the house anyway, but we were kind of hoping to wait awhile longer.
I just wanted to let everybody know that if I don't post very much this week, don't worry! I'm going to visit everybody's blogs, but if I don't comment, don't worry! Mom is needing lots of hugs and attention right now and leaks a lot. Don't worry about her, she's not sick, it has nothing to do with her job, she's not hurt or anything else that would need worrying about. Once Mom works things out and gets through this week, I'll try to explain what's going on. I know you all would be very supportive of her right now, but she's not ready to talk about it just yet. I haven't done my Christmas cards yet (thank goodness we signed up for email cards!!) and I haven't thanked everybody that has sent me an ecard. Hopefully Mom will feel up to helping me with those some time this week since there's only 10 days left until Christmas!!! WOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!
My nose and ears are cold again so I'm going to go curl up in Mom's blanket on the couch again. Why does it have to be so fricken cold? The sun is shining and it's 25 degrees!!!! At least it's a positive 25 degrees!

Fun With The Human Cousins Part 3 & Artsy Fartsy Friday

Here are the final pictures of my human cousins' visit and it's Artsy Fartsy Friday! Mom and Dad love outdoorsy themes so when they saw this cute ornament in an advertisement they knew they had to make them with their niece and nephew.

First the girl made sure the fluff made a good beard.

Then they put the ornaments together. They were made out of fishing bobbers!

Aren't they cute? If you would like directions on how to make them just let us know and I'll get mom to write out the instructions for you.
This is what I did during the craft time. I was exhausted!

Fun With The Human Cousins Part 2

We haven't seen the pitbulls for a full 24 hours! It's a miracle! I just wanted to let everyone know we don't have anything agains the entire breed pit bulls, we just don't like dogs that come and charge at us whether it's a pit bull, lab or poodle. There's some golden retrievers that live donw the road and they get out once in awhile (no where near as much as the pit bulls) and if they're out I have to stay in my yard because I'll try to defend my property and family against them, too but they're nice and Dad knows their owners and can tease them about their dogs running around again. Teh pit bulls belong to a bunch of kids that only have them because in our area it's "cool" to have pitbulls because they're a "dangerous" dog. Whatever!!! Since cities around here started making it illegal to own pitbulls and other "agressive dogs" pitbulls have become really popular in our area but it's usually teenagers that have just moved out of their parent's house (like the ones up in our neighborhood). So please don't take offense to me complaining about the pitbulls!

Here is part 2 of the pictures of the fun times with my human cousins.

First is the day they played with the toy Jeep. Once again I had to stay in the yard or the house because of those stupid pitbulls!

First the girl showed her little brother how it's done. Incase you can't see in this picture, she is rock crawling. Dad set her up for this one. She thought it ws pretty cool.

Then she showed her little brother how to drive. He did pretty good for a 2 year old!

And of course he also ended up on the rock with my dad's help.

When the battery started to wear out Dad and the boy did some "engine work." Mom says this picture is going on the wall!

A couple days later Mom took the day off of work to bake cookeis with her niece and nephew. The lesson learned from this is to never ignore a 2 year old with a big ball of chocolate cookie dough. It was really cute and fun so Mom would probably do it again no matter how much their Grandma and Mom made fun of her having to clean up the mess. Mom said it was totally worth it!

Mmmmm, Chocolate hands!

I learned that little boys taste really yummy! (Don't worry, there was no chocolate on his hands in this picture, Mom made sure both kids knew not to give any of us chocolate.) He always let me clean his hands and his face. He thought it was funny that I licked his hands and I was totally okay with making him giggle. During his visit he tasted like cookies (I only tasted the sugar cookies), spaghetti, sausage, oatmeal, pie, peanutbutter, turkey, ham, chicken, apple, candy, mashed potatoes and a few other yummy tastes. My favorite taste is officially 2 year old little boys because there are a variety of tastes AND all of them are yummmmmmmy!

Fun With The Human Cousins Part 1

Hi everybody! Mom finally had time to go through pictures with me of my human cousins visit. The first part I'm going to share with you is playing in snow. You'll notice I'm not in any of the pictures and thats because there are some neighbors up in our area that don't seem to think it's a big deal that their pit bulls run around the nieghborhood. I hate those dogs and whenever I see them the hair on my neck and back sticks straight up and I let them know they better stay away. Yesterday they were running around and the one charged at my mom, but she stood her ground and then when Dad came home the other one charged him so Dad called the police and when the deputy came up one of them charged at him, too and almost got tazered! The owners are in some major big trouble. Since most of the snow was in the front yard I couldn't go out and play with the kids in the snow. I'm trusted out front, but those dogs had been running around all morning and if they're out running around I have to stay in the fence so I'm not tempted to go kick their butts!

Okay, I think I got that out of my system. Now on to the photos. You have to remember that my human cousins live in southern California. The 2 year old had never seen snow before and the 5 year old hadn't seen it since she was about 2 1/2. That's why it was such a big deal to them and that's why Mom and Dad took them out to play in it even though there really wasn't much to play in. Nothing like what we have right now. We finally got our snow I asked for but first came snow and wind so there's a thick sheet of ice under the snow and it's really cold outside so this snow really isn't that fun to play in.

Here's the pictures:

Before they went out Sasha and I made sure they were all bundled up and wouldn't get cold.

First the kids got down and touched the snow.

Then someone taught them how to have a snowball fight. Nobody was safe! Whining about holding an expensive camera didn't help at all.

Being their mom wasn't a good excuse either.

After the snow was all gone, it was time for some hotchocolate.

I've got lots more to share with you so be sure to check in tomorrow for cookie day and then on Friday for an some Artsy Fartsy stuff.

DUH!!

This article made us laugh: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081208/ap_on_sc/sci_no_fair.
Those humans doing the research could have saved so much time and money if they would have just asked any of us!

I Think We're Caught Up

I think we've gotten all caught up on everyone's blogs. That was a lot of work! We checked the email and got a bunch of email cards already! That was really cool! We still haven't started our cards yet. We still haev a couple weeks though (my mom is really good at procrastinating, that's why it took her 5 years to get through college!).
As you can see in the picture above, I finally have energy to pick my head up and hold it up a little. Next week I'm going to show you some pictures of my human cousin's visit. We had a lot of fun.

Mom also needs to update her food blog. She feels a little guilty for not updating it in awhile. They fired the receptionist at her office (she was a pain and real estate is down so that excuse was the final reason needed to get rid of her) so Mom has taken on a ton more work and then when she gets home she isn't in the mood to look at a computer anymore. That's also the reason there's no Artsy Fartsy Friday today. Mom didn't have time to go through stuff to find what she wanted to post today. Hopefully Monday I'll be ready to share my 2 weeks with my cousins with you and that will make up for it. There is a really cute craft Mom did with the kids that is very artsy.
Mom and Dad should be on their way home soon so I better go watch for them. I know Mom really appreciates being greeted at the door when she comes home after a hard and long day at work.
Have a great weekend everybody!!!

Recovering!

Hey everyone!!! Remember me? My human cousins left yesterday and here is a picture of what I've been doing since they left:

Well, kind of. My eyes are supposed to be closed, but I heard Mom messing with her camera so I opened my eyes. I didn't even try to avoid having my picture taken which proves just how tired I am. Mom and I are working on getting caught up reading everyone's blogs, but we have a BUNCH to read. We'll try to comment on your posts, but no promises.
I've used up all my energy and have to go take another nap. I'll share with you all the fun I had with my human cousins soon!