Lady Kaos

Just Hanging Out

2009-12-14T19:31:00.002-07:00

Hey everybody! Remember me? Things are crazy around my house. Mom got a job working at a doctor's office! She loves it a lot. It's way different than she's used to but she's catching on pretty fast and really likes her coworkers. Her hours are hard to get used to though. She's been working for almost 2 weeks now and Sasha and I are still trying to get used to her back at work. We really liked having her home all the time with us. We still have Dad home with us 1 entire day a week which is okay, but we still miss Mom.
It's been really cold here, too. You know that song "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas?" Dad has started singing "I'm Dreaming of a Brown & Dry Christmas." The snow is finally starting to melt, but everything is really muddy. Sasha and I have found creative ways to stay warm (see the picture above).
Dad and I have been doing some quail and pheasant hunting. It's been a couple years since we've gone so we're both really happy that we've gotten to go. We're going to do some more after Christmas. I can't wait!!!!
I am really behind on reading everybody's blogs. Mom gets off early 1 day a week (because she has to work really late 1 day) so hopefully this week we'll be able to get caught up with everybody. We'll try to leave some comments when we read your blogs, too so you'll know we came to visit.
Mom needs to go through her 200 emails now so I better let her have the computer back. She signed up for a bunch of email newsletters while she didn't have a job and then she started working and hasn't been reading them very much so her inbox fills up really fast. Crazy lady!!!
If I don't get to post again before Christmas MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very Fast Update

2009-10-29T14:41:00.003-06:00

Hey everybody! I just wanted to post an update really fast to let you know what's going on. Here's the important stuff that has happened:

Sasha, Mom and Grandma are another year older.
Mom made us cheese cookies for treats for Sasha's birthday.
Mom got a really bad cold after her birthday and is finally able to sit up today. (I am really tired of listening to her cough, sniff and sneeze! It wakes me up!!)
We had 2 inches of snow this weekend and today we have almost 5 inches!
Dad went hunting and got his buck on opening morning which meant he had the rest of the week to spend with us since he took it off from work.
Sasha will not stop barking at the horns Dad mounted on the wall from his deer. - It's REALLY FRICKING ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!! (That's a quote directly from Mom.)
I discovered I like candy corn!
I finally decided the pumpkins Mom and Dad put on the front porch aren't going to come alive and break into my house so I should stop barking at them (it took several trips outside to sniff them to come to that conclusion).
Pheasant hunting season starts in a couple weeks and Dad says we're going to go opening day!!!!!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!! I've been practicing by flushing the stupid magpies out of our yard and I've been getting in shape by playing lots of fetch.

I'm going back to my warm spot on the couch. Sasha, Mom, Gunnar and I have been curled up on the couch all day trying to stay warm and helping Mom rest so she will be completely better quicker.

Hope everybody is doing good. We're going to try to get caught up a little on reading your posts, but it's going to take us a very long time!

Sgtay warm!!!!

A Fun Package

2009-10-16T14:07:00.009-06:00

Hi Everybody!! It's ME!!! I hope you all remember me! Mom has been kind of down lately so I've been busy trying to cheer her up. It's been a lot of work lately. She finally had a job interview last week and found out there were 48 people that applied for the job and he chose 10 people to interview. She got a letter in the mail yesterday saying she didn't get the job. She really didn't want the job anyway, but it was hard on her self-esteem anyway. It did encourage her to get her business going that she wants to do. I'll do a post about it soon. She's applied for like a million jobs and has only had 1 interview. She ran out of her regular unemployment money and had to do the extension which freaked her out a little, too.
There is another reason Mom has been down. Mom bought her car in 2002. It was a used car, but it was a 2002 so she was feeling pretty special about buying a car she could afford in the same year the car was. She has taken really good care of her car. When the bumper got messed up, Sasha had to comfort her for weeks until it got fixed (that was before I joined the family). When Mom and Sasha adopted Dad, Dad started helping Mom take care of her car. Mom and Dad use it a lot when they have to go on road trips that don't involve pulling the boat or going off road because it gets really really good gas mileage. It's the first car Mom has owned that hasn't stranded her on the side of the road. It has locked her in a few times (we found out that's a Kia Rio thing in the design of the door), but luckily she doesn't have power locks and windows so she's able to mess with it to let her out. If it was power locks, she'd have to drive to Pueblo to the nearest Kia dealership (about 45 minutes away) and call them from the parking lot to have them come and let her out. That would suck! Anyway, Tuesday Mom and Dad went to Denver for a thing for Dad's work and on the way up a cement truck threw a rock and chipped the windshield. Dad reassured Mom that he would call around the next day to get the chip repaired and it would be fine. BUT, a couple minutes later it started to crack because of the ruff highway roads. Mom said it was horrible listening to the popping every time the windshield cracked. It kept getting worse all day long. Dad was able to reroute the cracks when they got home so it wouldn't crack in Mom's line of sight which made the windshield look really horrible. Mom said she felt like crying because this was also the first car she has ever owned that didn't have a cracked windshield. When my Aunt Gillian took her driver's test when she turned 16, she had to use Mom's car because it was the only vehicle in the family that didn't have a cracked windshield and now it looks really bad. Mom might be asking Santa for a new windshield this year. Luckily, Dad has connections in everything that has to do with vehicles pretty much so he'll try to find Santa a really good deal on one. Until then, Mom hates going out to the garage or getting in her car.
Now about the package! The same day she got the letter saying she didn't get the job, there was also a package from our buddies Huskee, Hershey and their Mom. The package also came on the same day Mom finally got in her car and on the way home found yet another crack in her poor windshield! Great timing on the package you guys!! Your Mom has great timing on her trips to the post office - unlike my mom! We're not sure when Mom will leave the house again because of her windshield - I hope it's soon though cuz we're almost out of dog food!!!!! Anyway, here's the cool package and our reactions!

The Happy Birthday card is for Mom. Her birthday is next week - exactly a week after we got the package! There's also a couple Halloween decorations and that really pretty shawl. But most important are those 3 bags on the left side there!!!

Mmmmmmmmmmmm, Salmon treats!!!!!

Don't make me do anything cute for a treat! I'm the Princess Puppy, remember?

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze can we have another Salmon treat? What about the chicken treats? I'm sure Huskee and Hershey meant to put instructions in the package saying we had to have both bags ASAP!

If you give us one of those chicken treats, it will cover up our Salmon breathe that you say we have now.

Finally!!!!! Hurry up and open those chicken treats!!!!!

DROP THAT CHICKEN TREAT NOW WOMAN!!! I SAW ON THE PACKAGE THAT IT ALSO HAS CHEESE IN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FANK WOO!

Sasha was too quick for the camera. She ran and hid under the table before Mom could get a good picture of her eating the Chicken treat.
Even Gunnar got some treats!!! Mom would like to thank Huskee, Hershey & their mom for not sending fish treats. Gunnar is forbidden to eat fish. That's all I'm going to say on that stinky subject!

You say these treats are from some of those dog friends Kaos is always talking about? You expect me to trust treats that come from dogs? It does smell really good though. Give one to the dogs first and when they don't pass out, I'll try one.

Sasha and I tried one of the cat treats so Gunnar would trust them. Those were pretty good too! Gunnar ate one so we're assuming that means he liked it, too. He doesn't get too excited about stuff very often.
Thanks again Huskee, Hershey and Shane!!!!!!!!! You guys are PAWESOME!!!!!!!!!! We love you very very very very much!!!!!!

It's trash day and our trash man hasn't come yet so I better go sit at the patio door until he shows up so I can yell at him for being so late!! I might have to call his boss about this!

Have a great weekend everybody!!!!

What Did You Do On the Last Day Of Summer?

2009-09-22T12:43:00.008-06:00

You'll never guess what I did on the last day of summer!!! I went in search of snow with my mom and dad!!! Crazy huh? The craziest part was....WE FOUND IT!!!!!! We got in my truck and drove on a road called Shelf Road all the way to a town called Cripple Creek and then took the regular highway home. The reason Shelf Road is called that is, that's pretty much what it is. It's a 1-lane, 2-way road with some pull offs for people to pull off on if there's another car coming. We didn't get to get out and play in the snow because it was too dangerous on that road and since we were in the truck and riding up in the cab, Mom didn't want mud all over her. I thought about trying to get some and ship it to all my husky friends, but then I realized I have a bunch of husky friends and Mom said by the time the snow got to some of them, it would just be a wet envelope, so Mom took some pictures and said I can show them to everybody and tell my husky friends that the snow is coming!
Here are some pictures that Mom took of the snow:

There wasn't a bunch of snow, but enough the town of Cripple Creek had to plow their roads!

Along the road we saw some cow dogs and I really wanted to get out and chase them or at least hang out the window and bark at them, but Dad said no. Mom said, "OUCH!!!! STOP!!! OWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!" Weird thing to say.....unless you have a little dachshund going crazy on your head, neck, arms, shoulders and lap to try to get at the cow dogs. Sasha REALLY wanted to get them! There were no pictures of all of this because Mom was a little busy trying to protect herself and couldn't juggle the camera, too.

That morning I had run around crazy because it was so nice and cool outside. I had a lot of fun running really fast at Mom and then veering off at the very last second. I love that game! I know Mom loves that game too by the amount of screaming she does in the 3 seconds before I veer off. I was so tired from all that playing and the excitement of the drive, I fell asleep on Mom's lap. Sleeping in the front seat of an old Jeep truck with 2 human adults and 2 dogs isn't exactly comfortable, but I didn't care because I was so tired. Mom was able to get a picture - sort of. Nice picture of the collar Huskee & Hershey sent me, isn't it?

Today it's cool again, but Dad has to work and Mom has to do laundry so I'm spending all day warming up the couch. It's a job I do very well.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the update from me finally! Mom says she promises to help me update you on what I've been up to while I haven't been posting.

I'm Here!!!

2009-09-02T15:22:00.003-06:00

Just a quick post to let you know I'm here and okay. I promise I'll post a longer post later - actually 2. Everything is fine, we've just been pretty busy.

Mom's 2nd Vallance

2009-08-05T15:49:00.003-06:00

I think I got caught up on reading blogs. Some of you have been having fun, some of you have been getting in some trouble and Mom and I were so sad to hear about poor Charlie. That's still hard to believe!

This is mom's second sewing project. It's in her bathroom and is not easy to get a picture of. You'll probably notice an outdoor theme going on in our house. So far there's a fish theme going on with Mom's curtains and that's because those are the only outdoor themed fabrics she could find so far. There is a bear one at Walmart that might work for the bedroom, but she hasn't decided yet.

If Mom knew more about sewing, she'd open her own fabric store! There's one in town, but it's more for quilters and Mom said she looked through their entire store and didn't like much of anything and the owner was a rude......we'll just say she was not very nice to Mom. Hobby Lobby is almost an hour away and Mom didn't like what they had. She was kind of frustrated that Walmart had better choices than Hobby Lobby AND the fabric store! So until she can find some more fabric she likes, more sewing projects are on hold. Mom has an old baby bassinet that she slept in when she was a baby that she wants to change the lining and fix up and she's pretty sure she found the fabric to use on that so maybe I'll have that to share with you. She's hoping she'll get to show you more curtains instead though.

I think Aunt Gillian just pulled up in front of my house so I better go bark. I love barking at her like I don't know who she is!!! Maybe some day she'll get the hint she needs to come visit me more often - probably not though. Mom says when my aunt was younger, she fell off a horse (not Mom's fault, she was at work) and ER doctors had to do a brain scan to make sure her brain didn't didn't fall out in the dirt and Mom is pretty sure some of the wires got unhooked during the fall. I don't think that's a very nice thing to say about your sister, but sometimes I think Mom is right!!! Good thing I love both of them!

Hello!!!

2009-08-04T10:49:00.003-06:00

Remember me? I hope so! Here's a photo to help, just in case:

Mom took her test last Friday and she should be getting the results in the mail any day now. She's pretty sure she did okay on all the math questions which was about half the test, but she's a little worried about the grammer and the "What Would You Do" questions. They put the tests in order from highest to lowest score and start with the highest score for interviews and go down the list until they find someone they like. I'll keep you updated.
Mom has also decided to start a side business. She's going to scan pictures and slides for people. Grandma has a bunch of slides she needs scanned so this weekend her and Mom are going to go look at slide scanners and then Mom will scan Grandma's slides to see how fast she can do them and how easy it is. There are a lot of people in our area that are looking for someone that can do that so hopefully she will be able to stay busy with the scanning stuff that she won't have to go back to a regular job!! I'd like that a lot.
Mom made another valance for me to show you, but she's having a hard time taking a picture of it because it's in the master bathroom which isn't a very big room so she can't get a good angle on it. She's thinking late in the afternoon will be a good time to try (because that's the only time of day she hasn't tried to take the picture) so hopefully I'll have that picture for you soon.
Asta tagged me for a game and I promise I'll try to get to that soon, too. I also need to ask for help with some more flowers in our yard, but Mom wants to wait until a few more flowers bloom and the ones that have bloomed open up some more because we're sure that will help identify it better. It's a weird plant and Mom is hoping that some of you flower and garden dogs (or your parents) might know what the heck it is. I also need to tell you about our apple tree and other stuff but right now I need to go get caught up on all your blogs!! I'm really far behind again so I'm going to do a quick scan to see how everybody is doing and then reset my reader. Hopefully I'll stay caught up this time so I can comment again.
Hope everybody is doing good!!

Snow In July?

2009-07-22T09:47:00.003-06:00

Yesterday right before Dad and grandma came home from work the weather got really nasty. Mom heard some weird noises outside so we went to the patio door to see what was going on and Mom saw huge balls of ice coming down from the sky! Then all of a sudden the were coming down really fast and a lot all at once. Here's a picture out our front window. Doesn't it look like it's snowing?
Mom wanted to get a picture of how big the hail was, but it was coming down so hard and fast that she wasn't going to step outside. This is looking out the patio door onto our covered patio. The pieces were way bigger than they look in this picture because the pieces would break up and bounce.

I'm usually really good when the weather gets like this and Sasha goes and hides under the bog bed. During the 5 minutes the hail lasted Sasha, Gunnar and I were really close to Mom and followed her to each room to check windows. We didn't like it at all! It started raining and the hail stopped so we were okay again. Mom said even she was a little nervous. She grew up where Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas all meet and hail there usually meant a tornado was near by. Mom never saw a tornado whiel she was growing up but when the hail started coming down they had to be ready just in case.

When Dad and Grandma got home there was still ice in the grass. Dad said the hail where he was wasn't that big and Grandma said they only got rain where she works. It's amazing how different the weather can be in 3 mile drive.

THEN last night when we went to bed, there was lots of lightning and thunder. I didn't like it, but I stayed in my bed and tried to ignore it. It was hard because you could see the lightning even with your eyes closed and the thunder rattled the decorations on Mom's dresser. Sasha couldn't stand it anymore and had to get in bed with Mom and Dad and lay between them. Gunnar wrapped his arms around Dad's legs for protection, too. Luckily that didn't last long. Once the lightning and thunder was over, Sasha went back to her bed and Gunnar stretched back out into his normal sleeping position and we all slept very well.

On the news this morning we found out there is a lightning fire newarby, but thankfully it isn't too bad AND there is a highway closed because of a mud slide!!! CRAZY!!! Mom's tomato plants didn't really like the weather and a few of her roses are a little droopy. I hope we don't get any more hail any time soon. Mom, Sasha, Gunnar and I all agree hail is not fun!

Stay safe everybody!

Tired Puppy

2009-07-21T14:55:00.002-06:00

I got over my tummy problems in time to have fun with the kids this weekend. They made Peanut Butter cookies with Mom and they were very happy to share the cleanup duties with Sasha and I. I LOVE KIDS!!!!!!!! I also learned it's not just 2 year old little boys that taste good. 6 year old little boys also taste very yummy!!!!!!
I didn't get to go ride in My Jeep with them, but that was mostly because I was exhausted. I didn't even whine when they left. Mom and Dad took them home Sunday morning and I slept all Sunday, all Monday and most of today. I miss them. I hope they can come visit again really soon.

I'm goging to go take another nap now. Just remembering all the fetch I played and all the water fun we had and all the other fun makes me tired.

OH! One more thing! My mom got a letter in the mail this weekend saying she has to go take a test on July 31st to earn an interview for a job. On July 31st at 1:00 pm Mountain Time, if you and your parents wouldn't mind sending Mom some good vibes, she'd raelly appreciate it. It's not a test you can study for, it's a bunch of questions to make sure she can read and do math and stuff like that which makes her even more nervous. She applied for the job weeks ago and figured since she hadn't heard from them, she didn't pass the application stage. If she does good on the test, she earns an interview which will also make her very nervous so hopefully I'll be asking you to send her some good vibes for that, too. I'll keep you posted.

Sick Puppy

2009-07-14T09:21:00.002-06:00

Hey everybody, this is going to be a quick post to tell you about my weekend. Saturday morning I woke Mom and Dad up at 5:30 a.m. with the noise all parents of pets dread - the Horka sound. Mom let me outside and went to start cleaning the carpet in the bedroom. She kept smelling a nasty smell in the kitchen but couldn't find the source so she thought I only did it in the bedroom. Mom can't see without her contacts in and she hates wearing her glasses but she finally decided to just deal with the glasses because she couldn't see me when she looked outside to check on me. After Mom cleaned up the mess in the bedroom, she came outside and sat with me! How many people do you know that would sit outside in the very early hours of the morning with their sick dog? It felt good to sit out in the cool night air. Finally I decided I was okay enough to go inside and Mom told me to get up in the bed. Usually if I lay right in the middle of her spot on the bed, I have to move but not that morning! Mom and Dad moved around to make sure I was comfortable. After a few minutes of laying in bed with Mom and Dad petting me and worrying about me, I had the feeling again so I stood up. Dad at first was trying to convince me to lay down, but Mom said NO! and her and I ran to the patio door again so I could go outside. Mom knew the signs and I made it outside in time. THEN Mom AND Dad came out and sat with me for a long time. When we went back inside Dad walked through the living room and found the source of the smells. Mom cleaned up those messes and Dad tried to make me comfortable.
Dad had to go to work so Mom and I spent most of the day on the couch together. Mom was really worried about me because usually when I get sick like that, I'm okay after a few minutes. I couldn't keep anything down all day long. Mom said it was really hard watching me go potty, too - we won't get into the details of why. Mom got some Saltine crackers out and gave me a couple and that seemed to help a little. She knew that all the advice people out there tell you not to give your dog food for 24 hours in this case, but watching me throw up clear liquid made Mom think about all the stomach issues she's had over the years and she knew I needed something in my tummy to help soak some of that up. I was glad she did because I started to feel better. I was drinking a little water, but not a lot so when Dad got home from work they went to the store and got me some of that Pedia-Lite stuff for human babies. I tried it, but it tasted NASTY! I knew Mom and dad really wanted me to drink it and I trust them so I kept trying but just couldn't do it. Dad tried it and here are his exact words: "THAT'S NASTY!!!! I'm pouring this crap out! There's no way I can force her to drink this crap!" So a little later Mom and Dad made a trip to the gas station for some Gatorade. That stuff is very yummy! I think Mom and Dad should keep that in the fridge all the time for me!
Mom called Aunt Gillian to see if she could come use her magic carpet cleaning thing because by the time Mom and Dad found my accidents in the living room, they had soaked in and Mom was having issues getting the stains and especially the smell out. She came and made the spots go away which also helped me. I feel so guilty when I have accidents and anytime someone would go mess with the spots or walk near them, I'd put my ears down and tuck my tail and look even more pathetic than I already was. Once the spots and the smell were gone, Mom and I felt a little better.
Mom made me a little bit of plain rice for dinner because I was hungry and she knew I better not tr my regular food, but the rice came back up a little later. That made Mom really worried that I was still throwing up so we curled up on the couch again and once she thought my tummy was settled a little, she brought the Saltines out again. The combination of the Gatorade and the Saltines made me feel really good. We were all really tired from being awake so early so Mom laid on one couch and Dad laid on the other and I curled up on blanket beside the couch Mom was on so Mom could rub my belly. Mom said when she was a little girl and had a tummy ache, she loved when her Mom rubbed her tummy. She knew exactly how to rub my tummy to make it feel even better.
We went to bed early Saturday night because Mom and Dad were supposed to go on a fishing trip the next day if I was feeling better. They both said they weren't going if I was still not doing good. Mom didn't sleep good at all because she had her Mom radar on high alert. She listened to all of us breathe all night long and was pretty sure she could hear Gunnar breathing in the other bedroom. She said I slept really good and in the morning we let Mom stay in bed for awhile while Dad gave me some more Gatorade and a few more Saltines for breakfast. Mom and Dad decided I was doing okay enough for them to go fishing for the morning and Grandma was staying home all day so she would check on me. Dad put a little food in my dish and told Grandma if I acted like I really wanted to eat, to go ahead and give me the little bit he put in my dish. If Mom and Dad had stayed home, I would have been trying to follow them like I do every Sunday so them leaving actually made me rest which was what I really needed. Grandma gave me my breakfast and I ate it and kept it down. She called Mom's cellphone to let her know and Mom said that made her relax more so she could enjoy their fishing trip. Mom caught 4 fish and Dad only caught 1 and they both had a lot of fun.
Mom wouldn't let me play fetch on Sunday and told me that I needed to relax instead. I was bored, but I really did feel like I needed to rest so I did what Mom said. She said I could play fetch as much as I wanted on Monday. Mom listened to me all night again Sunday night so she was really tired Monday morning. I laid out in the yard while Mom and Dad did some yard work and then we went inside to try to cool off. Mom was attacked by a horsefly while they were fishing so she was dealing with itchy legs all day. Mom says her left leg must taste better than her right leg because there's more bites on her left than her right leg. Her right foot is also all swollen from a huge bite so she thinks she must be a little allergic to horsefly bites.
Dad tried playing fetch with me, but I was still wasn't 100% yet so I would play a little and then go lay down. I was a lot better than I was on Saturday, but still needed to rest and drink Gatorade.
Mom told me I have to rest all day today and all day tomorrow because there are kids coming to visit this weekend! They are my mom's friend's kids and they are coming Thursday and Mom and Dad are taking them home on Sunday morning! Their Mom has to go somewhere and Mom and I are going to take care of them and then on Saturday we're going to take them for a ride in my Jeep!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!
I'm feeling a ton better now and I have to thank my Mom for that! It's hard to take care of someone that can't tell you what is wrong or what they need and Mom did a great job watching for my "signs" and just knowing when I needed a tummy rub, an ear scratch or a kiss on my nose. Next time ANYBODY says anything about my mom's care taking skills that isn't good, I'm going to bite them!!! Or maybe Horka on them! LOL!! Mom went to Denver with Dad today for a meeting for Dad's work and then tomorrow I'm going to make sure Mom and I both get lots of rest so we'll be ready for the kids on Thursday. I might not be able to post again this week (I think I'm averaging 1 post a week anyway right now) so have a good weekend everybody! Hopefully I'll have some fun stories to share with you next week about taking the kids for a ride in my Jeep!

Mom's Sewing

2009-07-09T14:49:00.003-06:00

I have a couple of Mom's sewing projects to share with you. She's very proud of herself. There are a few flaws on both her projects, but for her first projects, they aren't bad.
This first one is a pillow. Mom says it's not that exciting of a project, but it was a good confidence building project for her first project.

This was her second project. Mom hates white everything and this house has white walls and white curtains. Mom is an artist and all the white is driving her crazy. Right now Mom and Dad can't afford to paint the house, plus Mom isn't ready to start choosing paint colors yet. It takes her forever to choose paint colors! So, the reason she decided to start learning to sew was to make custom curtains for the house. She wanted unique curtains. She found a pattern for these cool valances. The patterns said it was a "Sewing for Dummies" pattern. Mom says it must be for smart dummies because she kept getting confused. She'll be ready for the next one though. This one is hanging in our laundry room. Mom says the first one goes in the room that has a plant hanging in front of the window to cover up the "mistakes."
She really likes the curvy shape of the valance so she will be doing all the other valences this same way. She's taking a break for a few days and then her and Dad will go choose more fabric and hopefully soon I'll have another room to share with you. Mom says it probably wasn't a great idea to use print fabrics for her first 2 projects. Mom usually doesn't do things the easy way though. That's probably why the "Sewing For Dummies" pattern was confusing to her!!!
Maybe if Mom gets really good at this, she'll be able to start a sewing business. If she does that, she's going to get a new sewing machine though. The one she uses now is her Mom's old one that is older than my aunt and Mom is just a few years older than it. A couple of you asked about what kind of machine it is and really all she knows about it is it's a Brother with a BUNCH of missing pieces (my aunt had it for the past few years and lost a bunch of the pieces - luckily it wasn't any of the important pieces.
the air conditioner just turned on again so I'm going to go lay in front of a vent now. I now remember why I don't like the month of July. Sometimes I think the thermometer telling us what the temperature outside is, is going to say the same thing as the one that tells Mom what the temperature in the oven is!

Funny Story

2009-07-01T14:32:00.002-06:00

I have a funny story to help everybody smile a little.
Yesterday, Mom and I were hanging out watching Food Network and we saw an old lady and a kid started walking up to our door. They rang the doorbell and of course Sasha and I went into guard dog mode. Mom opened the big door and left the screen door shut and Mom had to grab my collar because I was going so crazy, I was stepping on Sasha. The lady was a little afraid of me. Mom wouldn't open the screen door or tell me to stop barking because she knew who the people were. The lady was holding a Bible and the kid had 2 bibles. The lady started talking about some invitation to a conference that she wanted to invite Mom to. Mom saw the title on the invitation and it was something about what to do when the end of the world comes. The lady was trying to talk to Mom and I kept on barking and barking but the lady wouldn't listen to me. mom didn't call me off and tell me it was okay so I knew Mom didn't want the lady here so I kept on barking. Finally the lady asked, "Do you ever put her on a leash?" Mom said "Not in the house!" Later she thought of something else to say since I am trusted off leash outside the fence and out when we're playing. She should have said "Not usually!" The lady left the invitation in the screen door handle and left. Once they pulled out of the driveway, Mom got the invitation out, let me smell it and threw it away. I heard Mom tell Dad that since they had 3 Bibles she knew they wanted her to invite them in so they could sit and read from the Bible but I guess since Mom doesn't keep me on a leash while I'm in MY house, she didn't want to read the Bible with Mom.
Last weekend one of Mom's friends came to town with her kids. Her daughter is 12 and her son is 6. I played the entire day with them and was exhausted when they left. Yesterday Mom got an email saying they're coming this weekend for 4th of July!!!! I'm excited because I really like playing with kids, but mostly because Mom and Dad are talking about doing a bbq and those kids thought it was fun to feed me pizza so I'm dreaming about the hamburgers and hotdogs they'll be feeding me this weekend! I can't wait!!! They are also going to bring their swimsuits to play in my pool with me! There were pictures taken, but Mom and I aren't going to post them for because of some family issues of their's. Just picture a couple of cute kids playing with me and that will have to work.
It's time for my afternoon nap. I'm doing a lot of resting so I'll be ready for Saturday! I can't wait!!!!!!!!

New Toys

2009-06-26T14:34:00.002-06:00

Hi everybody! Happy Friday. This past weekend Mom and Dad deserted us dogs for almost an entire day and the really bad part is they took MY Jeep!!!! I wasn't happy, but the next day they went to do some shopping and brought home some new toys for us. Here are pictures of us with out new toys. In this picture you can see the collar Huskee and Hershey sent me for my birthday - kinda. Mom has been trying to get a good picture of me in it to show Huskee and Hershey how good I look in it, but I haven't been very cooperative.

My toy is an orange and black rope with orange camo tennis balls. It's a lot of fun to play fetch and tug-of-war with it. Mom said they got the small one because they knew the tennis balls wouldn't last very long so they didn't want to spend an extra $4.00 on something they knew wasn't going to last long. 4 days later, the balls are split a little, but they still bounce and are still attached to the rope so Mom is thinking small toys for me seem to hold up longer.

Sasha got one of those cool loofa dogs! I love this toy, too! It had 2 squeakers in it!!!! I didn't know it had 2 when I read about these on other dog blogs!!! Well, it now has 0 squeakers in it because that is usually the first thing Sasha does to toys.

Sasha doesn't look like that anymore though and we'd show you a picture, but she's been hiding under the bed since Mom brought her home from the GROOMER!! I hate when Mom takes Sasha to the groomer. I get very jealous that Sasha is going somewhere without me and then when Mom comes home without her I get really worried and then Mom leaves again and comes back with a weird looking and weird smelling smaller thing. It takes a long time for Gunnar and I to inspect her to make sure Mom brought home the right dog. Whenever Sasha gets groomed, she hides from Mom for the night and part of the next day under the big bed because she's mad at Mom. I don't blame her

Mom has been busy on some new hobbies, too. She is teaching herself how to sew. Her mom tried a long time ago and lost patience with Mom. It wasn't that Mom is a total Dummy when it comes to sewing, it's her Mom had little patience. Mom can hand sew pretty well and you've seen some of her cross-stitch stuff. My Aunt Gillian had their Mom's old sewing machine and let Mom have it so Mom could see if she could teach herself. My mom has a special message for all of the moms out there that sew and have lots of spare time (do we know any mom's like that?). Mom says if you make a book with very detailed pictures for beginning sewers, she would pay a lot of money for it. It took her all day yesterday to figure out how to thread the machine. She found a bunch of videos on You Tube that helped a little, but her machine is a little different than all of the videos so she had to figure out a lot on her own. If any of the sewing moms out there have any advice or tips for Mom, she would really appreciate it. After she got the machine threaded, she remembered a lot of things, but when she sets up the machine, she sets up the computer next to it so she can Google when she gets confused. It's actually kind of funny to watch. She has to take a lot of breaks so she doesn't end up throwing the sewing machine across the field in front of our house. That works out great for me, especially since Sasha is hiding. She's making a pillow right now because she thought that would be the easiest thing to start out with. Once it's done, I'll show you a picture as long as it looks like a pillow. It looks like Mom is going to need a break again so I'm going to go find a toy to play fetch with.

Have a great weekend everybody!!

Go Visit Huskee & Hershey

2009-06-25T14:28:00.002-06:00

I know I haven't posted in awhile and I was plannign on sharing some more pictures of my mom's plants, but instead I want all of you to go to Huskee & Hershey's blog and send their Mom lots and lots of good vibes. Shane (that's Huskee & Hershey's mom) is very special to my mom and of course to me and she needs the power of DWB right now. If you have already gone to visit them, please keep the good vibes going and go send them some more love and support on their blog!!
WE LOVE YOU SHANE, MARK, HUSKEE, HERSHEY & CHLOE!!!!!!!!!! (I have to go find Mom a tissue now.)

Roses

2009-06-18T14:36:00.004-06:00

Hi everybody!!!! I kind of took Maggie and Mitch's advice to delete everything in my reader and start over so I'm pretty caught up. I didn't delete everything, I just scrolled through looking at pictures and read anything that looked like it was really important or would make us laugh until our sides hurt. I'm glad we have such funny friends!!!!
Last week Mom and I went out and took pictures of her rose bushes. There's a bunch!!! At our old house Mom couldn't get flowers to grow and now she's got a bunch of rose bushes and other flowers growing. She would get jealous when some of you would show off your flowers and gardens and Mom didn't have anything to share. Not any more!!! Today we'll start off with the rose bushes. Mom is working on doing some work on the rose bushes so when you see a bunch of brown sticks in the rose bushes, just ignore them because a lot of them aren't there anymore. Mom and I work on them a little bit every day, but it gets too hot to work on them too much and once in awhile Mom gets scratched up pretty bad and needs to take a couple days to heal.
We didn't get to share Peony and Iris pictures with you because the wind blew all the petals off! Mom's Lilac bushes bloomed earlier than any of the other ones in town and didn't bloom very much and then they were done and gone. There's lilac bushes all over town blooming so Mom is confused why her bushes quit so early. We have a feeling it is the same reason the rose bushes have a bunch of dead stems. Our house was vacant for almost a year when we moved into it so everythign got a little neglected. Mom has been doing lots of weeding and pruning and talking to everything so hopefully next year the Lilac bushes will bloom longer and later.
Okay, now to show you the roses. Here is a pink normal size bush. See those 5 buds behind the one flower? Those buds had opened up 2 days after we took this picture. Here is a red rose bush that opens up really wide to show a yellow center.

This one Mom needs to do a lot of work to. It's a little pink rose bush mixed up in a bunch of iris plants. Towards the end of summer Mom will take out some of these iris plants and transplant them up in front of the house where there aren't many flowers (where she wants to put them is full of weeds right nowand it's going to take awhile to get them out). This little bish also needs lots of pruning. We haven't made it to this bush yet, so it looks pretty bad right now, but still pretty cute.

This bush was the last one to blume. It has pretty yellow roses. These buds finally bloomed just a couple days ago!

This bush confuses Mom. It has thorns like a rose bush, but the flowers don't look like a normal rose. PLUS, when the flowers bloom, they're a very vibrant yellow like the ones in the front, but after a couple days they start to fade to a really pale yellow like the ones in the back, then right before you thing they're going to turn all white the petals fall off into the grass.

This red rose bush has a bunch of blooms on it. This bush also has some crowding issues because there's a small lilac bush growing right beside it (Mom might move it to the front yeard, too), some tree thing that smells funny and looks bad (Mom cuts that out whenever she sees it trying to grow) AND there's also a Russian Olive Tree trying to grow in the middle of the poor rose bush! Mom cuts the Russian Olive Tree out because she hates the thorns on it.

You can't tell in this picture, but this rose bush is one of them that is 2 colors. It is a light yellow and light pink color.

Here is another redish/pinkish rose bush. This one also has a bunch of blooms and it is also the one that has needed the most pruning. Mom works on it for awhile and then has to move on and do something else for a little while because she gets frustrated and scratched up a lot.

This one makes Mom laugh. it's a pretty yelllow with a little orange highlights but if you look, ther are only 2 stems on the entire bush. The little bush to the left of this one only has a couple stems, too but there aren't any blooms on it yet.

This red rose bush doesn't have many blooms on it yet, but it has a bunch of buds. The picture makes it look kind og pink, but it really is red.

This red rose bush has a ton of blooms on it! It has the most blooms on it out of all of the bushes. It's crazy!These are roses, but Mom really likes them a lot. We thing they're called Sweet Williams, but we're not positive. The reason we think that is because Grandma thinks that's what they're called. Mom hasn't reasearched them yet (cut she's been busy focussing on the roses) so if any of you know what they are, please let us know. They came back this year so we're pretty sure they're an annual of that helps. Ignore the grass growing in it, that's not supposed to be there. Mom and Dad were trying to fill in some spots in the grass that needed reseeded and the winf and birds decided to blow the grass seed all over the place.

This is one of Mom's favorites because it one of the 2 colored roses again. You can really see the pink and yellow in this one.

This picture is supposed to be turned and we can't figure out why it won't - probably because there are so many pictures in this post. This is the only rose bush in the front of the house. This is Mom's most favorite bush for a couple reasons. It's a multi colored rose and when Mom and Dad came to look at the house for the first time, it didn't look very happy, then when they came the next week to do the inspection there were some buds and then when Mom came to do the final walk through there were a bunch of smaller sized blooms and then when they brought Sasha and I to the house later that day after the closing they were big blooms like this all over the bush. Mom says it was kind of like the bush fell n love with them when they first came to look at it and just kept getting happier and happier every time they came back. It was one of the first bushes to bloom this year and needs the least amount of pruning.

That's all of Mom's roses. I'm going to go take a nap now. That post made me really tired!

Happy Plants

2009-06-12T16:11:00.002-06:00

We finally had a sunny nice day where Mom could take her plants outside for ther Spring cleaning. She's been trying to do that for a few weeks now. She usually takes them outside to wash the dust off their leaves and give them a good soaking and inspection. They get a good soaking of water and sun. Today the wind wasn't blowing hard so they got to spend almost the entire day outside. Mom says they're very happy plants now and they all have big smiles now. I try not to look at the plants because I'm afraid I really will see a smile and then I'll be as crazy as my mom!

I'm still trying to get caught up on my blog reading. I've decided to stop trying to make sure I comment on everybody's blog. If I don't comment, don't get worried or upset. My reader says I'm behind on 250 posts!!! It's really hard to get Mom to help me stay caught up now that she's unemployed. She always finds other stuff to do. It's really annoying!

Have a fun weekend everybody!!

Rainy Days

2009-06-09T15:14:00.003-06:00

Hi everybody!! Nothing exciting has been going on lately. We've been having lots of rain which we need, but it's starting to get annoying that it happens every day. Sasha doesn't like the rain because she doesn't like to get wet, she usually ends up getting cold and she doesn't like the really loud thunder. When Sasha realizes it's raining outside she heads to the couch to hide. Mom took some pictures of Sasha and some of her rainy weather positions. These are really funny!
This is the head only under the pillow position:

This is the entire body under the pillow peeking out to see what Mom was doing position: This is the cute butt sticking out from under the pillow position:

This is a cold nose under the pillow position:

This started off as a cold nose under the pillow and turned into a pittiful look so Mom will feel sorry for her and stop taking her picture position:

Obviously Sasha's pitiful look worked because that was the last picture. Silly girl.

Mom's roses have really enjoyed the rain. Mom and I went out and took pictures of some her rose bushes this afternoon. We'll share those pictures with you later.

Mom and I are going to try to get caught up on reading blogs now.

I'm here!

2009-06-04T14:28:00.002-06:00

Hi everybody! Sorry I haven't posted in a long time. Nothing exciting is going on and Mom has been busy. Mom and I realized this morning we haven't checked in with everybody for 2 weeks now!!! As soon as I finish this quick post, we are going to go through our reader to get caught up. I blame Mom because she is the one that is supposed to keep track of what day it is, but she hasn't been very good at that lately.
Before I end this post I want to say HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my Mom and Dad!! They were married 4 years ago today and with some of the money they got as gifts, 2 weeks later they went to a shelter and adopted a WONDERFUL black lab - ME!!!!!! Love you Mom and Dad!!!!!

Still Not Cooperating

2009-05-21T10:37:00.003-06:00

As you can see in these pictures, I'm still not cooperating with Mom and her camera. I've even decided to take up the entire couch so she has to sit on the floor!!! HA! This is the result of Mom trying to get my picture:

Hope you all have a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend! We're not planning on much. I think we might have a bbq, but we're not going anywhere. Hope all of you get to enjoy lots of dropped bbq goodies this weekend, too!

I Was Tricked!

2009-05-20T14:33:00.002-06:00

On Sunday, I helped Mom and Dad with some yard work and then right before lunchtime, Dad got the hose out and we started playing with the hose. I LOVE to play with the hose. Well, all of a sudden I was getting a bath!!!!!! Can you believe that? I was tricked!! I was enjoying some fun playtime with my parents in the back yard and all of a sudden I was getting a stupid bath!!!!! very not cool!!!! I'm still mad about it. Here is a picture of Sasha and I after Mom finally let us back in the house after the baths. "Sasha, don't look at the camera! Pay Mom back for tricking us."

"I'm already looking at the floor and am on my way to go hide under the bed."

BEWARE EVERY DOG!!!!! It seems to be the time for cleaning. Last week Mom washed our bedding and then this week we got a bath!!! It's horrible!!! I'm going to go pout some more now.

A Pictureless Post

2009-05-13T15:11:00.002-06:00

Can you believe Mom hasn't taken hardly any pictures of me in the past few weeks?! She says her excuse is because her subject is very cooperative. WHATEVER!!!! Don't place the blame on someone else woman!!!
Anyway, nobody mention worms to Mom. Her worm farm didn't turn out so well. She killed over 500 worms!!! Dad did some research for Mom bcause Mom was so upset and he is going to help her out more next time plsu they're going to start with a lot less worms. Mom is going to wait a couple more weeks before they try again.
Since Mom isn't focussing on worms right now, she is able to focuss on the hummingbirds. It's crazy again this year when it comes to the hummingbirds. Dad did some research on humminbirds, too. As soon as Mom is able to get pictures of them, we'll share pictures of those, too! She says once again her subjects aren't being cooperative.
We're very excited to be able to share flower pictures this year, too. The new house has tons of flowers and Mom is planting more. She's a wweird woman! She's allergic to bee stings so what does she do? She plants more flowers that will attract pees for her to have to becareful around. We don't have pictures of the flowers yet and I bet you'll never guess her reason. If you guessed because of uncooperative subjects, you're right! I'm sure you're wondering how in the world flowers can be uncooperative. She says it's too windy, too cloudy, waiting for more buds to bloom and lots of other stuff. Weirdo Woman!!
For Mother's Day, Dad made Mom and Grandma T-Bone steaks which meant we got bones! We get more later, but Sasha has been kind of constipated so we have to wait until she's feeling better. Mom and Dad usually take her bone away sooner than they did, but they kind of lost track of how long she was chewing and it ended up being too long for her delicate belly. Once Sasha is back to normal pooping, we'll get the rest of our t-bones. I can't wait!!!
So now that you are all completely bored, I'm going to go take a nap and wait for Mom to figure out what she's making for dinner so I can help her.

Happy Birthday To My Cat-Brother

2009-05-06T14:33:00.005-06:00

Hey everybody! Have you missed me? I thought I was supposed to get to post MORE when Mom lot her job, but I think I post less now! She's got way too many hobbies now. Speaking of hobbies, tune in soon (hopefully soon) for details on the worm farm. Mom is finding out they're boring and high maintenance all at the same time!
Okay, now I'll get on with what this post is about. Today is my catbrother's 5th birthday! We're the same age now. Even though he's a cat, I still love him. We play together a little. We used to wrestle, but when he got sick a few years ago, I had to be careful with him and then he didn't want to wrestle anymore. I gave hime some birthday smooches (which also earned me a treat!) and later we'll get special treats to celebrate. Gunnar isn't really into toys so he gets treats and gets to sleep wherever he wants all day long. Today he chose the big bed with the window open. Not very exciting, but it was his choice. I'm going to let Mom take over now. I don't want to ruin my reputation by saying nice things about a cat. If the neighbor cats read this, they'll never be afraid of me again and Mom and Dad depend on me to scare those cats out of our yard so they won't poop on our patio anymore. Mom loves cats, but she can't stand the neighbor's cats. Okay, Mom - you're turn!

Happy Birthday to my little boy! I can't believe he's 5! I remember the day we went to meet him and the day we brought him home. My husband and I weren't married yet so he told everybody he let me have a cat because it was cheaper than an engagement ring. (I got the ring 6 months later.) We hadn't adopted Kaos yet so it was just Gunnar and Sasha. Gunnar caught on really quick that when Sasha sat or came when she was called she usually got a treat so he now comes when you call him (unless he's locked in a closet on accident!) and he sits and begs for treats. It's really cute! Gunnar was the runt of his litter and was also the only one that has the cool stipping like his mom did. All his brother's and his sister are black and white. We were told he was a female and when we found out he was a boy, I was a little worried. I had male cats before and didn't have good experiences with them. Not Gunnar! He's been a really good cat. That could be because he thinks he's part dog though. Gunnar has to wear a collar with a bell because he's been trapped under my dresser, my old aquarium stand, he's gotten under the house when we were doing furnace work and he sometimes gets locked in a closet Kaos: Yeah! Mom locked him in the closet this morning and was calling for him and looking for him and then she finally heard his bell in the closet and let him out! It was hilarious!!!!!! We tell people all the time that Gunnar's bell has saved his life many many times and we're not joking!!!!

Even though Kaos is actually older than Gunnar, Gunnar is our "middle child" mostly because he acts just like a middle child, or at least he acts just like my brother - the middle child in my family - did when we were growing up. Luckily, unlike my brother, the older Gunnar gets, the friendlier and more behaved he gets.

Kaos says the neighbor cats need barked at again so I better let her out. It annoys me they jump our fence and use our patio and my flower beds as their litter box!

A Fun Day!

2009-04-24T09:51:00.004-06:00

Hey everybody! This post was supposed to happen yesterday, but Mom broke the sprinkler system, then she broke her car and then she broke the internet. Dad fixed the sprinkler system and the internet and when he comes home from lunch today he'll finish fixing her car. It's funny now, but I was afraid to let Mom touch me or my toys last night! Good thing Dad is so good at fixing things!!
Last Monday Mom and Dad took us for a ride in the big truck. That usually means something fun. Mom's car usually means v-e-t or groomer, my Big Jeep means lots and lots of fun, the little truck means a short ride (it's not very comfy) and the big truck usually means a fun trip somewhere. I got in the back of the truck (it has a cover and a cool deck for me to ride on so I can stick my head in the cab of the truck and pant on the back of Mom's head). We drove to a new pond near our house, but there were a bunch of people fishing there so we left and drove a little bit further and then we stopped and Mom put Sasha on her leash and Dad put my leash in his pocket and Mom got out the camera (that always means something really fun is coming) and Dad let me out of the back of the truck off my leash and we went through a gate. I got to run around and sniff, but Sasha had to stay on a leash because she can't be trusted off leash. I didn't really know what was going on. Dad brought my throwing dummy and we didn't bring any camping equipment (plus Sasha doesn't go camping with us). I knew we were somewhere really cool though because there was lots of peemails and poomails all over from other dogs and other animals.

Hey Dad, when are you going to throw my throwing dummy? What's going on? You should throw that now!!

Then I saw it! A LARGE POND ALL TO MYSELF!!!!!!!

I'm ready Dad!

Mom and Dad threw my throwing dummy for me a bunch of times and I brought it back every time. It was so much fun!!!

Sasha is afraid of water and had to stay on her leash, but she had a lot of fun, too.

Kaos!! Stop splashing! I'm trying to get a drink! Exploring makes me thirsty.
Look Mom! I'm almost camouflaged in this really tall grass stuff!

After awhile I was panting really hard so Dad said it was time to go home and we walked back to the truck. I carried my throwing dummy all the way back to the truck. Mom was sure she took a picture of me carrying it, but there isn't one on the camera so she's not sure what happened.
I slept the entire night and the entire next day because I was so tired. Mom and Dad said I'll get to go some more times this summer. I can't wait to go again!!!
I can hear the birds in the back yard so Sasha and I better go scare them away so they don't eat Mom's flower seeds. Have a great weekend everybody!!!

Internet Issues

2009-04-17T09:58:00.003-06:00

Hey everybody! Sorry I haven't been around much. Mom has bee busy helping Aunt Gillian get her restaurant started and we've been having internet issues. For about a week now our highspeed internet has seemed really slow to us. Mom said it was like a cable wasn't plugged in all the way or something. Yesterday mom didn't feel good so we curled up on the couch to watch t.v. and at 10:15 we lost cable, internet completely and phone. That's the problem when you do one of those bundle things. Dad had to call the cable company from work because cellphones don't work at our house very well and they couldn't hear Mom. The guy told Dad it was us with the problem and if he sent someone out he would charge us for a service call since he couldn't talk to anybody at the house. HELLO!!! No phone dummy!!!!! So we waited until Dad came home from work and his cellphone that he uses for work usually waits at our house and when Dad walked around the house he saw the cable to our house was laying in the street. So my message to the first guy Dad talked to yesterday is..... DUMMY!!!!!!!
We haven't been doing much exciting lately. The wind has made it so we can't go on walks and if Mom isn't working on Aunt Gillian's stuff, then she's researching worms online (more on that on a later post). The Easter Bunny brought us some cool toys and treats! Here are some pictures of the cool toys!

Sasha got a squirrel.

I got a goose.

The goose no longer makes a noise because Sasha had to preform surgery. I also like to play with the squirrel. Mom says we are really good at sharing our toys.

We had some snow on Easter, but Mom said it was good snow because it was really wet and we needed the wet. The wind we've been having has really been drying stuff up. All around our house there are dirt roads and across the street is a pasture area that is mostly dirt so when the wind blows, it makes the dirt swirl around. That's why we haven't been going on walks lately. mom doesn't want to get caught in one of those dirt swirls. I don't' blame her. Sasha and I don't hang out outside very long when it's windy. Today it's raining and thundering. I really don't like the thunder, but we really need the rain. Mom's tulips are very happy to be getting the rain. Her rose bushes and lilac bushes are liking it, too. A little bit ago Mom looked outside and says all her plants look so happy and green. Mom talks to her plants a lot and is always telling us when they're happy and sad. Usually we think she's a crazy woman, but when I ran outside really quick to do my business a little bit ago, I swear the little lilac bush was smiling at me. I hope that doesn't mean I'm becoming as crazy as my Mom since we've been spending so much time together.

Oh, Mom said to tell everybody he unemployment money finally started coming so her and Dad are way less stressed about that now. Thanks for all the crossed fingers and good thoughts sent to us!!!

That's all going on right now. I have a bunch of blogs to catch up on and I'm going to watch the rain and see if I can see any more of Mom's plants smiling. Have a great weekend everybody!!! Let me know if you see any smiling plants.

I Love Little Boys!

2009-03-30T09:49:00.002-06:00

Hi everybody! How was your weekend? We didn't do much this weekend because it was too cold. We had a big snow last week and it took all weekend for it to melt. I think Mother Nature is confused because she always melted the snow really fast in the winter and now she's taking he time and it's spring!
Okay, now about the title. I'm sure you all remember when my human cousins visited us for Thanksgiving and how much I loved my 2 year old boy cousin, well my Aunt Gillian brought me an almost 2 year old little boy to play with last week for a little while. She needed my mom to help her with something and she was watching her friend's son. They had just come from lunch so he had ketchup on his face and crumbs on his shirt still!!!! He loves to play ball so after Mom and Aunt Gillian explained how to throw the ball for me, we had tons of fun. I was really gentle with him and didn't make him reach into my mouth and yank the ball out of my mouth like I make Mom do. Our favorite game was for me to have the ball in my mouth and run around the living room and play keep-a-way. Mom and Aunt Gillian didn't get much done because they were laughing at us too hard. The little boy would laugh really really really hard while we were running around the living room and his laugh made Mom and Aunt Gillian laugh really really really hard. I was bummed when Aunt Gillian took the little boy back to her house for a much needed nap. I told them to come back any time. Mom didn't take any pictures because she was busy laughing and for some reason didn't think to pull it out until after they left! Crazy woman!!
I better let Mom have the computer back now so she can do her unemployment claim. This is the first time she has to get on and answer the questions so they will send her a check so she's really nervous. Mom says the people at the unemployment office like to make things confusing.

Not Much Going On

2009-03-24T14:36:00.005-06:00

Hi everybody! Not much is going on here. It's too windy to go outside and play and Mom has been busy working on the computer looking for a job and working on her resume. Today she filled out an application for a job that she's pretty sure she's overqualified for but it pays what she was making at her old job which proved her feeling that she was under paid at her last job. Mom says filling out applications and working on her resume is hard because she hasn't had to do it very often. The last job she had for almost 7 years and the job before that she had for 9 years!

Mom says next time we go on a walk, she'll try to get our picture. It's been way too windy for a walk though. Mom says if we go for a walk the last 2 days we might end up at the Army of 4 Headquarters. That wouldn't be a bad thing, but not a very good way to travel.

Since we don't have any walking photos, here are some photos of us being cute. Gunnar is hiding because Mom got the vacuum out this morning so he didn't get his picture taken. I'm off to watch the weather channel now. Mom and I have a lot of flower seed to plant and the yard needs watered again, but it's too windy and cold to do either. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be more cooperative.

Still No Pictures

2009-03-20T14:10:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone!! Mom is working on getting some walking pictures. She said it's hard because I like to go in the opposite direction - or some lame excuse like that. She says hopefully next week she will be ready to try for pictures. She kind of knows the streets we "behave" on and the streets we like to try to twist our leashes together. Mom says if we had another dog along with us, we would have a perfect brade going with our leashes.
We keep Mom pretty busy when she's not off having lunch with friends or reading the confusing unemployment book. She got more information today an has been sitting at the computer all afternoon complaining about government agencies making things confusing. Tomorrow and Sunday Mom and Dad are going to be busy away from the house and I'm kind of glad. I'm exhausted! It will be nice to catch up on our sleep. Speaking of sleeping! Some of you were worried about us getting sunburned napping out in the sun. Don't worry. Mom keeps an eye on us and Sasha has to wear baby sunscreen on her belly since she just got groomed and she really likes to have the sun on her belly.
We have been able to chase the birds out of our back yard a lot more since Mom has been home. It's a lot of fun and has to be done a bunch of times a day. Mom tried getting pictures of us and the birds, but I guess the birds are a little camera shy because they left before the camera took the picture.
Mom wants back on the computer now to check her email (probably to see if any more of her friends want to go to lunch next week) so I'm going to go take another nap.
Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Thank You Everybody!!!

2009-03-18T09:50:00.003-06:00

Thank you for all the nice comments for Mom. She really appreciated them. It was kind of hard the first couple of days, but now Mom is okay. She actually is happier since she doesn't have to go to work everyday where they treated her really bad. her stomach doesn't bother her and she says if it wasn't for me coming and laying on top of her, it'd be a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning. We have a lot of new friends to go visit since our wonderful friends Huskee & Hershey sent so many of you to come visit us. We will be coming around to thank all of you soon!

Having Mom home is great, unless she starts the washing machine or the vacuum. Here are some pictures of what we've been doing:

Lots and lots of fetch. Playing fetch always makes me feel better so I know it must make Mom feel better, too.

Giving Mom big brown puppy eyes to get her to do whatever we want her to.
Sunbathing as much as we want. Since Mom is home, that means we can stay outside as much as we want to.

We're also going for walks every day, but there are no pictures of that because Mom says she can't control 2 wild dogs and a camera at the same time. Maybe once we get better about not dragging Mom around the neighborhood to see all the neighbor dogs.

I know Mom is worried about paying bills so Sasha and I cuddle with her and give her lots of hugs and kisses to make her not worry so much. Mom acts totally different now. She's happier and not so moody and way more relaxed. She really believes that there was a good reason she lost her job and she's going to find something way better and where she'll be treated way better.

Thanks again for everybody's nice comments. We promise to come visit all our new friends really soon!

Mom

2009-03-13T16:42:00.002-06:00

Hey everybody, this is a quick post just to let you know what is going on. Mom and I will be doing a lot of work on my blog and on all our other websites starting next week because she got laid off from her job yesterday. Mom is doing okay, she's more sad than upset. The realestate agents she worked with have been really nice and supportive and are taking care of the anger part. I'm taking very good care of Mom. Even Gunnar who is not a lovey kitty is loving on Mom and making her feel better. She more in shock than anything right now. She filed for unemplyment this morning so she said in about 4-6 weeks she will get paid to stay home with us. That'll be cool! Next week look for lots more posts from me and maybe some redesigning of my blog.
Have a great weekend everybody!

Advice To ALL Parents!!

2009-03-06T14:06:00.002-07:00

I'm going to make this a quick post because I'm recovering from the morning madness and need to take a long nap. Mom says she will share the pupcake recipe with all of you soon. More people in her office are having their hours cut which puts more and more work on Mom and when she comes home she doesn't even want to look at a computer.
Okay, here's the advice for you parents:
Dear parents of all my friends,
If you are going to take one of your furkids to somewhere like the GROOMER and leave that furkid there while the other ones are at home worrying, LET THE ONES STAYING AT HOME KNOW WAY AHEAD OF TIME!!!!! Mom took Sasha to the groomer this morning and at first I was upset that she was going somewhere and I had to stay home, but then when Mom came back home without Sasha, I started worrying. I'm very protective on my siblings and was going crazy! At first I thought Mom locked her in the garage and Mom kept trying to calm me down and it wasn't working and then she said she had to go to work and I wanted to go search the garage for Sasha and Mom wouldn't let me and she kept telling em everythign was okay, BUT IT WASN'T!!!! I looked for Sasha all over the house just in case. Finally Dad showed up a couple hours later with Sasha! Well, at first I thought it was a different dog because she has so much less hair (we'll share before and after pictures later). I gave her a complete sniffing several times just to make sure it was really her.
Thanks you.
Phew, I'm exhausted from all that worrying!
Gunnar also has a special message for everybody, but he's too lasy to leave his couch to come type it himself. He would like to remind everybody that this Sunday is Start Feeding Your Pets An Hour Early Day! It's Gunnar's favorite holiday. Mom says it's not a holiday, but Gunnar doesn't care. He loves that he gets fed an entire hour early. Mom has issues with this time change, but now since she goes into work late, it won't be that big of a deal anymore.
I'm trying to get caught up on everybody's blogs so I better get back to work on that. Have a great weekend everybody!

My Birthday Celebration!

2009-02-25T12:35:00.009-07:00

Hey everybody!! Thank you very much for all the Happy Birthday wishes! It was a great day and a great weekend. I'm going to show you it, but first I need to ask if any of you hear of a job my Mom can have PLEASE e-mail her. I don't really care what the job is. She can do it from home as long as she sits at the table or a desk to do it!!! She is driving me nuts!! I thought I was going to love having her around those 2 hours in the morning, but I miss my nap time. Sasha and I usually have to kick her off the couch so we can get on with our day. This morning she didn't go to work until 11:00 because the other girl who had her hours cut and shares the duty of answering the phones with Mom needed to leave at noon so instead of Mom going in at 10:00, working an hour and taking lunch she just went in at 11:00. You're probably thinking that's cool! IT'S NOT!!! With that extra hour in the morning she did some extra housecleaning which meant she had time to VACUUM!!! Sasha, Gunnar and I were rudely woken by the stupid vacuum running when all 3 of us should have been napping!! So if any of you hear about a job my Mom can do for those 2 hours in the morning or one she can switch to permanently, I would greatly appreciate it and so would Gunnar and Sasha.
Okay, now about my birthday celebration! I told Mom and Dad not to buy me any new toys because I know we have to be careful with money right now in case Mom looses more hours or completely. Mom made us some pupcakes and Mom and Dad played lots and lots of fetch with me all weekend so I was very happy even without new toys.
Mom let us help make the pupcakes by licking the beaters and the spoons. Licking the beaters was much cuter, but Mom says it's hard to hold 2 beaters for us and a camera at the same time so she didn't get a picture of us licking the beaters. I'm going to add comments to my pictures. My words will be in green and Sasha's will be in red.

mmmm, Mom you have to share this recipe with all my friends. These are way better than last year's pupcakes!!!!!

Make fun of my crazy eyes all you want! I don't care because this stuff is AWESOME!!!!!

Are you sure they're still too warm to eat?

I am guarding the pupcakes so nothing happens to them.
Note from Mom: Kaos sat there the entire time watching the pupcakes after they came out of the oven. Her Grandma kept asking how she knew they were for her. The answer is, because she's a smart puppy!

These are what the pupcakes looked like. See how Mom made some tiny ones for Sasha and some big ones for me. The small ones are great for a quick snack for me, too. Mom says next time she'll probably make them all small. For the frosting I chose peanut butter. Notice there's no sprinkles or fancy decoration. That's because I didn't want to wait that long for them!!! It was torture enough waiting for them to cool. I'm going to make Mom post the recipe for all of you to try soon. The modifications she made to them this year will make you all drool a lot!!

WE'RE SITTING!! GIVE ME THE PUPCAKE!!!!

I hate this stupid stay crap you guys always make us do before we get treats.

What do you mean you don't want peanut butter all over the carpet in the kitchen? Who cares! Mom, hurry up and get our food dishes or Dad looses a leg!!!

It's about time!!!!

Yur grawt tha mrighphmmm!!!

You can see in the above picture that I like to lick the frosting off the pupcake first, Sasha digs right in and takes it out of her bowl and eats off the floor. Mom says Sasha has always done that since she was a little puppy and nobody knows why.

Dang! I gowt peamutbutter snuck on the rwoof of my mowf!

Hurry up and eat that. I heard Dad tell Mom as soon as we finish this one, we get another one!!

GRRRR!!! STEP AWAY FROM THE PUPCAKES DAD OR ELSE!!!

hehe, That's not really what I was saying. I was actually trying to get that dang peanut butter off the roof of my mouth. Dad did try a pupcake and said it tasted pretty good. I wasn't happy he ate one of my pupcakes, but since it was my birthday I let him join the celebration. Mom said there was no way she was going to eat one after smelling the batter. She said she remembered why she only makes them once a year.

You can have my crumbs Sasha, I'm saving room for the second pupcake!!!

Mom told Dad if he gave us the second pupcake and she had to smell our gas all night long, Dad and I had to go sleep in the shop. I held all my gas in until the next morning after Dad left for work and I was curled up on the couch watching Turbo Dogs with Mom (we love watching that cartoon!!!). When Dad got home and laughed because I had such bad gas, he didn't make the situation any better when he revealed to Mom he had given me one for breakfast, too. I was sure Dad and I were going to have to sleep in the shop Saturday night, but by bedtime Mom had forgiven or forgotten about it so we slept in our beds.

On Sunday afternoon, Mom and Dad went fishing without me which was kind of upsetting, but when they came home I forgave them because Mom said they went to the ponds to go fishing this time and after walking around and surveying everything they decided once it gets warmer, I can go play in the ponds!!!!!!!! I'm so excited!! I'm not allowed to go fishing with them because I try to retrieve the lures, baits and bobbers after they throw them out, but Mom said they'll make a special trip to the ponds a few times this summer without their fishing poles so I can go along!!! I'm very excited!!

This is a picture for my buddy Dannan the Little Brown Dog and his Girl. How do you like my Elvis lip, Dannan? Your Elvis impersonation is way better, but I've been practicing just for you!

My Baby's Birthday!

2009-02-20T08:32:00.007-07:00

Hey everybody! This is Kaos's Mom. First, I want to thank everyone for their kind words dealing with my job. I'm seriously thinking about taking all of you up on the boxes of poop to be mailed. I'd be okay with the loss of hours if they weren't being so mean to me. I had a staff meeting yesterday and the 2 of us that had our hours cut were informed we were still expected to do the same amount of work with our fewer hours. If they schedule another one of those stupid meetings any time soon we're going to tell them that will only give us 4 hours to do 10 hours worth of work.
Anyway, enough about that and on to the important stuff. Today my girl turns 5 years old! Kaos is a rescue dog which makes it very amazing that we know her birthday. She was born at an army base pound in Arizona and soon moved to another state. In her first 16 months of her life she lived in 4 different states!! The reason we know that is because we have her vet records. She went to the vet at each army base for ear problems (she still has ear problems, but we're been able to manage them pretty good without the vet mostly by obvious reasons like cleaning he ears often.
June 2005 was a big month on our family. Kaos's Dad and I got married at the beginning of the month and then at the end of the month we took some of our wedding gift money and went to the Pueblo No Kill Shelter in Pueblo, Colorado. Just a few days earlier a 14 month old timid black lab named Shananae was brought to the shelter. Before I met my husband, I had adopted my little Sasha and then when we bought our house we adopted Gunnar (my husband told everybody a cat was cheaper than an engagement ring at the time, I got the ring a few months later). When we decided to adopt another dog, we wanted a dog that could go bird hunting and was okay with small dogs and cats. We stopped at the shelter as our first stop and really weren't planning on finding a dog. Right away we found a male black lab puppy that only had one eye. I started to walk up to his pen and after he tried to eat me we decided he wasn't going to be good with small dogs and cats and kept on moving. Next we saw a Chesapeake retriever that was gorgeous, but he was jumping up and almost clearing the 8 foot fence so we knew our 3 foot fence at home wasn't going to work at all. the shelter worker told us they had come in a couple mornings and he was on the roof. We went down a couple more pens and there was the timid black lab. She was so nervous but so adorable and beautiful. We watched her play a little with the Min-Pin she was sharing a pen with and decided she had to be good with small dogs to be in that dog. The worker asked if we wanted to go out to the play yard with her and we said sure. My husband and I went out to the pen and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited. Finally they showed up and the worker said they had to get a female to hook her up to the leash because she was afraid of men. We were very thankful they told us that right away. The energetic lab ran aroudn and played with us. We thought that the picking up of twigs was pretty funny and cute and that menat she was playful. We scratched her ribs, her ears and fell in love with her! we put her back in her pen and went and filled out the paperwork. We had a bunch of other stops to make so we couldn't take her with us at the time. The workers told us we could give them half of the $40 adoption fee hold her and as long as we were back by 2:00, she could stay there until we came back. We gave them the full $40 of course and promised to be back way before 2:00. We sped off and did our errands and came back for our girl. I had to go in the pen to hook her up tp the brand new leash (everything we had for a dog was for a mini-dacshund, so one of our errands was to stop at Petsmart) and we walked out to the car and then started worrying how she was going to do on the 45 minutes car ride home. She was PERFECT! She layed down and chilled the entire time. When we walked in the house she was very excited. Gunnar was not happy and ran off and hid for a couple days. Sasha was okay because she had grown up with a black lab and a St. Bernard while we lived with my mother. Our new family member ran around crazy checking out her new house and her new yard. She wouldn't come if my husband called her so for a few days I was the one that had to call for her. We finally decided on a new name for our chaotic little girl. Lady Kaos learned how to love very quickly. I was having health issues and spent a lot of time sleeping on my couch with Kaos laying right below be on the floor. If she knew I wasn't feeling good, she was calm and attached to me. Her first hunting trip was a little chaotic, but wasn't too bad for her first trip. Her next ones were great. She gets upset if she flushes a bird and my husband doesn't shoot. She doesn't understand you can't shoot at every bird. It's really cute actually. She refuses to put the dead bird in her mouth though which is frustrating for my husbnad, but she will sit and guard the bird until he comes to get it. I don't blame her at all! lol

Kaos's personality has totally changed over the last 4 years. She is a big lover dog and is extremly smart. She can turn any bad mood around in seconds and knows when you need a hug. I always tell people Kaotic hugs can cure any bad mood. Through this stupid stuff going on at work she is there for me while I sit around for the 2 hours in the morning, is waiting for me at the door when I come home 2 hours later for lunch and is waiting for me again when I come home after work. Her obsessive fetch playing may be annoying once in awhile, but very entertaining and fun the reset of the time. She is my lap dog, my napping pillow, my test taster, my vacuum when I'm baking and cooking and my companion. I am so happy we adopted Kaos and didn't give up on her when she was working on letting her real personality come home.

It's time for me to start getting ready for work so I better get off here and give Kaos her birthday breakfast cookie and make sure I have all the ingredients for the pupcakes for tonight.

Happy 5th birthday to my chaotic girl!!!

Love,

Mom

We love you Sis!!!

Love,

Sasha & Gunnar

Tomorrow Is THE Day!

2009-02-19T15:41:00.003-07:00

Letting Mom help me with posts isn't working out so well as you can tell. It makes her feel better though so I'll keep letting her help me. Hopefully she'll either find a new job soon or get back her hours and we can go back to our normal letting me do it on my own routine.
Be sure to check in tomorrow because it's MY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW and Mom says she'll do a special post for me all about how awesome I am. I even posed for some pictures all dressed up! Tomorrow I get pupcakes, too!!! I REALLY can't wait for that!!!!

A Week Has Passed Already?

2009-02-13T11:14:00.006-07:00

Hi everyone! First I want to say I'm very sorry for not posting over the last week. It hasn't been a very good week. I've been taking care of Mom a lot because 10 minutes before she left last Friday she found out her hours were being cut. She hates how they wait until 10 minutes before the end of Friday to announce stuff like that. Then Monday morning her bosses started being mean. I may have to take all of you up on the boxes of poop to be mailed and the visits to come bite her bosses because it's going to be a big job. Mom now spends 2 hours each morning with us before she goes to work. I'm totally enjoying it and wish she could stay home all day, but I know it upsets Mom, mostly because they have been so meant to her this week. She's had headaches and tummy aches all week because of those stupid people. In case you need a reminder or didn't know, Mom works in a real estate office and all the agents are mad and the managers. It wasn't just Mom, the girl Moms shares her office with got cut 2 hours a day, too. She's the one that figured out they are loosing 1 entire paycheck a month. Supposedly this is only supposed to last a month, but we'll see. After Mom does a proof for an agent's flyer she writes on it and tells the agent she's sorry it took so long and they send her emails and leave her messages telling her to don't even think about being sorry because it's not her fault. Mom has MAJOR self esteem issues so these reminders have helped her out a lot. Now if only the 2 stupid managers would stop being so mean to Mom and her coworker.

Okay, enough about that. My birthday is in 1 week!!! I will be 5 years old! I told Mom not to worry about buying me a gift this year as long as she makes me some pupcakes!! I can't wait!! She says she's going to experiment with the recipe a little this year. I know a lot of you don't like when your moms experiment with your food, but I love when my Mom experiments because its usually really good! Mom promises she's going to help me blog more next week (I can do it on my own, but it makes Mom feel special if I let he help me and she really needs that right now.) so I'll hopefully be able to share pictures with you finally and a cookie recipe! Mom is also going to experiment with that recipe a little. WOOHOO!!!

Huskee & Hershey tagged with the Hones Weblog award. Here's the rules:

"When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to said person so everyone knows he or she is real. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have 7 friends. Show the 7 random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Weblog”. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. List at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!"

I am so far behind reading all your blogs I have no idea who's been tagged and who hasn't. If you haven't and you're reading this, consider yourself tagged!!

Okay here's my list:

1. My birthday is February 20th!

2. My Mom and Dad say I am Ubsessive Cumpulisve when it comes to fetching.

3. Mom can't start her day with out a morning cuddle from me because I won't let her!!

4. I'm hyper and crazy most of the time unless I can see that Mom isn't feeling good or is sad, then I am calm and quiet and take care of her by not leaving her side until she feels better.

5. I love to play fetch. (That is too different Mom!!!! #2 was about you saying I'm that weird thing, #5 is me telling everybody I love fetch!)

6. I love little kids. They taste good and they love to play games.

7. My boyfriend's name is Flash and he's the bestest boyfriend ever!!!!! (Go to this post to see some cute puppy pictures of Flash. You're still a cutie Flash!!)

8. This is hard! Okay, let's see. I'm considered the baby in the family even though I'm bigger than Sasha and Gunnar and I'm 3 months older than Gunnar because I was adopted last.

9. ummmmmmmm, My mom is the bestest baker!!! (I know that wasn't about me, MOM!!! Let me finish!) because she lives with me and lets me eat her mistakes (as long as it's dog safe of course) and even some of her successes. (See! That was about me!)

10, Okay, last one. Ummm, I like to play fetch with Mom the best! (No Mom!! That was different from the other 2 about fetch! The first one is you calling me that thing, the second one was me telling everyone I love fetch, this one is me saying I like playing with you the best. See! All 3 are different!)

I need to go take a nap now. That was a lot of hard thinking. I hope you all have a great weekend. Happy Valentine's Day to Everyone, but especially to my Flash!!!!!! The start of NASCAR is this weekend, too so I have to say GO KYLE IN THE #17 M&M CAR!!!!!!! (Hey Maggie, Do you have your M&M collar ready for this weekend?)
Okay, I'm going to go take my nap now.

Remember Me?

2009-02-06T14:36:00.003-07:00

Hey everybody!! Mom and I finally got caught up on reading everybody's blogs. It's hard for her to do it at work now because her boss keeps checking on her every hour. Mom is really getting annoyed. They also keep getting rid of services Mom takes care of in her department and she is now the only person in her department so she's pretty sure they're working on getting rid of her. Stupid people!!!

The Bacon Wrapped Tater Tots were AWESOME!!! Of course I didn't get very many because Mom, Dad and Grandma ate them all!! But Mom made us some cookies so it was all good (more on that in another post). Sasha and I didn't have very much fun during the Super Bowl game. Dad gets kind of crazy when his Steelers are winning and then when they were loosing it was almost worse! We were very happy when the game was finally over and Sasha and I could relax. Once time when Dad was jumping up and down celebrating, Sasha started yelling at him. She had enough and was telling Dad he needed to calm down. Why can adults tell us to do that, but when we do it to them they tell us to hush? Very unfair!!!!

All weekend I wished that Mom could stay home with us and Monday morning I got my wish only it wasn't very fun. Mom woke up with a really really bad headache and so Dad called into work for her (she could only say 1 word sentences because she was in so much pain) and then she slept until 2:30. We curled up on the couch after that and just hung out. My care made Mom feel lots better. She went back to work the rest of the week but still hasn't felt very good. Her headache comes and goes and sometimes she has stomache pains. She's pretty sure it's all work related pains because she feels fine in the evenings, but first thing in the morning she feels like crap. She says she needs to stop doing that because people at work are going to start thinking she has morning sickness from being pregnant instead of morning sickness from having to go to work in the morning!

I think I got you all updated on everything. i'm going ot leave you with a picture of me with snow nose because it's too warm here right now (Mom says she's in the mood to plant flowers because it's been so warm lately.) and I'm hoping it will remind Mother Nature that it's winter in Colorado and this is what is supposed to happen in winter in Colorado!!!

OH! One more thing!!! My birthday is exactly 2 weeks from today so be sure to get your humans to buy you some yummy treats to help me celebrate!!! I saw jars of babyfood in the pantry the other day which means PUPCAKES!!!!!!!! mmmmmmm, I love my birthday!

Have a great weekend!!!

Toys Brought Home Just For Me

2009-01-30T16:00:00.003-07:00

Whoa! I didn't realize this picture was so dark! I think Mom needs to play with the settings on her camera again.
See those 2 balls in my mouth? Well they are called "stress balls" and they look like golfballs and have writting on them (somethinge about NAPA Autoparts - that's were Dad works). One of the reps at the marketing conference Dad and Mom went to for Dad's work was giving them away as prizes. Mom said she had to spin the prize wheel to win them for us. She won these 2 balls and a Nascar watch for herself!!! The cool thing about these balls is that they bounce and they're really soft. Mom couldn't believe they've held up so long. Sasha is supposed to have one, too but I like playing with both of them - AT THE SAME TIME!!!! Mom almost died laughing the first time I put both in my mouth. Since she laughed so hard the first few times I agreed to do it again and even pose for a picture. Anything to make Mom laugh right now (more on that in a little bit). If you hear your humans talking about "stress toys" may sure they get one or two for you! They're a BLAST!!!!!
Sunday is the Super Bowl! We're rooting for the Steelers cuz that's my Dad's favorite team! Okay, Dad is rooting for the Steelers and I'm rooting for Mom cuz she's making BACON WRAPPED TATERTOTS WITH CHEESE!!!!!! I can't wait!!! Mom likes to watch the game for the commercials, that means the tatertots will be done before the game starts. I wonder if I could arrange for the game to start a lot earlier than it does. I don't know if I can wait almost all day for the yummy treats!
I might not be able to post very much for I don't know how long. I'll try to update when I can, but it probably won't be very much. Mom is having trouble at work right now. They're being very very very mean to her and monitoring her and checking up on her a lot and I want to go bite them. They made her cry yesterday! Dad, Sasha, Gunnar and I took care of Mom last night and cheered her up. We even convinced her to make another cake to help her feel better. I got a small bite of the cake, too! (OH! And to answer everybody's question about the Angel Food cake, I got some of that, too.) Tomorrow Mom and I are going to do some serious baking to get her mind off of her stupid bosses. I can't decide on what kind of treat I want her to make for us! It's a hard decision because there's so many good ones and so many new ones I want to try! Anyway, back to Mom's mean bosses. She thinks they're trying to make it so horrible for her that she wants to quit (she does want to, but she's not goging to). They did the same thing to one of her friends a couple years ago. Mom has been there almost 7 years and has never gotten in trouble for anything and this week she got in trouble twice for stuff she didn't have anything to do with! She's going to start looking for something new, but right now there really isn't much out there so she'll just deal with the mean people and be thankful she hasn't been fired yet. Dad gave Mom a peptalk and she felt better until the alarm clock went off this morning and then she felt really sick. Tomorrow she'll feel better because she'll be off and we'll be busy.
Hope you all have a fun weekend and stay safe if you're watching the Super Bowl (humans get crazy watching that game!!!!). Hopefully I'll be able to post and visit all of you soon.

Something Fun That Comes With New Appliances

2009-01-28T13:36:00.004-07:00

When you buy a new appliance, you usually get a giant box that it comes in. That box is a lot of fun to play in. Here are some pictures of us having fun with our giant box.

Dad ended up taking it out to the garage to cover Grandma's dryer since it's stored out there and could get scratched or banged into. It was a lot of fun - until Dad decided to try to trap me in the box by throwing my ball in and then lifting the open end up when I went inside. There aren't any pictures of that because Mom was trying to save me instead of encouraging it. (I take back all the mean things I've said about her in the last few months.) After that I wouldn't chase my ball all the way in, especially if Dad was standing up. My back feet always stayed on the carpet. If your parents are talking about getting a new appliance, be sure they let you play in the box for awhile, just be careful if they get that mischievous look in their eye!

Mom's New Toy

2009-01-27T13:10:00.003-07:00

Mom said I had to post about her new toy before I could post about my new toy. I thought that was a little unfair until I was given an extra cookie as a bribe. Of course I said my toy post could wait.

Mom says her oven is a Frigidaire. She couldn't find the info on the Lowe's website to tell you the model. We know it's on the website because Mom and Dad have been looking at it and reading about it for weeks. Mom decided she didn't like the double oven range as much as she thought she would. It seemed kind of small inside the ovens, plus you loose the bottom drawer for storage that Mom really needs because she has so many cake pans. This is what the new range looks like in it's new home.

If you look really close at the window in the door, it looks like Sasha is sitting in the oven. Don't worry though, it was just an extremely rare moment because Sasha was posing for a picture. Usually she hides from the camera. Here's proof she isn't in the oven:

The oven is a convection oven which makes baking 30% faster. The bake times have to be watched really carefully using the convection setting but Mom is okay with that. She made angel food cake (from a mix) the first night and it usually takes about 45 minutes for one to bake, but her's was done in about 30 minutes. There's no pictures of the cake because Mom got impatient and the cake kind of fell and didn't look very good. It tasted good though.

No dog treats have been made yet, but from ease dropping I've learned that some Pupcake ingredients have been purchased and as soon as Mom figures out where she put the new recipe from Hana, we'll get some homemade cookies, too. I can't wait!

Tomorrow I'll tell you about some more fun we had after the range was taken out of the box. I think you all will be so jealous you'll tell your parents they need to go buy a new appliance, too.

It's Been Way Too Long!

2009-01-23T15:26:00.002-07:00

I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still around. Mom's been "crazy busy" with work and hasn't had time for fun stuff. She says it's going to get worse as summer gets closer. I hope that means she'll finally get a raise so she can buy me more toys!
Speaking of toys, I have to share a picture of the toys Mom and Dad brought home from their trip last weekend. They are so cool! I'll tell you about them when I finally have the picture to show you. Mom says I'm too crazy with them and don't hold still long enough to et a picture. Usually I'd call her too slow and crazy, but she's right. I can't help but run around crazy with them!
Mom and Dad's trip was fun. Mom didn't have to hang outinthe hotel lobby all morning either. As soon as they got there they went to check to see what time they could check in and the lady said if there was a room they could check in right then. How many motels do you know where they will let you check in at 9 AM? Mom goofed off in the room and took a nap while Dad was in classes all day and then she hung out with Dad for the "schmmozing party" that night. They spent most of the next day at Bass Pro Shop and Mom go to eat walleye for lunch and this time didn't bring home any to share with us!!!! But that's okay cuz I was distracted with the toy anyway.
Sasha and I were kind of bored all weekend. We were pretty bummed. Grandma ended up having to work on Saturday so when she came home she was tired so we just hung out and then Sunday she did some cleaning and was busy with that all day. We did get to get a few extra treats and some other yummy snacks, but we were very happy when Mom and Dad came home and showed us all the stuff they got for themselves and for us. I like when they go shopping for outdoorsy stuff because that means they get in the mood to go camping or something fun and that usually means I get to go, too.
Keep your fingers crossed for Mom on Sunday. Mom and Dad are supposed to be going to buy a new range FINALLY. Mom can't wait to finally get to bake again. She's going through some major baking withdrawls. She hasn't even felt like cooking much either so her food blog has been kind of neglected. I'm glad Mom will finally get to bake again. Hopefully, that will help her destress after work again.
I finally added a chat box over on the side. It only took me forever to get Mom to help me. I rally need to figure out how she can get paid to stay home with me all day long and help me with stuff and play with me. Once I figure it out, I'll let all of you know so your Mom's can get paid to do the same thing!!
Have a great weekend everybody!

Great Weekend Coming Up!!

2009-01-16T10:59:00.002-07:00

Hey everybody!!! Mom and Dad leave really early in the morning for their trip. Mom says way too early, but it's a 3 hour drive so hopefully she'll get some more sleep on the trip up there. She says thanks to all the Mom's that agree Bass Pro Shop is a wonderful store (she's major jealous Joey and Tanner have one close to their house). She doesn't feel like a HUGE dork anymore, just a big dork. Sasha and I are pretty sad to see our bag isn't being packed, too but Grandma and I are making out secret plans to have more fun than Mom and Dad this weekend! I can't tell you guys the secret plans now or even later because I don't want Mom and Dad to find out or they might not let Grandma pupsit us while they're gone again. Let's just say the treats are well stalked (both in the treat jars and in a secret hiding place), the cheese will be purchased tomorrow morning and the toys are organized and ready for play! WOOHOO!! That's all the information I can give you.
I'd insert a cute picture of me right here, but someone packed the cds the pictures are on so she can work on some stuff tomorrow while Dad is in meetings. Oh well.
Have a great weekend everyone and if I don't post until probably Wednesday, don't worry about me. That just means I had lots of fun and it's taking me a few days to rest up.

My Famous Friend!

2009-01-15T14:36:00.002-07:00

Hey everybody! Do you know Dannon the little brown dog? Well, he's famous so if you don't know him you better get to know him quick!!!!!!
Click HERE to see why Dannon is famous!
I'm so honored to know Dannon and the his girl!!!
Way to go Dannon and The Girl!!!

Wordless Wednesday Because Nothing Exciting Going On

2009-01-14T15:16:00.001-07:00

Someone Stole Mom's Wheels!

2009-01-13T08:55:00.003-07:00

Okay, not really. This was going to be a much funnier post, but Dad pointed out since the car is in the shop, it doesn't have the same funniness or shock value. It's still funny though! At least Mom thought it was. Dad stole Mom's tires to balance them so her car was sitting up on blocks. It would have been funnier if it had been sitting in the front yard or even the back driveway. Mom is kind of weird sometimes (especially when she doesn't get enough sleep).

Saturday I was going to make Mom take a nap, but then I thought if she took a long nap, then she wouldn't sleep at bedtime so I didn't something even better! I kept her busy all day long! I made her finally save all the pictures on the memory cards from the cameras to cds where they're nice and safe while I took a quick nap and then when Dad brought the wheels back I sent them off to do some shopping, gas up Mom's car and wash it (trust me, in the above picture you can't see how bad it really was!). Then I made Mom do a bunch of other stuff like playing fetch, playing tug, playing tag and of course scratching my ears and butt. I was exhausted and went to bed at 9 o'clock. I didn't go lay on the big bed, I went to MY bed cuz I was exhausted. I made Dad keep Mom up until almost 10 o'clock though so she was even more tired than I was when she finally went to bed and it worked! She finally slept good! This weekend Mom and Dad are going away for a thing for Dad's work so Dad is in charge of making Mom so exhausted she sleeps good. They'll have to stay up really late Saturday night and then they're going shopping at Mom's favorite store on Sunday (it's not a clothing store or other "girly" store - it's Bass Pro Shop, Mom wants a giant aquarium in our house like they have there - told you she was weird!). I will be spending the entire relaxing with Grandma and of course begging for treats and playing some fetch. Mom is taking the computer with her to give her something to do while Dad is in his meetings during the day on Saturday so maybe she'll get some work done on her art website and I can finally have all of you go visit it. Aunt Gillian got a new job managing a restaurant in town that also does some art consignment for local artists so she told Mom to get her butt in gear and get organized so she can put some of her stuff in the restaurant.

Mom put me in charge of making sure Gunnar beahves today because he's was being a butthead this morning so I'm going to go remind him Mom put me in charge now. I love bugging him for no reason!

Snowing Again!

2009-01-09T15:39:00.002-07:00

Hi everyone!
I was going to share more pictures with you today, but Mom forgot to switch memory cards and so she didn't pull the pictures for me. She says it's from not sleeping very well for over 2 weeks now. I don't know why she isn't sleeping well, but she needs to hurry up and do it so she has more energy to play with me and so she can concentrate better! the past few days she's been having blood sugar level issues (she's not diabetic, she has something else that messes with her blood sugar sometimes so don't worry) and her tummy is all gugling and makes funny noises. She doesn't feel sick though. I'm goign to try to convince her to take a nap tomorrow with me. She can't go anywhere anyway because Dad is going to steal the wheels off her car tonight so she can balance them when he gets off work tomorrow at a shop next door to the store he works in. That's going to be a funny sight. I'll try to get Mom to go out to the shop tomorrow and take a picture of that - if she's not napping.
It started snowing again today, but it's another one of those really really cold ones that I don't like. I think some of you Saint Bernards, Huskees, Newfs and other cold weather dogs wouldn't even want to go out in it! (I said some of you, not all of you! lol) I'm okay with laying on the nice warm couch curled up in Mom's warm fuzzy blanket looking out my huge picture window watching it snow.
Dad got off work early today since he has to go in tomorrow so I better go see if he needs any help. He's been trying to take the outside Christmas decorations down but he had to wait for the snow to melt of some of them and now they're frozen because the snow melted and then it got really cold today and froze the melted snow. We might just have to leave our outside Christmas decorations up until spring!!!
Have a great weekend everyone!!!

The Snow Post

2009-01-07T13:31:00.005-07:00

Sorry to everybody that stopped by yesterday expecting to see snow pictures like I promised! Mom had a really bad day at work and I was busy......well, sleeping. Before I show you the pictures, we just wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes for Sasha and Mom. Sasha doesn't limp anymore and it doesn't bother her when Mom touches her foot anymore. Mom said you can barely see the crack in her nail, too. Mom's heart and breathing are also back to normal rythmes. Mom was also surprised that her shirt and pants don't show any signs of blood.
Okay now for the pictures! These picture were taken after Mom decided she was okay enough to walk around and Sasha was resting on the couch. By then it was kind of dark, but I really wanted to show you snow pictures so Mom said she's take me out since I was such a good sister through the hole frightening experience with Sasha. We didn't stay out too long because by then it was starting to get too cold (for Mom, not me). Here I am trying to show you how much snow there was. We had about 5-6 inches at my house!!! We weren't supposed to get that much, but we did! We're up on a hill and down at Mom's office, there was about an inch (which is what we were supposed to get).
In the next few pictures Mom though it was really cute because she though I was trying to build a snow fort like Zim.

Then Mom realized I was looking for my tennis ball. Who says you can play fetch in the snow?

It was a little cold though. It looks like a snowball in this picture, but it really was my tennis ball.

And here's a snow snooter picture. The snow is almost gone now. There's a little to still play in, but it's been really really windy today so the nice white snow is covered with a thin layer of brown dirt - not so pretty anymore. It's supposed to be warm for awhile so I don't think we'll be getting any more snow for awhile.

Poor Mom

2009-01-05T14:57:00.003-07:00

Hey everybody! Hope you had a safe New Year's! I'm a little behind because I've still been recovering from Christmas and then I was busy last week, too! It snowed yesterday a lot and I have pictures to show you but I'll show those to you tomorrow.
New Year's Day I went to work with Dad for awhile to help him get some end of the year stuff done. I got bored and so Mom had to come get me. I've decided the auto parts business is not for me. Mom said maybe if there was a couch to sleep on all day I would have done better. I'm not sure what she meant by that, but I don't think it was a nice thing. Then the next day Mom had to go back to work and Dad took me outside to play with my tennis ball throwing thingy ouside the fence so I got to run the full length of our acre. I love that game!!!! Then Dad worked in the shop all day.
This is the poor Mom part. On Sunday Mom, Sasha and I were playing in the living room and all of a sudden Sasha started screaming and crying. We've never heard her scream like that before so Mom and I both freaked out a little. I just stood there and didn't know what to do until Mom went running to Sasha and picked her up and held her until she stopped crying and then when Mom went to put her down, she noticed her t-shirt was covered in blood. That's when Mom went into panic Mom mode (I know you all know what I'm talking about). There was no way to call Dad into help because it was snowing so much and Mom would have had to put shoes on and that meant putting Sasha down and there was no way anybody was going to pry Sasha out of Mom's arms at that moment. We also didn't know where Grandma was. So Mom and I ran to the back bathroom and washed Sasha's paw off and figured out somehow when Sasha was running she split her nail. Mom was sure she had sliced her food open with the amount of blood. Mom was freaking out because there was so much blood and Sasha's just a little dog. Mom grabbed the bandage box and we went to the kitchen (I was following Mom very close through all this). The kitchen sink area was a lot easier to work in since the counter area was so much bigger (we won't get into the reason Mom didn't go in the main bathroom where the light was better and the counter area was a good size). Mom put cold water on Sasha's food to try to stop the bleeding and to figure out how to get a bandage on it by herself. Mom said she didn't even remember me being in the kitchen but Grandma tripped over me when she finally came in the house and went to her room. Sasha was a very good girl and stood onthe counter with her foot up in the air so she wouldn't get blood all over the kitchen counter and so that Mom could put a bandage on her. Once the bandage was on, we all went to the living room and sat on the couch so that Mom's heart would start beating regualr again. Sasha laid on the couch and Mom rubbed her belly and I sniffed her nose and whined and when Mom decided the bleeding had finally stopped, she let Sasha walk around. She limps a little, but she doesn't whine or cry which makes Mom feel a little better about it. I had to give Mom lots of hugs and kisses to make sure she was okay, too. Her face finally turned back to it's normal color and I pointed out that she needed to do something about her clothes. I went and kept an eye on Sasha while Mom cleaned the blood out of her shirt and her pants. She put her comfy clothes on and I curled up on the couch with her and watched tv for awhile. Dad says they are going to look for a phone that has an intercom on it, too so that Mom can call for him if he's out in the shop working and she needs him.
In a couple weekends Mom and Dad are going away for the weekend for Dad's work and now Mom is REALLY worried about us. I keep telling her I'll take care of everything, but you know how Mom's get after their babies are hurt. Sasha is doing good. She's limping still but still hasn't yelped or whined. Tonight Mom is going to give her some magic cheese to help her get comfy for bed time. Sasha doesn't like the snow anyway because it makes her joints hurt and as much snow as we got, it makes her REALLY cold so Sasha had a really hard time getting comfy with the cold and her foot hurting. Mom is doing much better now, too. She said once her heart started beating at it's normal beat and she started breathing normal, she didnt feel liek passing out anymore. Watching Sasha limp makes Mom sad, but she keeps reminding her self that it wasn't a cut which is a good thing. Poor Mom.
Be sure to check out my snow pictures tomorrow and remember we were only supposed to get a complete total of 1-2 inches of snow. Thankfully it wasn't too cold and I could actually go out and play in it this time.

Christmas Was Great!

2008-12-29T13:05:00.011-07:00

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!

2008-12-23T15:26:00.001-07:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas Card

2008-12-22T13:55:00.003-07:00

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

2008-12-17T09:33:00.003-07:00

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

2008-12-15T14:26:00.003-07:00

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

2008-12-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-12-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-12-10T13:40:00.003-07:00

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!!

2008-12-08T13:05:00.002-07:00

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

2008-12-05T16:40:00.003-07:00

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!

2008-12-03T14:30:00.003-07:00

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!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2008-11-25T16:08:00.003-07:00

Hi everyone! It's the mom again! Kaos is exhausted. My nephew cried for 2 hours last night before he finally cried himself to sleep which kept everyone awake except for Kaos. She was snoring so loud that once the crying finally ended, the snoring was keeping us awake. This evening the kids are going to go visit some of their dad's family and I think Kaos is ready for the break. She is so good with the kids, especially the 2 year old. Last night the 2 year old was kissing on Sasha and of course my camera was out of arm's reach and turned off and I couldn't convince or bribe him to do it again. It was so adorable!!! I'll be home all day with them tomorrow so I'm going to see if I can get him to do it again.
Thanks for all the encouraging words about me sticking up for Kaos and Gunnar. I couldn't believe when Kaos was accused of biting someone. Once in awhile if you're playing rough with her her tooth might bump you, but that's the closest she's ever gotten and after you say ouch she pins her ears down and curls her tail underneath her and looks like she was threatened with a beating. She is so gentle with the kids though and everybody knows that so my blood started boiling and things just started coming out of my mouth then I didn't even know I was thinking. Nobody will be messing with my babies for a very long time.
Sash is also doing better. She finally slept good last night and she has stopped humping and chewing on the couch pillows. The kids know to becareful with her and Kaos has started keeping an on her. When she can tell that Sasha has had enough she'll go get between Sasha and the kid so Sasha can sneak off to the safe room.
we want to thank Dannon for the awards. I'd post them all, but it's a crazy day at work trying to get everything ready for me to take the rest of the week off so I don't have time to post them all.
With Thanksgiving coming up we want to thank all of our DWB friends for their friendship. It's meant a lot to us and has helped us through some big stuff, especially over the past year. There are a few of you that have a very special place in our hearts from some special support you have given us through emails on some more private matters. This Thanksgiving we are thankful for all of you.
You won't here from us for the rest of the week. I'll try to post for Kaos on Monday if she's not able to. Tuesday our company flies back home so I have a feeling Kaos will be passed out for the entire day.
OH! Before I sign off I have a really cute story to tell you about Kaos. She was up on the couch last night trying not to fall asleep. Our nephew's mom came into the living room and was trying to convince him to come put his pj's on and he wouldn't do it. Kaos went and picked up her alien squeak toy and got her cousin's attention and then backed up towards his mom where she could grab him and then brought the alien to me. We all started laughing and couldn't stop. I threw the alien a fe times for Kaos because she wanted to play fetch but she was so tired she took the alien back to the couch and chilled out again.
Okay, I have to get s few more things done before I leave.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating on Thursday, have a great week and a fun weekend. I promise once things are a little less crazy we will have lots of pictures to share with you next week.
Love
Hilary & Kaos

My Mom Is PAWESOME!!

2008-11-24T14:17:00.002-07:00

Hey everybody! I'm exhausted! I'm having a lot of fun playing with the kids when Grandma lets me. I really like when Mom and Dad are home because they help me play fetch with the kids and they make everything okay. Right now Grandma took the kids somewhere so Sasha and I have been sleeping. Sasha is stressing out a lot about having the kids here mostly because Grandma is treating us really different. We don't understand it. Mom and Dad must understand it because everything changes when they get home. We get lots of hugs and kisses and then we feel better. The bedroom is our safe room. The kids know if we are in there, they have to leave us alone and boy are we glad we have the safe room. Sometimes we need a break. We're used to sleeping all day, not playing! The kids cry a lot which makes us worried and we go yell at whoever is being mean to them. Mom and Dad try to explain to us that they're okay, but if someone is crying that loud and that much there HAS to be something wrong!!!
Okay, now for the reason my mom is so great. My mom doesn't stick up for herself very often and usually lets people walk all over her. That makes me mad, but I can't do much about but let my mom know that she is loved bunches and bunches. She has major self-esteem issues, but over the last year has gotten a lot better with them. My Mom is so PAWESOME because even though she doesn't stick up for herself, you better never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever say anything bad about her babies or blame us for something that is so obviously not our fault! If you do, you will make Mom turn bright red and she'll start shaking and then she'll say words most people didn't even know existed!!!! We all know about HBO words, but these are words I don't even think HBO would use!!!! Gunnar got blamed for putting a hole in a quilt and Dad ended up proving Gunnar couldn't do that (the location of the rip and the way it was ripped and the fact that Mom gave him a manicure that morning were all the evidence that was needed). It was safer Dad took care of that situation. Then I was accused of biting someone and Mom flipped!!!! There is a bruise, but you can tell it definately wasn't from a dog biting him. Let's just say nobody will be accusing any of us of anything for a very very very long time - unless it's Mom and Dad accusing us for a mess and then there's a very good chance they're right.
I love you Mom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artsy Fartsy Friday

2008-11-21T13:11:00.003-07:00

Hi everybody! This is Kaos' mom. Since she's busy entertaining her cousins, I told her I would make sure I did the post today. She wanted to make sure I got the 2 Thanksgiving themed cross stitch pieces I just finished up today. While I was home for lunch she gave me a list of messages to tell her friends. Here's the list:

1. Kids are great!

2. Kids are awesome!

3. I want my own kids!!!

4. 2 year-olds are the prefect height, especially when they have food in their hands!

5. I love kids.

6. I'm having a lot of fun!

7. I'm exhausted.

8. I need a nap.

9. Kids are cool!

& 10. Kids are messier eaters than Mom and Dad are!!!!!!

I think I got them all. She's having a blast, but I have a feeling by tomorrow afternoon she'll need a timeout not because she's being bad, but because she's going to be to tired to move. After only playing for a few hours last night she was ready to go to bed early (which she didn't get to do) and she wsa out as soon as she flopped onto her bed. Both dogs had a lot of fun sitting under the kids chairs at dinner last night and when I came home for lunch I was told that Sasha snagged a big hunk of cheese as it was accidently dropped at breakfast this morning. The piece of cheese never had a chance with Sasha in the house. I swear she can be dead asleep on the other side of the house and can hear cheese falling and will make it into the room the cheese is falling in before it hits the floor.

Okay, now I'll talk about the artsy stuff. The picture quality isn't very good. I'm not sure why I had so much trouble getting good pictures of these 2. I think these were 2 of my favorite pieces I've ever stitched. There were both a lot of fun and I'm putting them in my "Must Stitch Again" pile. The first one is actually supposed to be something you hang from your doorknob but my mom lost patience trying to teach me to sew and I lost patience with the way she was trying to teach me so I framed it instead. I think next time I'm going to go ahead and try doing the door hanger. Anybody out there know how to teach someone how to sew via email? lol

This next one was the most fun. Doing all the orange got a little boring, but it was totally worth it. I thought this one might look cool as a pillow until I put it in the frame and decided I liked it that was much better (not being able to sew might have to do with that decision though).

I've started working on some squares for Love Quilts. Kaos will share those with you when I finish them.

Kaos or I will try to post on Monday so that you know how much more she loves kids and probably how much she needs a nap. On Thanksgiving day we're going to an uncle's house which is 3 hours there and 3 hours back plus the time we're there so she'll be able to rest up then. Don't worry about her not getting to participate in the Thanksgiving feasting though. We're having a version of Thanksgiving this weekend (we're doing fried chicken instead of the turkey cuz it sounded good last night when we were deciding what to do).

Have a good weekend everybody.

This is Fun!

2008-11-19T13:47:00.002-07:00

I have to share this with all of you. Mom took this quiz earlier today:

If there is a cat living in your house tell your parents to take this quiz. I'm keeping an eye on my catbrother after finding out these results!!

A Very Important Letter

2008-11-18T15:51:00.002-07:00

Dear Mother Nature,
I hope you get this letter. You should get a special set up with the post office like Sant has so we can mail you letters, too.
I have an issue. I live in Colorado where we are known for snow and well, it's almost Thanksgiving and we haven't seen 1 flake in our area. Towns all around us have had their first snow for the season, but we havn't had any at all. The 80 degree weather is driving us crazy! Mom's office is located upstairs and they've winterized her air conditioner for he year and she gets really hot in the afternoons since the sun comes directly in her windows.
My human cousins are coming to visit in a couple days and my girl cousin wants us to make it snow for her. We REALLY need the snow so would you make it snow sometime between November 20th and December 2nd. Better make it the 21st and 1st because the 20th and 2nd they are flying and I don't want Dad and Grandma on bad roads or my family in the air in a bad storm.
I would really appreciate if you could make it snow for us. Mom is thinking about planting her spring flower seeds and maybe even parts of her vegetable garden. I starting to forget what it feels like to run through the snow.
PLUS snow meals cold weather and cold weather means we don't have to take so many baths. I got a bath this weekend because the weather was warm!!!
Thank you for your time Mother Nature.
Sincerely,
Lady Kaos

Holiday Card List, Fires & Stuff

2008-11-17T10:12:00.004-07:00

We got the list!! I can't wait to start on it! We signed up for email only because Mom said it was going to be kind of expensive to buy that many stamps and Mom thought that it would be kind of rude for us to be doing email and to get a bunch of cards in the mail from all of you, but this weekend I had a talk with her about it and she decided if you would like to send me a card by mail just email her for our mailing address (hilarysdesigns(at)yahoo(dot)com) and she'll give it to you. Mom and I are still working on the email card. She says I'm not cooperating with the photography part. I think I'm being very cooperative!!
To all of the dogs, cats, and any other animals and humans in California, we're sending lits of good vibes to you right now with all those fires. We hope you are all doing good and are safe. My human cousins that are coming to visit for Thanksgiving live in southern California and we're a little nervous. So far they only have the smoke, but Grandma is really worried that they won't be able to fly out on Thursday. We're keeping our fingers and paws crossed they still get to come. I'm really excited!
I didn't post for Artsy Fartsy Friday again and I'm blaming Mom's bosses. They've been kind of mean to her lately and so she hasn't had much time to do fun stuff lately and when she comes home she doesn't want to look at a computer any more so she can't do it then either. This Friday we promise to post 2 things! They're both Thanksgiving themed. I'll probably be busy entertaining the kids so Mom will probably be posting. Next week we won't be posting much because Mom is taking a bunch of days off to help me entertain the kids and getting ready for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays!!!
One of the neighbor's cat spies is in the front yard so I have to go yell at it now!!

It's Me!!!

2008-11-13T16:17:00.002-07:00

Hey everybody! Have you missed me? We've been really busy lately getting ready for my human cousins to come visit. I can't wait! A week from today Dad and Grandma go pick them up at the airport. I'm going to have so much fun with them because they're kids! and I love kids! and kids drop food! and kids like to throw tennis balls for me to fetch! and they drop food! hehe They're going to be here for 2 weeks! My mom has to teach her niece how to make "fun cookies." Mom isn't exactly sure what "fun cookies" are so she bought all the ingredients for every cookie she knows how to make. I'm hoping "fun cookies" are dog safe! While they're here I probably won't be able to post much because I'll be spending all day entertaining the kids, but I'll try to get Mom to post for me once in awhile so you know I'm okay. I can't wait!!!!!
My boyfriend Flash tagged me for the 3 secrets game. This was hard. The first list I made Mom said wouldn't work because secrets are things that all of you didn't already know and you all know I love to play fetch, go Jeeping and have a cool house. So then I made another list and Mom said if I posted it she wouldn't feed me for 2 months! I thought secrets about her would be a lot more interesting than secrets about me but Mom said noway. Boy the things I could tell you about her!!! - But I'm not going to because I like to eat.
So I thought and thought and thought and then took a long nap and then thought some more and came up with this list. There aren't any pictures and I can't tell you why because I'm not sure if that's one of Mom's secrets or not (I don't think it is, but I gotta be careful!)
Secret #1:
I ummm...I have a ......well, a "thing" for blankets. If anybody is trying to fluff a blanket for me or adjust blankets near me or even trying to dry me off with a towel, I ....well, I hump it. it drives Mom crazy - especially if she is holding or is under the blanket.
Secret #2:
I can jump into the back of any pickup truck with the tailgate up but I can't jump over a 4 foot fence. Actually, I physically could but I would never do it out of respect to Mom and Dad. Mom had a 2 foot fence around a garden area in our old house and the only time I ever jumped over it was when those stupid kids from down the alley were teasing Sasha and I had to yell at them. When Mom called for us to come inside I was so sorry I went to my kennel to punish myself (that was before it got stored away) but Mom told me to get out and she forgave me.
Secret #3:
DANG! This is hard! Okay, my third secret is I really do know how to shake hands/paws, but I think it's stupid. I use that trick to get things I REALLY want, but if I'm not that serious about something I act like I have no idea what Mom and Dad are talking about. OH! One time a french fry or something went under our couch and I was determined to get it out but it was back a little too far for me to reach so I was trying to get Mom to lift the end of the couch up to get the fry and so I used my high pitched "I'm being ignored!!!" whine and that always gets their attention. Mom looked at me and said, "if you shake hands, I'll pick up the couch" and she took her hand out and I shook! I thought Dad was going to pass out for a minute because he was laughing so hard. Mom's response was, "those stupid people that write long articles about how dumb dogs are need to meet MY dog!!!!" Mom lifted the couch and I got my french fry and curled up on the couch with Mom for a nice cuddle to tell her how much I love her.
Phew, that was hard. I think pretty much everybody has already played, but if you haven't and would like to, let me know and I will officially tag you. Just remember, don't tell any secrets about the person in charge of feeding you!!!
I better go take a nap now. Mom and I need to finish getting the back bedroom read for my human cousins to come visit! I will try to make sure Artsy Fartsy Friday gets posted this week. Mom has 2 cross stitch pieces that are Thanksgiving themed I want to share with you. She hasn't finished the other fall one because she says she keeps getting bored with it and the face creeps her out. She's right, it is kinda creepy. I'll share it when she finally finishes it.

Goodbye To A Friend

2008-11-11T14:39:00.004-07:00

We miss you Girl Girl and loved getting to know you!

I hope you and Fufu are having lots and lots of fun at the Rainbow Bridge!!

Cool Thing About Our New House

2008-11-04T14:49:00.002-07:00

One of the coolest things about our new house is the views. We get to see stuff like this.

That's a cloud in the canyon right below our house. Isn't that cool?

Hanging Out & Thanks!

2008-11-03T15:15:00.002-07:00

Hey everyone! How was your Halloween & weekend? Halloween was quiet here. Nobody trick-or-treats up where we live. Know what that means? Mom, Dad and Grandma are eating all the candy! I'm okay with that because Tanner & Scooter brought me some Reeses. YUMMY!

They brought me a variety of flavors. Thanks guys!! Mom tried to steal my white chocolate but I explained to her that the dog safe chocolate Joey made is poison to humans. I think she believed me because she left it alone! Nobody tell her anything different, k?

I've been hanging out with Dad all day long. He's been on the conputer all day and finally let me on for a little bit. He went hunting over the weekend and was supposed to go again today but it's been too hot for elk. He saw lots of deer and big horn sheep but Dad was only able to get an elk license this year because we weren't sure what was going to be going on when it was time for hunting this year because of selling the old house and moving. Everything happened so fast he could have put in for a deer license, too but better safe than sorry. It's supposed to FINALLY snow tonight so hopefully Dad will be able to get his elk in the next couple days. Mom says it's really weird that we haven't gotten snow yet because we usually have it by now. Mom says when she was little she remembers trick-or-treating in big snow drifts and always planning her costume to fit over a coat. Not this year! If it doesn't hurry up and start acting like fall soon, Mom is going to go plant her spring flower seeds! I think Mother Nature forgot to turn the cold air on. We still have green leaves on a lot of trees here!

Dad is getting ready to go out and do some scouting since it's getting cloudy and cooling off a little so I better go help him make sure my Jeep is ready to go. It's driving me crazy hearing my Jeep start up every day and not getting to go in it, but I know it's safer for Dad to take my Jeep to the place he's hunting so I'm okay with it.

Thanks again Tanner & Scooter! You guys did a great job!!!

Not Much Going On

2008-10-30T14:00:00.003-06:00

There isn't anything exciting going on right now. Mom is feeling tons better. She came home and took a 3 hour nap in MY napping spot! I was okay with it because I knew she didn't feel good. 24 hours after she took the medicine she was fine. Mom does have some advice for everyone though. Don't fall asleep while watching Steve Irwin. She couldn't find anything to watch on tv and wasn't planning on falling asleep. She likes Steve Irwin and so she started watching his show about the crocs at the Australia Zoo and then she fell asleep and started having some really weird dreams.
Mom and Grandma are really excited about going to the cooking school thing tonight. Mom read in the newspaper some of the things they're going to make and got even more excited. She LOVES to bake and has always wanted to make Chocolate Molten cakes but has never tried because she was nervous. She says the instructions seem way too simple. Tonight she gets to watch someone make them! After the lady makes something, then they having a drawing to give away the dish and the food in the dish and she's keeping her fingers crossed she wins the cakes. I looked over the list, too and there were no dog treat recipes. I was bummed but I saw Mom looking over the dog treat recipe in the book that came with the food dehydrator and she also has some new dog themed cookie cutters she wants to try out so I think we'll get to try some new treat recipes.
While Mom and Grandma are off having fun Sasha and I have to help Dad get his hunting stuff together. He goes hunting starting Saturday so I have to make sure he has enough good and supplies. He'll be hunting close enough to home that he'll be able to come home every night which is great because if Dad's not home to protect the house, I don't get much sleep.
See, I told you nothing exciting was going on here. Mom says we'll gt to go do something fun this weekend, but I don't believe her. I don't think I remember how to ride in a car, play at the park, walk on a leash or eat icecream anymore! Mom wants me to point out that I get to run around our neighborhood off leash a lot now, but I'm not going to!! That totally misses my point completely!
As long as I'm not bored to death tomorrow, I'll do an Artsy Fartsy Friday post. I'm off to take another nap now.

Recovered

2008-10-28T10:43:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone! I think I finally recoverd from all the birthday partying at my house. It looks like we're done with birthdays at my house until my birthday in February. Good thing because we're exhausted! Last night we finished off the last of the rib bones, but Mom said she has some dog treat recipes she wants to experiment with so I'm helping her decide which ones we should try first and what modifications we want to make to them.
Mom got her new food blog up and going. Right now she's bringing everything over from the old blog, but after she gets the last 2 on she'll share some more recipes and gadgets. She is much happier using Blogger for that one, too. That will teach her for thinking about trying something new! OH, almost forgot to give you the new address! Here it is: http://hilarys-kitchen.blogspot.com/. This Thursday night Mom and Grandma are going to a Taste of Home Cooking school. Taste of Home is my mom's most favorite magazine and they do these cooking school things all over the country. Last year our local paper started having them come to our town. Mom couldn't get tickets this year, but she made sure she got them this year. Mom says she'll get to win all sorts of prizes and will get a goody bag so hopefully she'll have more fun gadgets to share with you and of course some new recipes. I'm sure Mom will tell you all about it on her blog, too. She has a count down started in her calendar she carries with her. Doors don't open until 6:00, but she's thinking about getting there at 5:30. That gives her enough time to come take care of her responsibilites (ME!, Sasha and Gunnar) and then get to the school where they're holding the event. And she says I'm the weird one?!?!?!
If you haven't done your story for the DWB - What it means to me blog yet, don't feel bad. We haven't done our's either and I've been saying we were working on it for a long time now. Mom isn't going back to work after lunch today because her new medicine is making he feel not so good so after a nap, Mom and I might work on that. I'm not sure why Mom went to work this morning. I told her she was a weird shade of green and Sasha and I tried to hold her down, but she said there was stuff she needed to get done. Dad came to find the crackers for Mom a little bit ago and he said she's not getting much of anything done and isn't going back after lunch. She really needs to learn to listen to us more!

Birthday Week Day 3

2008-10-23T08:52:00.003-06:00

Today is the final birthday. Good thing because I'm exhausted and my belly is full. Last night Dad took Mom out for dinner and Mom of course ordered ribs and they brought the bones home to us so we got to enjoy a nice rib bone plus we get more tonight and for the next couple of nights. Dad got Mom some fishing stuff and some baking stuff that I'm sure she'll be sharing on her food blog. One was a pastry mat for measuring and the other was this chopper, scooper & measuring thing. Plus after Mom's doctor's appointment they're going shopping for some more stuff. Mom sure is spoiled!
Okay, today's happy birthday goes out to Grandma. Happy Birthday Grandma! She doesn't want us to make a big deal out of it so that's all I'll say. Thank goodness because I'm exhausted. I'm going to go take a nap now to get ready for more partying tonight.
Have a great weekend everyone!

Birthday Week Day 2

2008-10-22T09:04:00.004-06:00

First I better tell you that there won't be an Artsy Fartsy Friday this week. I'm exhausted after only 1 night of birthday partying and I still have tonight and tomorrow to go! I'm going to need to take all day to recover and I can't even talk Mom into doing it for me because she has a doctor's appointment and some shopping to do Friday. OH! I also need to tell you Mom's Food Blog is frustrating her so she's going to switch it over to a different site (probably Blogger, I told her to stick with what she knew!). The old one will stay up until she gets the new one going, but she's not going to add anything new to it. She tried all day Friday to get Bravenet to let her upload pictures and again on the weekend and she decided to give up and start over. I'll let you know the knew address.

Okay, here's pictures from Sasha's party last night. We got cheese with dinner of course and then after dinner Mom and Dad got out her gift. We had to take it outside because she goes crazy. She had one at our old house but it finally deflated. This one didn't last long at all!!!! Mom and Dad were pretty dissapointed. Part of it was Sasha though. Look at these pictures! She's crazy!!!! She eventually ran it into a rose bush and poked a hole in it and then I got it and well, no more big ball. We went back inside and played with all our other toys.

Today's birthday is my mom's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! I LOVE YOU A BUNCH!!!! I don't have a picture of her to show you because she's always on the other side of the camera. We can't find the box with film pictures or I would show you some cute pictures of when she was a puppy. I think she hid it on purpose so I couldn't show you any pictures. Dad and I went out to the shop to wrap Mom's gifts a couple nights ago and then put them on the dining room table to torture - I mean tease her. Dad and I have some other surprises planned for her but I'll have to tell you about them later in case Mom gets on here today to see what I said about her. I'm going to list 10 things I love about my mom in honor of her birthday and the letter game that was so much fun to do.

1. She is a very good snuggler. I get in bed every morning to snuggle with Mom after the alarm clock goes off and before she gets up to get ready for work.

2. She is a sucker for sad puppy eyes. If I get in trouble or want something I use my big brown puppy eyes and I'm forgiven or get what I want.

3. She is a really good baker. She bakes us treats and even lets us try some of the nondog treats.

4. She is a MAJOR slob in the kitchen. When Mom is in the kitchen we know that we'll get to clean up a mess eventually. If we hear mom say crap, oops, dang it or any cuss words Sasha and I come running because we know Mom made a big mess for us to clean up.

5. She wears fake finger nails because she bites her nails and makes them sore if she doesn't and fake nails are PAWESOME for ear, belly and under the collar scratches.

6. She feels safer taking me with her when she goes to work outside the fence so I get to go explore the outside the fence area a lot.

7. I can talk her into playing fetch more and longer than anybody else I know.

8. She lets me sleep in the big bed if Dad is gone for some reason or comes to bed late.

9. She's not strong enough to pick me up and hold me like a baby like Dad does.

10. The 10th and BEST reason I love her is: She's MY Mom!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

PS Mom, if you're reading this I didn't tell them this is your 30th birthday like you said not to do. Can I get an extra cookie tonight after dinner?

Birthday Week Day 1

2008-10-21T09:18:00.003-06:00

This week is very busy with birthdays at my house. Today is Day #1 with it being Sasha's 6th birthday. Sasha's birthday starts off the same way every year. Mom uses her highpitched voice that hurts my ears so I go hide in the living room while Mom and Sasha have their moment in another room. Every once in awhile Mom uses her high pitched voice throughout the day, but it's worth it because on Sasha's birthday we get lots of cheese. If you're wondering about what Mom is saying in her high pitched voice, don't ask me. It's something about her little girl being a year older and how cute and stuff she is. Sasha likes Mom using her high pitched voice because it usually means she gets lots of scratches and belly rubs and extra special attention.

Mom was going to make us a special treat for Sasha's birthday, but Sunday night Mom and Dad found a really good deal on t-bone steaks so we got some very yummy bones instead. It was driving us crazy waiting for Dad to give us the bones and then we saw Mom get out the special bone chewing blankets and we knew it was time. They were very yummy!

Sasha will get her gift later. Mom said they couldn't buy it early because it was too big to hide and considering what it was she knew Sasha would sense it was somewhere in the house so in this case it has to be a last minute gift. I'll show you pictures of the gift later. Okay, now I'm going to let Mom talk about Sasha's birthday. Happy Birthday to my older sister Sasha!!!! I Love You!!!!!

Kaos's Mom: Today is my little girl's 6th birthday!! I can't believe she's 6! Sasha and I have a very special connection because I had her before I met my husband. She was actually supposed to be a Christmas gift for my mom's neighbor. She didn't like all the cute puppy stuff that I thought was adorable so she gave her back to my mom. I told my mom I wanted her but at the time I was in an apartment that wouldn't allow pets. I was in month 6 of a 12 month lease. That was the longest year of my life not having a pet living with me. The day my mom was able to pick Sasha up she spent the night with me. We snuck her into the apartment that night and then they brought her neighbor over the next morning. That sucked. I was there for Sasha the first night away from her dog mom and then they came and took her away the next morning. When the neighbor gave her back she said that we could keep her until she was potty trained and calmed down and then she would take her back. My mom said noway because then we would be attached to her and wouldn't be able to give her back. Even though she was my dog I still worried about the neighbor coming and saying she was ready to have her back now and my mom letting her have her. She stayed with my mom and sister until I was able to move that June into a house that allowed pets. It was great. Sasha finally got the attention she needed and the care she needed. I got her fixed and updated on all her shots and everything was good until I had to move back to my mom's house. I couldn't stand my roommate anymore and I was completly broke. We moved into the tiny room at my mom's house and we did okay for a year. Sasha was miserable, but okay. She got blamed for stuff that she didn't do and my mom was mean to her. She had a Saint Bernard (a very sweet dog that would let Sasah sleep in her tail or on her back outin the yard and would throw pieces of her food to Sasha as a treat - it was so cute!) and there was also the black lab that my brother had abandoned onto my mom because his girlfriend didn't like the poor dog and yet my little dog got blamed for a big puddle of pee in the family room. After we moved back to my mom's Sasha started acting like she didn't know she was potty trained so she got blamed even for the large puddles. I pointed out to my mom there was no way Sasha's little bladder could hold that much liquid, but Sasha still got blamed. I was working 2 jobs at that time trying to get caught up so a lot of Sasha's care did get left with my mom and sister. My sister did okay, but she was in highschool and was busy, too. I know my mom wasn't nice to Sasha and I don't know what all she did to her but I do know it wasn't good.

When I met my husband we hung out a lot at his mom's house. It was an escape for me to get away from my mom, but Sasha got left at my mom's. Finally I asked my husband if we could talk his mom into letting Sasha come and right away Sasha and her new Grandma bonded. I was able to go to Cancun for a week (free!) and my husband came by every day to check on Sasha because he knew I was worried about her. The week I went on vacation was actually the week before we closed on our first house. When I came back I started packing and Sasha was a completely different dog. She was very clingy to be - more than she normally was - and was horrible when I was gone. We did a lot of work on the house before we actually moved into it and we started moving my stuff first because I didn't want to pay another month on my storage unit plus we needed to get Sasha and I out. The day that we actually moved into the house I wasn't planning on bringing Sasha yet because there was still painting that was being done and I wanted to be able to have her full attention when I moved her in because there was so much newness. Well, my mom called and said she was bringing Sasha over because she was going crazy. Sure enough, Sasha thought she was being left and she was acting crazy! For the first few months Sasha had some potty training issues which took her almost a year to get over. I couldn't understand why. It was only by the front door even though she went out the back to go potty and she seemed to do it mostly in the middle of the night. That first Christmas she was a mess again. We got the boxes of Christmas stuff out and she got worse about pooping by the front door and she'd hide and acted weird. Then she was fine when the boxes were away and then when the decoration boxes came back out to be put away she did it again. I thought it was because she was afraid of being abandoned again so any time there were a bunch of boxes around I made sure she had lots of attention. 3 years ago around Thanksgiving my mom stopped talking to me altogether and I quit going to her house. After a few months Sasha was fine - totally fine. We had Kaos for a year by then and she was nicer to Kaos and even to Gunnar. All I could think of was she finally was out of her puppy weirdness. When my mom died last December I had a hard time with it. Kaos is my nurse and takes care of me when I'm sick or sad, but I needed Sasha to be there for me at that time and I think she knew it because she stopped hiding under the bed all the time and would sit with me on the couch and even in my lap and she never used to do that. I know she may not have fully understood what was going on, but I believe she knew a bad part of our lives was finally over and we were free. We didn't have to worry about the mean lady anymore. Of course I was sad that my mom had died because she was my mom and I did have memories of her that were good when I was younger, but the bad ones were the ones that made me feel trapped and once she was gone her power that she had over me was gone, too and I was free and so was Sasha.

When we started the remodeling of the old house to get it sold Sasha hid a lot, especially when there were only hardwood floors. It took me awhile to realize my mom's house had hardwood floors and that's when I knew my mom did something bad to my little girl when I wasn't around and of course I started feeling even more guilty. She was a little weird about the boxes when we started moving stuff, but what we were storing stuff at Grandma's house so when we would take a load of boxes we would make sure the dogs saw it was all going to Grandma's house and when the Jeeps were being moved to Grandma's they went and then saw them there when we'd take more stuff. Kaos has abandonment issues also and I know that's pretty much a trait of a rescue dog and even though Sasha really wasn't a true rescue dog, I still consider her one because I rescued her from my mom. They would get excited seeing us load up the trucks wih boxes because that meant we were going to Grandma's. We stayed at Grandma's a week and then moved to the new house and both Kaos and Sasha are going through a puppy phase. Kaos has always been playful but when Sasha and I moved back to my mom's house Sasha stopped her playful stuff and started her hiding phase. Now, Sasha is an instagator and hardly ever hides under the bed. If she's hiding that means she's not feeling good or just needs a few minutes for some alone time, but those moments are very rare now. I think she knows she never has to worry about going to the mean lady's house ever again and she isn't reminded about the bad house anymore because there is only carpet and linoleum in the new house. I never thought about the hardwood floors being an issue for her before but when you are that low to the ground, the floor is a big part of your daily life.

Sasha may be our oldest furkid but she will always be my little baby. We've been through a lot together and take care of each other. I can't believe she's 6! I was going to show you some puppy pictures, but that was before I used my digital camera all the time and I can't find the box of pictures of her on film (I'm never moving again!!!!). Trust me, she was a cute puppy. I've learned a lot from Sasha. I've always had pets growing up so it wasn't that I learned how to take care of a living being, it was that I learned about myself and that her symptoms of abuse were very similar to how I was acting. I wasn't pooping by the front door, but I was hiding a lot. Instead of choosing to go hang out with friends, I'd hide in my room. I almost didn't go out on the first date with my husband because I wanted to hide in my room, but something made me not chicken out and I am so happy I did go and so is Sasha. I'm sure Gunnar and Kaos are, too. Now, Sasha and I don't hide, we're both more playful and smile a lot more - and they aren't fake smiles!

Happy 6th birthday to my little wiener dog. I love you very much!!

Artsy Fartsy Friday

2008-10-17T15:33:00.003-06:00

Yes, it's true it's Friday and I'm doing an Artsy Fartsy Friday post! Mom is also supposed to be doing a post on her food blog today about some very yummy cookies. We're going to be doing some Halloween cookies this weekend, too I think so she'll have more cookie recipes next week (if she has time to do a post).
Okay, this photo is called "Eye of Heaven." We were getting ready to go up a trail and all the guys were getting their tires and shocks ready and Mom looked up and thought the sun looking through the trees was cool. When she pulled it up on the screen when we got home she said if felt like someone up above looking down on them, that's where it got it's name.

Hope you enjoy the photo. Have a good weekend everybody.

Did You Hear The News? - Updated

2008-10-16T13:48:00.004-06:00

DWB has it's 1000th member and there's a winner for the guessing game!!! The dogs over at It's the Dog's Life are celebrating because their Mom guessed the right day we'd get our 1,000th member! I was so close! I was only a week off! That's okay though, it was a lot of fun guessing.
Since we have our 1,000th member do you know what that means? Lots of treats!!! It also means you should get your story in for the DWB What it Means to Me Blog. Don't worry, Mom hasn't done our story yet either. Mom WILL be doing our's this weekend , cuz I said so. When you have your's ready, email it to my mom (HilarysDesigns (at) yahoo (dot) com) or email it to Ben's Mum (hehe, I love saying Mum) and they will get it posted for you. If you would like your picture on, go ahead and send it, too. If you haven't checked the stories posted so far, you should definately go read the stories so far. Grab some kleenex though. Not because they're sad stories, it's because they're some very touching stories. If your Mom leaks like my Mom does, make sure it's a full box!
The 1,oooth member is a boxer named Angus. Be sure to go say hi to him. I bet when his mom submitted the request to be on DWB she had no idea that they would become so popular! When I posted my hi & congrats comment, I think I was #43. I've NEVER had that many comments for one of my posts before! That would take me forever to read all of those plus then I'd have to go visit all the new dogs that came to visit me and leave them a thank you comment! That would be an all day job.
Congratulations to It's the Dog's Life and Angus!!!!!!!! Time to PARTY!!!!!
***I just wanted to let everyone know that Marvin's story is on the DWB What it Means to Me Blog!! Have your kleenex close! Mom is still leaking after reading his poem! We've missed his poems a lot!***

Go Visit Mona & The Mommy!!

2008-10-15T08:57:00.002-06:00

This is one of those moments that DWB members are so good at - supporting each other. For those of you that know Mona & The Mommy, you need to hurry over to their blog and send them some hugs and good vibes if you haven't already. Their good friend Jody went to the Rainbow Bridge and Mona and The Mommy need our support. If you don't know Mona & The Mommy, trust me, they have the biggest hearts ever and would definately do the same for you even if they didn't know you. We didn't personally know Jody, but we know he meant a lot to Mona and the Mommy and Mona and the Mommy mean a lot to us so we are very sad and are leaking a little, too.
Thank you!

After you go visit Mona and the Mommy I need you to keep your paws crossed for my sister Sasha. Two nights ago she kept dragging her butt on the floor and licking it a lot. Mom and Dad picked her up and looked her over to see what was wrong and she had a really bad sore on her butt. Dad cleaned her butt off a little and Mom attempted to hold on to Sasha. Mom says it's easier to hold onto me in a situation like that than it is to hold onto Sasha. After we moved, Mom can't find the stuff they put in the cheese to make it Magic Cheese that makes us feel better when we hurt so Mom asked Grandma to get some for Sasha. Yesterday morning Sasha didn't even come say bye to Mom before she left for work so Mom said if she wasn't feeling better soon she was going to call the v-e-t. The V-word seems to have had some healing powers because when Mom and Dad came home for lunch Sasha was running around and then when they came home from work she was being crazy with me. There's still a sore on her butt but it doesn't look as bad. Cross your paws that it gets better because Mom doesn't do so well when she has to take one of us to the v-e-t when we're sick (she seems okay when we have to go get shots though - what's up with that???) and Mom has a doctor's appointment next week (no worries, just a yearly check-up). Mom doesn't do good in doctor's offices, even the vet. Dad has to drive her to the appointments and go in with her and then after the appointment, he has to tell Mom what happened because Mom is focussing on not passing out. She's okay with needles and stuff like that, she just doesn't like doctors and has trust issues with them after she had a bad one. If Mom has to take Sasha to the v-e-t and then go to her appointment next week, she may end up in a corner, rocking back and forth, sucking her thumb and babbling and I don't want to see that again!!
Okay, now go visit Mona & The Mommy!

The Letter B

2008-10-14T13:51:00.007-06:00

Hi Everybody!! Have you guys seen the letter game being played yet? I've seen a few of you play it and it looked like fun so I asked Lorenza for a letter and she gave me the letter B. I now have to list 10 things I love that start with the letter B. Here is my list.

1. Big Jeep - That's MY Jeep! I don't care that it's in Dad's name or that Dad has had it for a very long time or that Dad has done all the work on it or that Dad is the only one that drives it (Mom drove it a couple times, but it makes her nervous) or that dogs can't legally own a vehicle, it's still MY Jeep!

2. Brown Jeep Truck - I don't have any pictures of my truck!!!! I can't believe this! I'm going to have to have a word with my photographer!!!! The Jeep truck is also MY Jeep truck. I also can't drive it but like I said, that doesn't matter. There is a deck in the back that helps me to lay down and look out the window or into the cab and I love it in there! I will jump into the back of my truck before the tailgate is even town!! Dad is working on reinforcing the deck and putting some more comfortable carpeting on it for me. Moving wasn't nice to my deck.

3. Boyfriend Flash - Isn't he cute? Back off girls! He's My Boyfriend!!!

4. Blue Kia - There are also no pictures of the Blue Kia! What is up with my photographer!! The Blue Kia isn't the greatest vehicle, but it does take us on long road trips which is fun. Mom bought it way before she met Dad. It also takes us to the vet so I let Sasha say it's her's (even though it belongs to me, too).

5. Blogging Buddies - I can't put pictures of all my buddies on here because it would take forever and I would probably run out of memory allowed for this post.

6. BACON - I'm not putting a picture of bacon on here either because I don't want to be respondible for drool on the keyboards, drool on the computer screens or broken or missing computer monitors. It's safer that way.

7. Big House - OH! There is a picture of the Blue Kia! Okay, sorry Mom. You're not slacking as much as I thought you were! You can tell this picture was taken before the garage got organized a little cuz Mom parks in the garage now instead of outside. Our big house is so wonderful! The best thing is, the weather is getting cold outside and we're warm inside and the furnace hardly ever runs!!! If we were still in our old house we would be gathering wood right now for the fireplace to help warm the house without runing the furnace so much.

8. Back Yard - I'm including the fenced area and the run free area in #8. There's grass and lots of places to lay in the sun and the shade and the run free area is so much fun to chase tennis balls and explore! If you look really really really really really hard to the left of that pole you can see the topper on my brown truck. Don't hurt your eyes though!!

9. Balls For Fetching & 10. Big Bed - See that ball in my mouth? It's a really fun ball to play with in the house because it doesn't bounce and break stuff which means Mom doesn't get mad. Mom says don't look at the messy bed, but that's the best part about it! Mom hasn't fully put the bed together since the move. The comforter got stuck in a closet so it wouldn't get messed up during all the unpacking and cleaning of the new house. That fuzzy blanket I'm standing on is Sasha's favorite place to spend the day. I like it, too but Sasha will spend all day curled up in it if Mom and Dad aren't around and sometimes even if they are home but aren't doing anything Sasha things is interesting. Gunnar likes to sleep on it at night on Mom's feet. Mom says he's her foot warmer and massager. When it's cold Gunnar likes to cuddle with fuzzy blankets (the only time he ever cuddles!) and then he purs (the only time he ever purs, too). If you look close at the sheets you'll see that the decoration is labs!!! There's more black labs than any other lab. These are the warm weather sheets. The cold weather ones have fish on them, but I think these are the best sheets because there aren't any cats or dacshunds on them so what does that tell you about who Mom and Dad's favortie is? The big bed is also the best place for snuggles. Mom and I can't start our days without morning snuggles.

This was a fun game. If you would like a letter, just let me know. I promise I won't give you a hard one like "X" or "O".

7x7 Tag

2008-10-10T14:58:00.002-06:00

No Artsy Fartsy Driday post again today. Mom says she's been too busy with work stuff to find the pictures I want.
So instead, Maggie and Mitch tagged me to do the 7x7 game. This took lots of thinking.

7 Things I Plan To Do Before I Die
1. Drive my Jeep Rock Crawler
2. Drive My Brown Jeep Truck
3. Drive my Blue Jeep Truck
4. Build a giant swimming pool in my back yard
5. Build a robot that will play fetch with me whenever I want
6. Start a dog bakery so my mom can stay home with me all day
7. Beat my cat brother at a wrestling match ( he cheats!!!!!)

7 Things I Do Now
1. Play fetch with mom everyday
2. Play fetch with dad everyday
3. Play fetch with grandma everyday
4. Run crazy around my house when I can't get someoen to play fetch
5. Cuddle with mom
6. Guard my house
7. Help Dad work on my Jeeps

7 Things I Can't Do
1. Pee on Command like Sasha
2. Drive
3. Eat anything I want
4. Play fetch 24/7
5. Sleep in the big bed all night
6. Play fetch at midnight
7. Play fetch & eat at the same time

7 Things That Atract Me to The Opposite Sex
1. Furry Butt
2. Great Smile
3. Love for human kids
4. Likes to run around crazy in his house
5. Medium size
6. Sparle in his eyes.
7. Named Flash

7 Things I say Most Often
1. Wanna play fetch?
2. Please play fetch with me!
3. here, throw my ball.
4. Please throw my rope.
5. Look! I brought you a toy to throw!
6. Can I have a treat? I haven't asked to play fetch in like 2 entire long minutes.
7. But you said you'd play fetch later and it's later!

7 Celebrities That I Admire
1. Bon Jovi - Mom is a big fan of him and I like him too because he focusses on his wife and kids a lot
2. Lorenza - check out this post for proof she's a celebritie
3. Michael Phelps - Cuz he loves his dog so much and I want to swim as fast as him some day
4. Whoever Invented the Tennis Ball
5.The person that invented the squeek toy
6. Paula Dean - because when my mom buys her magazine or watches her show she always makes something yummy I get to help with
7. The Mythbusters guys cuz those guys are way cool!!

7 Who Get to do this now
1. Flash & Peanut
2. Huskee
3.Lorenza
4. Joey & Tanner
5.Dannon
6. Petra
7. Ben The Rotti (if you have recovered from the fundraiser)

Phew, I better go take a nap now before Mom comes home to play fetch. She doesn't have to start dinner when she gets home tonight because Grandma is bringing home PIZZA!!!!! I hope its the barbeque chicken on because Mom always ends up eating an extra pice of that because it's so yummy which means Sasha and I get an extra pizza bone!!
Have a great weekend everybody!

Thanks Rocky!

2008-10-08T14:02:00.002-06:00

I want to start this post by thanking Rocky for telling me what Ubssessive Cumpulsive means. Since my wonderful boyfriend Flash also gets called this then I know for a fact Rocky is correct. Here is what Rocky said it means: me thinks dat ubssessive cumpulsive means a very detailed pup, always on top of stuffs. That is so me!! Thank you Rocky for clearing that up!
This is a short post because Mom and I both have some stuff we need to get done like our What DWB Means To Me Story and I am busy researching recipes for the business I'm going to make Mom start up. I need to come up with a cool name for it, too.
I forgot to tell you guys that Mom posted the yummy bacon recipe on her cooking blog last week. It is very yummy so be sure you get someone to make it for you!!! I wish Mom would make it every week!! We're trying to figure out a good time to make bacon wrapped tater tots. Personally, I think any time is a good time, but Mom doesn't think so. I hope soon is a good time though because those are extremly yummy, plus as long as the human remembers to take the toothpick out, they are perfect shape and size for tossing through the air into a bacon and cheese loving dog's mouth.

I AM NOT Ubssessive Cumpulsive

2008-10-07T16:36:00.002-06:00

Dad's uncle came to visit Friday night and left Saturday afternoon and I wanted to play lots with him. I even showed off a little bny putting my toys away and doing what I was told to do. He was very impressed with me and even told Grandma Iwas a pretty smart dog. Mom told me I was being an annoying and ubssessive cumpulsive, I have no idea what that means, but I know that's not me!
Dad took me out in the acreage to play with my tennis ball this weekend and for some reason Mom left her camera in the house. I was exhausted after a few throws of the ball. I didn't want to stop and Mom called me that thing again. I am not!!
Then Sunday Mom and Dad did a bunch of work out in the shop area. I helped a little bit but I was bored. Whenever Grandma went out in the yard I ran over and wanted in the small yard to play ball for awhile. Again Mom said I was Ubssessive Cumpulsive. I have no idea what that means but after being called it all weekend in the tone of voice she was using, I don't think it was good.
Grandma says my human cousins are supposed to come visit for Thanksgiving all the way from California! I've neer met the boy and the girl was real little when I met her and I was really hyper and she was afraid of me. That was right before they moved to California. I'm excited because they're going to stay at my house and the boy is 2 and from what I understand about 2 years old they'r really messy eaters and they carry food around with them a lot and their faces are really messy and need cleaning. Mom says I have to be careful around my human cousins because they're not used to being around Ubssessive Cumpulsive animals with a hyperness disorder. Mom makes it sound like I've got issues! My other human cousin who I've never met has a lab and some kitties at her house so Mom says if she ever comes to visit I'm okay to be crazy around her.
Dad and I have been planning some surprises for Mom's birthday. It's still a couple weeks away but it's kind of a big one. I know it's not polite to tell a woman's age so I'll give you clues and if you guess it on your own, then I don't get in trouble for tell you. Okay, ready? There's a 0 and a 3 and they're not in that order!! hehe I know you guys can guess it! I can't tell you any of the surprises though until after her birthday because I don't want you guys to guess them and then accidently tell Mom. Not that I don't trust you, just that you might slip.
Mom and Dad should be home soon. Mom didn't come home for lunch today and that makes me angry! She was supposed to have a meeting and her boss forgot to tell her it was resheduled. Mom finally went and got some lunch 2 hours after the meeting was supposed to start (she couldn't get ahold of her boss to find out what was going on). Tomorrow her office is having a party for Mom's birthday for lunch. It's actually the monthly potluck for birthdays in her office and there are 2 other October birthdays, but Mom is the most important one so I say it's for her. That means I won't see Mom at lunch tomorrow either! I really need to find her a new job where she can see me lots. I should start up a dog treat making business and she can be my baker and I'll get people to order yummy treats for their dogs and she can bake them. I'll start looking into that and finding recipes for he to try. I bet you would all volunteer to do some taste testing wouldn't you? We'd have to do some testing on methods for shipping them, too and I'm sure you would all help us with that.
Uh oh, Dad's home I better go let him know how much I missed him!

A Fun New Game

2008-10-02T15:59:00.003-06:00

We're having company tomorrow night so I don't know if I'll be able to post tomorrow or not. I have to get the house ready for this visit. It's my dad's uncle coming to work on a Jeep. Not the one that lives near Houston, this one lives in Colorado. This uncle is my most favorite because he likes Jeeps AND he has a black lab and a dachsund at home so he knows how to play with us and where to scratch us. He's going to stay the night with us and then leave the next day. I can't wait!!! I'll try to post for Artsy Fartsy Friday, but I have to make sure all the cool toys are found before then. That reminds me! I need to get Mom take pictures of the new toys Grandma bought us - after I find them! They're sneaky little things!

Okay, now for the fun new game I've learned. When we moved to the new house we got new tags. We got both the rabies and the id. Mom hopes in 2 years they make the rabies tags smaller. Poor Sasha is going to have a hard time holding her head up if they keep getting bigger and bigger! Mom and Dad got me a shiny silver dogbone shaped id tag. You really can't see it very well in this picture, put it's hard to get a picture of this game - you'll understand in a little bit. Okay, so we have a GIANT picture window in the front of the house and then sliding glass doors to the back yard. This game is played in both areas and is equally fun in both locations. In that picture we're in the living room. Mom will be sitting on the couch and I'll stand in front of her just right and the sun will come in the picture window, reflect off my id tag and into Mom's eyes! It's BIG fun!! With the patio doors I have to stand outside to get the sun since it's a covered patio. I can get Mom good if she's walking through the dining room. It's fun to tease Gunnar, too because he'll chase the reflection on the floor. If possible, you guys have to try this game!!!! It's fun!!

There is a warning though. Before I figured out it was a cool game, I was a victim to the fun. I was standing outside Grandma's bedroom door and I kept scratching at the cartpet. Mom thought I had lost my marbles, but then she realized the light was reflecting off my id tag onto the floor and I was chasing it. That was kind of embarassing so that's why I turned it into a game to play with Mom. It's a lot of fun, but Mom hasn't realized that yet. Weirdo! Mom and Dad are thinking about getting me a new id tag. I hope it's really extra shiney and bigger so I can catch more sun!!

1000th Member Celebration

2008-10-01T11:41:00.004-06:00

Hi! Remember me? It's been a crazy couple of weeks so I haven't been able to post. I think things are slowing down around here though so I'll hopefully be better about posting.
First I need to say a Happy Belated 21st birthday to my Aunt Gillian. You're a dork!!! (That was from Mom.)
Okay, now the super important stuff. Most of you know that my mom and Ben's mom are in charge of the 1,000th member celebration. There is a contest and a story blog. For the stories we want you to get creative. We want to know what Dogs With Blogs means to you. You can write a story, make a video, make a pice of artwork or whatever you can think of. Get funny, sentimental or weird. To submit your entry email Ben's mom or my mom. In the subject line you can put something like "DWB Story" if you email to my mom so she'll know it's an important email and will take care of it right away. She's really bad about not reading all her emails every day! She's getting better though. Here's the link to the blog where you can see everybody's stories and where your's will be posted: http://dwbwhatitmeans.blogspot.com/.
For the contest go here: http://dwbguessingcomp.blogspot.com/ and submit your guess. Better hurry and guess though, we're already at 986 members!!!! There are prizes for the closest guess!
We can't wait to read your stories or watch your stories so get started on them.
I'm so excited!!!!! I better go lay down for awhile.
WOOOHOOOOO!!!!

This is Hilarious!!!

2008-09-22T13:27:00.002-06:00

Hi everyone! Hope your weekend was good. My weekend wasn't very exciting, but I still had fun - well except for the bath. I do feel good after my bath though so I'm not going to complain too much about it. I have a very funny picture to show you. Here it is:

Without the description it isn't that funny so here's what happened. Gunnar was on the floor (we're not exactly sure how long he'd been there) and Mom was on the couch. I was in the dining room in front of the sliding patio door enjoying the breeze and all of a sudden Mom was laughing and took this picture. I thought Gunnar had just stretched into a cute position so Mom had to take his picture. I was wrong. He'd been in this position for awhile glarring at Mom. Mom realized he was stuck and her first instinct as a Mom was to take his picture (glad I wasn't the one getting stuck!!!) and then she released his claws from the carpet. Mom has to trim his nails on a regular basis. Mom says she's never had a cat who's claws/daggers grow like Gunnar's! They get so long they curl into his feet. In the old house Mom knew it was time to trim his nails because he would click on the hardwood floors. This house is lots and lots of carpet so he doen't click unless he goes into the bathrooms and he hardly ever goes in there so Mom decided Sunday she needs to check him once in awhile instead of waiting for the clicking. He hasn't gotten clipped yet because Mom had just vacuumed and didn't want to get the vacuum out again to clean up the mess, but he will be clipped soon and I can't wait. After Gunnar gets his nails done we all get treats!!! It's great!!
I'm off to take a nap now. All this laughing at Gunnar stuck on the carpet makes me exhausted.

Artsy Fartsy Friday Returns

2008-09-19T15:08:00.004-06:00

It's Friday!!! Know what that means? Lots of fetch for the next 2 days!! WOOHOO!!! The answer to Mom's questions are, no I'm not tired of playing fetch yet and no I don't have anything better to do than play fetch and yes I can play fetch by myself but it's not much fun and no my legs haven't fallen off yet.

First, I got an award from Dannan. I can't get the picture to cooperate so it's just going to have to stay where it is. It's supposed to be to the left, but it really wants to be centered. Anyway, Dannan is a new friend and he's really funny and cute (not like I have a crush on him cute, I want to make that very clear because that's how rumors get started and I don't want my bestest boyfriend Flash to think I'm cheating on him). Thank you Dannan!!

I'll do some thinking about who to pass the award on to.

Next I want to thank everyone for going to visit mom's new blog. She's all embarassed about it and is very happy that so far everybody likes it. The yummy cookie recipe that is not for dogs is posted today. I made sure she grabbed the card before she left. Good thing cuz she had some of the measurements confused.

Artsy Fartsy Friday is finally returning!!! Another post about Mom! Her head is going to explode with all the bragging I'm doing about her! Don't worry, next week it will be all about me again and her head will shrink back down to normal size again.

I'm going to share with you another one of Mom's photography pieces. This one is called Below Timberline. She was sitting in her chair on a camping trip once and looked up at the Aspen trees and had one of those spiritual moments. Cool huh? I'm hoping we get to go camping next summer. Last summer Mom had her surgery and was in no condition to go camping, this summer we moved and so my paws are crossed we get to go next summer! Mom hopes so to because she hasn't taken any new nature pictures in a long time and she says she's goingthrough withdrawl.

Hope you all have a good weekend! For those in the Hurricane Ike area that are still without electricity, I hope you get electricity soon and can post how you're doing SOON! Especially Mona and the Mommy! Sammy, Roxie and Andy have been able to update us on them, but it will be nice to hear directly from Mona that she's doing okay. My dad's uncle is bored. His wife went back to work (she works at a bank so they were one of the first to get power back) but Dad's uncle works at a place that isn't high on the priority list so he's been hanging out with other people in his neighborhood that can't go back to work yet and are bored because they still don't have electricity either. He's been making ice for the neighborhood since he has a generator for the fridge. He also finally had time to read the owner's manual on his generator and found out he should have changed the oil in it after Rita. Oops!

Mom's New Blog

2008-09-18T14:57:00.002-06:00

Thanks to everybody for giving Mom some hugs. She was prepared for a bad meeting with her bosses, but it went way worse than she had planned and it threw her off guard. All of your hugs helped and of course hugs from me, Sasha, Gunnar and Dad helped a lot, too.
A few weeks ago Mom started a new blog. It was something she had been thinking of doing, but was a little nervous about doing. After being a devoted reader to Joey & Tanner's Mom's blog, Dorry's Mom's Blog and Sparky & Patches' Mom's blog she decided since they make it look easy, she could do it, too! - she hopes. She wanted to do her's a little different though and she decided only to do a weekly recipe so she doesn't stress out. What she does is talks about a gadget and does a review on it (so far they're all positive reviews because she's starting off with some of her favorite gadgets) and then she gives a recipe that you can make using the gadget. She has a really yummy cookie recipe for this week's post, but she keeps forgetting to take the recipe card with her to copy. She pretty much has it memorized because she loves the cookies, but she doesn't want to leave anything out. Check her blog tomorrow for that recipe (if she remembers to take it tomorrow). She also invites anybody else to do a guest post if you would like to review a gadget and share a recipe. Or, if you want to send her a gadget to do a review on, you could do that, too. Just email her at HilarysDesigns(at)yahoo(dot)com for more info on doing either of those.
I guess I should give you the address. It is http://HilarysKitchen.BraveLog.com. She's using the Bravenet blog and isn't too impressed with it so far, but she uses Bravenet for her art website and she thought if she was forced to log in to Bravenet weekly, she might update her art stuff. So far that hasn't happened, but it might. So go over and check out her stuff. The macaroni salad is very yummy! It has bacon in it!!! She also has a breakfast pizza recipe to share soon that has bacon (that's what I helped with the other night)! You'd think we eat a lot of bacon around here. That reminds me, she also has a recipe for bacon wrapped tater tots that are great for superbowl parties and any other kind of party. I'll have to remind her to share that one, too cuz it has bacon AND cheese!! I'm not sure what gadget she'll review with that recipe though. Maybe a toothpick or BACON! That's a cooking gadget isn't it? She could reiew our sucky oven!! That's the only appliance in the new house that mom hates.
So go check out her posts so far and then on Friday check out her cookie recipe. It's not for dogs, but your humans will all love them lots! Dad blames the weight he gained after he quit smoking on those cookies. Grandma told Mom she has to make some for her to take to work so she can take credit for them. Mom loves making them so she said sure. I'm also going to try to start doing Artsy Fartsy Friday again tomorrow. Lots of cool posts on Friday!
All this talk about bacon is making me hungry! I'm going to go see if any of us dropped and food this morning after breakfast. I hope I find some of Gunnar's food. That stuff is really yummy! Mom hates it because it stinks but after his bladder infection he has to be on a special ph level of food so he doesn't get sick again. If I could figure out how to run a camera without those fancy thumbs, I'd show you pictures of Mom feeding Gunnar. She makes lots of funny faces. She says changing his litterbox doesn't smell half as bad as that food. we all think the food smells good and tastes really good though. I really need to stop talking about food! I hope Mom comes home early to feed us!!!

Helping With Bacon

2008-09-16T15:52:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone! A couple of you asked about how I cook the bacon so I'm going to give you the requirements and instructions on how to help cook bacon.
First, would you do me a big favor and send some virtual hugs to my mom? She is having a really bad week at work and it's only Tuesday! Your hugs will probably make her cry, but I think she needs them. Luckily she wears contacts and is having allergy issues right now so if someone walks into her office when she's got tears in her eyes she can blame it on her contacts and allergies - she does it all the time.
Okay here's the instructions for helping your parents cook bacon.
1. This is the hardest step I think. You have to learn to control your drooling. This is the part that takes the most focus because a dogs natural reaction to cooking bacon is to drool and to drool a lot!! If you drool during the process, your Mom could either step in it and get grossed out and annoyed or slip on it and get hurt which means the entire bacon process ends. If she gets grossed you, you get kicked out of the kitchen totally.
2. Next you have to figure out a safe spot to sit. You do not want to get in the way. If they trip over you, you get kicked out completely.
3. Once the bacon is in the pan and starts sizzling, watch for grease that pops out of the pan. If you have a slick floor be sure to clean it up if it gets too thick on the floor. My mom does a better job of controling her popping grease, but Dad makes a huge mess!
4. Once the bacon is almost done, create a distraction. This is where siblings come in handy. Make sure it's a big distraction so the one cooking the bacon has to go see what's going on and hopefully it will take a long time to take care of the distraction so the bacon gets a little too overcooked for human taste. Dogs don't care if the bacon is black and crispy! It still tastes like BACON!!
5. Enjoy the bacon, after all that hard work, you deserve it! This works on other foods like eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches hamburgers on the grill.
Hope this helps all of you!! Dad should be home soon. We're doing some yard work tonight which means I will annoy Mom and Dad with my tennis ball while they try to control the weeds in the back yard and fix the spot in the grass that has nothing growing on it. I think the previous owner had a pool set up for their dog and it killed the grass. When I get my new pool next summer I'll make sure Mom moves it around a lot so it doesn't kill my wonderful grass.

New Friend

2008-09-15T14:45:00.003-06:00

Hi Everyone! I hope you are all doing okay. We're trying to log into out Bloglines account to check in on everybody, but it's having issues. I hope everyone near Ike is okay. Grandma tried calling her brother last night just to leave a message on his cellphone so when they finally get signal again he'll have a message and she couldn't even get it to let her connect to his voicemail so she sent a text message and all of a sudden her phone started beeping. They got the text message! We were all excited!! They live near Houston so they have no power except for a generator but they're almost out of gas. We all felt much better when Grandma got the text. We can't believe it went through. Grandma forwarded it on to her other brother and he was happy to get it, too. Grandma is becoming the texting master! Too bad they don't have texting on their cellphone plan. I think they're going to be adding it next time it comes up for renewal because Grandma is getting pretty good at it. She'll have to teach Mom some time. lol
Okay, now to tell you about my new friend. His name is Mr. Duckie (Don't worry Flash, he's not a boyfriend, just a friend that is a boy, Mom is the one that named him so it's her fault he's a boy). Grandma knows how to shop for toys for us. They're always cool and we play with them all day long. Grandma bought us a rubber duckie family. There was a Momma Duckie and 2 babies. Sasha killed one baby and the Momma vanished. We have no idea where she went. I think Sasha scared her away after destroying her other baby. So I took it on myself to take care of this little duckie. Here is a closeup of Mr. Duckie. Isn't he cute?

I was very protective of Mr. Duckie. This is me giving Mom the evil eye for not asking my permission to take a picture of Mr. Duckie.

Mr. Duckie and I played a lot of games together. Here we are doing some roaching in the living room. The living room floor is one of my most favorite things about our new house. It's so huge and there's so much space to play!

When I took naps, Mr. Duckie was in a safe place. I didn't want Sasha to get ahold of him! Here we are napping in front of the plants in front of the big picture window.

This is what Sasha thought of Mr. Duckie though (this was taken before Sasha's haircut so she's very fluffy. She spent all weekend curled up in a blanket shivering so we still don't have a after haircut picture of her).

Last week I went to get Mr. Duckie so we could play fetch with Mom and his entire left side was gone. If any of you live with a dacshund you'll know how sneaky they are and they can destroy a stuffie, rope or pretty much anything they want in about 22 seconds. I was very upset and took Mr. Duckie to Mom to see if she could fix him and she said she was sorry she couldn't. I was mad at Sasha. I wouldn't play with her or anything. When it was time to beg for food I wouldn't let her sit next to me and I'd try to steal her share. I've moved on though. I'm nice to Sasha again, but I still don't trust her.

For now on I don't let Sasha touch the toys I really like. I don't care if we're supposed to share. She killed Mr. Duckie! Grandma says she'll look for another Mr. Duckie and I won't let Sasha near him!

I'm going to go take a nap now. I heard Mom talking about cooking bacon tonight for dinner and I LOVE helping Mom cook bacon! It's a big job helping her and requires lots of energy and focus. That means a long afternoon nap is required.

A Bunch of Stuff

2008-09-12T13:58:00.004-06:00

Hey everyone,
I'm done thinking for now. That much thinking makes my brain very tired.

First I want to send some good vibes out to all those that are going to be affected by Ike. My mom's grandma lives in Arkansas and she called last night to say that they are getting a ton of rain from it. They've already set up a base near where she lives to help after Ike is done being mean. She said there's already a bunch of people coming in that evacuated. My Dad's uncle lives near Houston and they boarded up the windows (they saved their stuff from Rita) and have the generator ready. Grandma wasn't very happy that they decided to stay again, but Grandma worries about everybody in her family and when they're in the way of something big like Ike, she goes into major worry mode.

I keep forgetting to post that I got an award from Ben. Thanks Ben!!!!

Speaking of Ben, if you've been on DWB lately you may know that my mom and Ben's Mom are in charge of a celebration for the 1000th member! Can you believe DWB is that big? My mom and Ben's mom are working on some ideas for the celebration so if you have any ideas for them, be sure to let us know. I'm thinking Mom should do 1,000 posts in 5 days, but she doesn't seem to think that's a good idea or possible. Maybe if we started going on adventures again we'd have 1,000 fun things to talk about!

I made sure Dad brought home the right dog yesterday. It is definately Sasha. Mom was a little frustrated when the weather turned rainy and gloomy this morning because it never fails, whenever she schedules Sasha to get a hircut, it gets cold and then Sasha shivers and whines for 2 or more weeks. It was hot all week until this morning and that's cuz Sasha got a haircut yesterday. Sasha's pretty cute after a haircut, but I do't have any pictures for you because she won't come out from the blankets unless she really has to go outside so Mom hasn't been able to get her picture. Mom set up several blanket stations throughout the house for her. Don't worry about her though, tomorrow and Sunday we're supposed to be back to sunshine and higher temperatures.

Sasha didn't have a belly under that fur so NO DIET!!! WOOHOO!!! Grandma was told to cut back on our snacks though. I say if we're not getting fat, then she's doing okay, but Mom says winter is comign and we're usually less active inthe winter and we both gain weight. I think she forgets how big this new house is so I hve plenty of room to excercise dring the winter. Ohwell, at least we're not going on a diet!

I'm hoping to get back to Artsy Fartsy Fridays soon. I think they're kind of fun, plus it's fun embarassing Mom. She has self-esteem issues so when you guys tell her how cool something is, she blushes and doesn't know what to say. I showed you the tiger and the glacier lake photo which are a couple of her coolest pieces, but I've got some really cool stuff to show you still. We're having a yard sale this weekend and then hopefully she can set up her studio in the garage and get back to work on more stuff for me to show you.

Stay safe this weekend everyone and if you are in a stormy area be sure to post when you can to let everyone know you're safe!! Next week I have a few fun posts planned like a new blog my Mom has started, my new friend and a fun trick I learned with my new id tag (that one's the best, you don't want to miss it!!!)

Have a good and safe weekend everyone!!!

A Day Of Thinking

2008-09-11T10:13:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone. As you probably know, today is September 11th. If you live in the US it's kind of hard not to know what day it is because of all the memorial stuff they're doing on tv, on the radio and in the papers. Mom said she can't believe it's been 7 years since those planes crashed. Go to Asta's blog to see a really cool video about the dogs that helped that day. It's really cool.
Mom came home around 8:30 today and asked if we were ready and of course we were ready to do whatever she wanted to do! She grabbed the checkbook and the leashes so we knew we were going somewhere. We jumped in the car and were all excited and started driving and then Sasha and I started thinking about the last trip to the vet and how this seemed very similar. We started whining because we were worried. When we got to our destination I jumped out before the leash was on me which was really bad but there were so many smells! Mom came and grabbed be and hooked my leash on and I waited for Mom and Sasha. We went inside and right away Sasha knew where she was and wanted to leave. They took Sasha back and put her in a kennel and they took me and cut my nails. That's when I realized I knew where we were. Mom couldn't come back to where I was but the lady holding me was really nice and the guy was really gentle and fast. I kept looking back to Mom and she was smiling at me which helped a little. The groomer people are really nice and really good, that's why Mom insists on going to them even though it's a pain to get to their shop. Sasha had to stay, but Mom and I left. I didn't like that at all. Sasha is older than me so technically she's my big sister, but I'm lots bigger than her and I'm very protective of her. Mom kept telling me she'll be okay and I remember dropping her off after I got my nails done before, but I still didn't like it. On the way home I was looking out the window being very quiet and Mom said it looked like I was in some major deep thought. I was! There's been a lot going on at our house and in the world. It's a lot to think about! We found out this morning that my dad's uncle that lives near Houston isn't going to sit through the new hurricane like they did Rita. I have totally lost track of all the hurricane names because there's so many and that worries me alot. All my friends and even those that I don't know could get hurt in all those hurricanes! I don't like that thought at all!! Mom has been acting weird and has been making x's and counting on 2 pieces of paper and talking about pills she has to start taking and doctor's appointments and I have no idea what's up with that. Mom doesn't go to the doctor unless she's really sick. She's worse than Dad I think and I've been told that it's usually the man that is worse about going to the doctor! Gunnar has been grumpy lately and won't play with me as much. He says it's because Mom hasn't been sleeping good and she kicks him a lot. I told him to sleep inhis own bed then and that made him grumpier. Since Grandma started living with us, Mom thinks we've gained some weight and if Sasha has a belly after her grooming today (she was major overdue for her haircut so Mom couldn't tell if she had a belly or not) we might have to go on a diet!! That's torture for both of us and for Grandma, too!!!! The toads are driving Mom and Dad crazy in the back yard. Just when we think we've finally convinced them to relocate or not to come out until we've gone to bed, Sasha's chasing one around the yard! I'm trying to think of a way to make the toads go away. We would love them to stick around and eat all our bugs, but they need to stay out of the fenced area so Sasha won't go crazy over them anymore (Mom says she's obsessive and has toad breathe). See! That's a lot to think about!!!
Dad and Sasha should be home pretty soon so I'm going to go rest my brain for a few minutes so I can thoroughly sniff Sasha when she gets here to make sure Dad didn't bring home the wrong dog. He hasn't yet, but I don't want any imposters in my house where my sister should be!!

Fishing

2008-09-09T10:09:00.003-06:00

Thanks for all the voting. I didn't win but it's not from lack of support from all of you. Their voting system was weird and we're not exactly sure even if we were voting right. It sounds like maybe to vote, you were supposed to leave a comment instead of just clicking on the thumbs up. We're totally confused. The 2 cats and ferrit didn't win so we're okay with who did win. We'll be more organized and ready for next year's contest. Since we're not busy voting anymore, I can finally post the stuff I was going to post last week! First I have to show you what we did last night. We were fishing in our living room!!
It started off with Dad playing with Gunnar and a fishing pole. Mom was trying to get a picture of Gunnar in mid air, but itstead she got a bunch of pictures of my butt and Gunnar on the floor because she was too slow and I was major jealous.

I was extremly jealous Dad was playing with Gunnar instead of me so I made annoying whining noises until Dad played with me instead. You'll notice in the next 2 pictures that the fishing pole is bent. That's because the "bait" is in my mouth. I even shook my head and Dad said it felt like a big fish on the end of the pole.

After this last picture was taken Dad had to put one of my toys on the line because I ate the "bait." I was the fish that got away! Mom didn't take any pictures of me chasing my plastic bone on the line because she was afraid. When the small "bait" was on the line she almost got hit in the face twice. She said there was no way she was going to chance her precious camera getting hit by the large "bait." The game ended soon after Mom got hit in the head with my "bait." What a party pooper!!! It was a lot of fun!! Dad said we'll play again when Mom's giant head isn't in our way.
I just noticed the cowdog is back across the street so I better go let him know he needs to go away. I don't think cowdogs can hear very well. Have great Tuesday everybody!

Some New Voting Info

2008-09-03T09:32:00.002-06:00

Thanks everybody for voting for me!! I'm pretty sure I'm doing pretty good. They keep cahnging the page set ups. Right now I'm on page 26 of 27. Last night when we were voting there were 15 pages. There's still 399 photos, but the pages keep moving. Here's the link to the page I'm on right now:http://allthingsjeep.smugmug.com/gallery/5431344_hqQPz#364078124_sGZ4g. That could change in the next 30 seconds though. Mom and Dad found another cat photo in the line up last night and they were even more confused by it. It was at a trail head here in Colorado called Hancock Lake, and the cat was on the dash board like it was going to go wheeling on the trail. Who in the world would take a cat on a trip like that? No offense to my cat friends, but I dont know of any cat that would like to spend that much time in a vehicle on a really bumpy and hot ride. There may be cats out there like that, but I don't know any of them! PLUS it's a Jeep DOG contest! There's even a ferrit in the competition. Mom says that way too creepy.
Sometimes we can vote more than once and sometimes we can't. We found that if you close yout Internet windows and bring it back up, you can vote again. So if you're just sitting around doing nothing, just keep voting! Mom and Dad took turns while they were watching tv and Grandma was in the other room on her computer voting. We still don't know when voting ends, but winners will be announced on Sunday so Mom and I are going to get on Sunday afternoon and check it. We're assuming we go to the same palce where we're voting to find the winners or the main AllThingsJeep.com site so if you get curious and impatient waiting on me to tell you, you can go there, too.
There is one photo of a Wrangler sitting on a beach and you can so tell that the golden retrievers were photoshopped into the back. A lot of people noticed because in the comments they were leaving lots of comments about photoshopping and one person recognized the beach as a beach where dogs aren't allowed. It's a pretty bad photoshop job.
I'm off to vote some more and try to get caught up on my blog reading!! Thanks again everyone!!!

UPDATEDI Need Your Votes

2008-09-02T09:01:00.003-06:00

Isn't this a cool picture of me in my Jeep? We think so too, that's why Mom entered it in a Jeep Dog photo contest! We entered late though because Mom wasn't reading her email carefully while we were moving. I told her I'd forgive her as long as she helped me post here, to the DWB site and if she sent an email to all our family and friends. Here's the instructions she's sent to everyone:
Here's the link to the page Kaos is on: http://allthingsjeep.smugmug.com/gallery/5431344_hqQPz#P-33-12. She's the first one on page 33. If you see a picture of a smiling black lab in a big orange wagoneer with a grey back door on the right, you're on the right photo, hover over the picture with your mouse and then click on the green thumbs up. It only lets you vote once per computer so vote at work and every computer at home and your coworker's computers and anywhere else you can in the next couple of days.

No offense to all the DWB cat friends, but there's a cat in this competition! A cat can't win a JEEP DOG photo contest!! I bet that cat doesn't own it's Jeep!! I OWN my Jeep! That's right, that's MY Jeep!!! It used to be Dad's, but I took it over when Mom and Dad brought me home. If I win, I get a bag of Jeep themed toys! If I win the big prize, I get the same bag of toys plus Mom and Dad get a gift certificate to buy them some stuff from AllThingsJeep.com. Mom hasn't gotten on the site in awhile so when she got on it the other day she found lots of new stuff to get for Dad plus some Jeep stuff for women!

Thanks for your help everyone!!!!!

We submitted the photo Saturday night and it finally got posted this moring so I've been busy checking the computer like every 15 minutes and then when we saw the new photos posted, I went into hurry up mode to get all the posts and emails done so I'm going to go take a long nap now. I'm exhausted!!!

Updated info: I don't know if it's because you guys have already started voting or what, but I moved pages!! You can also vote lots of times!!! Here's a link directly to my photo: http://allthingsjeep.smugmug.com/gallery/5431344_hqQPz#364078124_sGZ4g-A-LB

Thanks!!!

Some Very Sad News

2008-08-29T08:19:00.004-06:00

Hi everybody. I'm very sad today. Mom forgot to check her email yesterday which is very weird for her, but she checked it this morning and we found out my cousin Bailey went to the Rainbow Bridge yesterday morning. My Mom and Aunt Gillian haven't been talking much lately (more of Mom's family drama crap) so that's why she didn't call Mom. My aunt said it was severe and fast liver failure and the vet told her they could try to treat it, but it was really really bad. My aunt decided not to have her treated and she died a couple days later which meant even if they had started the treatments, they probably wouldn't have worked because she was so sick.

I haven't seen Bailey in a long time because she was busy moving, then she was pregnant and had the puppies and then my aunt was having issues my mom didn't want to get involved in. I loved Bailey lots. We all did, even Gunnar who won't ever admit it. She was tons of fun to play and wrestle with. I know my Aunt has to be having a really hard time with this because her and Bailey were so close. Mom and I were trying to figure out how old Bailey was and we think she was around 2, maybe almost 3.

Run free sweet Bailey! I'll see you again some day and we can continue our wrestle games.

Mom, Dad and Grandma have a 3 day weekend this weekend so I'll be busy helping them with more house stuff and some relaxing. Happy Labor Day to everybody that gets to celebrate it and stay safe!!! I promise to have some fun stuff to post next week, I'm just too sad today. I also heard we lost another DWB member. I didn't knwo T-Man, but he sounded like a cool poodle.

My First Flight On Air Ruby!

2008-08-27T10:04:00.003-06:00

This is my very first trip on Air Ruby!! Can you believe I've never ridden on Air Ruby? ME EITHER!! I was pretty nervous, but luckily my bestest boyfriend in the entire world Flash is on the trip so I'm doing okay. It's so much fun! I'm glad I got to participate! Check out Ruby and Asta's blogs for more pictures and details on what we're doing! Thank you Ruby for a year of great trips and especially for this one and thank you Asta for making sure there's lots of pictures of the celebration and for the souvenir!

The Post You've All Been Waiting For!

2008-08-25T10:09:00.017-06:00

It's here! It's finally here!! Sunday morning was nice and sunney and Dad was at work and Grandma was cleaning her old house so I said "Yo Ma! Let's get this done so my friends don't have to come bite your butt!" Mom pointed out that hardly any of you were violent and most of you were very nice and understood that moving is stressful and takes lots of time. So I said, "If you don't go finish the picures right now, I won't cuddle with you anymore." Of course she jumped right up and got the pictures done! So here we FINALLY go! Mom says she knows you will try not looking at the mess. It looks better than it did last week, but there are still a few boxes sitting a round and a few pictures not hung. You'll notice there's no pictures of the inside of the garage or shop. That's cuz you can't walk through them yet. Mom, Dad and Grandma have a long weekend coming next weekend for Labor Day and we're going to be working on organizing at least the garage so Mom can park in it again (hopefully before winter comes).

This is the way you go up my driveway to where Mom parks. Off to my right is a circle driveway. Hopefully that garage will be open enough soon so Mom can park in it.

All my Jeeps are parked next to Mom's garage under a shade tree. You'll see Sasha's Jeep in the next picture.

Hurry up Mom, my friends have been waiting forever to see these pictures! If you had worn something besides flipflops you wouldn't have trouble walking through the rocks and weeds!

Okay, there you see my shop where Dad and I can work on Jeeps and stuff. It's a mess right now, too. See Sasha's Jeep next to the shop? This house has PLENTY of parking for all our vehicles plus a few Dad and I are thinking about getting.
That's my back yard. Our fenced area is actually smaller than our old fenced area, but this one has grass!! We LOVE rolling in the grass! Plus, it's been raining a lot and when we come inside we don't have to get our feet toweled off because they're no longer covered in mud, just rain water. It's great! Okay Mom, let's go back there!
We have just over an acre of land!! There's lots of stuff to sniff. That fenced area to the left used to be a dog run we think. Mom was going to make it her garden area, but Dad is using it for storage for right now and Mom is thinking about putting her garden somewhere else anyway.

Okay, now the really important stuff.
This is where I sleep. The first night I couldn't sleep here. In our old house, my bed was right next to Mom and Dad's bed and the wall. The first night I couldn't sleep so I went to Mom's side where there was a blanket up against the bed and slept there. The next few nights Dad put my bed against the bed and each night scooted it further away. I'm okay with it now and it's really nice not having Dad step on me if he gets up earlier than I do or comes to bed after I do. PLUS, there's carpet under my bed now so my bed is all sorts of comfy now!

This is Sasha's bed. She doesn't sleep against the bed anymore either. Mom does have to make Sasha's bed every morning though so she can get into the closet.
This is where our food and water is. That brown trash can isn't really a trash can, it's our food holder. We buy the really big bag of food and that's the only thing Mom and Dad could find big enough to hold it. This picture was taken before Mom put a special thing on that red cupboard for our milk bone cookies. Mom made the thing in art school and didn't know where to put it so she put it there and put our cookies in it so they are way more accesible to anybody that would like to give us a cookie. Cool huh?

One of the coolest things about our house is the sprinkler system. Mom and Dad figured it out one night and I played and played and played. Mom was having a hard time hearing Dad yell at her to turn knobs because she was laughing so hard at me. I would stand in the sprinklers and not move. If that side's sprinklers shut off and the other side turned on, I would run over and stand in the other ones. They haven't run the sprinklers since then because it's finally raining and taking care of the yard for us. We needed the rain really bad, but I kind of wish it would stop so I could play in the sprinklers again.

More playing in the sprinkler.

This is me laughing at Mom. Yeah right Mom!!!

One of the things I like most about this house is all the carpet. Sasha, Gunnar and I are loving the carpet. We don't slide into walls anymore and we don't have to kick Mom and Dad off the couch to have a nice palce to take a nap. There's also lots of floor space for rolling around. I do this a lot, unless Mom has the camera out. She's been trying to get a picture of me doing this for 3 years now and finally got it. I don't care, I was having fun. (See Mr. Ducky? More about him in another post.)

We have great views here! It's so quiet!! There are some times, there's no noise at all. We sleep really good now!!

This is our living room. I'll show you a better picture of that fish tank in the back in a little bit.

There is tons of space for playing fetch!!
Mom's fish tank finally has a home. That alcove was built for the original owner's china hutch but we don't have one of those, just a 29 gallon fish tank with a bunch of fish that have Mom trained. Mom's been having trouble getting the temperature to even out (she thinks she needs a new heater) and when the temperature isn't right 2 of the blue fish turn white so Mom can see they're stressed and so she goes and adjusts the heater and then they're okay. My mom is so trainable!

One of the things in our new house that we aren't sure about are these vents. Gunnar stares at them a lot. They blow out cold air once in awhile. Mom says in the winter they'll blow out warm air. Mom calls in Central Air and she's always talking about how great it is. In our old house the warm and cool air came from the ceiling from different vents. They're nice, but once in awhile you'll be laying there taking a nap and all of a sudden your butt is frozen from the air that comes out of it. I assigned Gunnar to figure them out. It will probably take him awhile.
This is our kitchen. Look at all that counterspace for baking us some goodies!! Mom finally got to bake this weekend after we took the pictures. No dog treats yet, but I'm sure there will be some soon!! Gunnar spends a lot of time laying in the middle of the kitchen floor.
This is Mom's most favorite part of the house! You should see how happy she is to do dishes now!! It's magical! You put the dirty dishes in it and it makes noises for awhile and then Mom opens the door and they're clean! I hope she doesn't put me in there!
It's been a few pictures since you saw me so I thought I'd add a random picture of me. This is during one of the many fetch session I have with Mom every day.
We also have a really cool hallway to run up and down. Sasha doesn't do it very often because she'll get trampled by me. I love running around crazy in our new house. Mom says Sasha and I are going through a puppy phase and as long as we stay potty trained, it's funny.
In case any of you were still worried about Gunnar, you can stop that now. He's fine. This is Gunnar relaxing on Grandma's loveseat that is now in our living room.
Here he is watching the fridge. In our old house he would stare at the fridge for hours and Mom thought it was because there were big bugs or somethign behind it. Mom was a little freaked out when he did it again in this house, but then Mom figured out if the icemaker is turned off for a few days, he doesn't do it. He's trying to figure out where the icemaker noises are coming from, not where the bug noises are coming from! Mom feels better now.

This is how happy my new house makes me.

Now for the critters around my house. We have TONS of hummingbirds! They're a little camera shy though so Mom hasn't been able to get good pictures of them. I'll have a post about them later. This is one of the feeders in the back of the house.

This is the feeder in the front of the house.

Here are some more birds. These are called Quail. Dad and I sometimes go hunting for these birds, but we can't hunt these birds because they're flying around too close to people's houses. When they're in the back of our house between our yard and shop Sasha loves to run out the back door really fast at the gate barking at them which makes them fly away. It's really funny to watch her.
Now this animal I'm not too sure about. It's sometimes across the street in the field. I bark at it whenever I see it. There's usually 2 of them but we hadn't seen either one in awhile and then this weekend this one came back around. I bark at the cowdogs and Mom and Dad try to tell me it's okay and they're supposed to be there, but I don't trust them. If anybody has any advice on how to deal with them, please let me know. I know the Dacshies have some experience with them so hopefully they can give me some advice.
When the cowdogs aren't across the street, the horses are. I'm fine with them. I don't bark at them at all and I ignore them pretty much. There's a baby horse that Mom and Dad like watching because he does some silly things. There's also a male horse out there that gets left quit a bit and it's funny when he realizes the girls and baby left him because he'll get all mad and start yelling at them. We think the Mama horse is pregnant again, too so we might have 2 baby horses to watch.
This isn't a very good picture because it was taken at night. There is a toad living in our back yard and Sasha is determined to hunt it down. It used to hang out by our patio door, but it's learned it shouldn't do that unless we're sleeping. It poops all over our patio and when we scare it, it pees EVERYWHERE! Where you see Sasha is where the toad usually hops off to to get out of the yard and away from us. Sasha found his burrowing hole next to the house though. She'll spend hours outside staring at that hole waiting for Mr. Toad to come out. Sometimes Mom has to go outside and pick her up to get her to come back inside. Mr. Toad is even more camera shy than they humminbirds so we don't have pictures of him. Mom says when he is out there she's not sure she could get a picture of him anyway because she's trying to keep Little Miss Toad Hunter away from him (that's Sahsa by the way).

There's more critters, but the bunny is also camera shy and so far we've only heard the coyotes so hopefully it stays way and we don't see it. I think the neighbor's cats are sent to spy on us. There's 5 of them and they're always in our yard! Dad takes me out once in awhile to chase them out of the front yard and if I'm in the back yard an I see one, I bark and they get scared off real fast. I've tried asking Gunnar how to tell those cat spies to go spy on someone else, but he said the only cat words he knows are hungry, feed me, HELP! and mom. He says he was raised with Sasha and I so he really doesn't know much cat, but he knows lots of dog. If any of you cats out there know how to tell the cat spies to stay out of my yard, please let me know soon! I don't think telling them I'm hungry or to help me is going to keep them out of my yard for good.

So there's my house, finally!! It's really cool!! Things are finally starting to calm down a little so hopefully I'll be able to post more. I've been trying to keep caught up with everyone, but you guys have been busy! I'm off to take a nap now. That was hard work getting all those pictures in and typing always wears me out.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2008-08-19T15:33:00.002-06:00

Today is my Dad's birthday and if Mom hadn't lost the cd case with all the pictures on it I would post a really cool picture of Dad and I the last time we went pheasant hunting. Since we have no idea where that CD case is and since Mom hasn't pulled any other pictures off the camera in a long time you are looking at yet another pictureless blog post from me. Getting kind of boring isn't it. Everyone needs to leave threatening comments to my Mom on this post and I'll make sure she gets them. Make sure they're really vicious and threatening. We have almost all the pictures of the house ready to post. It finally started raining here which makes taking outside pictures a little hard. Mom doesn't want her precious camera to get wet and our house is white so it's hard to see the house against a cloudy white sky. Hopefully we'll be able to get out and take pictures soon. Mom's Grandma is also waiting to see pictures and we all know it's very rude to make your grandma wait for anything!
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!! and everybody work on your threatening comments to my mom! Thanks!!!

Pictures Are Coming! I Promise!

2008-08-13T15:50:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone!! It's been crazy at my house. We're still unpacking and putting away and moving stuff. Dad and I finally went out to the shop to work a little the other night. We have a lot of work to do out there! Huskee Boy gave me the award you see at the top of this post. Thanks Huskee!!!! I know I forgot to post some other awards, but I can't remember which ones they were. Like I said, it's crazy at our house!!!

You guys guessed the cow dogs. Great job!! Mom and I have been trying to get a picture of them, but the cow dogs at our house seem to be camera shy because now that Mom has the camera out, they haven't been around. I've been watching for them, too. There's a creature in the back yard that i really want to get a picture of for you because I need some advice on how to deal with it and he hasn't been around since Mom got the camera out either. I'm going to make a HUGE post with pictures instead of doing a bunch of smaller ones. It's going to win awards!! Like the World's Longest Blog Post or.... I can't think of anything else. Mom and I have been working on getting the photos taken. I've been a little cooperative, but also a little bit of a pain in the you know what. We've also been busy trying to get the kitchen organized because Mom is really getting tired of microwaved stuff and has a large stack of recipes she wants to try. We have figured out that a new stove will be one of the very first big appliances to get. We thought it was going to be the washer, but the stove is making Mom mad and the oven is totally not working right. Mom is also having issues with the microwave. our old microwave sucked big time and Mom didn't realize how bad it sucked until she started using the one she got from her mother's house after she died. So far she's exploded 2 hotpockets, melted cheese into a syrofoam plate (that one smelled pretty bad) and boiled over some water. She said she's not cleaning up the mess until she's done explodng things. She's getting close. The last hotpocket only exploded a little bit.

If anybody knows of a jobe Mom can do from home and start on Monday, let me know. Mom isn't very happy right now and her manager comes back from vacation on Monday and Mom says she's had enough and is going to do something about it this time. I think that means she's going to get someone in trouble or get in trouble for starting something. She said she'll either feel better Monday afternoon or be looking for a new job Monday afternoon. There was situation that started last week and has continued over into this week and has gotten worse and worse. So Monday will be interesting.

I better go now. Mom will be home soon so I can go explore the back yard some more. I LOVE my yard.

Doing Good!

2008-08-07T16:29:00.003-06:00

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let everyone know real quick that I'm still around. I've been getting updated on everybody else's blogs. Boy have you all been busy!! I'm excited the Paw-Olympics start tomorrow at Lenny's blog!! Be sure to check them out! The bone relay was great!!
Mom foudn the camera, but it's been raining finally for the last few days and we want to get pictures with happy blue skies and not gloomy cloudy skies. We need the rain really bad, but why couldn't it wait until after we took pictures of the new house. I can't wait to tell you all about the new house. It's so cool!!! Gunnar, Sasha and I stay pretty busy chasing spiders and flies for Mom. The house has been vacant for awhile so the spiders have made themselves at home and we're not sure why our old house didn't have flies. There are a few things I'm going to have to ask for some help on. Last night I saw something across the street and barked at it. Mom said it was okay they're supposed to be there, but I'm not so sure about it. I remember Roxie, Sammy and Andy dealing with these types of creatures, so I might have to ask them for advice (don't worry, it's not a snake). I'll send you pictures of them, too. They aren't always there though so it's hard to get their picture. Mom and I are going to try to get pictures taken this weekend. Lots of the boxes are cleared out so you can tell which room is supposed to be what. The spare bedroom is a interesting maze.
Have a great weekend everybody!!!

We're In!!! and A Funny Vet Trip

2008-08-04T08:45:00.004-06:00

It was down to minute zero, but everything went okay and we closed on both houses Thursday. Mom and Dad had to do some major cleaning on the new house because it's been vacant for so long. We hung out with Mom and Dad while they cleaned and then Friday morning we hung out for awhile before our vet appointment.

If you ever want to get back at your parents for all the stress they cause here's what you do: First, try to get out of the car before leashes are on, next get tangled up in your sister's leash in the 5 steps it takes to get to the front door, then be sure to try to say hi to every dog in the the doorway and waiting area (there were only 2, but I made sure they both knew me well), next you go one way while your sister goes the other way in the waiting area (to make this even better, go the opposite way from the side your Mom is using to hold your leash), then when they try to weigh you be really hyper and wag your tail really hard so the sacle has a hard time getting your weight. Sasha out did me on the scale. It was great!! She hates getting on that scale, I don't know why, she only weighed 11 pounds and we're pretty sure a couple of those pounds are all fur. She tried wiggling out of mom's grips and then all of a sudden her collar slipped off!!! I was so jealous! Why didn't I think of that?!?!? So, when you go in the exam room where your parents think they can finally relax because what can happen in a small room where there's nobody to bug you, show them how wrong they are! PLENTY can happen. What I did was bark at everybody on the other side of the door. It was great! While Mom was wrestling with Sasha and her collar, I was barking at the people on the other side of the door. The lady finally came to give us our shots and I was totally caught off guard. Why don't they warm you before they stick that in you?!?! Mom tried to get our leashed straightened out before we went out to the lobby again, but as soon as we stepped out the door we were all tangled up. While Mom was writting the check, Sasha slipped out of her collar again and went to visit the ladies behind the counter. She's good!! Mom had made her collar really tight and she still slipped out! I was way jealous so I slipped out of my collar, too. Mom was totally frustrated by now (and a little embarassed - hehe). We don't get the leashes attached to our collars much so Mom checked to make sure our collars weren't too loose before we left the house and they wouldn't slip off. Sasha and I have the ability to shrink our heads when we need to, at least that's what Mom thinks. Mom decided next time we have to go to the vet together, we're wearing our harnesses. Mom didn't want to put them on us because Sasha's goes across right were they do the shots and Mom isn't exactly sure where the harnesses are. When we went out to the car, we decided to behave a little. We loaded in the car with no problems, but we got all tangled up when Mom tried to take our leashes off. That was funny, too. Mom was going to take us back to Grandma's house to stay, but Sasha and I gave Mom the guilt trip of all guilt trips. We used the power of the big brown eyes to it's full power and Mom took us back to the new house for some more cleaning. Dad was vacuuming and when Mom we got there, Mom took over vacuuming and Dad started messing with the carpet cleaning machine. Sasha and I kind of wished we had stayed at Grandma's. Luckily the house is big enough we could go hide in another room. Mom took us to Grandma's for lunch which we were fine with. That way when Grandma came home for lunch we could tell her how terrible it was that we had to go to the vet. We've got 2 years to start planning the next vacination trip to the vet. It's going to be hard to top the slipping out of the collar trick - mostly because by then Mom will have found or bought new harnesses.

Mom and Dad moved the bed and some other important stuff that afternoon so that we could stay the night. Grandma brought us some hamburger's for dinner and then we went to go get Gunnar. Mom wasn't worried about Gunnar because he did so good moving to Grandma's, but this time instead of spending the time under the bed or on the bed, he hid behind the toilet in the master bedroom AND he didn't go to the litter box for aabout 36 hours even though Mom and Dad kept taking him out to it. He topped the slipping out of the collar trick. There's no way I can hold it in that long!!! Finally, Saturday night he started coming out to drink and eat and you should have seen how happy Mom was when he pooped. Mom's get excited over the weirdest things!!! He started being a big butthead though after that. He got into things he's not supposed to, got up on counters which he never does and started tipping tall stacks of boxes over.

One of my favortie things is the hallway. I run from one end to the other really fast shaking a stuffie. Before there were so many boxes in my way, I'd run around the dining room, around the living room and down the hall and back. Once in awhile I'd vear off of the hallway into the laundry room which leads into the kitchen which leads into the dining room which leads into the living room which leads back to the hallway. It's a wonderful zommie circle track!!!

Today I've been sleeping. Moving is a lot of work! The guy finally came to hook up the computer, phone and tv a little bit ago. I din't think he was ever going to get here!!

As soon as Mom finds her camera and more of the boxes are gone, I'll take you on a tour of my new house. It's so cool!!! No, really, the air conditioner works so good I crawl under the couch pillows for naps so I don't get too cold.

Good News & Bad News

2008-07-30T11:36:00.002-06:00

Good News: We are supposed to be cloing on both houses tomorrow. Mom and Dad's new mortgage broker got involved and wanted answers and all of a sudden people got motivated. What a great guy!! The old house got moved back to a 3:00 pm closing and then Mom and Dad have to hurry to the new house's closing at 4:00 at anothe closing company. Tomorrow afternoon is going to be stressful for them, but very exciting afterwards!
Bad News: Okay, you know how stressful moving is on animals, so what does Mom do? She makes a vet appointment for Sasha and I for shots!!!! It was supposed to be for Thursday morning, but the vet was booked. Sasha was going to get her hair done and I was going to get my nails done at the groomer, also but thankfully the groomers are on vacation! Sasha really does need a haircut and we are both kind of behind on our shots (not by a lot, just enough to make Mom feel guilty). So Friday morning send me some good vibes. I wont' have any pictures of my trip like some of you do because Mom says a BIG handful and Sasha's an even BIGGER handful at the vet's office and Dad won't be coming to help so Mom will be too busy dealing with our craziness to take pictures, too.
I'm off to take a nap now. Hopefully you won't hear from me until Monday!!!! Thanks for the crossed paws and good vibes.

?? Days Left

2008-07-29T15:01:00.003-06:00

Hey everyone! It's really crazy at our houses! There's been another set back in selling the old house. Momand Dad aren't in very good moods because of it. The appraiser guy said there's still too much paint coming off the house to pass the FHA inspection. So Mom and Dad had to hire someone to come work on it so we can still try to close this Thursday. They tried sandblasting the paint off and guess what! The yellow paint is on too good!!! Yeah, that's right, it's not on good enough for the appraisor, but it's on too good for a sandblaster! How in the world does that work? The guys started scraping on it today and will hopefully be able to paint tomorrow. Dad is going to go tape off the windows for them tonight so they can just come and paint and be done with it.
We moved to Grandma's on Saturday. If Mom would stop getting tension headaches from the stress she would be feeling better. She's not allowed to even drive by the old house while they're finishing stuff up, that way she's healthy for the move that will hopefully be this weekend. It's fun staying at Grandma's but we're ready to be in our new house. Gunnar didn't like the move at all. He spent most of Saturday afternoon hiding in our room, then Sunday he came out a few times and then yesterday and today he's okay with wandering around Grandma's, but he gets sppoked really easy. Grandma isn't really used to be around cats this much either and never really liked cats before. Gunnar is getting blamed for all the pet hair (even though a lot of it is my hair) and some other stuff then yesterday I think Gunnar had enough and took his frustration out on Grandma's couch. Gunnar never scratches at furniture so we were all surprised. Mom hasn't trimmed his nails in awhile because she didn't want to upset him during the move stuff and because seh forgot. She used to know he needed his nails trimmed when he got stuck to the carpet, but we haven't had carpet for so long, he hasn't gotten stuck. Well, he's gotten stuck to the carpet a few times and got stuck to Grandma's couch. Mom gve him a lecture and told him to be good for a few more days and then he can be a butthead after we get into our house. She told him she can't worry about him and the houses at the same time because her stomache and head can't take it. He finally started eating normal last night and drinking and going ot the litter box. Mom was really afraid he was going to end up with another bladder infection and she really couldn't handle that. I'm noticing Mom doesn't handle large amounts of stress very well, especially when it comes to us and our health. I told Gunnar I promised not to pick on him the rest of this week and a few days after we move to the new house if he promises to stop making Mom worry. He said okay, but I've learned to never ever ever completly trust a cat!! They're sneaky...and have sharp claws....and sharp teeth....and really good at getting sympathy from Mom!!! This is the first time Gunnar has ever moved and we foudn out he doesn't like it very well for the first couple days and then he's fine. He was actually really lovey and cuddley with Mom and Dad until he got brave.
So hopefully we will get to close on Thursday still and that means 2 more days!! But we won't know until tomorrow afternoon. I don't know if I'll be able to post tomorrow in time to let you know so if you don't hear anything from me on Wednesday or Thursday that means we are moving and it's all good. If you see a post from me or comments on your blogs on Thursday, that isn't good news. Keep your paws crossed I either have good information tomorrow for you or you don't hear from me until Monday! I'll try to post what we know tomorrow.