Did Someone Say Chocolate?

Can I whine? please?

I'm so sleepy still. Another long night with Daniel last night. Seems that boy is growing pretty attached to that soother. Hmm. Doug let me sleep in 'tis morning until almost 10 AND I even had a short nap 'tis afternoon while Daniel was napping and I'm still dragging my ass tonight with tired head and all. I haven't officially started Atkins or anything like that, but the further I get into the book, I find myself lowering my carbs more and more. I have had no sweets accept low carb ice-cream for4 days now, to be honest I almost think there is where my headaches are coming from. I am being deprived of my addiction.

I ranted to Doug today that I'm dying for a big ole piece of chocolate or cookies or SOMETHING sweet, anything. I can feel the urge hit me and I really have to fight with myself not to shove that Lindor in my mouth. Mmmmm. Oh gosh, here I go again. Well I'm not officially doing Atkins or anything anyway, I've just adjusted my diet to resemble more of the "Ongoing Weight Loss" maintenance plan. I think if I ever tried to cut everything out cold turkey, I'd fail for sure.

Actually wanting to loose weight is a smaller part of it now, the book actually has me freaked out over my blood sugar levels. I'm 99% sure what I've been eating has everything to do with how I've been feeling since Daniel's been born. I may not be dealing with PPD issues, I'm leaning more towards the fact that I've been eating like shit, therefore feeling like shit. Way too much sugar and carbs.

After I had a little nap 'tis afternoon, I was still dragging my ass around, so I got the dogs going wanting a "walkie". They are so funny. Dexter goes nuts and cries as loud and long as he can. He runs around, follows me everywhere and just cries and yelps for a walkie. Isabella lets him do all the crying for her, but she can't help but to get excited too. She runs back and forth to the door and to me, looks out the window and even jumps up to the chair to point at her harness. It's really funny. Who ever said my dogs are dumb! They know a good thing!





You'd never know I JUST had my hair done today. Looks like Justin's in need of a haircut badly eh? Oh heck, the pugs look great though! For what you can see of Dexter! lol

Insert boring title

This week went by so fast. The bossman has been on vacation all week and I was really looking forward to getting some shit done without him around. I barely made a dent in my to do's. I got done what HAD to be done, but shit just kept getting added on to my pile. Sigh. I have tomorrow off because there is no school for Daniel, so I've had to bring piles of work home to try to get done. Ha ha.

I slept like crap last night. Actually for the past couple of nights I have, but last night was awful. I was sooo cold, I tossed and turned and shivered. I got so stressed that my head pounded all night and was a real doozy come morning. Daniel woke up a lot last night, didn't need to feed him, he just wanted his soother, so it was an up and down, shake and shiver night. Nasty. Doug said the temperature in here last night was 76 so I had no reason to be so cold. I don't know what was causing it.

Enough people have been talking about Atkins lately, that I'm curious now, so Doug bought me the book. I'm on Part Two in the book now. I must admit I'm pretty tempted to give it a go. Losing some weight would be great, but what I really need to do is to train myself to eat better. I am a carbo maniac. A sugar addict. It's effecting everything about me and I need to do something. What do you all think about Atkins? Ever try it? Are you doing it now? Know someone else that is/did? Did they loose any weight?

Some thoughts

* No matter how fast I try to be, I still take twenty minutes in the mornings (at min.) to get ready. My husband can walk right in behind me, shower in five minutes, get out, throw some clothes and deodorant on and comb his hair and he's ready for work. Do you have any idea how much this annoys the hell out of me?

* Sundays really suck. They are the day before Mondays and I REALLY hate Mondays.

* A balanced bank rec. makes me giddy.

* I bought a memory box when Daniel was born for his little things that I wanted to save and only today got around to putting the stuff in it. Gah.

* I'm envious of the people who can loose weight on diets like the "Atkins". I've hinted enough that hubby bought me the book to read today. Curiousity has gotten the better of me.

* Daniel was really getting around a lot today. I'd lay him on the floor with his jungle gym toy over him. I'd look the next minute and the toy would be kicked completely out of the way and he'd be flipped over on his belly checking things out. I think my days of a contained baby unit are quickly coming to an end.

* I wish I had more time for everything. I always seem to have stuff to do or stuff I'm putting off.

* My hubby just got done grading tonight and is waiting for me so we can start the special features from the Two Towers tonight. Wooo.

Cranky family

Getting ready to send Doug out to the store. I felt like shopping yesterday and I should have went then. I sure don't feel like it today. Whenever I go shopping, it always takes me twice as long and costs us twice as much then when Doug goes. I'm tired and cranky today. The kids are bitchy too. Not a good combo. Sarah had the tv up too loud and was told to turn it down, so now she's off sulking. Justin left a wad of paper in his pocket and it made a huge mess in the laundry so he's outside all pissed off because he has to shake the laundry out. The only one not sulking or pissed off right now is Cody and that's because he's dueling Doug in the kitchen.

I think the dogs are even sulking because I teased them with a "walkie" and didn't follow through. My bad. I'll have to take them later just to make it up to them or they'll be mopey all day. Ever just have a day that you wake up and within a couple of hours you wish you could wake up all over again just to change the direction of the day. It's one of those days. It just feels like everyone is just borderline in their moods and I hate that. It effects me too much.

Daniel kept me up for over 2 hours last night for no reason. He wasn't cranky or fussy, just not sleepy. Doug let me sleep in, but I didn't sleep well regardless. I kept dreaming about gift cards and not knowing what to buy. How stupid is that. I think it's because I took Daniel to Dillards yesterday trying to get ideas of how to spend my gift card. I found nothing at all to buy. I hate Dillards. Everything cost twice as much as what it's worth. I'm not a foo foo person, I don't know about brand names and such anymore, what's in, what's not. I've got 90.00 to spend and couldn't even find a decent pair of hiking boots (that weren't 80 bucks alone). Geesh.

Well Doug's left for the store and I've got some house work to do. Oh joy. All I really want to do is sit around and bitch about nothing. Maybe I'll update again later with all my bitchy thoughts. Oooo now that sounds like a plan!

Daniel portraits

My little bambino is half a year old already! Waaaaaa! I took him today to get his photos done at Sears and surprisingly they have already uploaded the session! As always, these photos don't appear to be the greatest of quality because they are downloaded images from a webpage. The actual photos always turn out great!

Just for comparison sake, here are his 3 month shots in case you want to see how much he's grown!

Priceless

We found out today after school that Sarah had tormented her brother all the way to school 'tis morning by teasing him in front of his friends. She was yelling out his first name (which a lot of kids wouldn't even know it) and calling him names and such. He tried to come home to tell, but she wouldn't let him get past her. She was also yelling out stuff like "F (eff) -you", so, Doug spoke to Sarah about it and decided she needed to write Cody an apology letter.

So, here's the letter in all it's glory. I laughed so hard, I just had to post it! Now if this isn't a "forced apology", then I don't know what is. I know her writing is hard to read with a lot of errors in it (boy has she come a long way though in two years lol), I've translated the letter below for those who couldn't make it out.

Dear Cody,

I don't want to write this or worse yet say it, but I've got to. Cody, I'm
sorry for calling you by your first middle name, Harold, and I'm sorry for
calling you Steven and I'm sorry for calling you Harold Loren Ingram plus your
first name (I think). And I'm sorry for saying F. you.

I still don't like you, but I'll write this too. I'm sorry for yelling all
that out. I'm sorry that I've been such a pest, but you're a pest too you
know. But how about this you be less of a pest and I'll not be a pest any
more, except on April Fools Day. Sound good?

If not I'll let you play my Pokemon Ruby whenever you want, I'll let you
play any game I've got, all right? Cody, I'm sorry for everything. I'm
sorry for one more thing. I'm sorry that I might of embarrassed you.

How priceless is that? We are sooo keeping that letter around for the next twenty years. LOL

My Champions!

Champions!

You're what?

Doug called this one...he says to me Justin's going to come complaining out of the room that he's got nothing to do and he's bored. I said why's that. He said he just sent Sarah in for a turn on the gamecube. Well sure enough, here he comes thumping out of the computer room moaning about not being on the gamecube for very long and now he's got nothing to do, blah blah blah.

Doug goes into lecture mode. I kept quiet this time because Doug was doing a pretty good job on his own. He says "What?! Bored? Geez Justin, you have gameboy advance SP (not to mention other gaming systems/games), you got a TV, DVD, VCR, countless board games, books galore, K-nex, CD player and your own computer!! AND you're bored??" Even hearing that partial list of stuff to do ends up making me feel stupid for buying it all for him just to end up still listening to him complain he's bored all the time. Justin says "ok ok I'm NOT bored". Good answer teen boy! *walks away shaking head*

Mitsie

A conversation with Liz in the comments here about Pitbulls got me thinking of a dog I used to have. I started to comment back, but realized it was pretty long so I thought I'd just post it.

Did I ever mention that I used to have a pitbull myself? She was a real baby! Her name was mitsie, she even had puppies at one time. She was pregnant when I rescued her. If I remember correctly the person I got her from was pretty cruel to his dogs and I think he was trying to get rid of her and the thought of what he'd do to her if he couldn't find a home for her made me cringe, so I took her in.

She died very shortly after her last puppy was given away. She acted funny for about 3-4 days and I really thought she was just mourning the loss of her pups. Turns out that a bone she had chewed actually tore her throat and she bled to death slowly. This tears me apart. After she collapsed, I rushed her to the vet, but she had already passed on by the time I got there. I never felt more guilty and stupid in my whole life. I never dreamed something like that was wrong with her, I thought she wasn't eating because she was sulking.

That was eleven years ago. Not one pet after that in my care got near any sort of bone!

Dexter

Heh. I get a grin on my face every time I think about him. He's the dog I saw two pictures of and said "we'll take him". He was so shiny when we got him and I loved him immediately and I'm pretty sure the feelings were mutual. Dexter is Mr. Faithful. He is your friend and is a true lap dog. He always sat on my lap every night while I was on the computer, until my belly got too big. Now we just don't do that too often, he's so heavy and I type a lot more now when I'm on the computer and it's hard to hold him. He loves movie time though because that means Mom is on the couch with a blanket and that means lap time and snacks!

Dexter is all about his stomach. I move, he moves. Very simple. Doug can get up and down all he wants. Dexter won't move, but boy when I get up, he's at my heels. I used to take a piece of turkey meat and spread peanut butter on it. That dog will shake paws, sit, lay down and sit pretty for treats. We have had to cut back on the snacks because of the expanding waist line. :) He always hangs his tail down low and gets this look on his face like "I will do anything for you, I am your servant, just give me one more bite please!". Pathetic case really! LOL

He likes to strut his stuff too. Sometimes he looks as if his chest is poofed out and his paws are perched. He's always got some or all of his tongue hanging out, or even a tooth or two, or heck the whole bottom row of teeth show in all their glory. He is the funniest looking creature I've ever seen. Sometimes I look down at my feet and he is there looking up at me with all his crooked teeth showing and all I can do is laugh.



Dexter will lay anywhere there is a body to lay against. He's not fussy. He loves us all. He also loves to go for "walkies". If you even say that word, everything in his universe comes to a screeching halt and the head tilts start. Once he confirms that yes indeed you said "walkie", well then the crying starts. He'll jump, whine and cry and cry and cry and bark until you get him his leash and harness. He's been known to initiate the walkie himself if he spots his harness. We keep it up so we don't have any episodes. He is so pathetic. He'll let you put his harness on him and once you go out that door, the strutting begins. He pisses on every single tree from here to the school. He ends up bone dry by the time we're home. He'll also bark proudly at every single dog we pass too. He is such a show off.

Bath times. Ah yes, the one thing Dexter fears. Last night when I had Daniel in the tub, the gate was down and coming around the corner came the two dogs. I said "Dexter, baby, wanna a bath", well he buggered off faster than I could have said it again. It was hilarious. "no thank you" he says. lol. Once I had him in the bathroom for his bath, I had to get something and when I came back in, no pug. I called him and nothing. Hmmm. Bent down and peeked, there he was, somehow he had crawled himself up under the cupboard onto a shelf. Soo funny. Once he's in the tub though, he's fine, but look out Dexter once Bella has been bathed. Here he is waiting because he knows the wrath of Bella will be unleashed upon him once she comes out around the corner from her bath!



After the baths, those pugs run around like wild dogs for about ten minutes. She goes nuts on him. Dexter also snores like crazy within seconds of closing his eyes and when he knows it's bed time, he'll sink down into the covers by my legs in hopes Doug won't see him. Out of sight, out of mind. He'll also stare at you when it's getting close to meal time. He's waiting to hear that famous line "whooooo's hungry?!" Once he hears that, he'll bark, whine and do what we call the "spin dance". he spins round-n-round until the food comes. Again it's all about the stomach. Crazy pug!

And yeah poor Dexter is bossed around by Bella. She usually is pretty good to him though except when she decides she wants what he's chewing on. She can usually con it out of him leaving him with a pretty bewildered look on his face.

It's pretty funny to watch their antics! I've never been happier with our two pugs. They are both wonderful additions to our already crazy family!

Sitting around

Doug and the kids all headed out 'tis morning to go to the Yu-Gi-Oh tournament being held at a local mall. I was pretty surprised to discover that not one kid had their stuff ready to go. What's up with that? I would have been so excited to go to something like that, I would have had my shit together for it yesterday! Oh well. Doug's called me off and on all day to keep me updated.

I really haven't done much. The baby has been a sleep (finally) for a short while now. I'm soo tempted to go nap with him. I kept Doug up really late last night (1:30 a.m.) just talking. We don't normally do that, but I just had a bunch of stuff that I needed to spill off on someone that would listen and well dear hubby was it! After he fell asleep, I tossed and turned for at least another hour or longer. Rough night sleep wise for me.

Doug caved in last night and bought copies of the LoTR extended versions. hehe. Sucker. I'm glad though because sometimes I really just want to curl up under a blanket and watch a movie just to get myself away from this damn computer. I'm looking forward to more of it tonight! I was talking to my mother earlier on the phone and she was catching me up on the latest news. Back in grade six/seven, I had a best friend. Her name was Angie. I had seen her a few times after I split up with my ex back in '97, but for the most part, we grew apart and never really saw much of one another. We also changed a lot and lived completely different lives. I had met her husband once and had found out later she had a baby boy, but that's about it. Well her younger brother, I think I remember his name to be Darrell, was killed in a car accident just the other day. The funeral was being held today. His wife was driving and it was real bad weather. He had also just been ordained a week ago!

Things like that freak me out a bit because I'm still picturing the dorky little nine year old that used to pester us when I stayed over at her house. He was so young, probably only 27-28? I can't find anything about the accident when I search google. That annoys me too. Life can be so short for some people and you just never know when/if/what is going to happen to you or your family. One of my worse fears is that I'm going to loose someone in my family tragically. I think when someone dies of old age, you end up mentally preparing yourself for it, but if someone is suddenly taken from you...geesh. I'm not sure what I'd do.

Bella

Yesterday while visiting with Doug's family, his step-mom, made a comment about Bella being "shy" because she had her little tail half down. I laughed and said "no actually, she's not shy, she's a snob". Bella cracks us up. She's so full of personality. Actually they both are. When I first researched pugs, I had read a few comments about the differences between male and female pugs. Most of what I had read has rung true. I remember the breeder that we got Dexter from said males and females live very well together. By way of nature, the female will be the boss, just like with humans she said. lol.

Bella is quirky and spoiled rotten. She doesn't like to sit on bare floors because she slides backwards. She always tries to sit up against a wall somewhere so her butt won't slide around. When she does sit, it usually all hangs out. She sits very lazily. Her tongue or teeth never hang out and she barely snores when she sleeps. She expects lap time at her convenience. If you ignore her, she'll "scratch scratch scratch" just like a cat would on a couch until you let her up. If you STILL ignore her, she'll go sulk.

She is capable of jumping up on our big bed, but mostly refuses to because she knows her "daddy" will pick her up to let her up. She always goes to his side of the bed to scratch because he will always let her up. Once in bed, she jumps all over us so she can get to HER comfy spot, which just happens to be curled up by my chest and stomach. She scratches at the blanket for a minute to get it all soft and warm, then plunks herself down to sleep. Actually Bella thinks anyone who is in a crouch position or is laying down, they are her bed. Anytime you bend over to pick up anything or are reaching for something, look out cuz up she'll come right on your back and lay herself right down for a nap. It's because Doug used to let her up on the bed that way to teach her to jump. He'd bend over and she'd jump up on his back and he'd lean her towards the bed so she could jump up on it. I'm not sure who was worse, him or her! ;)

Here's a picture to show you what I mean: Justin had just bent over to reach for his memory card for the game he was playing and up she went! I'm pretty sure I've posted this picture before, but I tried searching to see and didn't find anything.

Silly pug.

If her and Dexter are out in the backyard and a new sound is heard...well, she acts like the big almighty watch dog until she thinks she's too close or alone. She'll usually bark while backing up towards the step. Most times she'll bark in Dexter's cover cuz he's the one that charges anything while she cowards away (still barking though of course)! She has so much cat like behavior in her that we wonder who her daddy really was!! When she pees, she always spins around and around and around, finally squatting to go (that is IF the grass isn't too long, heaven forbid) and always lifts one leg up slightly, so as to not pee on herself. Then she'll sratch backwards as if she's in litter covering it up. Then of course, Dexter will come along and piss on her head! So go figure. *roll eyes*

When I come home and it's treat time, she will NOT beg for one. It's like she's too good to beg, she knows Dexter will do it for her. Sometimes when I shake the treat box, she won't even move off the couch to come get it. She knows I'll throw it to her. She's learned if she gets her treat too close and drops it, Dexter will take it. So now she lets the treat come to her. If it was a really good one, she'll come see if there's more, but not usually. If you've hurt her feelings or not done what she wanted, she'll sulk and completely ignore you until she's good and ready to stop sulking. If she wants Dexter's bone he's chewing, she's sly enough to get him distracted enough and then up and takes it from him. It's always soo funny to see him sitting there all bewildered because she got his bone. If she really wants to fight with him over it, she'll taunt him with it by walking by him holding the bone in her mouth as if to say "well if you want it, come and get it". heh if that ain't a female, what is!!?

Maybe I'll do Dexter tomorrow!

Six months old

Daniel only slept yesterday afternoon for about thirty minutes because nana Jan and papa B were down visiting for the afternoon. I figured he'd be tired and cranky, but he was in pretty good spirits. We have just recently started introducing stage 2 fruits and veggies. We had stuck to the basics so far, until yesterday when I fed him "tutti frutti" for his fruit at suppertime. He seemed to like it enough. He's still pretty iffy on fruits so far. So, after his bath, he had his bottle and cuddle time, he went out like a light.

Figuring I had the rest of the evening to myself, I was pretty surprised that he was back up within twenty minutes. What a time I had getting him back to sleep. Pretty sure it was about an hour and a half later. Considering he should have been really tired, I couldn't figure out what was bothering him. He stayed asleep for awhile then was back up at 1:30 a.m.. wtf? If he wakes up through the night, he normally wakes up 3:30'ish - 6:00, not that early. By about 2:00, after realizing he wasn't going back to sleep, I got him a bottle and thankfully he drifted back off to sleep and stayed asleep. About fifteen minutes before I fed him that bottle, it finally dawned on me what was probably wrong with him. The tutti frutti didn't agree with him. It may have given him indigestion.

Poor little guy and I'm so retarded to not have thought of that sooner. We tossed the rest of that jar. We'll try it again later. He's been a pretty sillie baby lately. He's starting to imitate us more and more now. I showed Doug today how he'll shake his head back and forth with his mouth open trying to "get me" like I get him. I always pretend to eat and smooch his neck, cheeks and chest and he thinks it's pretty funny and now he's trying to do it back!

He's changed so much in the past six months and he'll change so much more in the next six months and before long we're going to arrive to that first birthday and I'll weep over how much and fast he's grown on me in one year! Time flies, it really does. I'll be getting his six month photos done soon. I wish we had a video camera to catch all those moments. He was laughing so hard the other night at Justin, it just cracks me up. I wish we could catch it on camera. Maybe we'll have to rent one before he grows up on me.

Random thoughts and pictures

I don't have much to write about these days. Work is going day by day. My student helper came back from vacation on Monday. That was cause for much celebration! We got our new printer hooked up yesterday. I've not tested it yet. Stupid eh? Well I need to open up some more disk space before it'll print right for me. My computer is the one that holds all the pictures. Eeek. I may have to dump them on our other drive. I hate to do that though. I'll have to look and see first.

I can't believe how boring I am these days. I told Doug ever since Daniel was born, I've just not felt the same as before. I feel mopey, tired, lazy, lonely, pissy, ugly, sad...just never satisfied. Anyway blah blah blah who cares...on a brighter note, Rich and Terri have welcomed their new little daughter into their family yesterday! I didn't link an archive because the announcement from daddy is in the comments and I'm sure when they are home and settled, we'll get an update from mommy.

While we are talking about birth announcements Angie (MoodyMama) and her family have welcomed little Ian into the picture very recently as well! He's a real cutie pie, no mistaken that! Congrats to both of you!

While we are talking about cutie pies, here's some recent pictures of Daniel:

Out walking downtown at the water gardens on Sunday.


After a recent bath. I experimented with B&W for fun because he had such a serious look on his face.

Big smiles. Sometimes his whole face gets eaten up with those big grinners!

The other night I was curled up in the arm chair reading Dr. Phil's weight loss book *insert rolling eyes* when the pugs decided that they could fit IN the chair with me. Now understand that I've got my ass and legs all snuggled up taking the entire chair when they decided this. Up came Dexter first and snuggled inside/on top of my legs. I was supporting all his weight with my legs. Barely supporting his weight that is. Bella figured because Dexter could fit, so could she. Up she jumped, on my book, on top of Dexter's head, then promptly sat her ass up on top of mine and snuggled down until she was comfy. Hubby got a picture:

Crying spells

We bought a replacement home photo printer today. Our Epson Photo Stylus 785EPX up and quit on us before Christmas. It's been a real pain in the ass not to have a printer. We tossed around the idea of only getting a cheap black ink printer and sending our digital photos out to be printed. I whined a little bit and next thing I know Doug is buying this HP Photosmart 7960. I soooo hope it's a good printer. Doug did a lot of research on it and he's good at that, so I'm betting it's going to be much better than our old one and considering the cost of it is double than our old, it wants to be!

On the baby front, Daniel rolled from back to front today! He was behind me on his blanket, I looked one minute and he was on his back playing with his toys, looked the next minute and he was up on his tummy playing his music. I did a double take. Doug was sitting there, I said "did you just move him", He said "I just caught that out of the corner of my eye, he rolled". He hasn't done it since, but it's only a matter of time before that child is all over the floor now!

He's also been eating like there's no tomorrow! He drank 36 oz today and ate 4 jars of stage 1 baby food! Piggy! I think when we've used up all the jars of stage 1 fruits and veggies, we'll graduate up to stage 2 fruits and veggies. He'll probably be close to 7 months old by then. Geesh he is growing so fast!

Taking him to school has been pretty difficult lately. He's just not happy in class. I can't figure it out. His teachers aren't really doing anything "wrong", but he just ends up getting upset. He cries and cries and cries, his face turns all red and he sheds big old tears. The thing that gets to us is he doesn't ever do it at home. There are two reasons that I've come up with for the crying: 1. It's loud in his class, there are six babies and at least 1-2 are fussing all the time. It seems to get Daniel going every time. 2. Over stimulation and/or lack of sleep/down/alone time.

When I was in there on Wednesday soothing him, one of his teachers asked me if "he's held a lot at home". I just looked at her...geesh they think he's spoiled! I said "I know you may think he is, but he's really not". He's got "play stations" all around the house that we rotate him around as he's content. He's not held constantly. Someone thought maybe he's starting to suffer with seperation anxiety, but that normally doesn't hit babies until 9-10 mos, so I'm not sure if it'd be that or not.

I do think teachers don't cuddle and sooth like a mommy does (obviously) because I am always able to calm him down when I go in. Another thing that gets him hysterical is when they change his diaper. Both Doug and I saw that one day when we put him on the change table. There's this thing that hangs over his head, he took one look at that thing, then just screamed his little head off. They said they've tried the floor for changing him too, but he still freaks out. Maybe it's the cold baby wipes, his wipes at home are heated. LOL, okay now he does sound spoiled doesn't he!! Shit I'm not sure why he gets so upset, but he does and it's becomming a problem. Doug was home with him yesterday and today, he said no problem at all. Sigh.

2 Years

Happy 2nd anniversary to my dear hubby and me! Two years ago today, I married my soul mate. A lot has happened in our two ++ years together and I am looking forward to many, many more years. After many bad decisions in my life, I've never been happier and more satisfied with my one decision to take a chance on love and move to Texas to be with Doug. I know I am the luckiest woman in the world. I love you Doug! Now let's go snuggle under the covers baby!

A Pug's Christmas

Yes we buy christmas presents for our pugs. Pathetic really, but they sooo do enjoy it. My mom's only brother and his first wife (she died many years ago now from cancer) didn't have children, instead they had dogs, poodles I think. Well their tree was always huge and filled mostly with gifts for the dogs. Funny because the dogs actually knew when it was christmas time and would tear into their own gifts each christmas!

Now Dexter and Bella certainly don't rip and tear into their presents, but they know when the treat is theirs!

Sarah bought the dogs chew bones/rope toy thingies. The center of it was chewable and what a mess they made with it. We normally don't buy them messy stuff like that, so it was a real treat for them!



As you can see Dexter is heading right for a good lay down spot and...



Bella headed right for a crate. She likes to eat treats inside a crate. I think it makes her feel protected from Dexter. He's all about his stomach and if she drops or toys with a treat, he's got it first chance he gets and she learned that very early on in their relationship!!



They chewed those bones all freaking day until we finally took them away. We decided to save some for when all our company showed up on Boxing day, so they'd have something to keep them calm in the backyard! Now this is just too cute! Everytime I see a dog carry a bone like that, I think Dino!



While we are spreading around cuteness, here is Dexter all hungover from some major bone chewing!

Just another weekend

I worked late on Friday. I was swamped. I'm afraid days like those are going to be more the norm for the next couple of months. This is the time of the year I usually wish I did something else for a living. Audits are not fun, especially when the prep for them lasts three months. I shouldn't complain, it's my only really busy time of year. The rest of the year, I just coast along.

We discovered something new with Daniel yesterday. He normally eats twice a day (food that it is). He has fruits and veggies at noon and some rice cereal, sometimes with fruit at supper time. Well the past week or so, really since he's been sick which has been around christmas time, he's refused to eat his cereal. We always thought he was just not hungry, maybe a bit fussy or just wants his bottle. I would just sigh and dump the cereal down the sink telling Doug that he's refused to eat again.

Well I was beginning to think it a bit bizarre. I mean he's still not completely well, he's got some lingering congestion still, but other than that, I'd think he'd want to eat. So last night when he refused his cereal again, I thought "ya know, let's try this". I got down a jar of sweet potatoes and pears, got them ready and didn't that little fuss budget finish them off! He simply doesn't like his cereal anymore, even with fruit in it. I reassured him that I've taken the hint and won't feed it to him anymore! :D What a baby. He reminds me of Bella, our youngest pug, she knows what she wants when she wants it too!

Yesterday, Doug took the kids out for their normal run to the parks, lunch out and to the library. I kept Daniel home because he had been pretty fussy yesterday morning and I was thinking there was no way I was attempting any of our returns/exchanges today alone with him. Well he ate his lunch, then went down for a nap and he ended up sleeping for over 3 hours!! Amazing. I got laundry done, dishes, floors scrubbed and dogs bathed! He was still asleep when Doug and the kids got home. Of course not five minutes later though, he was up. I think he slept so long because it was so quiet in here with everyone gone.

It was quiet, I enjoy being alone once in awhile. I get more done. Sometimes I get tempted to go with them because they always seem to have fun, but each time that I've decided to go, the kids have acted up and bickered so much that I always end up wishing I hadn't of went, so now I just never bother. Doug's mom is coming to babysit Daniel today, so we can take the kids to the musical play where I work. It's only an hour long, so afterwards, we are bringing the other rugrats home to her, so Doug and I can go out to eat.

It's our anniversary tomorrow and we won't be able to do much of anything then without a sitter, so we'll take advantage while we can! Mind you his mom offered to come tomorrow too, but it's a long drive and not really necessary. She has just recently retired, so we're hoping to see more of her now! I hope I can stay long enough at my job to retire with 30 odd years under my belt. That would be great. She's very happy to have more time on her hands now. His mom has been taking care of his elderly grandmother full time for a few years now and it really takes a lot out of someone to do that.

Feeding Daniel now, more later...