Carolyn loves to cuddle with Molly and Murphy!
Best Buddies
Dogs
Very Patient Puppies
So I’m a little late with everything to do with the holidays – including the decorating. Yesterday Carrie and I broke out the “family room” box and decorated the mantel:
I was fussing with the lights for a few minutes, and when I turned around, Carrie had decorated the dogs:
Considering the efforts we went through to get the dogs to wear those things for Carrie’s first Christmas I’m flabbergasted. Either the dogs have really mellowed over the past few years, or they’ve realized she’s above them in the pack order…
No Barktober Fest
I can’t tell you how guilty I’m feeling about not doing Barktober Fest this year, but I’ve been so busy I didn’t have time to register and collect pledges. Not to mention the fact that I worked today. (And boy did I work. We’ve gotten several huge shipments over the past few days, all of which need to be inventoried and shelved.)
Maybe next year I’ll be better organized.
Waterlogged
There were probably things we should have spent today doing, but it was such a beautiful morning we decided to jump in the pool instead.
And then we invited the dogs in for a swim. Molly loves the pool:
Murphy, on the other hand, is not a water dog. But he does like to run up and down the sides of the pool while Molly swims back and forth. I think he thinks he’s a lifeguard.
A Perfect Afternoon
It was a lovely, breezy 72 degrees this afternoon, so I took Carrie and the dogs out on the deck. Carrie and I sat for a bit on the swing while I knit and she ate animal crackers. She guessed I was knitting a glove (a reasonable guess, since it’s just the cuff of a sock so far) and then decided that it was a sock. Then Carrie played with her sand table, the dogs ran around and I knit for the better part of an hour. Oh, and Carrie and Murphy got in some serious cuddle time:
I hope the whole summer can be as perfect as this afternoon.
From Their Perspective
Yep, my floors are in desperate need of refinishing.
Cutest. Birthday. Gift. Ever.
Before anyone gets too nervous, we did not, in fact, add a third dog to our pack. Nope, this little cutie is my parents’ new pup. He was a birthday present to my mom, and he shares a birthday with Carrie. He doesn’t have a name yet, despite Carrie’s insistence that he should be called “Shaggy”, “Mickey” or “Carolyn”. His eyes aren’t really blue, but he moves too quickly to take non-flash pictures of him, and red-eye in young puppies is really blue-eye for some reason. (If you want to drool over adorable little puppies, go check out the other litters this breeder has available. Sigh. Those chocolate labs melt my heart, but we have a full doggy quota at the moment!)
Carrie is already learning the important eight-week-old puppy commands: “chew this!”, “no bite!” and “sit!”
They Didn’t Get The Memo
“Falling back” is nice in theory, but when you have dogs and a toddler, it’s not such a great deal.
For some reason Carrie woke up at 5:30 (which should have felt like 6:30 to her and that would still be at least an hour earlier than usual for her). That triggered the dogs to wake up and start whining. Carrie was very concerned about them: “Mommy, Murphy sad. Mommy, Daddy, take Murphy out!” But somehow I managed to convince her it was still the middle of the night, and after a little milk and a diaper change she went willingly back to bed. On the way back to my bed I made a little pit stop, and just as I’m flushing I hear the alarm going off. Ack! Here I’ve just managed to convince Carrie it’s the middle of the night and Daddy’s alarm is going off…
Then I laid in bed listening to Carrie babble over the monitor, the dogs whining, the wind howling, and Denis snoring. I finally fell back to sleep at some point (it was sometime after 6:45, since that’s the last time I remember seeing on the clock). Denis at least let me sleep until 8:30. I went to bed around midnight (well, 1 AM, but we turned the clocks back before we went to sleep), so I did get somewhere around 7 hours of sleep, but it was too broken up.
I need more coffee.
Barktober Fest ’06
Molly and Murphy would like to thank those who sponsored us for our Barktober Fest walk. It was a beautiful morning to walk, and we all had a really good time. We decided Carrie would have more fun riding in the wagon than walking (read that as: we would have more fun with Carrie strapped into the wagon than chasing her all over creation in a big crowd of people) so Denis walked both dogs and I dragged the wagon. I think Denis got the better end of that deal – my arm hurts!
Carrie learned a hard lesson about balloons today. She got a pretty blue balloon from someone dressed up as a squirrel (that must have been a hot costume to wear) and I did the sliding knot thing around her wrist. At some point when I was talking with someone I heard a little squeak, looked over and saw Carrie staring up at the sky, with the blue balloon getting smaller and smaller. I think it took her a few seconds to realize that the balloon was never coming back, and it was the longest, slowest, saddest pout you ever did see…which turned into a quivering lip, and then tears, and then all out sobs. I about cried along with her, it was so very sad to watch her lose her balloon forever.
Later on, the purple balloon she got from someone else was tied quite tightly to the seatbelt on the wagon! I have no idea how she got the ribbon off of her wrist in the first place, but I wasn’t taking any more chances.
Another Barktober Fest Plug
Just a reminder: Barktober Fest is this Saturday. So if you were thinking of helping us meet our goal (we’re nearly there!) and have $5 to donate, now would be a good time to visit our sponsor page! At the moment, Saturday looks like it’s going to be in the low 60s and non-rainy, so it will be a good day for walking!
And thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to this wonderful cause!