Breaking News....

Remember my niece's little lambykins from this post? Here is a picture of Olivia with her twins that were born a little over a week ago. Look how they have grown!

Olivia is a real cookie hound! In this picture she has just knocked over one of those big containers of animal crackers that you can buy at a wholesale club.
Olivia loves them! That's actually what I give Emma, Tara and Cooper as treats instead of doggie treats. They love 'em, too. If you look closely at that picture, you can see Mellie in the "momma and baby" pen with the heat lamp. You know what that means, right?

Mellie is a new momma! Here she is with her new little boy!

Well, he's not really little. He's a big, black boy, and momma and baby are doing fine. He is so big that none of the baby coats I made fit him. I had to make some bigger ones! (Poor Mellie...ugh!) No names yet for any of the new additions, but I'm just as proud as an Auntie can be!

In other news...Tara went from this fluffy-with-perpetually-bad-hair-days puppy...

...to this sleek, svelte little beauty!

Well, maybe sleek and svelte don't accurately describe her. Especially since I did her haircut myself with a pair of scissors, but she really doesn't like the sound of clippers, so scissors are less traumatic for her. Oh well...she thinks she's pretty, and she will be a lot cooler, and that's all that matters!

Dogs on Thursday

Happy Dogs on Thursday from Emma, Tara and Cooper. It's only a little after noon, but it has been a roller coaster of a day so far. For the dogs, that is. I'm having a great day! I'm off work, and I got to see one of my favorite people. That person is, unfortunately for the dogs, my Vet!

Here is how the dogs' day has gone so far, according to Emma:

Good: Breakfast, chased chickens, had a little nap.

Good: Tara and I got to go for a ride in the car, and got to leave that stupid boy Cooper behind!!!
Bad (for Cooper): Cooper was left behind.

Good: After about 5 minutes of barking at the door, Cooper forgets what he is barking about and takes a nap. "Dumb as a Bag of Hammers" isn't always a bad thing.

Good: The car pulls into a Dunkin Donuts and the nice man at the window gives us a bag of bagels and muffins.Bad: The bagels and muffins are not for us.

Bad: The car pulls into the evil Vee-Eee-Tee's parking lot.

Bad: Mommy makes us enter the evil Vee-Eee-Tee's office.

Bad: Mommy gives them the bag of bagels and muffins. She tells them it is an apology in advance for our bad behavior.

Good: They accepted the bribe, so we get to act as bad as we want.

Bad: A gigantic Bull Mastiff named "Spartacus" comes over and sits down next to us.

Badder: Spartacus growls at us.

Good: I give Spartacus the evil eye, and he stops growling.

Bad: Spartacus tells me he likes a girl with an attitude. I think Spartacus he is having lustful thoughts.

Good: They call our names and we get to go into the torture chamber.

Bad: They call our names and we get to go into the torture chamber.

Good: Our Nanny is here, and she makes a big fuss over us and tells us how sweet we are. Yeah...tell me something I don't know!

Bad: The Evil Vee-Eee-Tee is here.

Good: Mommy distracts the Vee-Eee-Tee with a hug and a kiss. Maybe we can sneak out without him noticing us.

Bad: We weren't able to sneak out.

Badder: Evil Vee-Eee-Tee pokes and prods us, and listens to our heart and tummy, then gives us two (COUNT 'EM--TWO!!!) needles. The indignity of it all!

Good: He tells us we are gorgeous specimens and perfectly healthy. Again, tell us something we don't know, right?!

Gooder: We break out of the torture chamber, and finally get to leave! Yipee!

Gooder: We go for another car ride!

Goodest: We are rewarded with Lemon Cake when we get home!

Tara says "Mmmmmm, lemon cake!"
Emma says, "Give me that lemon cake right now or I will bite your finger off at the knuckle and people will forever call you 'Stubby'!"

Cooper says "Lemon cake, lemon cake, lemon cake."

Not much going on in that boy's brain, but he loves his lemon cake!

Spring has Sprung!

After a long, cold, long, snowy, long, long, long winter, Spring has finally come to New Jersey! How do I know? Look that the stork dropped off at my niece's house:
The mom is Olivia, a Baby Doll Sheep, and she has twins! A boy and a girl! Here is a closeup of the yet-to-be-named little girl:
Oh, that face! I need a sheep!

Another sign that Spring is here---Robins, and lots of 'em! Emma found a Robin in the backyard, and tried to, ummm, welcome him with kisses. Yeah, that's the ticket...she was trying to kiss him.
Fortunately, the "kissing" didn't do the poor Robin any permanent harm, other than being scared out of his whits, that is!

After a little rest on the outside of the fence, he was perfectly fine. Emma is still a little peeved at me for taking away her new friend, though. If you look closely at this picture, you can see a feather sticking out of the corner of her mouth.
That's all she has left of her new friend. Poor Emma.

Dogs on Thursday

This week's Dogs on Thursday is all about sweet Tara! Five years ago yesterday, my dad, sister and I drove to Princeton to pick up Tara. Around here, March 17th is no longer St. Patrick's Day...it is St. Tara's Day! Little Tara had been traveling for three days, making her way from Arkansas to New Jersey, and we had no idea what to expect. We only saw one blurry picture of this little sweetie on the American Brittany Rescue website, but what a shock when we saw her in person! Skinny, scrawny, trembling...we fell instantly in love with that pathetic little creature.
Here is a recent picture of Tattie. What a difference a little love (and some nutritious food) makes!
Speaking of nutritious food, here is a picture of their St. Tara's Day breakfast:

See those little yellow squares? That's lemon cake. The dogs have recently discovered their love for lemon cake (thanks to an episode of Cooper pulling it off of the counter and sharing it with his sisters). So, as a little treat, I put some on their breakfast to kind of spice it up. I know, lemon cake on top of turkey meatloaf sounds gross, but the babes didn't think so! Here is Tara saying "Stop taking pictures and put the food bowls on the floor or as Dog as my witness I will go for your jugular vein."

All Aboaaaaard!

My family has been conspiring against me. Yes, I drive a Toyota Prius...

... and yes, Toyota is having some, shall we say "issues", but I have faith in them. I know that Toyota will find out what is causing the crazy-fast acceleration, and that they will fix all of the cars involved. In the meantime, I am extra cautious. I am hyper-aware of my vehicle, leave additional space between me and other cars on the road, and try to have a "plan" for whatever road I am on, just in case my car decides to "get speedy."

My plan was working up until last week when various family members started to go nuts-o."Get rid of that car!" "It's not safe!" "You'll die in a fiery crash!" Blah, blah, blah... I love my Prius and won't consider trading it in, so what is the alternative? Park it in the backyard and wait for Toyota to find out what's going wrong? Fine, then how am I going to get to work? Oh, I know, buy another vehicle, right? WRONG! Unless you are a millionaire, and I am not, that's just a one-way ticket to crazy-town!

So, on Saturday as I was heading off to work, my sister said she was going to go out looking at used vehicles to buy to replace my Prius, so I had her call the most level-headed man I know. Dad! He will be the voice of reason, and make my sister see the absurdity of her half-baked plan. Right?

Wrong.

He jumped on board the train to crazy-town.

Look what I found when I got home from work tonight:

Crazy, crazy, crazy, but it's nice to be loved...

Who on Thursday?

The Dogs! So who better to write this week's Dogs on Thursday post than us...Emma, Tara and Cooper! Well, really, me--Emma! The choice was easy since Tara is a pushover and will do anything I say, and Cooper is, well, not exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Oh, hell, let's not sugar-coat it. That boy is just plain dumber than a bag of hammers. Fortunately, I, Queen Emma, have been blessed with beauty AND brains.
So, let's get right to it. We want to wish a very happy birthday to one of our favorite humans--Our Nanny! She doesn't have a blog, and doesn't know that our mommy has a blog, so she will never see this post, but we thought it was important to send birthday lickey-face-kisses her way, anyway!

Our Nanny has come to visit us three days a week since before I was born, and that's a long time, since I will be 9 years old ...er, young in May. We love when the Nanny visits, not only so we can go outside and, umm, attend to our business, if you know what I mean. We love the Nanny because she brings us some exotic scents from the world outside of Britknitterville. Sometimes she smells like cows...

...sometimes she smells like sheep...
...and once she even brought us a sheep of our very own. Then she took it back, but that's OK.
Sometimes, if we are really, really good, she will bring her two human offspring. Those are the visits that we like best of all!
Those tiny humans are very generous with the treat jar. Mom says she always knows when the Nanny's boys were here, because the treat jar is empty!

So, please join us in wishing our Nanny a very Happy Birthday!

Blu-uuu-uuuu-uuu-uuuue

If I were at all web-savvy, I would have LeAnn Rimes' song "Blue" playing for you right now, but it's not gonna happen. You know the song, though --

"Blue, oh, so lonesome for you,
Why can't you be blue over me,
Blue, oh, so lonesome for you,
Tears fill my eyes 'till I can't see."

That the song that was going through my head while I was walking the beach at Fortescue this morning. Why? Well, lookey what I found:

Blue glass!!! Lots of it!!! This is only a portion of today's haul. There was a boat-load of clear and brown glass, but I'm only picturing the blue and green here. Oh, and that one piece of white milk glass at the bottom of the picture. I have never, ever, ever found cobalt blue glass on the beach, but today there were several pieces of it, one piece of medium blue, and lots of light blue!

Of course, while I was there, I just had to check on "my" house...
No activity yet. I'm really hoping that it doesn't sell and the seller gets desperate and lowers the asking price. It's either that, or I have to win the lottery. I guess I should buy a ticket, eh?

By the way, observant readers might have noticed that the sea glass is sitting on the Wii Balance Board in the photograph. I needed something big and white for the glass to show up in the photo, and the BB was handy. I have to say that I am still loving the Wii, even though some of the games in Fit Plus really kick my butt. I have, however, mastered the Obstacle Course, thank-you-very-much! Just to know you what a Wii Geek I am, I took a photo of today's high score! On the Advanced Obstacle Course! It says I'm a "calorie incinerator" but it really means that I am "Queen of the World and Ruler of All Things Obstacle Course-like".

As much as this thing can pump you up, it can just as quickly dash your ego and send you into the depths of despair. Whenever I try to do the bubble ball, I inevitably end up with this:
Unbalanced! The nerve of this stupid game! I just hope it is referring to my physical and not my mental state...

Cooper says, "I am not impressed."

Two Special Guests for Dogs on Thursday!

Remember sweet little Shea from this post a few weeks ago? She was back at work with her daddy today, and guess who else was there...her brother!
Shea is on the left, and her brother Mack is on the right. One of the other ceramic artists who works here got a little boy from the same litter. These two lucky pups have regular play dates!

When I found out that they were both in the pottery studio, I grabbed my camera and headed down there to get some puppy photos. Just for the blog, you understand. I didn't go down there because I want a puppy of my own so bad that I jump at any chance to hold one of these furry little souls and look in their puppy eyes and kiss their puppy bellies and get my face licked and my fingers chewed on by those needle-sharp teeth. Nope. That's not it at all. It was just for the blog.

Don't they look like the are on the prowl for mischief?

It was really hard to get photos of these two little fur balls of energy! Here is Mack sitting on Shea...
...and since turn-about is fair play, Shea "attacked" Mack! But in the end, all is well.
I need a puppy! Or two!