Sun Babies (the furry kind)

In the last month, I've received many emails asking for new pictures of my puppies, who by the way, are now one-year-old. This was a quick year, to say the least and my little furry babies have made a wonderful home here. :) So here you go...these were taken this morning so they're pretty current. :)

Claire is very nosey. She loves to know where you are and what you're doing.

If you're watching television she'll figure out a way to practically be on top of you so she can enjoy the tv too.

When you look like you're going to leave the house, she'll sit on the steps and make this face.

She weighs 8.6 pounds (as of yesterday).

She's the cutest thing ever and we adore her.

*

Jack-Jack is needy. He likes to be at your feet if you're in the Lay-Z-boy chair. If you sit on the sofa, he'll curl up right next to you like he is here. If you let him outside, he makes a mad-dash to visit his *friends* to say hello...and if you call his name and say, "come back!" he'll turn and look to say, "i'll be back in a minute! i have to say hi to my friends first!"

 (which takes him about ten minutes to do...so I stand and wait. and wait.)

But he's a cutie and he just celebrated his first birthday.

He currently weighs 5.5 pounds

(up from 3.2, thanks to my adding butter to just about all of his food)

He is very loved.

*

Piggy (aka: Kitty Kitty) is more like a dog. He doesn't use a litter box, he'll meow and paw at the door to be let out. He needs to teach Claire and Jack-Jack a thing or two, but they're getting better! (thank goodness)

Kitty hides all over the house: in Nathaniel's bunk bed, in the shower (seriously) or in Jeff's t-shirt drawer...this is where I found him today...I think he's enjoying the sun from the closet window.

When people come to visit he's very friendly (it's almost comical how friendly he is) and he loves to play *tag* with Jack-Jack and Claire. Kitty usually wins by hopping on top of the dining room table. Well? Wouldn't you if two crazed pups were after your tail? lol

He's now 3 years old and is the Prince of the Castle.

New camera photos.

... Beans on her Rip-Rider

... Claire finally letting me get a good shot of her

... what is she saying? "Oh come on? Enough pictures already." She is so sassy!

... Jack-Jack is a little out of focus but you get the idea. lol

... Jack-Jack, he's so cute. I love his face.

I have a new camera. For two years (or maybe three!) I've wanted a really goooood camera (like a 'body' camera with lenses and all that mess!) and the prices have dropped low enough that I could finally get one, and just in time for vacation too! The lighting isn't the best as it's 6p in the evening but I'll try some more tomorrow. Yay! Good pictures of my family! I am SO excited!!!!

I can now cross CAMERA off My List. :) Ain't it grand?!

A good night's sleep. Not.

Okay. Our first night with Claire (Bear) didn't go very well. Oh My Word!! This little girl cried and cried and cried some more. lol By 4:15a, Jeff decided to take her downstairs because the whaling was just getting to be too much. lol

Today I'm going to WalMart to get a crate. Last night she slept in a large box and was not thrilled about it at all. lol I'll keep you posted.

Also while I'm at WalMart, I'm getting her a baby bottle. :) She's very teenie, after all.

Jack adores her. I knew he would. He realizes she's not going anywhere now and has calmed down a bit, and can actually enjoy her. Right now, Jack is on his back pretending to sleep and Claire is laying on his neck. It has to be one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. :)

This morning I'm having lunch with Moonbeam. :) I've been working my tooshie off these last few days and want a break. :) So, we're off to do some caroling. Nah. Just kidding. It's not even winter yet, you silly goose!

More things coming...probably around dinnertime. :)

And...for those of you who're wondering...I AM working on a Harry Potter bracelet...it's in the works. Be patient! I'm hoping to be able to duplicate it about ten times.

Meet Claire

Emily took this of our Jack-Jack. Isn't he a mess!? We adore him.

What a nice day it turned out to be... my Mom planted these for me when she came last week. Aren't they beautiful? I've been watering them. If I don't have many "planting" responsibilities,

I can keep things alive. If I have a whole lot of things to be in charge of, they go to waste. Isn't that the Peter Principle? I think so. lol Anyway, these are lovely.


A surprise today...

Little Claire.

Isn't she sweet!? She looks very much like Bella ::sigh:: but I think her personality
will be a little more timid, we can't wait to see how she turns out.

Emily said she'd take some pics of Claire later tonight. My photos are NO comparison.

Jack-Jack's first vet appointment.

My Jack-Jack looks like he's wearing a tuxedo for some reason. LOL I don't know why, it just does. lol Emily took this (who's working on a website! shh!!) and so of course I had to post it. : )

Anyway, on Thursday Jeff and I took Jack-Jack to his first Vet appointment. He did quite well and now weighs a whopping 2.5 pounds! I know, you're shocked, I was too, because he's very small, but he's all muscle, baby! LOL He's a all or nothin' kinda boy. And I'm not kidding. He is either 150% GOING, GOING, GOING or 150% I-ain't-movin'-a-muscle-kinda-pup. It's the funniest thing. Also, his new favorite thing is to find birdy poo and roll in it. Nice. I know. It's really rather gross. So then you go to pick him and up and it's like, "OH MY WORD!! What have you been IN TO?" so you put him down very quickly and run for the hills. LOL I happened to find this out the hard way one evening when I gathered him up to give him a huge smooch and "uh!!! you stink!!!" came tumbling out really fast from my mouth. LOL Too funny! He immediately found himself being submerged in warm water and covered in puppy coconut and guava shampoo. LOL! He no likey that. Too bad! That's what ya get for playin' in poo. Ha!

Anyway, he weighs 2.5 pounds and is doing great. He's not quite big enough to get the rabies shot yet, so we'll hold off on that for another couple of months I guess. Turns out he had ear mites. My groomer, Cary, was the first one to really notice it. Right off the bat when we took him to get his grooming done, she said, "oh. he has ear mites." Then after a little research online I knew she was right. Anyway, they're gone now. He had a treatment in the office and we gave him one at home. Kills those little things fast. You get them from the mother's milk. Odd no? The vet said one ear was worse than the other but it wasn't too bad. Good thing. He hasn't been itching much so I'm relieved. : ) So, he's all fixed up and ready to roll in more poo. LOL

Yesterday I torched a lot of the custom beads. I have one set to complete (Suzanne's Custom bracelet with all the colorful pots!) and then I should be good to work on some new things. I so enjoyed torching. I'm in the middle of Outlander and OMG!! it is SO good. Thank you, thank you for all the recommendations on it, I love it! Long too! Can't wait to begin the next one, but I still have twenty hours to go with this one...yeah! I'm in the part where Claire just got married to Jamie (Fraser) ::giggles:: it's realllly good. I love the setting of time...what is it? early 1400's? I need to check, but I'm almost sure. Just a great book. Love all the history. It turns out that I adore historical fiction. : )

I asked my friend Missy if we could watch her puppy for the weekend. Wait till Emily sees Samson. OMG. She's gonna flip, or I think she will anyway. LOL He's a fun little dude. All black. He's a lab-weimaraner or whatever they're called, you know, the dogs who get dressed up on Sesame street? Only he's black. LOL Should be a fun weekend for all the dogs. I'm sure they'll all find lots of birdy poopy to stick their faces in. LOL!!! (you think I'm kidding? I so am not! it's an epidemic! birds poo. dogs find it. feel the need to roll in it. nas-tee!) Anyway, Missy's Samson is part lab and weimaraner so he's a real cutie.

Well, I gotta scram. I have a day to begin but first, I think I'll have a coffee and watch some news. Ya'll have a terrific day and what are your weekend plans? Anything?

Okay...originally I posted it with the actual youtube.com clip here but it causes my blog to shut down (great.) so I'm just putting the actual clip link and you can watch it yourselves. Sorry about that. blogger is having some issues at the moment with outbound links. grrr!

Here's the doggie linky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgQNx_aRZgk

PS: If you're still having issues with my site, it won't open or whatever, try using Mozilla-Firefox or anything OTHER than Internet Explorer.

Sweet Chicks.

...just roamin' the town, man. any sweet chicks live around here?

Jack-Jack: Hey there, Sadie! Do you know where I can give smooches to sweet chicks?
Sadie: Yeah, I do! I'll take you to them...

Yeah? Okay? They're takin' me for a ride... not sure about this!

This was definitely NOT what I meant by smoochin' on sweet chicks,
but I guess they'll have to do.

My life sure is full of surprises!

Hangin' with my homies...

Sallie:
"You're a real stinker. You never come when you're called. You really need to act better!"

Jack-Jack:
"Yeah. I know. But there's just SO much to see! I want to roll in it, lick and sniff it all!"

Jack-Jack:

"Hey, where'd you get that stick? I want one!"

Just hangin' out with my homies.

Jack-Jack the slacker.

Hi.

I'm getting really sleepy. You just keep working. I'm taking a nap. I've had a hard day.
I'm just going to sleep in my cozy bed. You just go back to eating your Smarties.
(I guess he decided that he didn't want to sleep in his bed after all. lol)

(nearly out of the bed completely...lol)

Hi Everyone :)

Yesterday while I was busily working on orders and other things, Jack-Jack sat quietly in Bella's bed... I did put a towel over it so not too much pink would show. I don't think he cares but you never know, he might be offended by all that pink. :) I thought I'd show you a few of them. :) lol He's quite a character, Mr. Jack-Jack. He's learning his name and comes (for the most part) when you call. :)

You can see from my photos (just bits) that my work area is a mess! Yes. Yes. Yes. I know. You don't need to remind me, and don't get me started on my floor. Altho, I did sweep it last week but it has managed to get messy again. Oh well. That's what comes from intense work! I just plug along and forget that I have a trashcan, although it's pretty full at the minute.

You all have a great day, I'm so glad today is Wednesday. The weekend is close. I hope for sun.

:)

... taking a break to say Hi!

Hi Everyone! How are you? Things here are quiet. My hubby has gone to run errands and the kids are all at school. Phew. I am so glad.

This morning I got the kids up fifteen minutes early so that they could decide what they wanted to wear, and I will tell you what, I'll never do that again. We were almost late! Ridiculous! I don't know why that is, but everytime I wake them up early we end up struggling to be on time. Now, if I do the regular routine of 6:45a, we have no trouble whatsoever. Does that make any sense at all? Yeah. Me neither. Oh well.

Jack-Jack is getting better about not having me around every waking minute. (lol) I put him in my work area and he cries if I walk out to go mail something. Wha! lol Cracks me up, he's a big ol' baby. Right now, he's sacked out on my bed but if I leave, he's sure to cry, but hopefully it will get better. He cuddles a lot, and I like that. He's a charmer. :)

Well, I better get back to whatever it was I was doing (work). I'll talk to you all later. Oh! I will have a few specials to put up this evening. They're going to be apart of my Season-Clearance-Sale. :)

Have a great day,
laurie

Fun in Grandma's Gator!

(Front: Morgan, Natalie & Nathaniel. Back: Faith, Nadine & Nicole)

We're at Grandma Eller's house, riding her Gator. Is that thing not the coolest?
It's like a car only way better. Morgan's driving (she's 12.5, going on 25. lol).

And... there they go. They had a lot of fun!

* * *

Jack-Jack was poooped!

Saturday relaxation with Jack-Jack

On our way to Ohio, I wanted a coffee so we stopped at Mac's. Making sure Jack-Jack had an opportunity to "write and send letters", I put him in the grassy area. All he wanted to do was relax in the tall blades.

He smelled something, I don't know what, but you can see how his nose is crooked... lol I like this one.

hiding.

just hangin' out...

you can kinda see how big he is...

Just enjoying the day...

My groomer mentioned that we needed to "tape" his ears up so they would stand upright on their own.
I'm not sure. I kinda like them just as they are, floppy. Next week, I'll do some research online to
see what's better. I think this might be one reason he was still there, because most people want a
Yorkie whose ears stand up. I don't really care. He's unique. And Special.

jack-jack attack clip

Hi again, I've had some emails about not knowing who Jack-Jack is on The Incredibles cartoon by Pixar. Well, here's a clip. :) As you can see, little jack-jack is PRETTTTY tough! LOL Cracks me up to see this clip, especially when she keeps dousing him with the fire extinguisher. LOL

Click HERE to view the clip on Youtube.

Enjoy!

Jack-Jack.

"hi. i'm jack-jack. i'm new here."

Emily-the-Great came through (of course). Here's our new little man, Jack-Jack. I told you, doesn't he just look ornery? He's going to the groomer's tomorrow but I wanted Emily to get him before he got his first hair cut, like she did with Bella. :) Jack-Jack is a busy little dude, I'll tell you that, he likes to "attack" My Little Petshop toys and loves Barbie's hair. lol He likes chasing too... anything... the cat. pieces of dog food-that don't move. children. paper. lol yeah, he chases it all. he's a hoot! :)

"hmm... i wonder if i can jump that far."

"hey, what's in here? is there food? you got any treats? i really like treats."

Jack {Bauer}

Okay, if you've just joined me today, please read the bottom post first. If you haven't been to my blog in oh, say, a week... please read the last few posts. It will bring you up to speed.

I took some photos of Jack a little bit ago, he was finally awake. We wore him out yesterday. :) Anyway, here he is. My photos are NO WHERE near as wonderful as Emily's but hey, I don't have her skill and her camera. So... here he is. He kept moving, he's very busy, so hopefully Em can get some good ones later on today. He's has a look. Can you see it? (Right now he's destroying a construction paper roll and hopping over shoes) Also, he hasn't been groomed in any way, still mussy. His first grooming will be Friday... ::tears:: he took Bella's spot.

xo

L

Life with its ups and downs.

Well, yesterday was a tough day. I dreaded the morning and going through all the motions of getting my children ready without my shadow. I did no work whatsoever because I couldn't stand the thought of my studio room without my side-kick. My day was empty. So Jeff took me to Melissa's Cafe for an early lunch and then we ran a few errands before we headed off to the kid's elementary school for the Girl Scouts ceremony. My day was busy sure, but it we knew someone was missing. My Bella.

After the girl's ceremony we went to look at the little boy. I need to clarify something first. It turns out that this is not Bella's brother, however he was born at the same time by a different Mom. Michelle, my breeder, has three Mom's and usually has three litters a year... it turns out that this little guy was from a Mom who delivered a week after Bella. During our conversations we were both quite distraught and I was confused when she said that she "still had a little boy", thinking that was the little boy from Bella's litter, as there were just the two of them. I didn't know that her other Mom had delivered too... and this was that puppy. He's ten weeks (Bella was eleven weeks).

We went to see him and I thought he was so cute. He is so cute. He is not my Bella, but I'm learning that no one is and there's just nothing I can do about that, I can't be miserable and get myself so depressed that I can't enjoy this new life, this life that wants to love us back. My heart aches when I think of her and all the things she used to do but at the same time I know I have to let her go and laugh at the memories and not cry when I think of them. That is SO difficult!

Trying to keep it all straight is tough too! The lineage I mean. Of all these dogs. lol Michelle went through it in detail and made us understand, but in a nutshell... Abigail is Bella's Mom and about a year and a half ago she had a litter of pups... Michelle (breeder) told her thirteen-year-old daughter, Ariel that she could keep one of the pups as her own (to breed if she wanted). She decided that she would. Ariel's Mommy dog is named Hope. HOPE is pregnant and due in a month and will have pups that are ready around July 24th (give or take a few days). Ariel (the daughter) told us yesterday that she really wanted us to have the girl puppy when she comes... (if there is a girl). They made us cry. It was so kind. Ariel, not your typical teen--that's for sure!, was just lovely to us and they really made us feel so much better.

The wait begins. We will await the arrival of Bella's cousin? Would that be right? No, that's not right... well, whatever the lineage, it will have a tie to Bella. But it's really this family that has the tie. They adore their parents and the environment is so warm and friendly, every one's welcome. We will await the arrival of Hope's babies and then if there's a girl... we'll go see her. I am looking forward to that... the Hoping...

In the meantime, we have a new little man in the house. He's different, but in a good way. His face is absolutely different and although his body-structure is similar to Bella's, it's still not the same completely.

We named him Jack {Bauer}.

Jeff loves "24" and well, it seemed fitting you know? Jack Bauer can get out of tough situations and man, how many lives does that dude have anyway? So, our little fella has a tough name... Jack. I've been calling him "Jack-Jack" like The Incredibles little baby, you know? The one who had the ability to make his body become fire? lol He was a tough little cookie too, so it seemed to be the perfect name for our new little life.

I will try and get back to my more jovial self in the coming days and weeks. She, in her short time, really captured my heart and made me so happy. I think this little guy will do that too, in time. The kids love him. Oh, our first night didn't go too badly. He was in his tiny crate...at the top corner of my bed where Bella always slept... he's just IN the crate (realize, it's a small crate). He didn't cry too too long, maybe fifteen minutes? He finally conked out and we didn't hear so much as a PEEP out of him the remainder of the night. :) Wish us luck on potty training.

Thank you so much for all the amazing emails, you took the time to email me and let me know your thoughts. I appreciate it more than you know. Those of you who shared your stories with me, thank you. I am blessed. Who knew that this world of Internet could make a heart heal that much more quickly. I didn't feel so alone. Jeff too. Realizing that this, this horrible tragedy didn't just happen to us, that it's happened to other people too... well, it meant a lot.

Love to all of you...
L.

PS: Emily will be taking pictures of Jack today. I'll keep you posted, but in the meantime, I wanted to post a couple photos that were taken last week of my Bella... just one last time..

I think the above photo was taken in the RAW.