A Plethora of Pictures (and then some...)

Here is Josie. I'm not sure if it's pronounced "Jo-Z" or "Jo-C" but we say both.

I guess it's supposed to be like "Josie and the Pussycats," except we only have one,

so it's "pussycat." ;)

She is usually so active, it's hard for me to get a good photo of her, except when she's sleeping. (Kinda like the boys! lol!) Here she has one of her favorite toys. But notice the corner of the wood behind her? That, unfortunately, is also a favorite thing of hers to chew! Josh loves to get in the floor and play with her. That is, until she gets a little too rough, and starts biting harder, especially his ears or the back of his neck!

Ben likes her best when she's calm. There again, 'cause he doesn't like when she bites or jumps up on him. But he loves her just the same.
She is so silly....Her favorite place to nap is still between the couch and the recliner. If she's played hard, and she's hot, she's right on top of the vent. After she cools off, she'll move away, but only a little bit.


And just in time for the start of school, I finished a LO of Ben's graduation. Yay me!


Tuesday, we went to school for Meet the Teacher day. Josh got to do a scavenger hunt for his classroom. He has Ms. Jones this year.... A different Jones than the one Ben had last year, of course.

Here, Ms. Bittle helps Josh with the hunt.
She is a student with University of Phoenix, and will be doing her student teaching at the school, assisting Ms. Jones until November. (I didn't get a photo of Ms. Jones. darn it!)

Josh finds his cubby and coat hook....assisted by Ben...


Hey, this is a familiar room....Ben has Mrs. Youngblood this year....Josh's teacher last year! How cool is that?!!

Ben finds his desk, assisted by Josh....

(She is quite tall....Steve had to tilt the camera to get both her and Ben in frame! lol!)

:D

Afterward, it was time for some fun....

Josh loves to climb...{sigh}...high...

My other "poser." (I love this photo. So serious, yet so cute...)

Our monkey boy...

Besides climbing high, Josh also loves to swing on the monkey bars...

and he's fast!

Playing secret agents, Ben and Daddy are in their hideout...

And the back-to-school supplies. As well as new clothes for both boys. I took advantage of the no-sales-tax weekend and got everything on the school's list, plus some extras. I even looked ahead, and got some new shoes, a size bigger than what they're wearing now. I know that in just a couple of short months, the ones they're wearing now will be worn out!

And the big day...Yay me!! (Uhumm, excuse me. I guess I'm a little too excited!)

They were a little nervous, but eager to get on with it.

Watching, no...listening for the bus...

And they're off....

It was a very quiet day at our house yesterday. (Thank you Lord for public school! lol)

I did miss them, a little. But the day flew by for me. Josie missed them the most, I think. She'd walk around, and check up on the couch for them. I took her up to the bus stop in the afternoon to greet them, and she nearly drug me home, trying to keep up with the boys!

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I've got a whole list of things I've been putting off until school started that I need to get started on, so I might be MIA for a while. (Just as long as I don't go AWOL!) But if anything exciting happens...well... I'll try not to let that get by without posting about it!

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And maybe I can get to scrapping those vacation and birthday photos in there, somewhere, too!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Hasta luego!

:)

Meet "Rosie"

Yes, we were sadden about Pepsi, but as I said, we quickly refocused and moved on.

We found (via Petfinder) more than a dozen black lab pups at the Unicoi County Animal Shelter in Erwin, TN. So we googled a map, and got directions. It's a straight shot up I-26 through Madison Co. and into Tennessee. We were already ready for a long trip, so why not? We took the 1hr.+ drive through some beautiful mountain country... We went in and out of overcast skies, and even ran into a rain shower.

The way the sun cast shadows against the mountains under the darkened sky, was just beautiful.

We stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center. It was a very nice rest area. We were thoroughly impressed!


The shelter wasn't too far inside the TN state line, but the google map wasn't exactly correct, not that they always are. But Steve stopped to ask for directions (yes, a man asked for directions! go figure!) and we were there in no time. We were there when they first opened, so we had our pick of the black-lab-crop. It was difficult at first to choose one that we all agreed on...truth is, they were all too cute! But we narrowed it down to two, a black lab/golden retriever mix named Lei (Hawaiian) and this little girl named Rosie. Lei was soft and fluffy, but quite a bit bigger than Rosie, so size being the determining factor, we chose Rosie.
(Doesn't this photo make you ready for Halloween?!)

She did fine on the drive home, sleeping most of the way. She seemed to take easily to the leash as I walked her when we arrived home. She did well in the crate as I fixed lunch. She's only had 2 accidents--most of her business has been done outside while on the leash. She's playful, like most pups. She knows where her food and water are. And she's figure out that the "rectangular hole in the floor" blows out cool air, which makes for a nice place to take a break....

She seems to be settling in just fine. The boys just adore her.

Tomorrow, we call the vet to see about getting an initial exam, spaying, and the rest of her puppy shots.

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So, all's well that ends well.

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Now, I need to get some pet-themed scrapbook supplies!

(hehehehe!)

;D

(BTW, her name will change. As I've said before, I like Josie, or JoJo. Remember, MoJo (cat's name mashed with the dog's name)? Well, how coincidental is it that her shelter name is only one letter different? That settles it for me! The boys like Josie as well. Now, if I can only convince Steve.....hhmmmmm.....)

Bad news....

We were all excited to go and pick up our cute little Pepsi this morning. It was all Josh could talk about. He'd just say, "Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi..." over and over. I was packing a few snacks and fixing drinks to take along, when the phone rang. It was about 8:40 this morning. It was the shelter calling about Pepsi. She has developed a problem with her hind legs. The vet that works with shelter said it didn't look good, that he thought there was something (not sure what) wrong. She kept falling down. Large breed dogs tend to develop hip displaysia (sp-?) as they get older, but she's only weeks old. So they advised cancelling the adoption, and refunding our adoption fee. We are all heart broken. Josh cried. Nearly broke my heart.

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So we looked again on Petfinder, not wanting to wait. We found several, lots, of lab mix puppies in Erwin, TN. So, our plans have changed. But we are moving on.

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Ya know, it's funny....God's timing....it's always just in time. We were literally only minutes from walking out the door. And He stepped in....just in time. Yes, we are sad about Pepsi. It was almost like we already knew her. But it's best that it worked out this way. Better to suffer only a little now, than to really get to know Pepsi, only to have to say goodbye too soon.

Thank you, Lord.

:(

Busy Scrappin'

I have got my groove on here lately with the scrapbookin'! Been turnin' 'em out fairly quickly, at least quicker than I have in months!! :D lol

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The first one I did in duplicate...meaning I did the exact same design for both boys. I figured why waste time trying to create two different LOs of the same occasion, having the exact same pictures. It was MUCH easier!

I always try to do a page for our veggie garden, at least a couple of pictures, and

a list of what we grew....

I think the pictures and the title says it all....

Ben finally trying his bike without the training wheels....

And I finally got around to all those fun pictures I took at the Spring Carnival. If you notice that Ben isn't smiling in the pictures, he wasn't feeling too well that day. It was actually the beginning of a month of illness for 3 of us.

Josh's version....I saw this basic LO in my new Creating Keepsakes magazine (Sept. issue), except I flipped it, and added extra photos.

A simple page for my Mother's Day. (We ate at my favorite Italian restaurant, Carrabba's.)

(And I got a couple of new scrapbook tools. Yay! And lots of hugs and kisses.)

I did this one this morning. It was fun. I love the contrast of color against the black.

And I stretched myself on this one...I don't usually do things on an angle...I like things to line up straight. And I had to improvise with the title...the "t's" are actually "f's" with the tops cut off, the "r" was a "n," and the "E" is, of course, a backwards "3."

I finished this one this evening. It is a blatant lift of one from a blog I follow ( http://gretchenmac.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html) Same paper, same orientation. I just thought it "rocked!" I added some journaling and a title, where hers had none.

(I hope that linked worked. I'm not too good at doing those kind of things! ;P)

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So, that's it. I am about to move on to Ben's graduation. Just in time for the beginning of school.

See, I told you I was running a season behind!

And I still have all the summer photos to edit and print...

before I can even think of scrappin' them!!

They'll get done....eventually.

Thanks for stoppin' by and lookin'.

Have a great weekend.

:)

(YAY! I just checked the link...it worked! You have to scroll down to find the one I

scrap-lifted.)

A new puppy...

Well, we made the 1.5 hour drive up to Newland on Saturday. It was a beautiful drive. There were plenty of sights to see along the way...like Linville Caverns and the Falls, and just a little further on, Grandfather Mountain. But we were on a mission (and Steve had to get back, 'cause he had to work--bummer), so we had to skip all those other fun things....We (finally) found the Avery County Humane Society building

--waaaaaay out in the boonies--

and made our way inside to meet Pepsi. A volunteer led us back to the kennels, and there introduced us to her, along with two other pups in her stall. The other two were quite rambunctious, and tried to steal the attention she was receiving from us. It was difficult to get a good photo of her playing with all the commotion.

But once the papers were taken care of, Steve got to hold her for a few minutes, and for a brief moment, I held her attention long enough to get this shot....

She is paid for. She is ours. However, we did have to leave her there for her second round of puppy shots, a rabies shot, and for her to be spayed. The boys were disappointed, Ben especially. All the way home, he would not stop talking about how he wanted to bring her home, NOW. After explaining it to him X number of times, I actually had to threaten him to drop it, or else! He REALLY wants a puppy! We are all excited to bring her home, and can't wait for the shelter to call and tell us to come and get her, she's ready to come home. Also can't wait to see the cat's reaction....hehehe! (He used to torment Lucy...can't wait to see how this plays out! hehehe [insert laugh like Igor!])
Thanks for poppin' by!
Stayed tuned....
:)

A busy weekend....

As you may or may not know, this is NC's tax-free weekend, where you can get school supplies and clothing, among other things, without paying state and local taxes. (O-goody!) This week is also my usual week to shop for groceries (every other week). So instead of trying to do it all at once and REALLY wear myself out, I decided to split the shopping into two days, groceries on Thursday, and school supplies and new clothes today. Whew! I am beat! I don't care whether or not I step into a Walmart or Target for another month!!! But I do believe that the boys are ready for school, at least supply-wise anyway. At least I am ready for August 25th!!

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In other goings-on, I have been searching on Petfinder.com for the last couple of weeks for our next pet/member-of-the-family. Every morning and every evening, I check the local shelters' websites to see if there's any new additions. Last night, I found what may (hopefully) turn out to be the right one for us. This is Pepsi.... Isn't she so adorable?! She's just 6 weeks old. The trick is, she's in Newland--that's about 1 1/2 hour drive away, near Linville, NC. Steve called the shelter this afternoon, and had her put on a 24 hr. hold for us. So, tomorrow we will be off to Newland to meet Pepsi. I'm not sure if she'll be coming home with us, even if we DO adopt her--she still has to be spayed--I think--so we may have to wait a few days, and then go back and pick her up after her surgery. Yes, that's two trips. Hopefully it'll all work out. Just by looking at her picture, she's won all of our hearts!

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(BTW, Pepsi is the name the shelter gave her. She may or may not keep it. I kinda like the name Josie, or JoJo for short. Our cat is named Moe, or MoMo. Put them together and you get MoJo. :D I like it....)

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Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!
:)