Happy Birthday, Baby Boy!

Today we're celebrating the 7th birthday of our sweet little man Fresco, although I'll admit I didn't actually look at the calendar and realize today was September 1 until this evening. Regardless, our munchkin still had a pretty good day. Our walk this morning got cut way short because of rain, but Fresco got some extra exercise this evening when we took him to the dog park--just his second visit ever. He had fun playing with a bunch of puppies and held his own during the game of chase. It was clear that he wasn't a puppy anymore though! Hopefully we'll become dog park regulars and Fresco will get better and better at coming back when he's called. His ears have turned off almost entirely during his first couple of visits!

Our little lanky guy is doing pretty well adjusting to being an only dog for the first time in his life, but he does seem a little bit depressed. Honestly, we thought he would be a little more excited about getting all the attention in the house. Maybe what seems to us like sulking is really just exhaustion, since we've been enjoying 4-5 mile walks most mornings. Hopefully some regular trips to the dog park will help his mood as well. Ultimately though, I think we'll start fostering again later in the fall, and hopefully that perfect addition to our family will eventually come along.

Five

Tonight we have a lucky pup sleeping right in between us, even though he's normally only allowed at the foot of the bed. It's a special occasion though, because today is our boy Fresco's birthday! He didn't get much of a party today, so tonight he's getting some special snuggle treatment. He did also get a special photo session earlier this evening, as you can see from the handsome photo. Since it was over 100 degrees today, he was hot and panting when he came inside--which meant that I got some lovely smiles.

Although Fresco also got a special doggie sandwich cookie made with homemade biscuits and peanut butter this evening, he was a little bummed that he didn't get a walk today. Since we walked over 3.5 miles last night, I didn't worry too much about walking this morning, especially since I was busy driving a friend to the airport. I think he felt a little slighted! Our big guy loves his daily walks, and 3.5 miles is definitely not enough to wear him out. Even though he's now five years old, he's not showing any signs of slowing down!

With that said, although he still has tons of energy for walks, our sweet man has matured in so man other ways in the 4 years since we started fostering him, and even in the 3+ years since we adopted him. He is much more calm when people come over--his manners with guests have improved greatly. He is still excitable about people and dogs walking by our house, but even that has improved a great deal! He still has his quirks and tiny issues, but overall he's just a big lanky lump of doggy love. We just couldn't adore this snuggly pup much more.

Of course, since I shared a picture of Fresco on Hope's birthday then I have to do the same for our sweet girl today. Although I have to say she wasn't quite as into the photo session as the birthday boy. :)

Sissy

Just a couple of hours ago we had a special birthday celebration for our sweet, adorable and weird girl Hope, who's also often known as "Sissy" in the Luce household. I guess I'm using the term "celebration" rather loosely, considering we really only walked into the bedroom (where she'd pulled all the covers back on our bed) and fed her a special gigantic biscuit I made her earlier this evening. We sang her happy birthday as well, but since she can hear virtually nothing these days, she just looked sheepish and confused as to what was going on. Hopefully she knows it's her special day though, since she got a new pink glow-in-the-dark leash this morning along with the batch of pumpkin biscuits. As you can see below, she enjoyed her huge biscuit and her brother enjoyed his too.




I don't think I've ever mentioned here that we often call her Sissy, but I think Chad actually started calling her that in the first year we had her. Although I hated the nickname initially (I have no idea why), somehow after Steeler died I warmed up to it. I guess because once she and Celtic only had each other, it just seemed completely appropriate. We used the nickname only occasionally at first, but as the years have gone on I think we now call her Sissy more than we call her Hope, which doesn't really bother her since she can't hear us anyway!

Speaking of years gone by, today isn't truly her birthday, but it's the day we celebrate because it's the anniversary of the day we brought her home and started fostering her. I just can't believe it was only 6 years ago today! I think I probably said this on her birthday last year, but I feel like she's always been a part of our family. I can obviously look back at pictures of the boys and see that we once had no Hope, but it just seems like so many lifetimes ago.

Since we don't really know Hope's true birthday, we also don't really know how old she actually is, but today we're celebrating her 11th trip around the sun. She could be as old as 13, which you would never know except for her grey muzzle, cloudy eyes, terrible teeth and hearing loss. Seriously though, her agility and enthusiasm are still that of a puppy! She goes from dead asleep to 100 miles an hour in about 2 seconds, and she barrels all over the house and yard like a maniac when she's not snoozing. She loves her naps, but she also loves making a dramatic entrance to let you know she's inside!



How sweet is that happy face? We just love our little Sissy so much and are so thankful that's she's celebrating yet another birthday with us!

Happy Funkin' Birthday

Today is my big brother's birthday, and even though I got the chance to wish him happy birthday on the phone, I of course had to send him an e-card as well. Of course I made him a JibJab card and of course I think it's ridiculously funny. Thankfully, he thought it was pretty funny too and didn't even yell at me when I posted it on his Facebook page.

In all seriousness, my brother is nearly as awesome in real life as he is in this video.

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Happy Birthday, Brother! Can't wait to see you next weekend!

A Birthday Tribute

Last night I finally looked at some pictures I'd downloaded from my point-and-shoot that were taken a couple of weeks ago when my friend Kati was visiting. Since I so rarely use that camera, the beginning of the bunch actually included a few videos from the last weeks of Celtic's life. Since yesterday would have been his 14th birthday, I started to put together a little video montage in his honor, but of course I didn't have time to finish it until this evening. We miss the little munchkin so much, sometimes it's hard to even look at his sweet face without being sad. Then again, it also warms my heart to see that he was still so happy in the last weeks of his life--the second couple of clips were actually taken just 4 days before he died.

As much as we love and adore our dear Hope and adorable Fresco, our love for them will never quite be the same as our love for Celtic and Steeler. The first furry babies to steal our hearts were our sweet Beagle-ish boys.

Mom's Big Day

I've been absent from blogging for the last couple of weeks primarily because of the big 65th birthday shindig we threw at our house last Saturday for my lovely mother. There was so much to do in the weeks leading up to the event--reminder sending, housecleaning, menu planning, grocery shopping, food preparing, airport shuttling, decoration purchasing, present buying, houseguest hosting, and picture searching/scanning for slideshow making. My brother flew in last Tuesday (which was our mom's actual birthday) and was very helpful in getting a lot of this done, which was great since my dear husband was sick in bed a lot during the last couple of weeks!

Overall, I have to say that the party was a big success. Although it poured down rain and even hailed for a little while in the early afternoon, we still had over 40 people attend. My mom looked beautiful and had a really great time visiting with so many very dear friends. Everyone was very complimentary of the food, of the decorations and of our slideshow. My friend Leigh Ann made fantastic cupcakes which were so beautiful people didn't want to eat them. I took tons of pictures of the festivities and my brother took a bunch too, and most of them turned out pretty good. I hope to eventually put them into a scrapbook with all of mom's birthday cards, but for now the online album will have to do.




Although the party itself went very well, the evening before the big day, as we were trying to prep all the food and finish picking out the music for the slideshow, Mom and I took a trip to the airport to pick up her very dear friend Linda, who was flying in from Montana for the party. Unfortunately, the construction traffic on I-70 put a big kink in our plans, since the normal trip of 50-55 minutes took us almost 90! After getting to the airport so late and then having dinner at Zona Rosa (which is always busy on a Friday night), we didn't get home until way later than anticipated. I didn't get nearly as much of the food prepared as I had hoped, and I still stayed up until about 1 a.m. working on mom's slideshow!

The point of that whole story was just to make an excuse as to why the food wasn't quite done when people started arriving on Saturday. I think everything was on the table at 1:10 (the open house started at 1), but I would have much preferred to have the whole thing set up and the kitchen cleaned prior to guests getting here! Thankfully, Chad's mom Joanie and our friend Linda were hugely helpful in refilling the food as needed during the afternoon and even assembling appetizers!

Other than the delayed food, there was only one other tiny detail that I didn't anticipate that could have been kind of disastrous. About 3o minutes into the party someone requested coffee, and not only had I not made any (we only made yummy punch), I only had my tiny one person coffee pot that makes 20 ounces at a time! I never thought about the fact that almost everyone in my mom's generation would want coffee at our afternoon party. Thankfully there was a newly opened bag of coffee, so my awesome mother-in-law started brewing, and she didn't stop the rest of the afternoon! We used the 12 little cups from our china set (that had never been used) along with all the other random mugs in our house, and Joanie's husband Rory still ended up washing dishes for at least an hour. My dear coffee-hating husband even got into the coffee-making action, which is a sight I thought I'd never see in my life! I was so thankful for all my awesome kitchen helpers that helped to avert a crazy coffee crisis. Our successful party was definitely a group effort!

Bieberrific Birthday

Today is my amazing friend Cara's birthday, and even though I sent her a Jib Jab card and left her a message on Facebook and sent her a text, I still have to wish her a very happy birthday on the blog tonight. Cards, texts and other messages just don't cut it when you have a friend who is such an inspiration to so many people in so many ways. In the last couple of years, our friend Cara has handled the adversities of life with incredible grace, poise, maturity, faith and godliness--and she's not even 30 years old yet! All my other birthday wishes didn't seem adequate for such an amazing person, and my Jib Jab card certainly didn't seem adequate since I couldn't find an appropriate card that I could stick her head onto. Since I didn't have the perfect card, I decided to make her a special music video instead. I can now say I've watched my first ever Justin Bieber video. It's kind of appropriate since Cara's still a youngin' herself!

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Happy birthday, Cara! :)

Happy 1st!

Our little friend Violet had a birthday party just a few days before I left for my trip to DC, and we had a lovely time celebrating with her family and friends on a beautiful fall day in a local park. Her parents, our good friends Robyn and Dan, provided tons of great food for everyone and we had a fun time watching Vi enjoy her first cake. She is such a happy, agreeable and easygoing baby--one of those babies that makes everyone to have them! We were a little bummed because we had to leave before all the presents were opened, but I got a couple of cute cake shots at least. I think this was my favorite!

Stress and Birthdays

The last week has been quite stressful, and my body let me know that it wasn't appreciating the extra stress when I woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat and a fever. I wasn't really surprised under the circumstances. After receiving the terrible news on Thursday and subsequently worrying about my grieving friend nonstop, I could feel the illness coming on by Friday afternoon. Then after a super busy day at work I ended up staying at the office until after 7 trying to finish up a big project, which certainly didn't help things. Even downing a bunch of vitamin C Friday night and going to bed early didn't keep me from having to cancel my training walks with friends on Saturday morning. After sleeping most of Saturday away I managed to make it to our friend Mike's 40th birthday party for a couple of hours that evening. On Sunday I tried to rest as much as possible too, but that day we actually had another birthday party to go to--this one for our 1-year-old friend Violet!

Tonight the birthday theme continued when I went over to my friend Melissa's with a few other friends from work to bring her dinner and wine for her birthday. It was hard to call this one a birthday celebration though, since obviously Mel just lost her husband 7 days ago. There were a lot more tears and hugs at this party than candles and presents, unfortunately. The sadness and grief have been so emotionally draining, I can't even begin to imagine how Melissa and her family feel.

Although I've felt a little better every day since Saturday (is this only Tuesday??), I would like to have spent more of Sunday and yesterday evening lounging around and trying to heal. Unfortunately that wasn't possible since I had lots of packing and preparing to do, given that I'm flying out tomorrow evening to Columbus, Ohio, where my dad will pick me up. As most of my friends and family know, the following day we'll drive together to Washington, DC, where we'll be participating together in the newly titled Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure! I'm super excited!

Now if I can just make it through one more day of stress at work, I'll be free to enjoy a relaxing vacation with my Pop--that is if you consider walking 60 miles in a weekend relaxing!

Birthday Baby

Today we're celebrating the 4th birthday of our lanky little man Fresco, and I use the word "celebrating" in the loosest sense of the word, since we did absolutely nothing special for him at all today! He's such a poor, neglected little guy.

The funny thing is that earlier this evening Chad mentioned that Fresco seemed a little dejected, which I attributed to me yelling at Hope and Celtic yesterday after work when they were jumping around like spazzoids before I got their dinner ready. Fresco is so sensitive to the emotions of either other dogs or humans, he was definitely more upset and worried about his siblings getting into trouble than they were, and he even seemed like he was still walking on eggshells a little this morning. I just thought maybe his concern was still lingering this evening, but then while we were outside for a couple of hours trying to pull up the evil, spider-like weed that's threatening to take over our entire yard, it suddenly hit me that his birthday (observed) is today! He was probably just depressed that his parents didn't even remember!

Unlike with his sister, we actually do know that Fresco is four this year and we know he was born in late August or early September. Since we already had a couple of August birthdays in the family, we picked September 1 as his official day of celebration--except that we forgot to celebrate!

Although our youngest munchkin didn't get a party, I assure you that he is probably one of the most loved pups on the planet. He is so sweet and so incredibly affectionate he will win over just about anyone he meets, just like he did when I first spent the day with him over 3 years ago. This little man was clearly destined to be part of our family, and we wouldn't trade him for the world. How can you resist that adorable face and those goofy long legs?

Robyn's Birthday

We've been kind of busy lately, and blogging has unfortunately been on the back burner, which drives me crazy because there's so much I want to blog about! I seriously just need to quit my job so I'll have time for all the things I really want to be doing. Seriously. I really could fill up my day with gardening, crafting, photography, blogging, exercising and volunteering, in no particular order. Someday soon I hope my dream to be a full time bum will become a reality!

One of the things that kept us super busy the weekend before last and the week preceding it was planning and hosting our friend Robyn's surprise 30th birthday party. Robyn's husband Dan and our friend Faith had the idea to have a fancy cocktail party, and so Faith and our friend Jessica and I spent a couple of weeks planning the big event. We got together a couple of weeks before and decided on the layout of the basement, planned the menu, and schemed a way to get Robyn here for the surprise. The next week we did lots of grocery and supply shopping and primping and cleaning the house. On the day of the big event, Chad and I cleaned and moved furniture, Faith and Jess and I cooked, Dan sent over the drinks and a bartender, and then Faith and I decorated the basement with balloons and candles. We were so busy all day that by the time people started arriving at our house at 7, I was still wearing a t-shirt and shorts and had never even gotten around to blow drying my hair!

Getting Robyn to get dressed up and come to our house was a bit of a challenge. The ruse was that Chad and I and she and Dan were going to a really nice dinner, but Dan had been so adamant that they pick us up so that we could go to this restaurant she wasn't very excited about, she definitely started to suspect something by the end of the week. When she got to our house and saw cars belonging to her family and friends across the street, the jig was definitely up. Although she wasn't really very surprised about the party by the time she arrived, hopefully she was still surprised by how many friends and family members (about 30) were at our house and by all the food, drinks and decorations! I think the basement looked pretty awesome by the time we were done with it! In this picture you can kind of see how we had it arranged and had the balloons and candles everywhere.

Our friend Megan's husband Tom took pictures during the evening and did a really fantastic job. It was so nice to be able to enjoy myself without having to worry about capturing the memories, but that also meant that I was actually in entirely too many pictures--something I'm totally not used to! It also meant that my ridiculous dancing has now been shared with all of Facebook, which I'm actually not that upset about since the pictures are so flipping hysterical. Tom put a whole series of dancing pictures together to make a silly video, and if you're on Facebook you totally have to check this out!

Of course, since I love to dance any time I possibly can, I had a blast cutting a rug in my basement. I think everyone else had a pretty great time too, since there was so much terrific food (including gourmet cupcakes by my friend Leigh Ann), lots of fancy drinks, fun music, good friends and also a TV for the boys, who were clearly not interested in dancing.

There are tons more cool and fun pictures in a short slideshow I put together on Snapfish using Tom's pics, and then a bunch more pictures in Tom's full Snapfish album. Hopefully you can see them without having to log into the website. They are just too funny--great shots of a great evening!

The Birthday Weirdo

I felt like a horrible doggy parent this morning when I woke up and realized that Hope's observed birthday (aka the anniversary of the day we brought her home) was yesterday and I'd totally forgotten. It was just such a busy weekend we hadn't even thought of doing anything special for our crazy/sweet little girl!
Hope has now been with us for exactly five years, but sometimes it's really hard to even remember our family before this bizarre yet beautiful girl was a part of it. It's even harder to believe that three of those five years she's basically been living on borrowed time, since she's had surgery three times in the last three years for cancer. Hope is nothing if not tough as nails, and is most certainly the toughest dog in the Luce household! When I told my brother earlier today that we were celebrating her 10th birthday (although she could be anywhere from 9-12 he was quite surprised, because in most ways she definitely doesn't seem like an older dog. She still runs and jumps with great exuberance and reckless abandon.

With that said, in one other way Hope has definitely started to show her age. About six months ago we started noticing that she was getting harder to wake up in the morning and after naps. We eventually realized that her hearing was beginning to go, and in the few months since she's gone almost completely deaf. At this point she will only respond to a loud whistle, a clap or one of the other dogs barking. We're trying to incorporate sign language as much as possible to communicate with her, but let's just say that deafness has made this weird dog even weirder!

Speaking of her weirdness, this really has nothing to do with her deafness and more to do with her pica, but this morning I had to grab the camera to capture a quick video in honor of her birthday. She's been on a mushroom kick lately, and early in the mornings when there's a bunch of new mushrooms popping up she loves to snack on them. You have to run out into the yard to stop her from snarfing them all up, since of course she can't hear you when to tell her to stop (we're working a lot on the sign for "no"). This morning I didn't have the heart to run out and scold her, because she was just so cute and looked like she was having so much fun mushroom hunting! Let's hope we don't have any barfing later because of it!

Busy B-Day

I didn't reach my goal of finishing my Cali posts today, but at least I have a good excuse. It was a busy day as the hubby and I took off work to celebrate my 30-something birthday together. We walked the dogs, did a few things around the house, ran some errands and had lunch at First Watch, did some furniture shopping, did some more furniture shopping and then moved our new furniture into place! After that we went downtown for dinner and finished off with some Sylas and Maddy's. It was a pretty terrific day.

Thankfully, we did not celebrate with a pinata. Who knew it could be so dangerous!

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The Party

After hanging out with just the family at Eric's apartment for a couple of hours, we went back to our hotel to change clothes, after which all five of us squished into Eric's car and drove to a nearby Italian restaurant called Jones (what kind of name is that for an Italian restaurant?). Eric had made reservations for a group of about 15 of his friends and Dad for the evening, so when we got there we had to ask them to add some chairs since more of us had descended upon the party. It was a tight fit with so many people, but it was tons of fun! It was so great to finally meet some of Eric's friends--especially those that I'd heard about so much I felt like I knew already!

We had a nice dinner and a few drinks and just enjoyed chatting with everyone, and then a little while after we'd eaten some other guests dropped by for a surprise too. Dad had also invited our second cousin Rebekah and her husband Josh who live in the area. Although we didn't know Rebekah very well growing up, our dads were first cousins, and Josh and Eric were randomly in a Toyota commercial together several years ago. The way Eric and Rebekah met in LA and discovered they were related is actually a pretty funny story that I should share sometime! Anyway, we had a nice time reconnecting with distant family as well and hearing about what they're up to. Josh and Rebekah just finished writing, directing and producing a short film that you should definitely watch if you have 20 minutes to spare sometime soon. It's called The Butterfly Circus and stars the amazing Nick Vujicic, who's been inspiring me and many others for many years! You can watch the whole thing online here. It's so good I've watched it three times already!

Sorry, I digress--back to the party. Really, after meeting friends, eating, singing happy birthday and watching Eric eat a huge piece of pie and ice cream, it was getting pretty late. By about 10:30 or so (we didn't arrive until 8--those LA people eat so darn late) Chad and Mom and I were getting darn tired. We finally had Dad take us back to our hotel at about 11, at which point we'd been awake for 19 hours. We'd gotten up at 3 a.m. California time and only slept 4 hours the night before, so it was really quite amazing we made it as late as we did!

Eric and his friends stayed until closer to 1 a.m., and Eric said more people showed up even after we left. It was a pretty amazing turnout for his 40th considering he didn't send out an email invite until the day before!

The Surprise

The destination of our California trip was the always exciting city of Los Angeles, and the special event was important enough that we brought my dear mother along with us. After we landed and picked up our rental car, our first order of business was to eat at Chad's favorite Cali restaurant, In-N-Out Burger, before checking into our hotel. After resting for a couple of hours, we headed to the location of our very special surprise, which wasn't a surprise for us but was for my very dear brother, who happened to be turning 40 on that very day. My dad was already in LA staying with Eric, so he let us into the apartment, where we tried to decide the best way to surprise my brother for his special day. None of us really had a plan, so after many ideas and counter ideas, I decorated a "happy birthday" poster to put on his door and Chad figured out how to play happy birthday on Eric's guitar. When we finally heard him coming up the stairs, Chad played the tune while sitting on the stairwell out of Eric's view and my mom and I hid behind a bookshelf. Since Eric was on the phone when he arrived home, he really didn't comprehend what he was hearing or seeing, so when he walk into his apartment, he was downright shocked to see his entire family!

Obviously almost anyone would be a little taken aback to have their family arrive at their home unannounced, and Eric was certainly no exception. I think he was especially concerned that his apartment wasn't clean enough and he didn't have enough of a party planned for his birthday. Eric and I were chatting yesterday about his reaction to our surprise, and he said that his initial thought was, "Is this an intervention? I'm not even drunk!" That certainly would have been an alarming thought, and I feel a little bad about shocking him in a bad way, but it was certainly a fun surprise for the rest of us!

My pictures of the surprise moment weren't really very good because of the strong backlight, so obviously I should have broken down and used a flash, but I do love this one taken just a few minutes after Eric got home. It captures his reaction fairly well, I think! There are a few more good ones here if you'd like to check them out!

Happy Birthday, Little Man

Once again it's entirely too late for blogging, but I just have to give a quick shout out to our little guy Celtic, who is celebrating his 13th birthday today. I can't believe our firstborn is already a teenager, which is somewhere around 90 years old in dog years!

Celtic is definitely showing his age these days, although he is getting around better since we've started shortening our walks but making them more frequent, and since he's using the steps much less frequently thanks to his wheelchair ramp. Most of the time, he seems to feel pretty good and seems pretty free of major discomfort. Although a few weeks ago he had an anal gland that got clogged, so we had to rush him to the vet and have it lanced, which wasn't a pleasant experience for anyone--especially not for him. He wasn't super thrilled about the makeshift diaper we put on him after getting home either, but I have to say he looked darn cute in it.


Celtic is becoming more environmentally conscience in his old age, so lately we've been collecting his brushed off undercoat in a box so that we can ship it to an organization called Matter of Trust, which has organized volunteers to make hair booms to help soak up the oil spill in the gulf. Celtic is pretty proud of his donated hair, as you can see.


In all seriousness though, we couldn't be more thankful for this little guy and for the 13 wonderful years he's been bringing us joy. Here are just a couple of pictures from a quick photo session we had this afternoon in honor of his important day. We love you, little guy!

Fortyish Friends and Family

On Saturday we went to KC to a cool spot in Westport called Henry's Bar & Tables to celebrate the big birthday of Chad's brother Mark--it was his 40th last Wednesday! I seriously can't believe my brother-in-law turned 40 this year, which means my own brother will be 40 really soon too. Crazily enough, I think I might have met Mark prior to meeting my hubby, since he and my brother became friends when they were in 7th grade--two years before I met Chad. I've known my bro-in-law for 27 years I think--that's craziness!

Anyway, we didn't get to hang out with Mark and Jen much at Mark's party (since he was the guest of honor and was busy entertaining all sorts of people besides us), but we did get to spend some quality time with some other of Mark/Eric's friends from high school, which was so great. Our friends Phil and Sally were there (the ones who have a small family farm near Lawrence), which was great since we've only seen them a couple of times in the last couple of years. Our friend Chris, who I haven't seen for about 15 years, was also there and we got to meet his wife Laura for the first time. Our friend Charles was there as well, and we got to meet Charles' girlfriend Michelle for the first time too. It was so great hanging out with everyone. Chris and Phil were some of Eric's best friends from high school and were like big brothers to me--I just love these guys!

I actually forgot to take any pictures until right as we were leaving, but I got a few as we were telling everyone goodbye. I'm so glad we were able to be there. Thanks for having us, Mark--and many happy returns!

2010-05-21-Mark'sBday

Best Friend Birthday (Belated)

Yesterday was a super important day at the Luce household, as my adorable and amazing and wonderful BFF/husband turned 38 years old. I can't believe I've now known him for over 26 years. Can that be possible? We've somehow gotten really old, really quickly. The good news is, neither of us really act our age. :)

Because I had my dance class yesterday evening, there was no time for blogging, which was kind of a bummer because I was actually excited to show off my hubby and the treat I made for his birthday. Those of you who know my husband know that he's not a huge fan of sweets--especially not cake, so baking him a birthday cake wasn't really ideal. However, Chad does happen to like pie, and his absolute favorite is cherry, which I've never once made for him in almost 16 years of marriage. What kind of horrible wife am I that I've never bake my husband his favorite kind of pie??!!

So after work and before dance class, I stopped by the grocery store and picked up some cherries and pie crusts (the kind that are refrigerated that you just roll out and stick in the pan) and came home and started making my first cherry pie ever. I had to use frozen cherries since they didn't have an fresh ones at the store, but at least I didn't use the canned cherry pie filling! The biggest bummer was that I had to leave for class before it came out of the oven, so I didn't even get to see it in it's finished state or to stick candles in it or to see Chad enjoy his first piece. Tonight, when he was having a piece after dinner, I just had to snap a few shots.

Can you see the heart I punched in the crust? There was another on the other side that got eaten the night before.

I don't even like cherries that much, but that looks darn good. I used a mix of sweet and tart cherries. My fluting didn't work too well though, and I realized after the fact that I'd never actually made a two crust pie before. In fact, I think pumpkin might be the only kind I've ever made!

My adorable hubby is awfully cute while eating pie! :)

Although I felt bad that I didn't get to spend the evening with my dear husband on his birthday, I was glad I got to at least do something a little bit special for him on his special day. He definitely deserves that and so much more! He's so incredibly amazing and I honestly don't know what I would do without him! I love you, CW!!

Happy Birthday, Pops!

Today is my dad's birthday. I can't even believe it, but my dad is SIXTY-NINE today. That just doesn't seem possible, partially because he's one of the youngest-looking and most active 69-year-olds I've ever seen. Since I wasn't able to talk to him in person to wish him a happy day, I thought it would be a good day to finally post a bunch of the pictures from his recent visit. Seriously, check this handsome guy out! Imagine how young he'd look if he actually shaved off that beard!




These pictures are kind of random and probably need some captions, I know, but I'm too tired for that tonight. I need to get my rest since we leave for Dallas in just a couple of days!

Happy birthday, Dad! Hope you had a terrific day!

Good Dog

Since I gave Celtic bonus face time the other day, I need to give our youngest a little extra online love today as well. Our youngest but biggest munchkin is such a wonderful doggy I just have to sing his praises a little bit. First of all, I completely missed his birthday (observed) on September 1 because we were so consumed with Hope's visit to the surgeon. Our sweet little guy turned 3 years old around that day--I can't believe he's an adult already!

I obviously wanted to wish Fresco a happy b-day, but I also have to share a couple of recent stories to prove how wonderful he is. The first one is from the other day when we were leaving for the first KU game of the season. The little man is still kenneled while we're gone, which we started after he ate the corner of the coffee table last summer, and which we've continued because he really seems to be comfortable in his kennel. He will open the door to let himself in when we're getting ready to leave, and sometimes he'll sleep in his kennel at night just for the heck of it. So the other day when we were getting ready to leave and he could sense it, he just went to his kennel to lay down and wait. It was so sweet I had to take a picture!

The other story is from Labor Day, when Chad and I were bringing in the last of the moving boxes from the garage into the basement. Chad had walked into the house through the garage with an armful of boxes, and since his arms were full he reached back with his foot to close the door behind him. We both went downstairs to put the boxes in storage, and about 5 minutes later we came back upstairs to find the door to the garage wide open with the garage door up--the door to the garage hadn't latched! I heard Chad yell "Oh no!!" and then run out into the garage, where he found an unleashed and uncollared Fresco, who was just wandering around the garage sniffing everything. Had he decided to run, he could have been a half mile away by the time we got upstairs, but our wonderful little man stayed put without any prompting at all. Now I'm sure if he'd seen a cat or dog or person or rabbit or squirrel or any moving creature out in our front yard he would have taken off, but lucky for us, there wasn't much activity in our neighborhood that morning!

Oh--and one more thing: when he doesn't sleep in his kennel, our youngest pup likes to put himself to bed in our closet, where we've opted to put a dog bed so that he'll quit pulling sweatshirts off the shelves to sleep on. How cute is this little guy?

While our lanky little man still has a few issues, for the most part he's well-adjusted, especially considering the first year of his life was so difficult. We love our sweet little Hoxer (Hound/Boxer) and couldn't be happier that he came to be part of our family!