I’ve had several requests for recent photos of Skits.  I’ve been a little bad about keeping up with daily photos in general.  So much going on.  So here I am honoring that request…

He is just the funniest dog ever.  I mean he is full of it.  And the only thing that saves him is that he is so darn cute!  Seriously he really is a good dog…or I think he will eventually turn into one.  I took him to the vet last week for his shots and he was the best behaved little doggie ever!  Everyone loved him there.  The vet said he looked great.  He said his personality was fantastic.  He has great days with potty training…then the next day it’s like wth???  I don’t get it.  See…I told you…you forget…or else you wouldn’t get one again!  He is hilarious in everything he does and he makes us laugh.  He wants to be everywhere Baxter is and wants everything Baxter has and we can’t decide if he wants to be dominant or just likes Baxter a lot and just wants to be with him and emulate him.  Baxter is extremely tolerant…which is a good thing…he’s such a great dog!

I’ve got two new products in the store today.

You can find both in my store here.

I was awake for much of the night last night.  Cause I took one of my new meds, which is actually one of the old ones, late last night in the hopes of kicking this thing, whatever it is, in the ass butt.  However I forgot that one of these meds winds you up tighter than a drum.  So I there I was fully awake last night.  Save for the fact that I am physically not well I could have done “I don’t know, something amazing I guess.”  But then there’s Skits.

Back up.

So I’m not recovered.  Yeah I know, I know.  Same old song and dance.  Only.  THIS time I’m kinda hoping for the same old song and dance.  Cause it doesn’t seem to be staying the same.  It seems to be getting worse.  I’ve been having horrible pain in my lung the last week and I had a follow up x-ray yesterday that showed an increase in the infection in my lung.  Great.  I’ve been worried about this pain in my lung.  It doesn’t feel quite right.  When does any pain ever do?  The doctor called me last night, which I thought was kinda unusual for her, and told me there was an increase in the infection and so I asked her could this be something else we are dealing with.  Yeah.  It could.  But let’s not go down that road.  Trust me.  I’ve already been there.  At least in my mind.  ;D

So I’m laying there last night on the couch cause that’s where I’ve been the last two months.  It’s just easier when your sick.  Plus its comfy.  And its the diseased couch…right Wendy?  See whenever anyone in our family gets sick they get relegated to a certain couch.  I guess just whichever one they end up falling on when they become ill.  Then that couch becomes the “diseased couch” or the sick couch.  Right now that one happens to be mine.  Which is fine with me.  I like my couch pretty well.  Everyone agrees it is the most comfy.  But no one will come near it when it is relegated to the “diseased” couch.  Yay!  I get it all to myself.

So anyway…I’m laying there thinking I could get some serious design work done or something but Skits is sleeping with me.  And I don’t want to wake him.  But that was the point all along.  That he was supposed to be my dog.  Every night I would look over and see Corey with Baxter and whine that I didn’t have a dog to cuddle with me.  ;D  So that…and a host of other reasons…we got Skits.  And he IS my dog.  And he does sleep with me.  Which is fine.  Except when I don’t sleep, which is probably more than the average person, and I want to get up in the middle of the night and write or create.  And I can’t.  Cause I finally have a dog.  That is mine.  Sigh.  He sure is warm.  For such a small animal.

Speaking of Skits…some observations of him of late…he has gigantic paws but he’s not going to be a big dog, Westies aren’t big so he looks kinda funny being a small dog with big feet.  His legs are also short so he has to run twice as fast and jump twice as hard to do things or to keep up with Baxter.  He doesn’t walk…he swaggers.  It is strange having a dog with a tail.  Baxter’s is docked.  Skits isn’t.  So it is cute seeing or feeling a wagging tail.  He has black toenails.  Which really stand out against white hair.  He is starting to ask to go out now.  We are hoping that he is getting potty training.  Just when we think he does…he has an accident.

Tonight we turned on the fireplace.  He has been growling at his reflection in the window panes.  Tonight he was barking at the flames.  Weirdo.

The other day when Ava got home from school she was playing with Skits.  She was holding one end of his chew toys and he was biting the other end and she was swinging him around her in a semi-circle and he was still holding on with a tight grip with his teeth so when she swung him she was lifting him a bit off the ground and it was like he was skimming across the carpet.  Plus he was growling.  It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  She was laughing so hard.  I was trying NOT to laugh cause it was hurting me so badly. ;D  I haven’t heard Ava laugh that hard in a LONG time.  She was doubled over in laughter.  It was a great moment.

If your kids watch Charlie and Lola you are familiar with the phrase and the episode.

…the illness saga continues.  I’m still not feeling well as you may (or maybe not) know but not really going on about it cause I’m just so sick of being sick and of talking about it.  It is so depressing.  Well my right lung started to really hurt the last two days and I still can’t breathe very well and I’m still coughing so I went back to the doctor’s office today.  Got a chest x-ray.  Yep.  You guessed it.  I have pneumonia.  So I’m starting another round of antibiotics.  Could this please be the end?  Please.

So having a puppy and everything else that is going on (insert whatever would majorly stress you out here) plus still being sick.  Um.  Could I please have a vacation? ;D

Here’s a layout I did with those photos of Skits I took.  I just love these photos!

Be Mine, Valentine Heart Stamps, Ornate Frames all Jen Maddocks Designs

That’s what we have been doing.  If you don’t want it chewed that it must be removed.  Or the door must be closed.  So the main two floors of the house are looking pretty empty…and probably pretty boring to Skits.  And every other door to every other room in the house is shut.  So he can’t get into anything.  Cause if he can, he will. You name it.  He’ll get into it.  He’s not discriminating.  Here he is after a morning of mischievousness.

I needed more rest today.  Skits was the one who got the rest tho.  I’m thinking he’s feeling a little more secure in his surroundings.  We had some success in potty training today.  The girls gave me a nice long break when they got home…they pretty much played with him all night long.  They took him outside when he needed to go.  It was nice.  All three of them were very cute together.  It is a lot easier having a puppy when you have kids who are old enough to help out with things.  When we got Baxter they were practically babies themselves! ;D  Oh, and I put on his collar today.  He HATES it!  I put him in his kennel when I went to get the girls at school.  He must have survived.  He was just fine when we got home.  Yay!  He also discovered he likes his bones…a lot…today.  So we started working on taking away his bone and giving it back to him.  He’s chewing on my hair right now.  Weirdo. ;D

It’s like having kids.  You forget what it is like having an infant or you wouldn’t do it again.  Same with puppies.  ;D

So I know you are thinking I’m crazy for getting another dog.  Especially while still recovering.  Hey.  So do I.  Do we plan these things?  If I told everything that was going on in my life right now you’d probably shoot yourself. Isn’t that how it usually is if we stepped in someone else’s shoes for a bit?  When is it ever the right time to get a dog? Yeah.  That’s what I figured.  I needed something good in my life.

We actually have been looking for another dog for a good 6 months or more.  I just don’t announce everything on this blog.  Believe me if I did you wouldn’t read it anymore! ;D  We found an add for this litter of puppies last week.  I knew I was sick but everything else about it was working out.  So we did it.  I just means that Corey and the girls are helping out with him a little more.  And boy do the girls ever want to help out.  I mean there is FIGHTING in the house over who gets to do what with Skits.  No one wanted to go to school this morning. ;D  I could have used the help…but that would have been a little irresponsible. ;D

paper WoodsyII, Ornate Frames, love sticker, clipped heart, dog sticker Amore all Jen Maddocks Designs

…that on top of the bronchitis I have the flu as well.  Yeah.  Quite a cocktail I’ve got going on over here.  Peh.  I am able to get up and get the kids ready for school in the morning without a ton of trouble.  That is a MAJOR improvement.  Laney says to me this morning, “Mom.  I really appreciate you getting up and getting us ready for school even when you are sick.”  Melts the heart.  Of course this is five minutes after she is whining about how I won’t fix her hair “just so”.  Ah, motherhood!

I’ve done a couple of layouts recently of the girls playing out in the snow.  One from just over Christmas break and then one at the beginning of 2009.  Oh how cool it is to see how much they have changed! ;D

Shiver Kit Lynn Grieveson

DDE supplies:  bird Jubilant; twigs Twiggy; paper, staple, tag Snow Day; buttons, paper Garden party; template Jen Maddocks Designs

This morning Laney and Ava were arguing about some pencils they got for Christmas.  I guess there was some confusion as to which pencil belonged to which girl.  Not in Ava’s mind.  Somewhere in there Laney said something to the effect of it didn’t really matter anyway.  With that said Corey politely asked Laney to give the pencils that Ava wanted to her and take the other ones…since “it didn’t matter” and it would “make Ava happy”.  Well Laney didn’t like that one bit.  So we spent the next few minutes explaining and giving examples to Laney of making other people, in a family, happy even when you don’t want to.  Examples of when Ava has done it for her.  When I do it for Corey like when I take his laptop or phone to him at work when he forgets it…and he forgets a lot…and I don’t want to.  Or when I have to go pick him up in a hail or lightning storm when he is on his bike and it wasn’t convenient (and he should have looked at the weather before leaving).   Real life examples of things that have happened to us that I figured she would remember…she was there for the time I had to pick up Corey when he was bike riding.  I don’t remember everything surrounding it but I remember all three of us had to drop what we were doing and drive in the horrible weather and go get him. ;D

After many examples and much thought and still pouting Laney came to the conclusion, “Pencils are NOT part of the family!”