Just couldn't resist posting this photo...

Here is Mali, posing in her "Snow Princess" tiara and accessories from our friend Shelley. I did a terrible job of taking Christmas photos this year. I forgot to take my camera to my Mom's on Christmas Eve and she still hasn't sent me the photos that she took (hint, hint Mom!). Then I just plain neglected to bring my camera in at Grandma Dolly's on Christmas Day. (Hint, hint Dad!) Then we had Christmas with Tony's brother and his family on New Year's Day and I didn't even bother to try to take the camera that day! Ha ha! I had given up hope of getting pictures by that time. Maja was sick and didn't leave me much time for orchestrating photo opportunities!

Maja actually has matching Snow Princess gear, but she doens't look quite as happy wearing hers. (Poor little bugger was sick all through the holidays!)



Daniel was WAY excited about Christmas this year. Every single gift caused him to jump and spin and scream with excitement. He was quite uncontainable. :-) I wish I had a little video clip to post of his excitement, but alas, I do not.

We hope everyone out there in our cyberworld had a blessed Christmas season as well!

A little diversion from the usual posts about the two-legged kids...

So - for you that share my love for animals and have them in your lives, this should crack you up... some of you know Libby, my princess of a dog. For those of you who do not know her, she is an almost-2-year-old Australian Shepherd who literally picked me when I thought I wanted her littermate. Anyway, she crawled into my lap that day and has never really left. She jumped right into the top dog spot in our house.

Anyway, she recently learned to climb trees (I think you've all heard that story) and has also been getting out of the fence alot. She goes under no matter what we try. We've put hotwire around the bottom, boards, cinderblocks, etc, etc. But she finds a way. Initially this worked well for her because she would get out, come to the front door and then come in for some quiet family time without the other dogs interfering with her attention. This worked great for about a month. We just got a little routine down: she would get out, the boys would bark, I would open the front door and in she would come.

Well, the past week or two, she has been driving us insane. Sometimes when she gets out, we can't get her to come in. She doesn't leave the yard (mostly, she stares intently at the cat, daring Estelle to move). But she also wants no part of coming inside. Yesterday she spent 6 hours outside, just staring at the cat in various locations of the yard and refusing to let me within touching distance. I was SO mad at her. I was ready to send her away! (And Libby is my favorite dog on the planet! But who can spend that much time chasing a dog around? And we have tried every containment trick that we know.)

So, I finally decided that I would just take her out on a flexi-lead in the front yard and walk her myself. Well, gee, she has now taken this princess thing to a whole new level... I think this was her plan all along. She gets to stay in the living room, she gets human company everytime she goes out and she never has to wallow in the mudpit that sometimes is our backyard. I wonder if she thought I was a little slow since it took me so long to figure out this very simple solution!

I just started laughing yesterday after all of my frustration (and bad words) and then I had this super-simple plan. She's laying beside me on the couch, grinning as I write this. :-)