I was sifting through the gazillions of pictures I have on my computer, and came across these from 2003.
This was so typical of our dog Tipper. He just wanted to be a part of whatever someone was doing.
He loved giving kisses…
and he would always be accepting of a scratch behind the ear.
That’s one wonderful thing about dogs – they are loyal and loving, and it doesn’t take much to make them happy.
I guess cats aren’t all that different. Leave an empty box lying around and they’re just as happy.
When the kids were up last weekend, Nichole wanted to get a family picture of Rick & I and the Grandkids.
Have you ever tried to get 5 kids ages 4 – 9 to sit still for 2 minutes without making silly faces?
Walker, dude, are you OK? You look like you’re trying to pass a kidney stone or something. Relax bud.
And Alexis, now is not the time to show us your whistle technique thankyouverymuch.
Kayla darlin’, we know you’re cute, no need to flaunt.
Why do I look as if I’m saying “Are we done yet?”
Because I wasn’t. Saying that, that is.
Rick must have tickled Alexis in order to get this reaction.
That’s probably why I look like I’m telling him to behave in my nice “I’ll kill you later” voice.
And who hasn’t run into the “Child who wants to look at anything except the camera”.
Maybe I had a stray nose hair or something.
After 7 tries, this is the winning picture.
No giggles, no painful facial expressions, no adorable poses.
Just a normal photo.
Well, as normal as you can be with our family.
Thor has been renamed Twitchy by Nichole. They were having a love/hate relationship at the moment. It was all about the catnip…
It was a showdown at the Big Bed Corral.
Nichole had something that Thor wanted, but she wasn’t going to give it up without some playful teasing first.
It was the catnip sock. The one thing that Thor cannot resist.
She had it.
And he wanted it.
Thor tried the “stare down” approach, but he didn’t know how skilled his opponent was in this sport. After a tie was declared, the teasing commenced.
This is the tricky part, because the proper technique needs to be used to keep the sock just out of reach of the swinging paws.
OH NO! A momentary lapse of judgment! Once he gets his claws in the sock, the tables are turned. Thor has the upper paw.
He even tries the old standby “Give it up doll face, the game is over now” look. Clearly, he thinks he can play mind games with a pro.
But Nichole knows how to try and throw Thor off of his game. The good old “poke the nose” distraction is sure enough to get him to release the sock.
After this move, things turned a little ugly. While the poke was semi-effective, one paw was still firmly on the sock but the other one swiped Nichole’s hand.
A temporary set-back. After more teasing and a quick nip from Thor, it was time to declare a winner.
This round went to Thor. A first win and great triumph by this young challenger.
You can bet that next time Nichole won’t be so easy on him.
And I’ll try to have his claws clipped so that injuries are kept down to a minimum.
My Granddaughter Alexis turned 7 on Friday and I didn’t even announce it on this here blog.
I feel awful. I mean, what self-respecting Grandma who loves her Grandchildren with all her heart forgets to do that?
Her Mama even came out of hibernation and did a lovely posting for her daughter. Which I totally missed and was properly chastised for.
So, to make it up, I baked her a cake and bought her some presents that would make me the most loved person in the world.
But I cheated a little bit with the cake: it was from a box. Geez, I’m failing all over the place the last couple days ain’t I!
I did leave the decorating up to her Mama, because she brought up the decorations and candle since I forgot to buy any.
*sigh*
She really does some concentrating, eh?
Of course, I couldn’t help but to pick on her. It’s just so hard to resist!
She prevailed despite my best efforts. Good job Nichole!
I think we make it too easy on kids today when it comes to blowing out candles on their birthday cake. One candle is all they have to aim for.
Back in the day, cakes were smothered in candles corresponding with the age of the honoree. And if they couldn’t blow them all out in one breath, that was how many boys they would have to kiss (or something silly like that, because, remember, boys were icky at 7). Heck, sometimes there was a prank candle that couldn’t be blown out. Whatever happened to that?
And now that she is 7, Alexis was required to read each of the birthday cards out loud. There were a couple words she had a hard time with, but her Mama was right there to help her along.
Now I don’t remember what this thing is called, but it looks like a big-headed Hello Kitty type toy. I think you’re supposed to be able to go online with it and play games or something.
Can you tell how up-to-date I am on all the stuff for kids nowadays?
When Nichole told me Alexis wanted a Zhu Zhu Pet, I was like “A what??” So I turned to the interwebs to educate me.
Apparently I didn’t get it completely right, because the first one I bought her was a “boy”.
Crap.
Amazon comes to the rescue and delivered a “girl” critter just in time.
But being me, I had to up the ante a little. These were, after all, Princess and Prince Zhu Zhu Pets, so they needed the Crystal Ballroom to dance around in.
Toy hamsters that dance in their own ballroom. I think I’ve seen it all now folks.
But she was happy and I had redeemed myself. I was the champion gift giver!
It was a great day. The kids used up a ton of their energy running around the homestead, we had comfort food for supper and the birthday girl was celebrated with song and gifts.
And the cake turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.
After all that planning and worry (yes, I know there was worry… what future bride doesn’t have that?), it was time to let go and celebrate!
The wedding reception was held at a local ski resort decorated to the nines! Erik’s Mom and her friends put a lot of effort into decorating , and it clearly showed.
Do you think that I would get a picture of it? Of course not. I was too busy relaxing out on the deck in the beautiful sunshine before the wedding party showed up.
And when they did, it was in grand style, with the DJ announcing each couple. It kinda reminded me of Rod Roddy from “The Price is Right” calling down the next contestant with just the right kind of music to get the place hopping.
The crowd went wild!
After getting settled in, the Groom got a chance to express his gratitude to everyone.
He didn’t even look nervous!
Actually, Erik is quite an eloquent speaker.
What a proud Mom he had.
And quite beautiful.
The Bride got her chance to thank everyone too, but apparently between the church and the reception, there was a little too much fun on the Party Bus and she lost her voice for a while.
No worries, she squeaked along just fine.
After a delicious meal and scrumptious cake, the dancing commenced.
And who better to start the night out but the Bride & Groom.
…followed by the Mother’s dance with her son
…and the Father’s dance with his daughter.
When the ever-popular “dollar dance” was finished, it was time to throw things.
When this girl throws the bouquet, she makes it happen!
Oh, and here we go again with the garter.
It was OK, he found it. (But I think he had a little too much fun looking for it…)
In true TKE* fashion, the men showed their love to Christine with a serenade.
As the night progressed, the party was in full swing!
And there was no age limit when it came to dancing. The kids had a blast.
You know it’s a party when the photographer gets wrapped up in a song.
I don’t remember what the song was, but it sure did bring some spirit to the dance floor.
I really liked watching my daughters dance. It doesn’t happen very often that you see them have so much fun together.
The night seems to go by way to quickly, and before I knew it things were starting to slow down.
The kids had used up every ounce of energy they had on that dance floor. (No, Rick’s not asleep, I just happened to catch him mid-blink.)
After getting Nichole, Corey and the kids on their way, it was time to think about getting ourselves back to the hotel and collapse.
But not before getting a chance to watch Chris & Erik dance one more time.
Our family officially got a little bigger that day.
*Tau Kappa Epsilon. This is the fraternity that Erik belonged to in college.
