Monday, December 21, 2009

Introducing.......Ginger!


I've waited all year to find the right dog for our family and Saturday we did. We went to the ARL in search of a Cairn Terrier that was up for adoption. I'd called the night before to make sure she was available and they assured me she was. We ( my mom and her wife,Crayola, Jasper and I) were at the front of the line waiting outside of the ARL the next morning. I went straight to the first staff I could find and asked for the dog, Cocoa.
They searched their database and found that sometime from when I'd called to when they opened today she had been adopted or taken away due to medical reasons. They seriously couldn't tell me which one. While we where waiting to find out about Cocoa, Crayola was scouting the other dogs. She spotted a cute shitzu terrier mix and got us a 'hug' room. Needless to say we loved her and adopted her straight away. We had a list to the universe of criteria for our dog. Small but not to small, not yappy, doesn't shed(much), playful and independent. Ginger fits this bill and then some!
Thank you Crayola! You gave us an awesome gift :)

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Gingerbread House





Building a Gingerbread House sounds like a pleasant activity to do with your family, right? Joining in the holiday spirit while creating memories that will last a life time?
Sounds good, count me in!
Costco has had a pre-built all necessary items included ginger bread house on sale for the last month. It kept tempting me by it's pretty colors and promise of ease until I finally gave in and bought it.
We waited until we were all available to help on this great project. With two snowdays last week we agreed to combat a couple hours of cabin fever by decorating the (mostly) pre assembled house. Easy and merry and fun.

Not so much. Sylvia gave up after a few minutes of messing with the icing. Joe did a valiant job assembling the tree and ginger bread men. Though they eventually had to have a few emergency 'surgeries' to re-attach lost limbs. The box's promise of ease and beauty taunted me as I kept looking at it for support and reassurance. Jasper had the most fun as most of the candy was added by him. He was pretty mad though when they all started to slip down the sides in some gingerbread house meets haunted mansion massacre scene. It did take up a couple hours of our time and instead of going all 'Shining' on each other that night we where able to take it out on the box which ended up nicely mutilated by a pair of scissors and a 4 year old's zealous desire to destroy.