more puppies

I was sent a gift for Ruby and Sushi - these little Christmas pj's, well unfortunately they are way to small for the girls, however they fit the boys pretty well. I tried again to get a photo of them together
finally some success!

took them to the vet today to get weighed. Danger is 11 lbs, Savage is 14.5 lbs. so according to the 14-week-rule Danger should be roughly 22 lbs full grown, and Savage should be roughly 29 lbs.

puppies

my friend Paul's dogs are staying with us over Christmas while he's on holidays in Europe. One of his dogs is Danger's brother Savage. they wrestle - a lot! I took some pics this afternoon of some of the action.
so they do the bitey-face thing until their teeth are dry
and then their lips are stuck all curled up
I think my puppy might be evil.
no false alarm, they are both sweet again. Danger jumped on me to give me kisses right after this shot.
your mama wears combat boots.
my throat!! my nose!!

more pics from the Burke's visit

Here are the last of the pics from the Burke family visit. We took everyone to see the Snoqualmie Falls
Andrew and Bob looking at the falls.
there was a lot of mist. it was COLD!
this squirrel was very friendly and very fat.
on the way back we stopped at the train museum at Snoqualmie Village. Here's Genny after she took a picture of Bob, Andrew and John in front of a big piece of wood.
we found the perfect Christmas tree
and cut it down.
I'm not sure why but Andrew insisted that I take a picture of the stump.

Here's Andrew trying to figure out how to get it onto the car. thumbs up!
Sushi by the tree.
awwww, so pretty.
And Bob helped us install the new kitchen sink! here's before
and after - so much better!! Thanks Mom and Dad for the Christmas present, and thanks Bob for helping us get it in!

Mom's new camera - pics of Taylor

Mom really likes my little camera Pinky so when she was visiting she looked at this year's model. it's a little different, they changed some features but it's much the same.
If you want a great little point-and-click camera that's light and small, it's great. if you want a little camera to coach the line at a flyball tournament, get last year's model (the one I have) - not this one. I picked out the orange one for her, with a cool matching case.
Here's some of her first photos with the new camera. Taylor making chocolate something.
and Talyor decorating the tree on the step ladder. He's getting so big! He told me all about his karate class last night on the phone. He demonstrated the way they yell.

the Burke's visit

the Burkes visited last week and we did a lot of exploring. Here are some of the pics
Bob with the trains at Seattle Center
some decorations I liked
all over the place people decorate trees with giant balls. I've never seen balls this big before and can't find where to buy them. gotta get some bigger balls.
this is when Bob told me that my camera sucks.
where they throw the fish at Pike's Market. nobody was buying at that time so they weren't throwing it.
shopping at Pike's Market.
at the first Starbucks
a Chai Latte, please.
just as we were leaving they were throwing the fish. Andrew and his parents are in the far right corner.

Reagan's Baby Shower

I've been very slack in my blog posting so it's time to get caught up. at the beginning of November we hosted Reagan's baby shower. we had a great turnout of 13 girls and had so much fun. here's the pics:

the decorations - diaper cake
and diaper wreath
white cupcakes with raspberries inside. yummy
the finished cupcakes with cream cheese icing and pink rubber duckies
we had a lot of food.
Here's Reagan playing the string-around-the-belly game
and the 'guess what candy bar is inside the diaper' game
Jennifer demonstrating how the candy bar in the diaper looks. yummy.
this is the baby blanket I made. the back is chenille and the front is a bubbly pink fabric. the butterfly and flower pattern goes with the set Reagan picked out for baby's room.
one of the funniest gifts I've ever seen - a book on how not to take care of a baby... like don't put your baby in the dog kennel...

visit with the Burkes

this week Andrew's family is visiting. The first couple of days we took a little longer than normal getting around because the bridge to get out of our little town was flooded, so we had to take detours to get anywhere.
luckily by now it's all back to normal and Duvall is no longer an island.
we were able to amuse ourselves with the Rock Band video game. Genny is surprisingly good at rapping to the Beastie Boys. Thanks Bob for the photos.

our island

after the beautiful snowfall on Sunday we were back to usual Seattle weather. It rained. a lot. and around 3:00 on Monday afternoon Andrew called me from work to inform me that our little town of Duvall is now an island.
So he wasn't coming home, because his family was to arrive at the airport at 7:30, so the plan was that he would pick up his parents and stay in a hotel if he needed to. I stayed on the island and hoped that we didn't lose our electricity. Luckily the Burkes arrived safely and the road into Duvall opened up for a few hours Monday night so they were able to get here. it's closed again now. but the Woodinville bridge is back open so we are no longer an island.
thanks to Reagan for these pictures of the bridge

first snowfall

yesterday we had our first snowfall. Danger enjoyed playing in it in the morning, when there was a light dusting.
here he is running
and here just looking cute.

we went into town to run some errands and the snow kept falling - eventually it became a bit of a storm. We saw a small fender-bender accident on our way home - someone got rear-ended, nothing serious. It reminds me that I need to get snow tires put on my car.
we drive down this road to get to our town. it's a cliff on the right side, and a steep incline on the left - very pretty. it's a lot of fun to drive up it on a motorcycle, and no fun at all coming down it.
at the bottom of that windy steep road is the flood plain. This is a big horse pasture, with a river flowing through it. it's the valley we live in just before the foothills of the Cascade mountains. on a clear day you can see snow-capped mountains. very pretty. it's vibrant green year round (except of course today when it's white).
here's a cute little Christmas tree lot just as you turn into our town.
this is on the street that leads to our neighborhood. watch out for deer!
this house is one of my favorites - they have tacky Christmas lights on the house but I love how they did their fence. so pretty.
here is our street. we live at the very top of the hill.
the neighbor's kids were loving it!

this morning I woke up to no electricity, which is a little concerning because we don't have a generator. While I was on the phone with a very polite and helpful guy with PSE, our power came back on. YAY! Then I went out the front yard to take some pictures.
here is our house covered with snow. very pretty!
Danger out in the snow.
and running back into the house.

worst Christmas display ever

At the Crossroads Mall in Bellevue they put up this truly shitty Christmas display with mean angry Santa. Here he is. he looks like he wants to kick you in the shins. his eyes bore holes into your soul.
beside Santa is this cute little animatronic raccoon, who is so lame your head will explode from the lameness. this is the full extent of his movement. every 10 seconds or so, he slightly raises his arms. that's it. lame lame lame. next time I'll take video.