Permission Slip Required

Tony was my source of humor last night. Poor guy.

Soooo......we finally celebrated his birthday with his family on Sunday night and his sister, Amy got him this really nice Winchester knife set. We ,of course, started joking with Tony because the last time he received a knife as a gift, he cut his thumb and shoved it in a dirty sock to try to get the bleeding to stop and to avoid getting stitches.

Last night Emily asked Tony to help her open up a porcelain doll that she received from Great Grandma Bartlett for Christmas while I was cooking our gourmet dinner of hot dogs, mac & cheese & peas. Yummy, I know. All of a sudden I turn around and see Tony wiping something up off the kitchen floor and I realize that it's blood. Sure enough, the boy cut himself. AGAIN. Through my laughter, I told him I wanted to see the cut this time to see if it needed stitches and he wouldn't let me see it because he hadn't assessed the damage first. I followed him into the bathroom and once he removed the paper towel from his hand, you could see a nice gash on his left hand where the knife cleanly slashed him. He said that he didn't need stitches, of course. He said that he only needed a band aid. Well that lasted about 30 seconds before he bled through that one. After he nearly immediately bled through the 2nd band aid I told him that he had to go to Urgent Care to get the stitches that "he didn't need."

After waiting there for nearly 1 1/2 hours he was seen and the doctor looked at his chart and said that it was 6 months and 1 day from the last time he was in getting snitches. He's getting pretty consistent don't you think? He ended up with 4 stitches in his hand when it was all said and done.

So now the joke will always be that no one is allowed to give Tony a knife for a gift anymore. And if they do, a permission slip must be signed first in order for him to use it.

Moral of the story? Winchester knives are very nice and very sharp!

The big 3-0

Today's the big day for Tony. He turned 30 today! Tony thought (and some of the rest of us did too) that he'd have a crisis in celebrating this birthday. About 6 months ago when another friend turned the big 3-0, Tony nearly broke out into a cold sweat and begged me not to throw him a surprise party. I was throwing a fit inside of my head because of this new anxiety that he showed because that was just what I had planned in mind. Instead.....here's what we did! We got a huge group of people together and had a night out on the town. Pretty much, we spent a majority of the night at Shooters in Saginaw riding the mechanical bull. The first picture you see here is of Garth (Katie's boyfriend) and Sue (one of our friends) riding the bull together because they matched with their pink striped shirts. What you can't see right now is the video that goes along with this that shows how hard it was to get Sue on the bull. On the 3rd attempt at mounting the mechanical animal, Garth put his hands together to give Sue a boost. In reality what happened was that on the count of 3, Garth shot Sue OVER the bull. It was one of those up and over moments that had us all nearly running to the bathroom about to wet ourselves.



Next, you see another hilarious moment with the lovely bull. That would be Sue (again), me and Tony all trying to ride this thing together. I think we migh have made it 1 second before we all fell off together. And now Sue is left bruised and so am I. My left elbow, that you see pictured, is now so badly bruised that the entire area is black. Tony escaped uninjured which is a Christmas miracle.








And then the night ended with a trip to good ole' Lil' Chef for some breakfast. I think Tony was a little excited when his pancakes finally showed up to the table. What do you think? And I think we could also agree that he has a tongue like Gene Simmons from Kiss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

I'm telling you what, someone forwarded this link to me and these guys are amazing. In fact, when I forwarded the link to some other friends and family, my exact words were, "Holy cats Batman! These guys are amazing!" The group's name is Straight No Chaser. I cannot believe their talent and ability. Check the link out and see for yourself. Let me suggest a few more songs to listen to once you are there:

• Lion Sleeps Tonight
• Carol of the Bells
• Sitcom Medley

Ok, let's get real. Just check them all out. I was so impressed after listening to everything on YouTube yesterday that I purchased their holiday album that just came out not too long ago. Normally I don't like holiday albums, but I've got a feeling I won't be disappointed this time. I can't wait to get it in the mail.

Yes people, I have an iPod so I could download everything. But you see, my husband commandeered it just about oh.... a day after I received it. So I never get to use it. And now Emily thinks it's the best thing since chocolate milk and LOVES listening to it and singing her little heart out. I should really record her doing that. It's pretty funny and I'm sure it'd be a video that she'd kill me for later in life when I embarrass the pants off her in front of her boyfriend or something.

Now go and have yourself a lovely day. If you live in Michigan, have a lovely day digging yourself out of the crapload of snow we just got. And if you live in Florida, like my cousin does, do me a favor and quit bragging about still being able to wear short sleeves without freezing to death. Only kidding Cuz!! I still love you! I'm just insanely jealous, that's all.

Our real forever puppy!

On Saturday we made a trip to Remus which is just west of Mt. Pleasant to the home of the aunt & uncle of a friend of mine. They had a litter of puppies that were ready for a new home so off we went in search of our new family member. After checking all of them out and asking a couple of questions (we really aren't used to this), we made our decision and picked a puppy that had markings similar to what Dash had. The puppies are 3/4 Australian Shepherd and 1/4 Yellow Lab. Our puppy's name is Trooper. We also toyed with the name Flash, but decided that it was too close to Dash and we were already having problems not calling the puppy Dash.

But please meet our new, forever puppy, Trooper. He's a sweetie. He will be two months old Wednesday. He's got some learning to do and so do we, but he's handling the transition very well. We've only had one minor potty accident in the house and it happened to be in the kitchen which was easy to clean up. And then Trooper initiated Maddie on the way home with a barf from what we determined as a nervous stomach with all the changes that took place. All is well now and we are glad to have Trooper with us.

Have a wonderful day and a very blessed Thanksgiving.

Can't stand selfish people

I cannot stand selfish people. What's even more, I cannot stand selfish, rich people. So if you're rich and reading this blog, check yourself and make sure you're not selfish and be grateful for your financial blessings.

As you've read from my previous blog, we became the owners of a fabulous miniature Australian Shepherd on Monday. Well, we're no longer his owners anymore. The previous owner had the audacity to have my poor sister-in-law (who happens to work for them) call my husband yesterday morning to ask for Dash back. Needless to say, Tony and I were LIVID. I don't know that I've ever been that angry before. If I have, I certainly can't remember. I said absolutely not. Not until either Tony or I spoke to one of them personally.

Long story short, we ended up giving Dash back to them last night. It was not pretty. At first we told this woman that she would have to come to our house to pick Dash up and then explain to our little girls what she was doing. But then as common sense began to reappear, we realized that we didn't want this woman to come into our home and lie to our girls about the situation. So when we got home last night, we sat the girls down and explained the situation to them that we love Dash and want him to stay with us forever but that the previous owner wanted him back. Never mind the fact that this woman was being deceitful, but whatever. The girls didn't need to know that.

I'd already begun damage control and got in touch with someone that I trust and knew would probably be able to help. And boy did she come through for me. So once we broke the news to the girls, we quickly followed with the fact that we were going to be looking at puppies this Saturday and that the girls would be able to pick it out, name it and keep it forever. And that no one would be able to come and ask for their new puppy back.

Maddie, being 4 and being a little girl that lets lots of things roll off her back, did really well with the news. Emily on the other hand, didn't do so well. It took me over 2 hours to quit bawling so Em looked like a champ. She broke down immediately but we gave her Dash's dog ID tag to keep as a reminder of him. That helped and she calmed down. But when Dash ended up leaving, she broke down again. And then poor Katie came over feeling horrible herself because she was drug in the middle of this, saw Em and they broke down together. Emily asked if she could go back to Auntie Katie's house by herself with her and we certainly agreed. Well Katie had a chain that she wasn't using and put Dash's dog tag on it so that Emily could wear it like a necklace. That was fabulous.

So the picture above is of Emily just before leaving for school today wearing her new necklace. She's signing "I love you" and that's meant for Dash. Poor kid.

You can certainly say we've learned a good lesson here. But I can tell you that I am proud of my girls for taking the news as best as they could and rebounding like they have. Never under estimate the power of your children. If you do, they'll surprise you.

Stay tuned for an update once we have the opportunity to visit the puppies this weekend. We'll have a new addition to our family soon and can hopefully put this mess behind us.

The new addition

Yep, we got a new puppy. Meet Dash, a miniature Australian Shepherd that is 3 months old. The little cutie needed a home and he hit Tony's soft spot so Tony gave the A-OK for Dash to become the 2nd male in our house. He came to us last night and let me tell you what, the girls were EXCITED. When I got home from school they couldn't wait to meet me at the door screaming, and I mean screaming, that we got a new puppy that gets to live with us forever. So now we own a cat who's name is Baby. She's the one that you see at the top of the page. And a great dog. Let's just say the excitement from Baby wasn't near the level of excitement that came from the girls. Dash REALLY would like to get to know Baby and play with her. But Baby just isn't quite ready for a relationship like that. In fact, you'll notice in the two pictures (sorry about the pile of dirty clothes), Dash really wanted to play and all Baby was willing to do was puff herself up to look even bigger than she already is and then take the high ground out of Dash's reach. Oh, let's not forget all the hissing and growling that came from her too. Who knew that cats could growl?!

At any rate, our family has expanded and although we do have a lot of work ahead of us, we're excited. Anyone interested in a puppy play date, let me know!

Last night was the first chance that we had to carve our pumpkins for Halloween and the girls had a blast! Thankfully the weather was nice enough to do it all outside. Emily really enjoyed pulling the guts out of the pumpkin and Maddie was completely content with letting Daddy do all of the work.