Friday, April 25, 2014

What's Cooking?


My sister is seriously obsessed with food!  Mommy made croutons last weekend with old bread, and it almost killed Jenna!  She stood guard the entire time.  She sat at Mommy's feet while the bread was being cut and seasoned.  Then she migrated a few feet to wait in front of the oven while they were being toasted.  She was relentless!


While reaching in to turn the croutons on the baking sheet, Mommy dropped one onto the oven door.  Thankfully, she hastily ordered Jenna to stay, followed by a very loud NO!  Otherwise I believe Jenna would have burned her tongue (among other parts of her body)!


She even waited on the kitchen rug while the croutons cooled . . . all the while hoping for a tiny morsel!


I can't believe we can't see drool dribbling from Jenna's mouth.  She tends to do that when she's waiting for food!  Being the nice person she is, Mommy tossed each of us a crouton before packing them away for later use.  Bless her heart!

Dixie


PS: I had no idea the front of Mommy's oven was so dirty (probably from Jenna's drooling tongue) until I saw these pictures.  Also, for those of you who know Mommy well, you know the pictures of those towels hanging crooked is about to kill her!

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Happy Easter!

He is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!



Our daffodils have finally bloomed!  Spring has sprung!  
(Although it did snow Tuesday night!!  Seriously!)
We hope you have a glorious day!  

Hunter, Dixie & Jenna

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Our Egg-cellent Daddy!

Our Daddy is the best!  He found a grand idea of how we could decorate eggs for Easter.  He was so EGG-cited, he called Mommy while she was at the grocery store to make sure we had the right supplies to make it HOP-pen!  He did confuse her for a moment when he told her to pick up blue dye.  She thought she was supposed to buy Rit dye until she realized it was for eggs.  She turned the cart around and headed to the food coloring instead.  Mommy says it's been years since we dyed eggs in our house.  Hunter is trying his best to remember if it's ever happened in his time.  He thinks so but not since he lived in Minnesota.

As soon as Daddy started explaining the process to Mommy over the phone, she knew he wanted to create ombre eggs: eggs of various colors ranging from very light to very dark and every shade in between.  Daddy had no idea what Mommy was talking about, but she did!  Daddy's EGG-cellent plan was actually quite simple and can be found here.  It only took about twenty minutes to dye the eggs (minus the forever time it took to boil the water in the pot large enough to hold twenty eggs!!).  The inspiration picture contained eighteen eggs, but Mommy thought it might be a good idea to boil a couple extra just in case . . . she was EGGS-actly right!  Two poor eggs couldn't handle the pressure and cracked up!

The results lived up to our EGGS-pectations:


The real question was how to display them to achieve maximum impact . . . Mommy was starting to think she was going to have to display them in the carton, but cardboard on the table wasn't quite the look she was going for.  Having heard about Daddy's idea, Mimi saved the day by sending Mommy the picture below.

Easter Egg Decorating Ideas
 homebunch.com

A clear "vase" was EGGS-actly the right route to go!  Our parents tried several containers but they were all too big!  (There's over twenty-five eggs in the picture above and that's just in the half we can see!)   So, we dug deeper into the decor storage and on further EGGS-amination found two glass cylinders.  Mommy knows you should always display items in odd numbered amounts, but she broke the third cylinder several years ago and hasn't been able to find the perfect replacement.  So two will have to do.  It's probably a good thing . . . otherwise we'd have to dye EGGS-tra eggs!


We are thrilled with our efforts and love the way the eggs turned out.  Daddy is pretty pleased with himself and just keeps saying, "You're welcome" any time Mommy comments on how great the eggs look.  He's right.  It was an EGG-cellent idea!

Hopefully the Easter Bunny will agree and leave some EGG-cellent treats in our baskets!
Hunter, Dixie, & Jenna


PS: You know we've CRACKED you up!  You're probably thinking this is crazy, but we knew you could take a YOLK!  On that note, we'll make our EGGS-it!  We're EGGS-hausted from all of our puns!

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Salt or Pepper?

Grandma told Mommy that I looked OLD in a recent blog post!  Perhaps it's because I AM!!  I'll admit this wasn't the best picture of me.  But we can't be picture perfect all the time, right?


I am here to remind Grandma that I don't look as old as I actually am.  I will turn TWELVE in about three weeks, which is eighty-four in dawg years.  I think I can afford a few gray hairs at that age, don't you?  I saw a pin on Pinterest recently that placed my human age closer to 64.  Although not as old as the traditionally accepted human-to-dawg ratio, it's still practically old enough to retire.  Again, gray hairs are the norm I am sure.


I look so much younger than the other dawgs at the vet that are my age or even younger.  My cousin Harley has been sporting a gray muzzle for a while (no offense, Harley) and she's a year younger than I am.  I'm just barely showing a few gray hairs on my face.  Much to my embarrassment, I did notice a few grays between my toes recently.  I guess I can't stay young forever.  [sigh]

Lucky for her, Grandma has kept her dark hair for longer than others her age.  She does have a decent amount of gray hair now, but she hasn't had to color it.  Mommy has been adding blonde highlights to her hair for a few years now.  She has a few gray hairs here and there, but I think her coloring is mostly for fashion's sake.  Covering up the gray hairs is just an added bonus.  Mommy is jealous of Aunt Holly's blonde hair which hasn't even begun to produce the color gray.  I'm sure Aunt Kelly's and Aunt Carol's hair will be the same way!  It's very frustrating for those of us with dark hair!


Mimi has been coloring her hair for longer than I've been alive (no offense, Mimi).  She passed on her premature gray genes to Daddy.  He lives by the Bible verse, "Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness" (Proverbs 16:31).  Any time anyone makes fun of his gray hair, he just points out that it's his SPLENDOR!  I think that's true for Mimi; I'm not always so sure about Daddy (no offense, Daddy).  Daddy also says his gray will turn to silver and be even more valuable!  We'll see, Daddy!

Perhaps Daddy's hair color is why he loves putting pepper on everything he eats?  We used to say he had salt and pepper hair.  The last time he had to renew his driver's license, the examiner simply wrote GRAY for hair color!  Such a disappointing day for Daddy.  He definitely has more salt than pepper on top.  Except on top of his food.  I think Grandma should look a little closer and take note: I am still clearly PEPPER!  Or even better, CHOCOLATE!!


Don't you agree?
Handsome Hunter



Thursday, April 10, 2014

Wardrobe Malfunction


The weekend was warm enough and precipitation free, that Mommy was finally able to get outside and do some yard work.  It's been a long time since she has taken care of anything in the yard.  Her thyroid made her so sick this time last year that she had to leave the yard work to the hired help.  She's back to normal now, so she gets to do the dirty work herself!  I'm sure that makes her happy.  She started by pruning the roses.  She is well aware the roses should have been pruned a while back, but we have a little more time than our Southern friends to do this task.  And we've had snow on the ground forever!  While Mommy was cutting and hacking, she suffered a wardrobe malfunction.

If you had seen Mommy, I'm sure some of you would say (Daddy especially) that she was already suffering from a wardrobe problem even before the dirty deed happened.  She kept her jammies on, added her oldest quilted field coat, her muck boots, and her thickest gardening gloves.  Her hair was in a topknot, yet still kept getting stuck in the roses.  Hair was sticking out everywhere!  She was a sight for sore eyes . . . or maybe she made your eyes sore?  Mommy had progressed to the very last rose bush when she felt a tug and then a cool breeze.  Her pajama bottoms had gotten caught on a thorn and before she knew it, there was a massive RIP in the knee of the pants!

Mommy was heartbroken.  She loves these pj's for three reasons: they are purple, they have moose on them, and they have wreaths!  Yes, these pants should have been put away by now since it's April and not the holiday season, but it's still very chilly here at night!  I keep trying to tell Mommy it's not a big deal since she has MANY more pajama choices, but she is lamenting the loss of the purple wreathed moose.  [sigh]


After finishing with the roses, Mommy moved on to the grapevine.  She really had no idea what she was doing.  We've had the grapevine for about three years.  It produced a TON of Concord grapes two years ago, but not as many last year.  I'm not sure if that was due to the massive amounts of rain we had last summer, the bugs eating the grapes, or Jenna eating the grapes.  She's never pruned the grapevine before, so only time will tell if she did it right.

Jenna loves to help with the yard work.  She was especially useful with the grapevine.  She noticed Mommy struggling to pull away some of the larger vines, so she grabbed a vine and gave it her best effort.  She also found a very thick weed growing nearby and decided to yank it up too.



Hunter was no help at all.  He just sat around and relaxed.  I guess with age come special privileges.


Where was I you ask?  I was doing my best to take Mommy's mind off the horrible chores she had to do in the yard.  She will admit she's not the best gardener, but she doesn't have the black thumb she had almost fifteen years ago when she married Daddy.  Her thumbs are mostly green today, occasionally yellow, or spotted, but mostly green!   I stopped her every few minutes to remind her that I was waiting for her to throw the tennis ball.  If she continued working, I would give her a little bark to tell her it's okay to take a break every so often.  We worked well as a team.  Bark, throw the ball, chop the vine, bark, throw the ball, chop the vine.


Hopefully the vine will survive Mommy's pruning efforts and produce plenty of grapes for this year's jelly.

Mommy's Favorite Little Helper,
Dixie


Saturday, April 5, 2014

Whatta Ya Think?

Have you tried out the latest apps available for your photo editing pleasure?  There are two apps Mommy has tried in particular, Waterlogue and Brushstroke.  She's tried them out on several pictures of her favorite subjects (us, of course) and seems to like different aspects of each.

Waterlogue turns your pictures into watercolor paintings.  Mommy had the most success with this app on a picture of our house and a picture of Dixie.  For some reason, this app does NOT work well on my eyes.  My eyes always turn out looking like giant blobs of chocolate on my face.  Not that there's anything normally wrong with chocolate!  This app also didn't do anything for human faces.  Mommy tried and tried to turn a picture of her and Daddy into a beautiful watercolor, but it just didn't work!

Brushstroke, on the other hand, is stroke of genius (pardon the pun) for human faces!  This app turns your photos into paintings with a great deal of detail and rich, vibrant colors.  It definitely works much better on my eyes than Waterlogue.  Goodbye chocolate blobs, hello handsome hunk!  I'm sure you'll agree.


Me in Waterlogue with Chocolate Blobs for Eyes  (NOT a fan of this one!)

Dixie in Waterlogue ( I must admit, I really like this one!)

Dixie in Brushstroke

Dixie in the most realistic Brushstroke

Our Gang in Waterlogue (where are my eyes???)
 Our Gang in Brushstroke

The Girls in Waterlogue ( I think I like this version best)
 The Girls in Brushstroke

Jenna in Waterlogue

Jenna in Brushstroke (with eyes that can look into my soul!)

Obviously, I've saved the BEST for last:

If you haven't tried out these apps, you should do so!  They're fun and addictive!  
Hunter