Winter Trees

This post may seem a little late, but I'm a fan of winter time decorations, not just stuff that I have to take down after Christmas or else it will look out of place.  Although I will readily admit that my tiny fake Christmas tree is still proudly displayed by our window.  What?  It's festive and happy looking!  You can never get enough of that here in the gloomy days of winter.

I've been seeing all these cute ornament trees on the interwebs and wanted something similar for myself.  The only problem is that those ornaments are usually breakable, and breakable doesn't fly well in this household.  I swear, we're not going to have to do anything to baby proof the house when we have kids after all of the animal proofing we've done.

Back to non-breakable stuff.  Right around Christmas I was in Michael's and saw they had beaded garland on super clearance; I think it was 80¢ for a 6' length or something like that.  The idea popped in my head that I could use this to decorate the trees; it's shiny and not breakable, which were basically my only requirements. 

I snagged a handful of the garland in silver and green, picked up 3 different size styrofoam cones (paper mache would be better but they didn't have any at this store and I was all excited to get started) and made my way to the register.

I started by covering the cones with paper using Mod Podge to give myself a better surface to adhere things to and to make the tops a little taller and pointier.

After that dried I painted them silver since you would be able to see some spaces between the beads.

When that dried I busted out my hot glue gun and got to work.  I started at the bottom and worked my way around and up.  I recommend putting a strip of hot glue and then sticking on the beads for the entire thing.  I tried to do a short cut on my smallest tree and only glue the strands on one side of the cone and it turned out a little wonky and didn't feel very sturdy afterward.  I made sure each bead was glued down on the bigger trees and it turned out much neater and feels very solid.  Later I filled in the gaps on the smaller tree with hot glue to make sure everything was held in place.

So that's it!  My shiny winter trees in pretty winter colors.

I'm All Ears

Alice has definitely made herself right at home over the last 2 weeks.  She and Dash love playing together and she's really good with the cats; I think Dash tries to chase them more than she does!

But what really let me know that Alice was feeling at home was that after a few days her left ear starting sticking up.  Like, straight up.  So now she has one ear up and one ear tipped down and it is a-freaking-dorable. 

Totally quirky to match her personality and looks.  Speaking of which, Alice still loves looking in the mirror.  I have never seen a dog spend so much time staring at themselves and the rest of the world through a mirror.  She's not obsessive or anything, just once in a while she'll wander by the mirrors by the front door and pause for a moment or two.  I always wonder what she's thinking.  Okay, let's be honest here, I wonder what all of the animals are thinking all of the time.

Side note: Tonight I got some snuggle time in with almost all of the animals.  I invited Dash onto the couch with me and then Lenny decided to join us.  But before this could be captured on film, Thomas thought it would be even more hilarious to try and toss Alice in, too.  We don't usually allow fosters on the couch, so this was a special exception.  Once Alice was added to the mix Lenny decided it was no longer safe to lay on my tummy and moved a little further up on the couch.

Don't act like you're not jealous of my super awesome made-by-me-in-high-school fleecy pants

Anyway, back to Alice.  Her new favorite toy is whichever one Dash is playing with.  She'll constantly walk over to him and literally take a toy out of his mouth and walk away with it while poor Dash just watches - he's so good at sharing!  Here's how it usually goes down:

Dash doing his very best impression of the saddest dog in the world, let's see a close-up

Very convincing, Dash, very convincing

Last night Dash had a toy but Alice couldn't quite reach it because he was next to the coffee table and she actually cried before finally squishing herself in and taking the toy.  To be fair, Alice isn't a thief all the time.  Dash will often take toys from her and she's fine with it and they also like to play tug of war.  I think it's just that baby phase where the most interesting thing is the thing someone else has.

 So that's what's going on with our critters; can you handle all that cuteness?!

Cyrene Update

I got an update on Cyrene from her forever family - woohoo!  Her new name is Saphire and this is what they had to say:

Just wanted to send you a quick note on Saphire.... She is an awesome dog that has fit in well with our family, she is very well behaved in all situations and has developed excellent leash manners - she has made friends with my running group and she loves tagging along in the morning for the kids' school drop off... Saphire is very good with the kids and very caring and watchful of the baby. 

She is just a great dog and we are happy to have her... thank you.

 Saphire's family sent along a few new pictures, too!

I'm so happy for Saphire and her family; they're just perfect for each other.  We wish them all the best!

Hello, Alice!

Just a half a day after Hunk got dropped off to go to his new foster home I picked up Alice.  She came up on Saturday on a transport all the way from Kansas in a series of ten legs to get her from there to here.  Alice and her brother Alex are purebred Aussies that someone who lived on a farm bought as puppies.  After a few months they realized that two young Aussies are kind of a lot of work and decided they didn't want them anymore.

In early December a good samaritan took them in until they could be placed into a rescue.  So now at 8 months old Alice is with us and her brother is in a foster home, too.

Alice was a little nervous and a little stinky when I got her home, so after a quick run in the yard I took her upstairs to the bathtub for a quick torture session bath.  After that, some food and a good nap she was already a totally different dog.

Now she's picking up every toy she can fit in her little mouth and either chewing on it, rolling it or proudly parading it around the room.  Mirrors are fascinating to her; she keeps walking past our floor to ceiling mirrors by the front door and pausing.  And when I first got her home she spent about a minute just staring at her reflection in the oven.  I'm not sure if it's because she hasn't really encountered mirrors before or if she thinks it's her brother since they look alike, so to me it's both cute and a little sad, because I wonder if she misses Alex when she sees her reflection.

Alice loves to give little kisses and is enjoying exploring the house.  By now I think she's sniffed nearly every square inch of space that she's allowed to be in.  Dash and Alice even started wresting and playing a little on Alice's first night with us.  The two of them are having so much fun running in the yard and playing in the house.

We'll learn more about Alice's personality after we have her a little longer, but we do know that she is super sweet and super adorable.

Welcome, Alice!

Hunk's New Home

It's still a foster home, but this one he gets to stay in until he gets adopted (which I'm sure will be in no time at all).  Before we even knew Hunk existed we had already committed to taking Alice - more on her later - so Hunk was temporary from the get-go.  But there was no way I could let that sweet little face spend even a minute in the kennel.

Hunk and Dash had a blast playing and wrestling together.  The most challenging part of having him was just trying to keep him quiet since the two of them were in play mode almost non-stop!  Aside from that he was a perfect foster.

Great house manners, already house trained, quiet in his crate and of course Hunk is also incredibly sweet and adorable.  Okay, at some point on Thursday he did chew a hole in his cast which landed him in the cone of shame.

But the vet said it should be fine and after a day of pretending to be the saddest dog in the world while wearing it he decided that life was still worth living and perked up again.  We're all going to miss Hunk, but we know he's in good hands with a great foster who will make sure he ends up in a great forever home.

Captains of the Sky

For Christmas this year my brother got Lenny and Waldo pretty much the best present ever.  I mean really, what does every kitty dream of being when he grows up?

A fighter pilot!  Obviously.

Eric got them their very own fighter plane.  We put it together and it.is.awesome.  It was really easy to build; it all fit together into itself so we didn't need any glue, tape, staples or anything like that.

Behold!

Thomas starting the propellor before take-off 

Peeking out the bottom hatch

There's.....something on the wing...some...thing...

Waldo is always very cautious around new things and had to give the plane a good inspection 

Then he decided it was safe to check out the inside

But that's as far as he went for the day.  I think once he figures out what an awesome hiding spot it is he'll be hanging out in there all the time.

 For now he's content just hanging out near their airplane

This is seriously a super cool plane.  The attention to detail on it is amazing, too.  Every inch of the plane!  The outside has the airplane pattern on it, with things like CATS R GR8, FLYING KITTEN, and 9 LIVES written on it.  And the inside looks like the interior of a fighter plane with little controls and everything!

Thanks, Eric!  The kitties love their new hangout and say you're the coolest uncle ever.  Lots of snuggles coming your way from Lenny, and to a lesser extent, Waldo.

If your cats are insanely jealous, and why wouldn't they be, you can get them their very own fighter plane (or tank or fire engine or car) from this very cool website.