Snickers, the Keeshond Sheltie

Snickers joined our family in January, 2004. We found her at Petsmart during one of their Adoption Days through the Paulding County Animal Shelter. We went looking for a Labrador or a Golden Retriever, but we ended up with a Keeshond -Sheltie mix.

This is a Keeshond:
And this is a Sheltie:



And when you mix the two together, you get Snickers!


Snickers has proven to be a wonderful addition to our family. She is super sweet and fairly obedient. She does have some faults. She sheds like crazy! Every May, we take her to get her summer hair cut. According to what I have read, hair cuts don't really make the dogs feel cooler during the summer months, but it does help on the amount of hair she sheds. Which makes me happy!


Some of her summer hair cuts have been better than others. The first couple of times she had them, she really acted embarrassed by her appearance. Some groomers have ended up making her look like a lion. It's really funny! Usually it looks better after a week or so. She LOOKS happy!



This is one of the first pictures we took of her. She has those big, brown puppy dog eyes.


She's great with the kids.



She is very social. If given the opportunity, she will just wander off to see who else is outside. When the kids were younger, they would sometimes forget to shut the gates and then later we would get phone calls saying our dog was down the street.


She likes participating in the neighborhood 4th of July parade.


But she doesn't like the fireworks. We took her with us to watch the fireworks one year and she spent the evening in our laps. She's a little too big to be a lap dog. She doesn't like thunderstorms either.


She enjoys going on hikes and walks. However, she likes to stop and smell EVERYTHING along the way.

She waits patiently for us when we take her to the Powder Springs Coffee Shoppe.

Most of the time she is very calm, but she does get the occasional crazy streak. We think it's funny when we does that.



We love our Snickers dog!

Wisteria

Several years ago, we planted 3 Wisteria vines around our backyard fence to provide some privacy. Our backyard is more to the side of our house rather than behind it, thus requiring something to hide all of the toys that the kids leave out.


Over the years, the vines have grown quite hardily. Above is just one of the vines that we originally planted and it covers over two sections of our fence.


This is a partial view of the other two vines.

This is the view from our deck to show how much privacy they provide.


The vines are in full bloom and quite fragrant right now.


We have lots of pollination going on as you can imagine. But soon the bees will be gone and we'll have our buzz-free privacy fence.

Leapin' Lizards

When I was a kid, one of the highlights of our trips to Florida to visit Grandma was seeing the lizards on her patio screens. They were little Green Anole lizards, also know as the American Chameleons.

We even had a pet anole lizard for a while. There was an Easter egg hunt up at Keystone Square shopping center (in Carmel, IN). My sister, who was 3 or so at the time, didn't find any eggs, so my mom made my brother & me share with her. In one of those eggs, my sister won an anole from the pet store. Stores just don't do that anymore! (thank goodness - now that I'm a mom!). She named it David after our next door neighbor teen babysitter.

Well anyway...today I saw my first lizard of the season. To me, that is a big indicator that summer is near. We've already had several days over 80 degrees already this spring, but this the first lizard I've seen.


Here's a closer look at it. We always refer to the lizards around our house as "Lizzy". So as you can see, Lizzy has made her first appearance of the year.


I called my sister while typing this post, for her recollection of the Easter egg hunt. Then we got to talking about the lizards that they used to sell at the circus! All I remembered was that they were sold by walking vendors. My sister's memory is better than mine. She said the seller would have one lizard out on display. It would have a little leash fastened around his neck, then the leash was safety pinned to the guys shirt. Then the lizard would walk around on the guy as he was selling them. Well that's not something they do anymore! I was very curious about this practice of selling the lizards, so I searched online and found a message board called Circus History. If you are interested in reading, I've linked the site, but you'll have to scroll until you find entry #968.

What am I reading?

I just finished the Millennium Trilogy by Steig Larrson.



Lots of suspense, action, and Swedish words. I am looking forward to seeing the movies. The Swedish ones are on Netflix instant view. I've heard that an American version is in the works. There are some books that I have read, that I have no desire to see the film version, but if done well, I think these will translate well onto the big screen.

I just started reading Kate Collin's Flower Shop Mysteries. They were recommended to me by a friend. There are 11 books in the series and they all have clever "plant puns" in the title. The first one, is "Mum's the Word".



The books are set in New Chapel, Indiana. I spent my first 31 years in Indiana, but I was not familiar with this town. The book describes it as being an hour outside of Chicago, but when I looked into it, New Chapel is down near Kentucky. It's not really important, after all, it is a fiction book, but I did have to look.

The heroine of the book is a graduate of Indiana University, which is where I got my degree from.



I picked up several books in the series at Borders when the store near me closed. But of course, I didn't have the first one, so I got that one from the library. The only copy that the library has is large print. I don't have to wear my reading glasses to read it! I will probably read all of the books (in order, of course) over the course of the next several weeks. I tend to do that. I didn't start reading Janet Evanovich's Number books until about book #12. It was for book club. Then I went back and read all the previous ones. Now I am all caught up and have to wait for the new ones to come out. I plan to start Sue Grafton's ABC books soon. I think the current one is "U", so I will have plenty of time before the next one comes out.

Dying Eggs

As many other families, we dye eggs at Easter. This year the kids chose a Tye Dye egg kit to use.

The instructions for this kit were different that what we usually do. First, we put an egg into a clear plastic bag.


Then we dropped small spoonfuls of the dye into the bag.


After dropping the dye in, you rub the dye on to the egg from the outside of the plastic bag.



Then we set them out to dry. The colors ran together a bit. Our eggs didn't look as pretty as the picture on the box. However, I must remember that the process is what is important, not the product. The kids had fun and that's what counts.

The last few years we've gotten the gimmicky egg dying kits. I think next year we'll skip the fancy kits and just do old-fashioned plain eggs.

Easter

We were invited to Easter dinner at our friends' house. They served a delicious meal of braised veal, mashed potatoes and asparagus. After dinner we had an egg hunt for the kids. I took some pictures at dinner, but they weren't very flattering, so I chose not to post any!


Making the kids pose for a picture before they can start searching for eggs.

A Star Wars Clone Wars egg hiding in a tree.

I love this egg - it's from the Willy Wonka Extreme & Hard to Find Easter Eggs. This isn't the best example of it, but they are so much fun to hide. Below are some of the other extreme & hard to find ones.


After all the eggs were found, it was time to inventory their candy and make trades.


Then it was time for dessert. My friend made these darling cupcakes and we brought the bunny cake that we made yesterday.


The boys (both old and young) decided to pour cherry juice on the bunny cake and "stab" him. Hannah was not amused.


We find ourselves missing our family around the holidays. It's nice to have good friends to share the holidays with.

Happy Easter!!

Easter Baskets

Last night before going to bed, I told the kids that they couldn't come downstairs before 8 am. (I'm such a mean mom!) So at 8:01, we were awakened. The kids were very excited to see what EB left for them. This was the first year that both kids didn't believe in EB. It makes me just a teeny bit sad.





Here are the kids with the baskets. I don't let them get into it until after I take the pictures of them holding their baskets.



Dissecting their Easter baskets.



The mandatory chocolate bunny.



This is something that Chris ordered for Hannah. It's from a website that makes the world's smallest letters. He ordered Hannah one for her birthday a couple of years ago. The Easter card came inside this egg. It comes with a little magnifying glass. See the red wax seal on the envelope? The envelope said "To Hannah on the 2nd Floor with the pink carpet". It's really cute!


James got some new Lego mini figurines. He got the ice skater, mad scientist, and artist to add to his collection.