Our Son Has Watched Too Much 'The Walking Dead'

'The Walking Dead' is one of Nicholas and my favorite shows.  I'm not normally into that sort of thing but for some reason, when Season 1 was on Episode 3, someone told me how much they loved the show even though they aren't into zombies.  I decided to give it a try.  Season 1, Episode 1 and I was hooked.  After I watched the entire season (which was only 6 episodes), I convinced Nick to watch it.  I rewatched it with him and we've been obsessed ever since.  (We're also now loving 'Fear The Walking Dead').

They say children are sponges and they mimick what they see.  Well maybe Jaxon has seen too much 'The Walking Dead' because he's obsessed with trying to eat our faces and even more obsessed with trying to eat Vino.  She just has to walk by him and he reaches out for her, mouth open wide.

While taking their Halloween photos, (two different days) he was at it again.  He tried for Yadi but he much more prefers Vino.

I guess maybe we should have dressed him as zombie for Halloween.  It would have been much more fitting for these little photo sessions.


{NOTE:  We do not actually let our child watch this television show.  He has never seen it so please don't go all sanctimommy on me.}

On Saturdays, We Wear Our College Attire, Drink, & Watch the Game

This time of year, everyone's weekend recaps are the same.  I know for the next few months, my Saturdays will be always be beer, good food, and football!

It should come as no surprise that I'm a Mizzou fan.  That is my beloved Alma mater and I miss that campus, that town, and college life so much!!!  Football season was always my favorite.  My freshman year, we lived in the dorm with all the football freshman football players.  They became good friends of ours and it made the games even more enjoyable to not only be cheering on our team, but cheering on our friends.

My Saturdays have always revolved around Mizzou football.
Before going to Mizzou, I'd travel the two hours there, stay with my brother, and tailgate with his friends.
Saturdays while attending Mizzou revolved around tailgating, the game, more tailgating, and then hitting up the bars.
I graduated in 2008 and moved back to my hometown of St. Louis, but I continued to travel back to Mizzou to tailgate and attend games.
Saturdays are just a day for college football.  End of story.

Sadly, my tailgating and game-going days had to come to an end.
In 2011, I married a man in the United States Navy.  As you all might know, Missouri doesn't have an ocean for those big Navy ships and thus I had to move.  Sadly, I can't afford to fly home for every home game.  The best I can do now is cheer on my Tigers here in Florida.  Thankfully, with Mizzou moving to the SEC back in 2012, I'm able to catch their games since I reside in SEC country.

A few months ago, I posted a photo of a shirt that I really wanted.  Little did I know, this shirt would be showing up in my mailbox just a few days later.  My sweet husband saw this shirt online and ordered it for me, knowing just how much I'd love it!

(I'll admit, the shirt would be a LOT better if it said "I may live in Florida but I'm always in Mizzou Country").


You'll be happy to know, no more weekend recaps (unless it's pretty epic) because Saturdays you will find me drinking beer and watching my Tigers.  (And watching other college football before and after our game.)  Some Saturdays it might be on my couch and others it might be at a bar with my fellow Northeast Florida Mizzou Alumni Chapter.

Oh, you'll also find these two girls shoved into jerseys that are now a bit too small for them.
(It's one of the few times I think doggies clothes are acceptable).

 

What is your college team?
Do you dress up your dogs for game day?

How to Entertain Your Dog for 30+ Minutes (with Zero Effort from You!)

Do you ever get this look from your dog?  You know, the one that screams "entertain me or I will kill you in your sleep."

Do you wish your dogs could look like this with zero effort from you?

It happens daily. You get "the look" when you're watching the Cardinals (or another not as exciting sports team) Or when you're watching a movie, trying to nap, folding laundry, reading a book, typing a blog post, etc.  If you're a dog owner, you've seen the look. The "pay attention to me, you whore" look. In my household, this "play with me or die" look is usually accompanied by some sassy talk from my Weim and groans and whines from my Vizsla.

We get this look a lot. (It's what we get for bringing two of the most energetic breeds into our family.) We just wish they could find ways to entertain themselves. {Hashtag lazy dog parents}.

We've given them bones covered in gross nom noms. But they last maybe 10 minutes before they're over it. It worked in the beginning but bones are old news to them.
We've tried frozen peanut butter in Kongs. Somehow they manage to get it out in 5 minutes.

We have found the solution!!!!!  Let me introduce to you, the Kong Wobbler.

Via PetSmart 

This.Is.Amazing!  I know when I asked if you wanted to entertain your dog with zero effort from you, you thought "impossible", but it's not!   See for yourself:

I highly recommend you head to your nearest PetSmart (or if you're cheap like me, order from Amazon and wait two days) and buy one. We bought two, to be fair. Because sometimes we're good parents.
It took the girls about 10 minutes to figure it out.
And it took Vino an additional 3 minutes to realize Yadi could do all the work and she could help her eat the food. Smart girl!!!!

Our dogs find almost anything a treat. So I bought a cheap ass bag of dog food from Walmart. Since it's different from their normal food, they love it!! I also plan to use Cheerios if I run out of dog food.

Anyway, enough talking. Get out and buy one. Then sit back and do whatever the hell you want because your dog doesn't need you anymore!!!

You can thank me later.


(Being 100% honest, we were just as entertained as they were with their first go around so allow some time to watch your dog figure it out.)

{Also, did you note Yadi's frustration? When it gets low and she can't get the last few pieces out, she gets hilariously frustrated by throwing it all over the place lol.}

Yadi's 3rd Birthday Celebration

I promise this isn't going to turn into a dog blog.  Although I wouldn't hate it if it did.  If I'm being honest, I could write a dog post weekly.  Granted, 95% of them would be about Yadi.  Don't get me wrong, I love Vino.  But the problem is that she's just too sweet, too calm, and too perfect.  Yadi, on the other hand, has more personality than any dog or human I've ever met.  She didn't get the nicknames "Mouth of the South" and "Wildcard" for no reason.  She's a great dog, but has a lot of energy and sass and is pretty high maintenance due to her energy.  She has so many weird quirks and she is always keeping us entertained.

This past week we celebrated this crazy asses 3rd Birthday.  A lot of dog parents look forward to this milestone of a birthday because their dog finally begins to calm the eff down.  Not Yadi.  She is true to her breed and has just as much energy as she did the day we brought her home at 11 weeks old; the only difference is that she weighs 75 pounds more, goes potty outside, and no longer eats her own shit.

Because my dogs are my children, we celebrate their birthdays in this house.  I was way too busy with work to bake a doggie cake or pupcakes as I have done in the past, but she did get presents.  And she lots of outside time to enjoy some of them.

(She is incredibly focused on the treat Nick is holding)


I wanted a photo of me with the birthday girl, but of course I couldn't keep her sitting too long because the food in Nick's hand was much more interesting

Go home, Yadi, you're drunk.

If below isn't the definition of derp, I don't know what is

She finally got fed up and swatted the hat off.  Game over.

Following photos she finally got her presents.

Her first gift, we quickly discovered, is much more a gift for us.  We got the Kong Wobbler (and of course we got two to be fair).  This thing is amazing!  It keeps the girls entertained for so long!  The base is filled with sand so it always stays upright, but they have to knock it around to get the treats out.  They loved it!  Although, Vino got wise and started following Yadi around and just ate the treats.  She's smart...letting Yadi do all the work yet still reaping the benefits of said hard work.

Her other gifts were frisbees.  She is obsessed with balls and is really good at maneuvering her body to catch them.  She hasn't quite got the hang of frisbees.  She's not sure of they ways the move and she doesn't jump too often for them.  I want her to learn to jump high in the air for them.  So we got her some new frisbees and took her out in the field in our backyard to play.
{Brace yourself for Weim Overload}

Have you ever seen a dog look so happy?  I'd say she enjoyed her third birthday.

Where was Vino?  Running...what she loves more than anything in the world.  She couldn't care less about toys.  She just loves to be outside and running around in her ninja ways, chasing birds and other wildlife.

Do you celebrate your dog's birthday?  If so, how?

Behind the Scenes of the Easter Puppies

WARNING:  If you don't care about cute puppies (and by puppies, I mean a 65 pound and 100 pound dog) then you won't care for this blog post.  It's pretty much nothing but photos of my Easter Puppies.

I love my dogs.  I also love to make them sit and pose for photos (aka "torture" if you ask them).  They don't really enjoy it, but they appease me...kind of.  For the most part, they cooperate by sitting where I ask them to sit and staying there.

Many of you ask me how I get such great photos of and with my dogs.  HA!!!  You're seeing the one decent (and I'm using the word loosely) quality photo out of the 300 I took.  Okay, so I don't really take 300.  I usually get fed up around photo 30 (the dogs are fed up after three and Nick is fed up after -4).  But in that 30, there will be maybe, MAYBE one decent one.  We attempt this with lots of "Sit.  Stay. Leave it."  If your dogs don't know those commands, it's going to be pretty hard.  Yadi and Vino are great at commands so this usually works.  The hard part is getting them to look at the camera since we're using a timer and there's no one to call their names.

But enough talk.  Why don't you come with me on a tour of our Easter photos.

Here are the only semi-decent photos we capture

 As you can see in the photo above, it's not perfect.  In the first photo, Nick is apparently strangling Yadi to get her to look at the camera.  In the second photo, I'm tugging on Vino's neck to get her to look up.

Again, these aren't the best.  Clearly Vino isn't even looking in the top one.  Then we attempted individual ones because it's a little easier when one of us is behind the camera but still not perfect.  Vino has her mouth hanging slightly open in the photo with me and Yadi looks like we flushed every ball she owns down the toilet.


How about the real behind the scenes?  This is what it truly looks like during our photo shoots.

 Vino REALLY likes the ears...in her mouth.  She kept jumping on us to try and get the ears out of our hands.  In this photo, Yadi swatted her ears off and ran away while Vino also removed her ears and then jumped at them in my hand.

 In the above photo, Vino is attempting to pull Yadi's ears off of her, because as I mentioned a few photos before, she loves those ears.

 And once again, Vino, eyeing those ears, devising a plan on how she's going to get them.

Yadi is usually looking at me, sniffing me, or trying to move closer to me...because she's up my ass obsessed with me.  It'd make sense to put Yadi next to me and Vino next to Nick, but he won't have that.  Yadi is his baby (even though she strongly prefers me and Vino prefers him) and therefore he always wants her by him.

 Go home, Vino.  You're drunk!

 Seriously, she looks like that college kid who had too much at the party and isn't aware of how friggin stupid she looks.  Realistically, I'm sure Vino wishes she were drunk.  She's definitely true to her name and loves wine all alcohol.  And I'm sure the alcohol would make her tolerate this situation better.

A mess.  Just an absolute mess.  And it's like this every stinkin holiday or random day I decide to attempt this.  My hopes are always that one day, it'll click.  They'll think "Okay, if I sit here nice and pretty and give this crazy human three good photos, I can go back to laying in my bed cleaning my asshole and chasing lizards."  (I'll give you one guess as to who the lizard chaser is and who the ass licker is).

Here's my advice on good "headband holiday" photos....
Wait until they're super tired and put the ears on them.  (In our case, we took them on a long hike).  At that point, they don't give a rat's ass what you do to them!  And they might even play along and pretend they're a real bunny rabbit, as Vino is doing below!

 Sorry Vino, this is not your best angle  

I know I'm biased but I just think she's the most gorgeous pup ever!!!

But be warned, it will end with a giant swat of the ears off the head  (Yadi was only good for about four photos.  Those ears were ruining her nap).

And the dogs inevitably eating the ears off each other's heads.

I know it could be much worse.  They could not sit or stay or leave it.  And the outtakes do give me a good little chuckle.

Crazy dog mama I am!  I have no shame in admitting that.  I mean, I don't have human children to dress up in adorable little Easter dresses or cute little Sunday best suits.  My holidays are boring without a little dress up fun.  That is, until I realized they make these fun headbands for every holiday!  The girls now have bunny ears, shamrock headbands, reindeer antlers, witch hat headbands, heart antennae headbands, and the list goes on!  Don't worry, I'm not spending much money.  I mean, Dollar Tree make me holla Honey Boo Boo!!!  (Sorry, I watch that show.  It's just so disgustingly amusing).  But for realz, hit up your neighborhood Dollar Tree.  I spend $2 total and it provides me lots of entertainment and laughs.  And now memories.  You know I'm all about the photos and memories!!!!

But if I'm being honest, these dogs, while we love them dearly and treat them as children most of the time, are here for our own amusement.  We mess them with and torture them and make them do things they hate us for.  Yet for some reason, they still love us.  And that's what great about dogs!!!!!! (One day I'll compile all the crazy things we do and make a blog post.)

Do any of you take holiday photos with your pups???

I'm sure my dogs are going to be over the moon once I have a baby to torture with ridiculous outfits.  *insert evil laugh*