Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Yadi and Vino!!!!!
(Can't you just feel their excitement?!)

Clearly our pups don't have our enthusiastic attitude towards this day.  Probably because they're Hungarian and German, but whatevs.
I hope you all remembered to wear your green today!!!!

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.}

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*

FAIL: Doggie Christmas Photos

 I think it's safe to say that my dogs are nothing like their mother and they do not enjoy photos.  They're much more like their father, except he cooperates and smiles for them...sometimes.

I don't know about you all, but put my dogs in front of a camera and they don't listen.  Taking photos of them is harder than trying to lick your own elbow (did you just try??)  

Actually, I take that back.  Yadi is perfect (95% of the time) when it comes to photos.  Grab a treat and she'll sit, stay, and hold your eye contact for as long as you want.  And sometimes, she'll even give you a wink!

Vino, on the other hand, turns into an antsy asshole.  Camera comes out and all commands go to the wind.  Ask her to sit and she'll sit, but the instant her butt touches the ground, she's back up.  Ask her to lay down and she'll do it, but in a Sphinx position, which is far from cute.  She won't put herself into a relaxed "down" position.

And for some reason, Nick thought bringing the bathmat out (which they LOVE to lay on and we never allow it) would be a great idea.  Not only did it not work, but it made the photos look even worse.  

Vino finally got fed up with us and just turned into a dead reindeer and Yadi followed suit.  She refused to stand up or sit up.  Thanks for nothing, assclown.

We nixed the dogs by themselves because we were getting pretty frustrated.

We thought, "Why don't we each take a dog and get photos that way."
Another bad idea.  

You put a headband on Yadi, in this case reindeer antlers, and she looks like an idiot.  Ears go straight back against her head and she thins her face out so badly. Her face/head strongly resemble a greyhound.  And I'm sorry if you like or own one, this is just my personal opinion, but those dogs are not cute.  So I'm not too fond of these Yadi/Nick pictures.

I thought photos with Vino would be easier.  Just sit on the ground and she's all about being in your lap.  I forgot to take into account that she hates when you FORCE her to do anything, so of course, she put herself into that stupid Sphinx position.  All of them.  Awful.  Not that I'm not a gem in all of their either lol

Then she went into her "I love you so much I just want to eat your face" phase.  

Not cute.

We managed to get one decent photo, but like always, Vino looks beyond pissed off.  She has a very stoic look to her, which bothers me, because if you've met her, then you know she's the sweetest, most loving dog there is.  Seriously, everyone who meets her wants to steal her.  Or they leave wanting a Vizsla.

We really failed this year.  When we could get both of them to lay down, neither would look.  The tile was more interesting.

I think they knew our plan was to wrap this around them so they didn't want to cooperate.

But then we called it quits because when Yadi is finished behaving, there's no more hope.

Yadi says "I'm done bizznatches!"

Caught Flour-Snouted

Yadi has always been a curious pup.  However, for the first two years of her life, she's never bothered us when we were in the kitchen.  But lately, she's decided to take her Honey Badger mindset into the kitchen.  She certainly doesn't give a shit about anything.  

Hot baking sheet?  Sure, let me just put my nose right on it.

Dough on the counter?  Sure, I'll put my snout up there and try to lick it.  

Sadly, Vino hasn't taught her the Ninja ways of the kitchen and it's pretty obvious when Yadi has gotten into something.  

Like when we were baking cookies....

"I promise, I wasn't doing anything wrong, guys."

Really, Yadi?  Didn't think we'd notice?  Honestly, she just didn't care.  As you can see in the photo above, even with my standing right there, she's still staring down those cookies, plotting how to get them.  Thankfully, no dough was consumed.  With no wrong doing, how can you be mad at that flour covered face???

So then we decided to have a little fun and give her a "treat".  (Anything is a treat to this girl...even air.  I kid you not.  Hand her air and she "takes" it from you and chews it.  Sometimes, she's not too smart.)  

So why not give her flour?  Add more to it. Nick dropped teeny tiny bits of flour, which you can just barely see, as she tried to catch it and eat it.

Then Nick decided it wasn't fair that Vino's head wasn't covered in flour so he smeared some all over her.  Yadi, being a great big sister insanely obsessed with food, decided to clean it off for her.  

So there you have it, my honey badger of a dog, caught flour-snouted, yet looking insanely adorable while doing so.  

Life Update: Packing and Moving

Life has been CRAZY!!!!  So crazy that I have yet to blog anything about Nick's Winging week festivities!  It was truly one of the most exciting times in our lives together and I have never been more proud.  But those posts will have to wait.  I promise to blog about them after we leave Pensacola and life slows down just a little.

This moving thing has taken up all of our time.
Nick winged, family left, we packed for 5 days (and by we, I mean me since Nick was still working 12 hour days), headed to Jax to house hunt for a week, came back and have been packing the past 3 days.  Only two more days left to pack, one day to load the truck, one day to clean, then we leave to start our new chapter!

Here is just a a quick update for you all:

• We are beyond excited for this move.  At first, Nick was pretty bummed to not be flying the MH-53 but it didn't last long (as we all knew would be the case because Nick is truly incapable of being in a bad mood or being a glass half empty kind of guy).  Virginia was most absolutely NOT our first location choice (or second...or third...or fourth) so we're happy to be in Jax, our first location choice.  I know some think we're insane for wanting Jax and being excited about it, but I cannot express how excited we are.  All of Nick's sadness has left and he's stoked about this next adventure.  Every time we talk about our new home and life, we find more and more reasons to be excited.
  We're happy to be in city larger than Pensacola with a lot more going on.  We're happy to be in a location that still does not get winters (well, not cold winters).  We're happy to still be a day's drive from St. Louis.  I'm happy to start volunteering at the Mayo Clinic.  I'm happy to still be near beaches.  And we are beyond thrilled to be near so many friends!!!  Nick's best friend from enlistment, stationed at Kings Bay, lives in Jax, not far from our (hopeful) new home.  Our best friends from Pensacola are there (in the same neighborhood!).  My other Navy bestie is there and has offered us so much advice (as well as letting us crash with her the past week while house hunting).  Not to mention we are so close to Charleston and we have LOTS of really good friends there and plans to go visit them all are already in the works.  We also plan to take mini-vacays to Savannah and of course next spring we'll head to Jupiter for Cardinals spring training!!!

• I'm still having a very difficult time with Grandpa's passing.  Luckily I've been kept very busy and this has helped keep my tears at bay.  But when I do finally get some down time, I can't help but cry over how badly I miss him.
• I'm really annoyed that I've yet to update my resume from my previous job.  (I'm so bummed we're leaving so soon because I truly loved my job, the kids, and my co-workers and I was looking forward to working with them all again for a little bit longer.)  But moving, house hunting, and all that comes with that has taken up every free second so the resume and job searching will have to wait until we're there.
• We're eating the oddest combinations of meals as we're trying to clear out as much from our fridge and freezer as possible.  We've eaten an insane amount of fries lately.  I'm sure we won't succeed and I'll be calling friends to see if they'd like to take any of it before we toss it in the trash.  As for the pantry, that's a lost cause trying to consume it all.  We (Nick) keep far too many things in there!  He has so many bags of chips, boxes of Rice-a-Roni, cans of Steak n Shake chili, tons of cereal, Pop-Tarts, etc.  The kid loves his (pre-packaged, pre-bagged, processed) food.  We will have many, many boxes of food.  And I'd say maybe one box is my stuff (and it's primarily baking ingredients).
• I'm doing my part to minimize the bottles we need to bubble wrap and box by drinking wine each night (and during the day...no shame).  I'm just looking out for what's best for us...saving money on packing supplies and saving space on the truck ;)  Nick has no complaints as the wine helps my anxiety and therefore he's not as tempted to use the packing tape on my anxious, whiny, bitchy mouth.  I will not deny I'm an unpleasant packer.  I'm constantly complaining "I hate this" (or "I hate you" since Nick is the one strongly against letting the military move us and he hoards and owns more than half the shit we're packing) or I'm worrying "We're never going to get this done!" and "All of this is not going to fit on the truck!"  And then the bitching "Get off your phone and pack!  What are you doing?  You're wasting time!"  Surprisingly, Nick stays calm and keeps his eye rolling at a minimum (which is really in his best interest.  Sometimes he even makes us a drink (the best move for both of us.)
• Sadly, this move has not prompted Nick to purge any of this stuff as I had hoped.  Nick is a certified hoarder.  He has so much shit he doesn't need (ie.  pogs...a massive amount of pogs and slammers.  And, a UNICYCLE!  Really?!  C'mon!  We aren't circus performers).  But would he part with any of it?  NOPE!  Now, there are times during this packing process where he's said "Let's sell this."  Yeah, good call jackass.  Let me go ahead and list it on Craigslist considering we have two days left here.  Or he'll say "Let's go through this box of papers." (Yes, he has boxes upon boxes of nothing but papers.)  Um, we don't have time for that!!!!  And the same with clothes.  He has an insane amount of clothes he could easily donate if he had the time to go through them (not kidding you, four 44 gallon tubs of Banana Republic slacks, hundreds of Express button down shirts, etc.  It's sickening.)  But because we have limited time, all this shit has to go with us.  The good news is Nick is crazy motivated to have a nice and organized garage in our new home which means he's willing to finally go through and purge this stuff.  Unfortunately, it can't happen before the move.  Why couldn't he have decided this in the past two years we were here?!  

• Our dogs are so confused as to what is going on.  Dogs thrive off a routine and normalcy, and life has been anything but.  I was gone for 2.5 weeks.  They drove 12 hours to STL and stayed for a long weekend.  They drove 12 hours back to Florida and I was gone from them for another week.  I returned but that same day so did a lot of family and friends (for Nick's winging).  They left and the house began being tore down.  Friends and their dogs came for a weekend.  They left, and we followed, to Jacksonville where they stayed in a new home, with new dogs.  We returned and the house became even more of a disaster as everything they know is being packed up.
  Sadly, this chaos won't be stopping anytime soon.  We pack them up and move them to Jax where they'll live in another new house (a friend's house) for a week.  Then we go stay with my sister for two weeks.  Then we return to Jax to stay in that new house again for another 2-ish weeks.  Then we finally (hopefully) move into their new home and their belongings, the things they're familiar with, return.  I cannot wait for this.  The girls anxiety is driving me nuts.  The constant (more than usual) need for attention and their utter confusion makes packing so much more difficult!  I just wish I could explain to them what is going on!!!

So that's our life update.  Nothing exciting and almost all of it revolves around this packing and moving ordeal.  Hopefully next week I can work on Nick's winging post (once I get all the photos together)

Easter 2013

Sadly, we were not able to be in St. Louis for Easter with our family.  But that didn't mean we didn't celebrate on our own  =)

If you don't know me, then I need to tell you that I'm truly a big kid at heart.  I love holidays and partaking in all the traditional festivities.  So of course that means that the Easter Bunny visits our house leaving baskets of sugary goodness and hiding eggs.
In our house, there are two Easter Bunnies...Nick and I.  Nick of course plays Easter Bunny for me, and I for him.  We each secretly fill each other's baskets to wake up to on Easter morning.  But Nick didn't get all his wonderful candy in his basket.  Some of it was tucked inside plastic eggs that he had to find around the house.  Yep, that's right, I sent Nick on an Easter egg hunt throughout the house.  It was too cute watching him walk around, carrying his basket, finding his eggs.

Happy Easter!!!  Just after waking up!

The baskets left by the Easter Bunny.  I'm sure you can guess which one is mine.  

Obviously my favorite items in my basket.

I was pretty sad to not be indulging in our huge Easter brunch full of wonderful breakfast foods, a giant ham, and of course, mimosas.  Nick doesn't eat breakfast foods (yeah, I know, I married a dud) otherwise I would have cooked a delicious breakfast spread for ourselves but I cannot eat that much food.  So we settled for cinnamon rolls...one thing Nick will eat.

After the Easter fun and breakfast, we lounged around a bit, snacking on candy.  I didn't want to sit around all day and do nothing because I would just be sad, thinking about how much I'd like to be in St. Louis and how I'm always so busy on Easter.  Last year, I Skyped with my family during Easter and that helped a bit, but this year, Easter was being celebrated at my Grandparents, which means no internet (and FaceTiming isn't an option because we are all on the old unlimited data plan with ATT which means no FaceTiming over 4G even though we have the newer phones.)  So instead, we opted to take advantage of the amazing life here in Florida and headed to the gorgeous beaches with Yadi, Vino, and great friends (human and dog.)  The day really couldn't have been any better.

Their typical car riding position...even though there's plenty of room on the seat for Vino.  Yadi doesn't mind at all!

This is the reason Vino is tied up.  Her hunter instincts just take over and when she spots a bird, she's GONE!  No amount of training, commands, or even highest setting of e-collars will stop her.  She was born to hunt.  She will chase them over a mile before realizing she can't get it and come back.  We tie her up to save ourselves the heart attack.

Our standoff

After arriving home, I got a call from my mother telling me to check Facebook.  Apparently my sister, (stationed in Alabama and not able to go home either), and I actually DID make it to my family's Easter this year....courtesy of my brother ;)

My family =)  ....thanks Teeny and Liss for stepping in as us lol.  This made my day!

If I can't be with my family back home, this was the next best way to spend it....Easter baskets, egg hunt, and beach time with great friends.  I hope you all had an amazing Easter!!!

{If you'd like to see all the pictures today, you can look through my April photo album found HERE}