Saturday, June 2, 2012

Happy 5th Birthday Stan-Man!

I'm just going to start off by saying, yes, I realize I'm a horrible puppy mother for not posting about Stanley's 5th Birthday sooner. But we did celebrate it on his actual birthday, which is April 16th (the same as Matt's younger sister's birthday hehe).

Stanley got to celebrate with something he loves most in this world...

PEANUT BUTTER!




Disclaimer: no, he did not eat that entire jar of peanut butter. There was only that little bit left so he got to lick the jar clean. Notice the death grip in the last photo?!?

Friday, June 1, 2012

Blog Re-Vamping

On Wednesday, my dear friend S let me know that she had received a "warning" when she attempted to check out that day's blog post. My response: "a warning?!? what kind of 'warning'?!?" This kind of warning:

Apparently the company I had used is somehow been mixed up in distributing malware and "by proceeding you may get a virus on your computer". Eeek!

Well after a minor freak out (because I would hate for anyone who came here thinking they were going to get a Wordless Wednesday message to be startled with this news) I decided to just deal with it. And honestly I have been considering making some changes again, but just haven't made the time for it. So to draw on my "silver lining" perspective, this was a blessing in disguise because it forced me to address it.

A reminder of what it looked like before:

And now:

What was changed:
~ background went from white and gray bricks (from Shabby Blogs) to yellow and white geometric type pattern (by The Cutest Blog on the Block). I know it's a lot brighter, but I'm kinda liking it for this summery mood I've been in :)
~ centered-aligned the page tabs (it's all in the details)
~ created a cute new "favicon" (the little symbol in the tab that's next to the title of the blog...way at the top of your screen) from the hot pink, cursive "L" to a cutey little black camera
~ changed the font type from a cursive-handwriting style to simple Arial (I think) and left the post headings a little "funky"
~ narrowed the whole thing so that it shows up better on all monitor sizes
~ added the very cool "follow by email" feature (hint hint!)

Next step:
~ creating a whole new header with the help of the lovely Miss S (I'm thinking something that's less, cutey, shabby, scrapbooky and something with cleaner lines and simplified).

So there you have a whole "new" blog :) Check it out, let me know you thoughts because every girl loves a comment...or two!

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Getting There

About 5 months ago I decided to grow my hair out from the short cut I had been rockin'. Well After much anticipation...I can finally do something with it!
This weekend here in MN we had really weird weather: raining, not raining, cold/chilly, blistering hot, etc. But the overall weather "issue" that I deal with: humidity. Ugh my hair HATES humidity. I have tried sooo many products but it just doesn't do well in MN's infamous humid season. 2 years ago I learned how to french braid my own hair in an attempt to not look like a wet, scraggly cat all summer. After getting the technique down I started rockin' the french braided bangs/front portion of my hair. It worked great...because I had long hair!

Well for the past couple months I have been trying to just simply bobby pin my bangs back in a little "poof". But I was getting bored with that because it was the same damn thing everyday. Well this serves as proof that my hair really is growing! Yeah!

(Please excuse the crappy, uneven braid, I've been out of practice for a while. Oh and also ignore the little baby hairs all around my forehead...they have never gone away, regardless of the length of my hair)

Sunday, May 27, 2012

How We Cool Off

Today was extremely hot...I mean it's only May and it reached 90 degrees. Come July it likely won't be anything new, but like I said, it's only May and this is MN!

Well, despite temps this warm, the pups still like to (and need to) go outside. One of Hank's favorite activities: getting sprayed with the hose!


And of course no "water montage" would be complete without some shaking off! Haha just love it!

Where was Stanley this whole time you ask?
On the deck, keeping watch over his "kingdom"...and staying far away from the hose!

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Always Good For a Laugh

As I've said before, I really do love taking photos of the shelter animals, especially the dogs. It's not that I don't like cats, because I honestly do...I'm just more of a dog person.

Well it isn't always easy working with dogs who don't know the same commands that my dogs know...especially when you throw in a puppy who is just so dang excited that someone wants to "play" with her !

So I thought I would show the bloopers from one of my sessions at the shelter, enjoy the laughs because no matter what, that's what dogs and puppies are ALWAYS good at, making us laugh!




Friday, May 25, 2012

Happy Birthday Present

For Matt's birthday this year I gave him tickets to a Reba concert. Well the concert was this past weekend and was wonderful...except for the storm.
Notice the bright blue skies behind us?

Reba is sooo good!

uh-oh dark skies rolled in, thankfully the venue handed out raincoats

but they didn't prevent us from getting soaked from waist down 

hiding out in the truck waiting for the thunderstorm to pass

The storm cleared, Reba came back on, and there were fireworks afterwards

Happy Birthday celebration Matt!