Friday Fun

Because it's Friday...

And becuase it's rainy and dreary and cold here...

And because all I want to think about is sunshine and warmth and beaches...

And because I have a fun weekend planned...

And because tomorrow is Ryan's birthday (well, that really has nothing to do with anything, I just wanted to give him a shout-out)...

And because there's not much better than babies playing in a bowl of water...

I present CeCe...

and Nora...

Water Princesses.

Splish splash. 

Taking a bath.

(or maybe getting a manicure?)

CeCe shows Nora how the puppies drink...

Nora nails it.

I can't get over how much CeCe looks like her mama in the picture below. 

Kills me.

Don't you miss those days when all you needed was a sunny day, a bowl of water

and your favorite cousin to be truly happy? 

Happy Friday!

Sage at the Farm

This past weekend, in honor of my dad's 60th birthday, Ryan and I packed up the girls and made the nearly 2 hour trek over to mid-MO to spend the weekend at "The Farm."  You might remember the Farm from last year's posts HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.  Still no soybeans or cows, but as usual, the Farm was beautiful and refreshing.  We were so excited to take Sage to the Farm for the first time, to introduce her to my parents and to get her in the water for her first swim lesson.  Ryan was convinced that Sage would be a "country dog" by the time we left.

We arrived late Friday night and spent a couple hours catching up with everyone, unloading the car, introducing Sage to all the dogs and eating lots of frozen pizzas.  The next morning we Ryan was up bright and early with the pup and decided to take her to the pond to do some fishing.  As they were making their way towards the bank, Sage proceeded to lose her footing and roll head-over-heels all the way down the hill into the water.  We quickly found out that she can indeed swim.  Mission accomplished.

However, it was about this time when we began to question

why on earth we decided to get a white dog. 

At least she's not cute or anything.

After that debacle, she needed a little lovin' and comfort. 

She got kisses from her mama.

Kisses from her uncle Chris.

Kisses from daddy.

Mally blew her kisses from across the deck. 

She couldn't be bothered to get up.

Big sisters are like that sometimes.

After the swim, it was time to practice her commands.

She practiced COME.

Practiced SIT.

Practiced DOWN STAY.

Practiced BOARD CHEWING.

And most importantly, we practiced CUDDLING.

Sage is a master at that one.

And just when she got warm and dry, Ryan decided it was time to get in the water with her and do a "real" swim lesson.  Our friends' dog Prince thought he'd help out and show Sage how it was done.

After watching Prince, it seemed like she wanted to get in the water.

But then she'd back out.

Ryan had to eventually hold her in the water and let her swim to shore.

But not before Prince drenched them.

Poor Sage.

She eventually made it back to dry land, where she again needed some TLC from her dad.

All in a day's work.

It's hard being a farm dog.

Happy 60th Birthday Dad!

Happy 60th Birthday to my pops!

I hope you had as much fun this weekend at your party as we did!

And yes, we are STILL eating cupcakes! 

*This was supposed to post yesterday, but apparently I scheduled it to post a month from now.  Ugh, it's been one of those weeks already.

Happy Birthday Mally

Happy 10th birthday to my best friend in the whole wide world.

My side-kick, my body guard, my pal.

My snuggle-pup, my weirdo, my upside-down doogen.

My baby, my love.

Happy Birthday Mally!

Here's to another 10 years of barking, squirrel-chasing and blanket-game.

Love you, Mal Dog.

A Compliment a Day Keeps the Blues Away

(source)

Do you ever notice how one little compliment on your outfit or a job well done can put you in a better mood for hours?  I love that feeling - the feeling that someone noticed and was thoughtful enough to say something nice to me.  I had an appointment the other day where I got 3 compliments on my shoes.  Three!  I was on Cloud Nine for the rest of the day. 

The funny thing is, giving someone else a compliment is just as good (if not better) than receiving one.  A few weeks ago, I saw this cute little old lady in the grocery store wearing a bright red trench coat.  Believe me, I love a classic trench and red is my favorite color, so I thought this coat was fantastic.  As I walked past her, I touched her shoulder lightly and said "I love your coat."  This was not something I felt super comfortable doing (I'm so not a touchy-feely person and I don't like talking to strangers), but she absolutely beamed when I said that.  Her whole face lit up and you could tell she was strutting a little in that coat down the grocery store aisles.  And as good as she might have felt receiving the compliment, I guarantee I felt a thousand times better giving it.  And then I started thinking, why don't I compliment people more?  Who doesn't love a compliment?  It's easy enough to compliment friends, but why not brighten the day of complete strangers as well?  It sure brightened my day. 

So, I'm challenging myself to give at least 3 compliments a day to 3 different people I don't know.  On their clothes, jewelry, hair, work, shoes, pets...anything really.  It's such a tiny action, but can have such a wonderful impact on your day. 

Do you give compliments to strangers? 

What's the best compliment you've ever received?

Blogs I'm Loving

I love finding new blogs, don’t you? The blogging community is such a great way to find people that share the same interests/views/hobbies, have crafty passions, give great advice, and inspire me in so many ways. And when I find something I love, I want to share it with you! So, I wanted to take a quick break from puppy-picture-palooza to bring you a list of some blogs that I'm crushing on right now. Some of these are newly discovered and some of these are my old standby favorites– I hope you’ll check them out. Feel free to tell them I sent you over, but most of all, just add them to your Google Reader so you can enjoy them too.

Fresh Art Photography - I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was going to be helping out Jodie and Kim of Fresh Art with their mini sessions, but haven't had a chance to post my behind the scenes look at what went on.  I can tell you right now that it was an awesome day!  Jodie and Kim are absolutely magical with kids (especially babies - they got a 2 week old newborn to fall asleep on a box in the middle of a loud, cold, noisy loft.  For serious.  I was in awe.) and they were so much fun to work with.  You can check out all the pictures from the mini session on thier blog (there might even be a bad picture of me on there).  The whole experience was great and everyone there was fantastic - I can't wait to blog about it.

From Portland to Peonies - Ok, so I kinda have a girl-crush on Liz. She’s pretty fabulous – you just have to see her wedding pictures and you’ll completely agree with me there. Ah-may-zing. I love her style, her photos, her clothes, her adorable dog. Love it all. (I hope that didn’t sound too stalkerish)

33 Shades of Green - I’m obsessed with this blog. Love her decorating ideas and her food posts are drool-worthy. Her own bio says, “When I'm not working, you'll find me sewing, knitting, cooking, baking, decorating, taking pictures, or pursuing some other crafty endeavor.” A girl after my own heart.

In My Own Style - Super crafty, awesome, doable home ideas. She’s a how-to guru, a DIY superwoman -- there’s nothing she can’t do. Great tutorials, great style, great ideas.

The Girl in the Red Shoes - Another shameless girl-crush. Love the red shoes. And the red hair. And the dog. Want them all. Her blog always has great photos, funny stories about her animals, amazing-looking food and she’s always impeccably dressed. Did I also mention that she’s crafty and has an adorable house?  And again, that hair!

Preppy Pink Lilly Lover - This blog is total gorgeous eye candy. Every single post is more beautiful than the next. Fashion, friends, photography, colors, fantasy, inspirational messages - just amazing imagery all around.  And Trish is a doll.

The Baby Days - My friend, sorority sister and law school classmate turned stay-at-home mommy extraordinaire to two hilarious kids, Amy has really created an adorable blog. She just recently picked up a camera and all of a sudden, she’s turned into a fabulous photographer - she's got a great eye for it. She really has a way with just a few simple words and her posts always make me smile.

Jinky Art - Speaking of amazing photography, Jinky Art Photography (Australia) is absolutely GORGEOUS! The pictures are subtle and beautiful and authentic. The settings, the colors, the warmth, the love. The photos of the kids in their rooms and the family all in bed…swoon. I adore every single picture and I can’t get enough. I wish they posted 10 times a day!

The Sweetest Occasion - "Celebrations + Design" - I love this blog.  Gorgeous parties, weddings, food, crafts, ideas, showers, etc.  Every post is perfection.  I think the featured weddings are my favorite.  Is it weird that I'm still obsessed with weddings nearly 2 years after my own?  I can't get enough.  I'm a wedding junkie.

I Used To Vacation - Katie is an English teacher/photographer, who is married to one of my law school buddies.  We haven't technically, officially, actually, really "met" in real life yet, but we're basically old pals by now.  She's funny, adorable and has excellent taste in food and music.  She even has a music blog, which intimidates the crap out of me because I have the worst taste in music ever (seriously, I actually like Ke$ha, it's that bad).  She's also super talented with her camera and just opened her own Etsy shop. 

Skinny Taste (by Gina) - I know you all probably already know and love this blog, but I can't get enough of it.  Every recipe is amazing.  It is so hard to find delicious food that is also HEALTHY (oh, the horror), but Gina has it mastered.  I love this blog so much, I could marry it.

How Sweet It Is - And because I couldn't just leave you with a healthy cooking blog, I need to balance it out with a "not quite so healthy but super fabulous" food blog from a self-proclaimed vegetable hater.  This blog is amazing.  I just saw that Jessica posted a recipe for Root Beer Float cupakes - I may have drooled all over my keyboard just scrolling through that post.

Ok, that should be enough to entertain you for hours!  Hope you enjoy them all as much as I do!

Naming our Pupcake

As long as I've know Ryan, he has wanted a dog named Sage.  His favorite brand of fly rod is Sage, he has no less than forty Sage fly-fishing hats and he's always loved that name.  So, when we decided to get a puppy, Sage was the #1 name on his list.  But I wasn't fully convinced that Sage was the right name - to me, Sage was a reddish dog, maybe a Brittney or a Spaniel, not a fluffy white ball of puppy.  I liked Daisy.  That just sounded so sweet and precious for our baby ball of fluff.  We had daisies at our wedding and they are one of my favorite flowers.  Ryan wasn't convinced.  So we came up with a list of possible puppy names.  We included as many hunting/fishing names as we could think of, we tried to think of names based on our favorite places/foods/movies/shows, etc.  We asked for name suggestions from friends, family members and the Twitter community at large.  We spent the entire 4 hour car ride to KC and the entire 4 hour car ride home discussing names.  I tell you what, picking a puppy name is HARD.  How do people ever name human babies? 

So, here's a list of the names we liked:

• Sage (Ryan's #1 choice)
• Daisy (my #1 choice)
• Dolly (Dolly Varden is a type of trout)
• Caddis (a type of bug/fly that Ryan fishes with)
• Lilly (white flower)
• Truca (Spanish for trout)
• Cornelia (from Deadliest Catch)
• Gilly (from the SNL skit)
• Bianca or Blanche (since she's white)
• Cheyenne (Wyoming)
• Helena (Montana)
• Lacha (Irish for “duck”)
• Cabela (Bella for short)
• Binelli (type of gun, nickname "Nelly") 

So many options!!  We couldn't decide.  By the time we got home, puppy still did not have a name.  We kept looking at her and trying out different names to see which one she'd respond to.  I was pushing hard for Daisy or Dolly, Ryan was thinking Sage or Caddis (Cady for short). 

"Hey Daisy!  Come here Daisy!"

Nothing. 

"Hey Caddis! Cady, Cady, Cady!"

No response.

"Dolly girl!  Hey Dolly Dolly!"

Bleh.

"Hey Sage!  Sage, come!"

Huh...somebody say something? 

What did you just call me?

And so it was decided.

Meet Sage.

Sage loves leaves.

And eating rocks.

But most of all, Sage loves sticks.

Delicious woody sticks.

I mean, really really loves sticks.

And she loves chasing her big sister around the yard.

The big sister doesn't love it so much, but tolerates it.

We're so happy with our little Miss Sage dog (aka "Cutest Pup Ever").

  

How did you all pick puppy names? 

Did anyone else have this hard of a time?