Praying Mantis Gift

My Hubby knows me well. He ran into a praying mantis at work and packed him up (in his cleaned out dinner container) and brought him home to me. Our garden already has a few praying mantis in it again this year, but I am not sure how many. Any bug that keeps bad bug population down in my garden is a welcome pet/guest.

Thanks Hubby! Awesome gift!
He knows me so well…

Cute little bugger, isn’t it? Eat well me new friend! Hope to see you often in my garden. They really are hard to see in there though. Just blend right in. When they get older they get darker colors and I believe the females turn brown? Not totally sure about that fact.

This post is linked to:
5 Minutes for Mom
Dagmar's Momsense
Tara's View World

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Ezekiel Memorial

I know a lot of people have bigger problems than old pets, but that’s what has been heavy on my mind this week. Our old Weim, Zeek, is… old. Medicines and herbs are not helping anymore. He’s just old and falling down the stairs too often. He’s always been one to push me to my limit, but he’s still my sweet puppy. We hand picked him from these three little guys that were left in his litter. I believe he’s the one on the right. All those puppies were SO cute! It felt like we had to wait forever to go back and get him.

I remember how much he has been through with us. This has not been a cheap dog! He has always had horrible separation anxiety issues to the point of collapsing a cage on himself (surgery required) and causing me to always be late in getting back to work after my lunch when he was a pup. I had to go home and let him out and play with him, he needed that. Thinking back, I needed it too. It was nice to get out of the office and just play. I remember the time he ran into a tree while playing fetch and caught a stick down his throat (another surgery needed)! Poor guy… it’s hard seeing him now when he can’t even play fetch when you throw a ball two feet. I can still remember him with so much energy that he couldn’t hardly sit still! Everything he did, he did with his whole heart! He’s my shadow that follows me from room to room. And he’s put up with all the other pets we have brought into our home too.

The kitty (Simon) on the top was with me before we got married. Simon had to put up with Zeek but they have had a lot of fun! Hehe… Simon is 16 years old and currently in kidney failure. He’s still doing really well though, all things considering. He is being pampered in his own right. Zeek was NEVER left unattended with a bunny (Freckles in the bottom right passed away almost 5 years ago). Zeek tolerated the other pets and especially bunnies because he knew they were mine but he would have killed one given the opportunity. He was so good to put up with me! Rigley (bottom left) was the best thing for Zeek. Zeek’s separation anxiety disappeared when we brought that mop home! It’s been so fun to watch their relationship and Zeek assisted greatly in Rigley’s training.

We all try and help Zeek now, don’t bump in to him, play gently with him, endure his new tricks (even if they drive us nuts… hehe… silly dog!) but it’s not working well anymore. He’s not able to stand up after laying down sometimes and we can’t keep his weight up anymore. This picture was just taken this week and he still looks really good here! It’s all in the way he was laying down though. He growled at me a few times when I tried to (very gently!) move him to a “better pose”. I decided to get what I could and left him however he decided to lay. I won’t take a picture of him to show how skinny he is.

All week I’ve been grieving the loss of him while he’s still with us. Is it weird that I like to grieve while the animal is still with us? Sudden pet deaths, like our bunnies, surprised me and I don’t feel like I ever really said goodbye.

I hope that everyone who has a dog could have as a good a dog as Zeek has been for us. He’s our first baby since we got married! He’s 12+ years old and sometimes still thinks he’s 3. I feel like I am betraying him today and loosing my best friend. Even after all the times he has made me so frustrated with him, I have always loved him. I know it’s what is best for him and I rather it hurt me more than him. Soon something may hurt him so much that he will hate us and I don’t want to see that in him. Ever!

Our newest family member is Frenchie (upper right). She’s from the SPCA and she just came home with us last week to help keep Rigley company and help fill the hole in our family. No dog could ever replace Zeek but she is creating a new spot in our family. She’s a sweet thing and we are happy to have her. Zeek enjoys her more than I expected him too but maybe he’s doing it all for me again.

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Make a Deluxe Pet Pillow!

My poor old dog! He’s going on 13 years now and he’s just not easily comfortable. I wanted to get him a bed of sorts but nothing seemed soft enough. So last week I made him one!

Ta Da!!!

All I did was use my toughest thread and hand stitched old pillows together. The pillows are old pillows for our living room. I stumbled across them when getting ready for our garage sale. I took one look at those pillows and my first thought was what was I thinking when I bought these?! this would be a perfect dog bed!

And I was right… but it was even more comfortable with your own
personal itchy-spot-scratcher.

Everyone should have themsleves a personal itchy-spot-scratcher.

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Blizzard Bloghop 2011

Quick: My name is Dee, I have been married for 12 years and we have four kids. Whew! How is that for an intro? Not enough? OH! Okay… Let me try again.

 
Last year around this time I was on modified bedrest with our fourth little one and joined in on this bloghop. It was a ton of fun and just what the doctor ordered for distracting me!

This year is quite a bit different. Now I am trying to keep up with all my kiddos, recovering from a cold and have busy day with homeschool classes for my oldest. Plus, we have some visitors in our home. We had one of these house guests last year but this year there are two! They have been staying with us since Friday. Wanna see? They are just entirely too cute!

I can just hear the collective, ‘awwwwww!’

I don’t think these two could outstay there welcome. They keep our dogs busy and are entertaining. I could do without cold noses under warm blankets or feeling pinned in bed as one sleeps on either side of me, but for the most part they are a joy to have around. So right now I have four kids and four dogs. One dog per kid right? Hehe…

At any rate, back to the introduction!

We are a homeschooling family and loving it! Every now and again I find myself a little stressed out but in our house there’s always something going on to relieve my stress with a laugh! I try and be crafty from time to time but end up more half baked. I do enjoy gardening and I am already starting planning for this year! Shopping with coupons is also a minor addiction for me as well.

Let me know that you stopped by and I will try and make it over to your blog to say HOWDY! If you have a twitter account, leave that as an @ in your comment too. I love to tweet! I am looking forward to meeting LOTS of new bloggers this year from home and may need to adjust my blog subscriptions yet again. Hehe… I can’t resist reading blogs from my reader! It’s like a never ending book!!

This post is linked up to the Blizzard Bloghop 2011:
Household 6 Diva

PS- Follw me on Twitter to keep up with my bloghopping! I will leave a "trail of breadcrumbs"! Hehe...

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Cleaning Crew

I think I would get a lot more done around here without this kind of help.



What do you think?

This post is linked up to:
5 Minutes for Mom

PS - This picture was taken before I got sick. Ugh...

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Pushed too Far

Oh boy! I need to take some calming medicine, tea or something! I’ve noticed my stress meter going through the roof. We have been in the throes of rearranging our entire house so that we can move rooms around for better setups, painting, dealing with the aftermath of Christmas and Squeaks doctors appointments plus all the other kiddo's activities and illness. This was the sign that I had reached my limit:

We have two dogs and I wanted them to get out of the living room. Our 12 yr old weimeraner is deaf though so getting my point across is frustrating. So I do what any mother would do to get her errant child to respond... I started counting to 3. Well, I only got to 1 before I started laughing so hard that he thought I wanted to play. That did get him out of the living room at least but I was more thankful for the stress relief. Thanks sweet old boy!

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Un-Mat the Cat (Revisited)

For some reason un-matting a cat must be a big deal. I wrote this post quite a bit ago but it’s the most searched post in my entire blog! So… how do you unmat a cat? Well, you could try shaving it from big a fluffy, beautiful kitty to… umm.. MAD! Like we did.


Isn’t she cute? And she LOVES us!


Granted, she is a bit opinionated, but she means well and is happy. Unless we do this:


So sorry fuzzy kitty! *snicker* *snort* We didn’t know this is what a “lion’s shave” looked like! *hand in front of face* We needed help with all your mats and this was the first option presented us. NEVER AGAIN! *watering eyes*

HAHAHAHAHA! Poor thing!

Okay… in all seriousness though. Don’t subject your innocent furballs to this. There are other, better ways to Un-Mat Your Cat.


PS- Why YES! This is a Meme… I’m unstuck on my blogging now but today I WANTED to do this post. I have other posts saved for later this week that do not link to a Meme.

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Mocha Memorial

We put our bun to sleep. His back legs were all twisted and he was running in circles. I knew this would happen someday though. He was (at least) a 7 year old sweetie pie bun-bun. We will miss him. 

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Four Legged Love

We weren’t even looking. We were discussing a new dog but I didn’t think we’d get one while we still had our current dog, Ezekiel. Guess what we got… A new puppy. A new 70+ lb puppy to be exact. Complete with lots of bad habits! Haha… I think I’ve truly and completely lost my mind.

Rigley is our new “puppy” and he’s a real sweetheart actually. (Yes, bad habits and all.) He’s a FAST learner so we are removing bad habits each day. He gets along with our current old dog too. I’m very happy to have him in our family. Wouldn’t you?
The kids all LOVE him and he’s learned to be very gentle around Squeaks. The biggest issue is kids toys. He has got to learn to leave them alone, but I know he really is still just a puppy. He’s learning! We are all learning with him too.

Be sure to see what others might be in love with this week on The Diaper Diaries and "The Things I Love" carnival.

I seem to be loving me lots of dogs these days, huh?

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Old Dog, New Tricks?

My old dog barks… at everything! Granted he is getting on in years (he’s deaf), but he’s always been known to bark. At everything! Once he even felt the need to protect us from a cricket. Yup, that’s right. We were threatened by a cricket. It was in one of our sleeping bags (it was an indoor campout), it was still just a cricket. Now a spider? Feel free to protect! Hehe… I need protection from spiders.

Being deaf makes things tricky sometimes for him, but he’s learning new things to bark at. I think he does it for the fun of it. I suppose I can’t blame him much for loving his barking hobby so much. I have my hobbies right? Drives me up. a. wall!

Due to his lack of hearing things to bark at he has started barking at patio furniture cushions. They look like people right? At least someone sits on them from time to time. They must be dangerous. Birds are also dangerous. Especially the ones that don’t fly off too fast, like doves. (Dumb animals… FLY!) Papers! Papers must be very threatening. UGH…
What can I do but love him though? He’s such a big sweetie! He’s very obedient and he’s helping me train his new protégé…who by the way likes to bark at trains he can hear in the middle of the night. Sigh…

Be sure to see what others might be in love with this week on The Diaper Diaries and "The Things I Love" carnival.

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Our House Guest

I just wanted to introduce everyone to our little house guest... who will be leaving us today. He's been a friendly little guest and I've enjoyed having him around. He's a tad quirky though so I won't miss some of his little ticks.

His name is Nebby. He is my parents little pup and we've had him with us for about a week now while they vacation in Mexico. Not a real fair trade off in my book. :)

His favorite past times include: chasing a laser light, drinking water and coming up to sniff your face with wet fur everywhere, getting combed out, bouncing around in the snow, crawling under the covers on the bed, NOT sitting when told to, boofing (yes, it's not bark... or woof... it's b-oo-f) at me at late hours to play with him and he is afraid of our Wii and fireplace. OH he's absolutely TERRIFIED of our cats who would like nothing more than to play with him. HAHAHHA

Thanks for joining us this week Nebby! We look forward to visiting you at your house again soon. :)

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Hermie Cleaning...

We have hermit crabs. I can say, "I have crabs" and not worry about it at all.

HAHAHA Okay... maybe I won't say that outloud in public. Hehehe...

At any rate, the other day I cleaned up their fun little tank. It's a 75 gallon monster of a tank but not difficult to straighten since we are down to 7 little crablets. At one point in time I had over 25 of 'em roaming around in there. It's really hard to find hermit crabs these days. I'd love to get more of 'em though. They are fun to watch!

At any rate (Yes, I lost my own topic there. No worries though it's not a really life shattering topic anyway.), I have an air bubble stone in one of their water dishes but when I cleaned it out I forgot to put it back in there. Wandering crabbies reminded me. They do not necessarily care if their water bubbles or not it's more that they like to climb the dumb thing and get absolutely no where. Heheh...

Hmmm... sounds like my day in general most of the time?
Sigh!

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