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My Swollen Heart

As you know, Joey was with us in West Virginia this past weekend. Joey adores his Pop. He likes me okay, too. But he LOVES his Pop.

My heart could be swollen with jealousy, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s swollen with happiness from the joy this little guy brings to our lives. How can you not get all choked up when you see pictures like this?

Just look at the unbridled joy and affection on Hubby’s face.

And look at the smile on that kid.

I mean, really. He was having so much fun playing with Pop.

He has the cutest little giggle. It’s a deep, belly giggle, too. It is totally infectious.

Joey is just the happiest little guy. And Hubby is the proudest Pop ever.

Grand kids are so much fun. One of these days, we’ll get all three of them back in West Virginia with us. Brianna, Gaige and Amy all have busy sports schedules (lacrosse, tee ball and soccer, respectively) through the end of May. So, for now, we just have to be content with Joey’s company.

He’s really such a happy little guy. And so easy to entertain!

Here’s Pop showing Joey pictures of Mommy, Daddy, Gaige and Brianna, which we took way back in 2005.

Speaking of easy to entertain…

I could just look at the back of this kid’s head for hours. That’s the plus side of his giving Pop most of his attention. I got to see a lot of Joey from this angle.

Look at those little ears. Don’t you just want to kiss them? I did. Many times. And that little tail of hair! (Eric always had one of those tails, too. )

Here’s Joey leading Pop through the woods on the dog trail.

And later, back in the house, having a serious discussion about knees. Joey hadn’t worn shorts since the previous year. He’s very conscious of his environment and found the short pants a bit strange. He kept pulling up his shorts and looking down at his legs as if to say, “What happened to my pants?”

That bit of seriousness didn’t last too long. Can’t you just see the love between these two. It’s almost palpable.

Doesn’t it just make you smile?

Look at those big, blue eyes on that handsome Hubby of mine. He was telling Amy, who had called to check in on Joey, how much fun we were having.

This shot chokes me up every time I see it. They both just look so happy. Pop was sitting like that for all of about a millisecond before Joey walked over and planted his butt in Pop’s lap.

This is a sweet shot, too. Isn’t it?

So, tell me. Did these pictures get you all teary-eyed and smiley, too?

I’ll post more, less-moving images of Joey later.

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An Anomaly, I Hope

This past weekend, the last full weekend in April, temperatures climbed into the mid nineties. It was awful. Hot and buggy. Just the kind of weather I hate. I whined about the unfairness of it all. It being only April especially. Hubby swears it’s an anomaly. I sure hope that’s the case!

On a positive note… we had Joey with us for the weekend.

Here’s Pop helping Joey with his shoes.

Amy and family had a very full weekend scheduled. They wanted us to watch Joey on Saturday night only. But since we knew we’d be in West Virginia, and unavailable on Saturday, we offered to take him with us. They agreed.

Of course, I took lots of pictures, but I need some time to cull through them and select the best of the best to share. I knew folks would be curious to see how our weekend went though, so am posting a few to hold you over.

Joey is an outside boy. He didn’t think it was fair that the dogs got to go out without him. Here he is looking through the doggie door to see where they’d gotten to.

He liked our morning walk. I didn’t let him run down the big hill with the dogs. I just knew he’d pick up too much speed and do a faceplant. So I held his hand and walked fast, which allowed him to run. He giggled the whole way.

His giggles are infectious. I’ll post more pics later, I promise.

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Not a Morning Girl

I’m not feeling quite human this morning and it is all Shannon’s fault. She forced me to go to Helen’s Garden again. And she made me drink lots of wine. She wouldn’t let me go home early either.

So I was a bit slower than usual waking up. Only a bit, though, because my little Belle was beating on the side of the bed as if she were playing a new set of bongos. She is the morning girl in the house.

I’m not a morning girl. Either is Meg. If I were a dog, I’d look about as thrilled as this after having been dragged out of bed, unwillingly, at 7:00 A.M.

At least Belle stops harassing me once I get up. She doesn’t nip at my ears and my butt trying to get me to play like she does with Meg.

See how happy Meg looks?

She’s a grump in the mornings.

She does relent and play with Belle a little bit.

That makes Belle happy.

And it makes me smile.

These pictures are actually from the other day. I’m still not quite awake enough to play photographer yet today.

I hope these images made you smile, too.

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When Mom is Busy

My dogs have it pretty good. Since I work from home, they are seldom ever home alone.

I do work, though. Which means there are times when the dogs get bored because there may be long periods when I am too busy to do much for them, like take them outside, play with them or otherwise entertain them.

Today was one of those times. I spent a lot of time on scheduled phone calls. So the girls felt neglected. I’m not just personifying here, I know they felt neglected. I have proof.

When Belle is bored, she empties the toy basket. I took this picture right before lunch. It cracks me up when Belle does this.

If you look closely, and count, you’ll see eight toys scattered about. She’s not destructive or anything. She just pulls her toys out and leaves them laying around the house.

So, why isn’t Belle in this picture? Because she was “busy” laying outside. Since I’d finally left my office long enough to open the sliding door for her, I guess she figured she’d take advantage of it.

I don’t blame her. It was a nice day. I would have joined her if I didn’t have more phone calls to make.

Take note of the weird way she’s laying. She’d just done about 73 laps of the yard on her special track.

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Bird Humor and Welsh Talent

Back in 2001, we lost our cat, Katie, to cancer. We buried her in the backyard, beneath the bird feeder. She loved, Loved, LOVED watching the birds. We marked her grave with a very large, flat stone and a small cement cat.

The cement cat stares up at the feeder, just like Katie would, always vigilant.

It’s been there for eight long years. It’s been knocked over a couple of times, but has otherwise gone unmolested. Until today.

Today I happened to discover that some smart-assed bird pooped on Katie’s kitty. It’s not the fact of the defecation itself that it is disturbing.

After all… shit happens.

It’s where the poo fell.

You have to see this one for yourself to appreciate it.

This image has not been modified. The poo is completely in its natural state.

Weird, eh?

On another note, I’m sorry I don’t get to watch Britain’s Got Talent. Two weeks running now, clips from the show have brought tears to my eyes. First, there was Susan Boyle. Today, Shaheen Jafarghouli. Here’s the link to Susan’s audition, though I can’t imagine there are many who haven’t already seen it on You Tube or at least mentioned on TV.

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Our Southern Belle

Before we decided to adopt our youngest dog, Belle (who we’d learned of on the American Brittany Rescue Web site), we considered changing her name. Neither of us were crazy about “Belle.”

Until I met her. Once I’d seen her in person, I knew the name just fit.

She’s a pretty little Belle, that’s for sure. What we weren’t convinced of until now was whether or not she is Southern. Belle sounds like a Southern name, but she was living in New Jersey when we met her.

Now that we know she’s a NASCAR fan, we know she has to be Southern.

How do we know she’s a NASCAR fan? She’s building her own, scale-model track in our backyard.

Let me back up a bit and explain. Here’s the view of the yard you get when you look out the sliding glass doors off the kitchen. Whenever Belle goes outside, she runs to the left of the birdbath, to the right of the rabbit as she vaults over the wall, through the woods and around the left side of the shed, around the right side of the shed, and along the fence. She takes the same path, at top speed, just about every time.

Here you can see Belle as she runs along the fence.

So where’s Belle’s NASCAR track? In the back corner of the yard, behind the shed. You can see a bit of the track here.

In this picture, you can see the banked turn.

This angle affords a slightly better view. Like I said, she runs the same path at top speed almost every time we let her outside.

She asked if she could borrow some of Eric’s old Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars to scatter around the track. For added “flavor.” But they’re pretty small. I was afraid she, or Meg (most likely) would swallow one.

So she just has to keep using her imagination. She’s got the race car sounds perfected (you should hear her cute little growl!). And she’s got the speed. What she doesn’t seem to realize is that she’s running backwards. Apparently she never noticed that NASCAR races are run in a counterclockwise direction.

We’re not going to tell her. Why spoil her fun?