Tea Time

Nebraska, here we come! Today is a day of packing, eating (gotta get rid of those leftovers, HA!), laundry, cleaning, and all the fun that goes into preparing for a full day on the road, followed by a week in the good ol' hometown, and another full day on the road.

Before we go, a few final photos. These evoke cozy and home and winter, all of which I love.

Tea has usurped coffee as J's hot beverage of choice these days. Personally, I enjoy a little of each. At any rate, the little Bugga just must do as the big people do (as evidenced by one of my earlier posts this week).

Though to be fair, J does not lick the outside of the cups. Bug put his own spin on tea enjoyment there. ;)

Lots to do, lots to do. Here's wishing everyone an amazing holiday season this year, and to all our NE peeps, we'll see you soon! =)

Family

It's Friday, and lookeeeee, I'm capping off a week full of blog posts. Who knows what bug jumped in my hair to cause this, but it's been fun. ;)

Anyway, as we approach our departure from MN heading toward our childhood home of NE, I am thinking of family. And how it is most certainly not always defined by blood or genetics or a tree. I only have a brother, and I love him, but I was also blessed to have grown up with another family full of girls (and one lonely little guy, HA) and they have been like sisters to me. A blessing indeed!

We even had those classic sister moments of fighting, hair pulling, pranks and nastiness, but there was also just a lot of love and I know my relationship with that family has shaped me just as surely as my own true family did.

I'm not a person who collects friends, I value real and genuine and once I know and love someone, they are pretty much on the same ranks as family in my book, because it just doesn't happen everyday. And here is what happens when women I've considered sisters (even though they had enough in their own family, they didn't need one more!) grow up and have littles of their own...

Beautiful...

Little girls...

I may not be as close with their Mommas as I once was, but seeing these little faces quite nearly brings a tear to my eye. I can't wait to see them again.

And this time, I need to catch their Mommas with my lens too. =)

Eureka!

Do you ever let something pass you by, not giving it a thought, only to find yourself in wide-eyed discovery by the same thing at another moment?

And so it is with this picture. I was reviewing some old photos and for some reason, this photo I previously didn't even remember existing suddenly jumped out and slapped me in the face. Not even 100% sure what it is about it that now strikes me. It's my "kids"...they were probably looking out for Papa to get home...together.

That must be it. That together part. Something so simple about their sharing: of space, of moments, of pleasure in each other's company. I sit in awe of those two so often. Or rather, in brief moments when I am not overtaken by chaos, frustration, demands, etc. {Oh I exaggerate!}

If I weren't so danged in love with Pai's eyes in my current banner, I would make this my new banner in a heartbeat. ;)

Brrrr

Three little ladies are here to tell you...

that regardless of what the calendar may say, WINTER is here. ;)

And while Sula was enjoying herself... (I think she was trying to build a snow fort.)

Paisley was doing this.

HA! Poor Paisley, gingerly trying to remove the cold from her delicate paws. =) I love it.

And a short Sally update. If the pictures don't make it clear, she has been fully integrated into our crazy little household and has been for a while. She is doing remarkably well with everyone. She and Sula play pretty rough, but it is still just that: play. She is more respectful of Paisley, and of Mel when he was still here. She is wonderful with Grady too, and the cats. Yup, she's the whole package, the whole itty-bitty-teeny-tiny-pocket-pittie package. ;)

ps~Am I on a roll or what?! Three days in a row, craziness. I know, I am so inconsistent and unpredictable, what can I say?!

HIS Camera

I love this little boy. I've upgraded him from toddler to little boy now.

Except when I call him my baby, that is. ;)

But do babies really have imaginations like this?!

Missing Mel

Today I reminisce about a boy I miss. Mel. No, he didn't get adopted, but he did move on to another foster home. There was a...let's say "unfortunate incident" with one of the resident cats. =( Sad, yes. But everyone is okay. It was a bit of a wake-up call though that we needed to lessen our foster load and no matter how much we adored Melly, the one who couldn't co-exist with the cats had to be moved. (He and the cats have been living separately pretty much the entire time Mel was here, but there were some Houdini crate-escaping moves by Mel that led to the "unfortunate incident.")

This is the first time we've had to part with a foster before their adoption (aside from Sula's pups, of course) and it was HARD. ={

So here are some of the last photos we took while he was with us. All the reports from his new foster home have been wonderful, which makes me miss him a little less, just to know he is loved and fitting in so well in another home.

This series cracks me up. It was unintentional, yet it totally captured the essence of Mel.

There he sits...

With all this activity around him...

There's my Melly, holdin' steady. :)

With his boy. Time for kisses.

Mel definitely tops the list when it comes to awesome-ness around Grady. He remained gentle and sweet no matter what the boy was up to, and never seemed annoyed or even particularly startled by anything that Bugga dished up.

I fondly remember one night, in particular, when both Mel and Grady got scolded--for separate infractions of course--and Mel quietly approached a fit-throwing Grady and reached up and kissed him so gently as if to say "I feel you, pal, I hate it when Momma and Papa act like that." ;)

I love how my shutter was obviously set to Mel-speed for these shots, and not Bugga-speed. =)

Grady was "being a dog" alongside Mel. Mel loves to lay on his back, sometimes he wiggles around like he's itching a scratch, other times he would just lay there with his legs folded gently and dangling over his big barrel chest. Golly, I miss me some Mel. ={

Anyway, you'd think it wouldn't be so darned hard to get 4 dogs to sit and look cute, in the same direction...but man oh man, it is! So I thought, hey, it was a fail, why not butcher it further with some flickr fun. ;)

{Sally looks gooood in a top hat, if you ask me. Pai had to settle for a Rudolf-nose. HA!}

This was their last day all together. Having 4 adult dogs in the house was surprisingly easy aside from technicalities like the difficulty of cuddling with all 4 simultaneously. I never did figure that one out, and that makes me sad. It's like a brain-teaser puzzle I couldn't solve and it's driving me crazy, I'm sure there's a way! =) Oh well.

Here's wishing Mel all the best, we love you still boy and we'll surely see each other again!