Guess the Breed: Solution

I got a lot of great guesses as to what breed our dear little Sparky is. Sadly, no one got it right. Kathi D was the closest with half of her guess. Our dear little Sparky is a Poma-poo. A mix between a poodle and a pomeranian.

Can you kind of see the resemblance between Sparky and this pomeranian?

Or maybe between Sparky and this Poodle?

He is so cute! We love him to death!

Bathtime at the New House

Marshy-marsh just loves his baths. He seems to like them a lot better now that we are here though. It's funny. He gets so excited when I say it's bathtime, and runs into the bathroom giggling and saying "An dis? An dis?" and pointing to the tub.

He loves to play with his wash cloth and his duckie. Of course, I tried to snap some cute pictures of him playing in the tub, but as soon as he saw the camera he started cheesing it up. Here are a couple of the cute pictures I managed to snap of him in the tub.

Progress AT LAST!!!

Despite spending the morning in West Valley with Mike waiting for a new cable to be installed into his car, I made a lot of progress. Enough progress that I can actually post some pictures on here of our new place. In some areas, you might notice say, a messy counter or some unsightly boxes. Please just pretend like they aren't there. They won't be after this weekend, hopefully.

This is the fireplace in our living room. We probably won't use it, but it is cool.

This is my kitchen. As you can see, I have to store some of my kitchen appliances on top of the cupboards. There really isn't a whole lot of storage here. Also, I can't really reach the top shelves of the cupboards. They are a lot taller than I am used to.

Another view of the kitchen.

And another view of the kitchen. As I said before, pretend like the counters don't have tons of stuff on them!

This is the dining room. We don't have a table yet, but will hopefully be getting one soon. The boxes will be going into the small outdoor storage closet we have by our parking spot.

This is the top half of my tiny hallway linen closet/pantry.

This is the bottom half of the linen closet/pantry.

This is half of my laundry closet.

And the other half of the laundry closet.

This is the corner of the living room. Thanks again to Lola for donating the couches! They are so comfy! We absoluetly love them!

This is bedroom #3/craft room/extra storage room.

This is our "coat closet" in bedroom #3.
This is the extra storage room part of Bedroom #3. Betcha didn't think I could get all that stuff in that tiny closet huh? It takes a lot of skill to achieve that look!

This is Bathroom #2. Marshy-marsh loves taking baths in the giant bathtub (even though he still has to sit in his toddler bathtub.)

This is the hallway from the living room. The door at the end of the hall is the Master Bedroom, and the door at the end of the hall on the left is Marshy-marsh's room. Mike and baby were both sleeping when I decided to take pictures, so I'll have to post those pics later.

Anyway, this is our little condo/apartment. It's really nice, even though it is a little lacking in the storage area. Everything works, and it came with a washer/dryer, so I'm not going to complain too much. haha!

Guess the Breed

Today we are going to play "Guess the Breed". The reason for this game is that Mike's aunt and uncle came to the shop today, and his uncle couldn't believe what breed Sparky was when I told him. It made me think it would be a fun game to guess what kind of a dog Sparky is. I'll post some pictures of him at various stages in his life so that you might have idea of what he has looked like in the past. Post your answer in the comments, and this weekend I'll post the answer! Fun, right? I thought so! haha


This is Sparky shortly after he was born...I think he was about 2 months old? He was a cute little ball of fluff, wasn't he?
This is Sparky at about 3 months. Less fluff, but still really adorable!

This picture was taken last February. Sparky was about one and a half. He had ripped his toenail, that's why he has the plastic hood, and the very sad face.

This picture was taken this January, after a particularly big snowstorm. The blobs on his legs are snow, by the way. He was about 2 and a half in this picture.

This picture was taken today at the shop. He got his hair cut a few weeks ago. His hair is a lot shorter than it was during the winter now. And he looks even less like what he really is.

This picture was also taken today. It is blurry because he wanted to run over to Marshy-marsh. Sorry about that. It does however give you a major hint by allowing you to see his tail, which is a defining characteristic.

There you have it. Some clues as to what he might be. Another thing you'll need to know is that he isn't a purebred. He is a mix between two breeds. GOOD LUCK! I can't wait to read the guesses! :)

UPDATE

So, we have moved. We are now mostly settled in. I still have some things to bring over from the other house, and I still have A LOT to clean, but for the most part, we are living here. I even bought groceries today to put in my empty fridge!

Marshy-marsh has adapted very well to the change. We are right next to train tracks, and the nightly trains don't even bother him. I know he doesn't have a hearing problem, but I don't get how the trains wake us up and don't bother him at all. Oh well, at least it means I get some sleep, sometimes!

Sparky didn't come with us. He is taking the move very hard. He has severe separation anxiety, I think, and is kind of depressed now that we aren't living there. I took him to work with me today. The first half of the day he cried. The second half, when he had calmed down a little, he either slept in his kennel or stood right next to me. At least he was eating!

Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures of the new place once we are totally moved in and my kitchen is no longer the "empty box graveyard" that it has become. I'd take pictures with my phone, but as I recall, Ninja Scott seems to think that my camera phone is not as good as other cameras. Maybe this weekend it will be clean enough, huh? Here's to hoping! :)

What CHAOTIC Mess?

My parents came down today to bring us some boxes and take our baby away, again, for the weekend (they took him Sunday and Monday so we could go to the funeral baby-free). My mom's first words, well almost first words, upon coming into the house were "What a chaotic mess. You shouldn't live like this." My reply was simple. "We don't. We're moving."

We weren't really stressed about moving until today. We got the moving truck reserved, most of our things packed, and even managed to watch a little TV. See, it's also HBO and Cinemax free preview weekend on DirecTv, and they are premiering 300. Yes, we own it on HD DVD, but for some reason it's always fun to watch a good movie on HBO when you get it for free!

Mike is having some of the boys over for game night tonight as well. Austin, Marshall, Kyle and Scott. He's trying to keep the tradition going, even though we are short one member of the gang.


This is the stack of boxes in the kitchen. Yes, there are quite a few there. Mostly just our kitchen stuff we were using. Not including our food, or the kitchen items we already have in boxes upstairs.

Let me ask you this: This isn't chaos, is it? hahaha Maybe just a little, but not for long!

Delivery

I LOVE delivery! Absolutely LOVE IT! All I have to do is pick up the phone, decide what I want, and wait for it to show up at my doorstep! This week it is especially nice. We are moving on Saturday. Yuck. I hate packing. I hate moving. I hate unpacking. Mostly, I hate making dinner in the middle of a moving mess.

I LOVE DELIVERY!!

Speaking of which...there's the door with my Chinese! Yay! :)

Thank You

To all of our friends and family -

Thank you for your continued love and support during this difficult time for our family. Colton's funeral was yesterday, and it was beautiful. It is through your thoughts and prayers, love and support, even though some of you might not know us personally, that we are able to rally our spirits and begin the healing process. It helps to know that we will see him again, and that families are forever. Again, thank you so much for all of your prayers, thoughts, love and support.

~Busty LaRue

Peace

My nephew Colton, as many of you knew, has been in the ICU at the hospital. Today he left us and returned to his Father in Heaven. We know he is in a better place, and we know that he can now be at peace and without any pain. We know that he is happy where he is. It has been hard for us, but knowing that there is life after death has been a great comfort. Thank you for all of your prayers and good wishes. They have helped us tremendously to get through this trying time and have helped us keep our faith strong. Although we are very sad at this time, we are at peace knowing that Colton is in a better place.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I have a lot more respect for women who quilt their ginormous quilts on their home sewing machines. Why? you ask. Well, I will tell you.

As you know, my nephew Colton is in the ICU at the hospital. We decided that it would be fun to make him a blanket that he can have when they move him downstairs to a room. I went and bought some cute fleece fabric, and Angel asked me if I would quilt some words onto it so that it would stay together before she tied it.

I took the fabric and put it on the Gammil. The Gammil did not like the fabric and flat out refused to work with me. How rude! Determined to quilt this fabric, I took it home, basted it, pinned it, chalked out the words, and set out to sew it up on my home machine. Now, I have a Janome...it's really quite little. I have a hard time sewing binding on quilts with this thing it is so little. What was I thinking?!

This blanket, although not very large, was HUGE on my machine. Fortunately, my denim needle worked really well and I didn't have any sewing problems....just issues getting the letters to look like letters. haha


This is a picture of my workspace right now. Yes, it is my dining room table. Yes, I don't have a lot of space. Yes, that is the blanket sitting in a massive pile of fabric next to my sewing machine.
This is the room, or lack thereof, that I have to work with on my sewing machine. Let's just say it's a miracle the blanket turned out as good as it did because there was a lot of fabric shoved in that tiny space! This is why I have a lot of respect for those home quilters. Holy cow! How do they do it?? Way to go ladies! You are truly awesome!

This is the cute print I picked out. Colton was bit by a black bear several summers ago, so we thought this bear print camo fabric was very appropriate. The back is a solid forest green fleece. I used tan thread on the top to help the words stand out better, and a dark green on the bottom. I wrote the words "Bear Bait", "Sumo Colton" and "Don't poke your EYE out" on the blanket. Each phrase represents something that has happened to Col during his life. I hope he enjoys this blanket for many years to come.

Distractions

I am running out of distractions for Marshy-marsh. Maybe it's just because this last week or so he has spent a lot of time in his stroller that he is so naughty. Maybe it's just because he is almost 1 1/2 and so start the terrible twos early. Whatever the cause, Marshy-marsh is quite the screamer lately. If he cannot see me, he is crying hysterically. If I am not paying attention to him, he is crying hysterically. What is to be done with this child? I need to get some work done. Not a lot. I am content with some.

We are moving next weekend. I need to pack. I also have 8 quilts that need to be quilted. I am in the middle of 3 quilts at home. I am also in the middle of several needlepoint projects. Someday I hope to be able to finish all of these. Not today. I am out of distractions.

Distraction 1: the bottle. It works until he's full or it's empty...whichever comes first.
Distraction 2: the wipes box. It works until he's tired of pulling out the wipes, or the box is empty.
Distraction 3: the quiet book. It works until he gets frustrated because he can't pull the zipper up and down.
Distraction 4: board books. They work until he realizes I'm not paying attention, and they end up thrown on the floor.
Distraction 5: Goldfish. They work until he has eaten them all, or he's full whichever comes first.
Distraction 6: try the bottle again.
Distraction 7: give him floral mache buckets to play with. This is somewhat difficult to do when you're stuck in a stroller, but he gives it a good effort.
Distraction 8: there is no distraction 8. I am out of distractions! HELP!! What am I to do? It is only 3:30 and I still have 1 1/2 hours until I get to go home! AAAHHH!!! Maybe we'll try the bottle and some gold fish again. Maybe, just maybe, he'll decide to take a nap. Here's to hoping! :)

Finished Quilt

At last! At last! The baby quilt I made for my cousin is finished! I just love the bright prints and fun designs.

I quilted it with baby pink thread in a loop-de-loop pattern. It turned out really cute, and looks really girly. Good thing, since the baby is a girl! hehe

I used one print for the top that had mostly greens, so in order to tie it in, I used this fun green print on the back. Then I bound it in the bright orange to tie the orange from the yellow prints into the quilt better.

Another look at the fun prints. This picture makes it hard to tell, but the fabric that looks blue is really a dark purple with green and pink polka dots on it. So cute!

I'm going to mail the quilt off to my cousin in Virginia tomorrow. I hope she likes it!

Ugh!

Ugh! Our internet has been having issues the last few days, and I have to say, I hate it when the internet doesn't work! We've been spending a lot of time in the ICU at the hospital still (Nephew Colton is improving each day), so today I took the computer down. They've recently installed wireless internet, although it actually doesn't connect to the internet! It's almost as if they have the network set up but they haven't subscribed to the internet yet. To make matters more frustrating, the internet was working just fine at our house this afternoon while Marshy-marsh was taking a nap, but I had left the laptop with Mike at the hospital. Once he brought it home, the internet worked for like 5 seconds and then kicked me off repeatedly. The upside to having no internet is that I have gotten a lot done on my cousin's baby quilt. I made the binding, attached it to the quilt, and got half of the quilt bound. Wahoo! Hopefully I'll get it done so that I can mail it out tomorrow. And hopefully the internet will be fixed SOON! Ugh!

Today in a nutshell

Today we had a big scare with our nephew, and as a result spent a lot of time in the hospital waiting room. While there, we found many ways to entertain ourselves. Most of them involved watching Marshy-marsh be silly. Zack grabbed him and pulled his shirt up over the back of his head. He walked around like he was a little drunk. It was pretty funny. Cousin Jake's girlfriend Sarah took this picture with my phone. It's a little blurry, sorry about that, but I'm sure you get the picture of just how dang cute my little boy is!

I got an email today from my cute friend Jenny. She had a baby boy a few months ago, and I had made her a baby quilt. She sent me the cutest pictures of her little boy playing on the quilt, and he is so cute I just had to share! Thanks Jenny for the pictures. I'm glad you liked the quilt!

THANK YOU to the best nephew ever

Dear Zack,

Thank you thank you thank you! You have been an awesome help to us whenever we need to get our car fixed. Last year you helped us get a great deal on a new muffler. This week you helped us get the best deal EVER on a new radiator for our poor car. (Over $150 less than what Tunex was going to charge us!) From now on I will call you before I call anyone else! Boyer's did such an awesome job, and it only took a couple of hours for them to fix it. James was really nice too. Thank you so much for all of your help!

Love,

Busty LaRue, Mike, and Marshy-Marsh

Moving

I got a call this afternoon from our land lady. She is moving out the morning of the 15th and we will be moving in that afternoon. WOW! That is like next Saturday! Oh my gosh, I am totally stressed now.

I am hoping to be able to somehow find the time between being at the hospital as a support for my family, tending my baby, getting some work done (so that I can have money to spend on furniture), and packing. Obviously the family things come WAY before anything else. Fortunately I have plenty of free boxes courtesy of the Post Office. I'm so glad that I just placed an order for more boxes. I'd been selling a lot of stuff on ebay, and thought I'd run out of boxes. Not the case, but definitely glad I have the extra boxes now!

The saddest part about moving is that our little dog will be staying here in Salem. Poor Sparky. At least cousin Zack will be staying here to keep him company at night. And we're going to try to come visit so he doesn't forget us and Marshy-marsh doesn't forget him.

Baby Quilt

My friend just had a baby girl. I didn't know she was expecting, but luckily I had a baby quilt already made. I had quilted it last week to get it out of my way at the shop in my Quilting Corner. All it needed was binding. Today I hurried and prepared the binding and sewed it to the quilt before I went over to the hospital to sit with the family. Well, I got half of it bound there, and the rest of it bound during American Idol tonight. Now all I need is my friend's address so I can send it to her! Hope she likes it. Here are some pics of the quilt.

I quilted it using a loop pattern with baby pink thread. It turned out really cute. I used cute baby flannel pattern fabrics from the Wal-Mart "leftover fabrics" section. I'm really glad they ended up all working together and making an entire quilt for only $15!! It turned out a lot cuter than I expected, too. I'm really pleased with it.

I Want My Own Couch, Mommy!

Marshall has his own couch. He likes it, when he wants to sit on something. Yesterday, I picked the couch up off the floor so the roomba could vacuum. I forgot to put it back down on the floor. This afternoon I came home to find Sparky sitting on it! So cute! He looked up at me with the cutest look, that said "I want my own couch, mommy!" So funny.

Yes he WILL go to sleep!

HOORAY!! He has finally gone to sleep at a reasonable time tonight!

We went to the doctor today for his 2 week check-up after his admission to the ER a few weeks ago. Dr. Savage checked his ears for infection (it took 3 of us to hold him down and he screamed and screamed). The infection has totally cleared up in the right ear, but remains in the left. This definitely accounts for the strange hours Marshy has been keeping. It definitely explains why he wakes up screaming hysterically in the middle of the night. She prescribed Augmentin, which I guess is a little stronger than Amoxycillin. Funny enough, the generic is amoxycillin! Who'da thunk?

In other news: Saturday it was snowing so hard that our satellite went out AGAIN. Ugh! I hate that it snows and we lose our tv for hours on end. We had already purchased the UFC fights on pay-per-view, so Mike and I ran up to get the ladder from Sweetbriar, set it up in the back yard, and Mike risked his life to clean the dish off. CRAZY, I know, but it worked! :)

Well, that's my update for ya'all...What with family illness and all, I'm not sure how often I'll be blogging this week, but we'll see. Hopefully I'll get some good posts up this week!

Will he EVER go to sleep?

As I sit up downstairs blogging, waiting for Marshy-marsh to go to sleep (or at least stop making funny noises) I wonder to myself: "Will he ever go to sleep?"

Lately, it seems as though he will never take a nap. He won't go to bed when it's bedtime. He won't sleep through the night. What am I to do?

Flash back to May 13, 2007. Marshy-marsh was almost 8 months old. We were up late. He didn't want to be rocked to sleep. He just wanted to play on the floor. I laid a blanket out, and let him "crawl" around. About 2 hours later, he fell asleep in his crib.

Flash forward to March 1, 2008. Marshy-marsh is 16 months old. It is 12:30 AM and I am still up with a grumpy child. Yes, he has had his medicine. Yes, he has his milk (in a sippy, because the bottles are in the dishwasher, but he drinks out of a sippy now finally). He also has 2 books: That's not my Monster and That's not my Dinosaur. He has his puppy. He has his blankie. So please tell me why he isn't sleeping?! Again, he won't let me rock him to sleep. But he doesn't want to be on the floor either.

Right now I am opting for the "leave the door partially closed and go downstairs and maybe he'll realize I'm not coming to get him out and he'll go to sleep" method my doctor swears by. It's hard. Usually we get him out. We are bad at sticking to a sleep plan.

I'm not really too irritated. I mean, it's only 12:30. I think the most irritating thing, besides the funny squeaks from his room, are the buzzing from the lights in the living room, and the noise the dishwasher makes. Ugh. Too much noise.

Well, hopefully he'll go to sleep soon. Until then, I think I'll pop a couple of Ibuprofen for the headache all the buzzing has caused and doze off in the rocking chair....Wish me luck!