Tuesday night, Bryan and Heather had a baby boy, named Devin Joseph! He is just a hair under 8 pounds and has bright blue eyes and reddish blonde hair. He's very cute, as you can see here.



They will go home from the hospital today. Alyssa is very excited to be a big sister! At 5 years old, she is old enough to be a good little helper. I'll bet she will have no problems telling Devin what to do when he gets a little older .

I'd been getting emails from the various photo sites about specials on photo Christmas cards, so this year I actually planned ahead and decided I'd give it a try. I asked my Dad, who is a great photographer, if he'd be willing to take some pictures of a couple of dogs against his holly bushes, and he was okay with that, so this morning I packed up Gringo and Clio and headed off to my parents house.

I thought these two dogs were the most likely to be cooperative . Clio will do just about anything for food (a trait that her son Arlo shares) and Gringo is pretty easygoing in general and not apt to fight whatever dumb thing I may want him to do.

Dad introduced himself to the dogs, one at a time, and after giving Clio a piece of salmon treat, she was ready to climb in his lap and be his best buddy. She is loyal to her stomach first. Clio was a very cooperative model. Here is one of her photos.



I wasn't able to find a big bow at Target yesterday, so I decided to go with garland wrapped around the dog's necks. Neither of them seemed to mind it too much, although I think Gringo thought I had finally lost my mind for good.

He wasn't as an enthusiastic model as Clio was, here is a good shot of his opinion about the whole thing. You can tell by his ears that he's not all that thrilled with this deal.



We did get a couple of good shots of Gringo, and I chose one of his for this year's Christmas card. I hope they look as good as they did on the monitor when I made them up! I should have them within about a week or so.

Phoebe, Trudy, Shrek, and Arlo are getting into the holiday spirit!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9584617774

Enjoy!

We had our first snowfall this morning. It was a bit of a surprise, because the forecast was for a chance of flurries changing to rain. Instead, it snowed like crazy for over an hour, putting a nice coat of white down on everything. Flyer just went crazy - I never saw a dog who loved snow as much as he does. For a fat old boy, he was charging around the yard like a maniac!



It's hard to believe he's going to be 10 years old in a few months. When he looks at me, I can see Temma in his face and it always makes me smile.

Phoebe wasn't so sure about this cold white stuff, and was trying not to walk on it - picked up a foot, shook it, put it down, picked up the next foot, shook it - she was funny to watch. After a couple of minutes she got used to the cold sensation on her feet and tore around the yard like a Whippet. I tried to get a picture of her, but she wouldn't stay still long enough to catch more than her tail or a back leg in the frame.

Shrek enjoyed himself running around, too. He put his face down and did the "Akita plow" routine, but by the time I was able to get a good photo of him, most of the snow on his face had melted.



By the time 10 am had come, it had changed to sleet and then rain, and now most of the snow we had is gone. I'm sure there will plenty throughout the winter to keep us all amused, though.

Late Thursday afternoon I went online and put in a good sized order of doggie toys, shampoos, some new brushes, etc. at PetEdge.com. Their service is always excellent, but I was very surprised to see my order arrive on Friday morning. What service!

I was unpacking the box and I could see Biz getting very excited - he knew there were toys in there. I had bought him a big Santa that sings "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and just as a tease, I showed it to him. He jumped up and got so excited his whole body was shaking! But that is for Christmas, so it went back in the box. I had bought a couple of doggy cell phones, so I let him have one of those in his crate, where nobody else could destroy it on him. He immediately got on the phone and started calling all his friends



I threw a couple of toys out in the yard, a big rope tug with a knotted rope ball on one end, and a stuffy orange ball. As of this morning, all that's left of the ball is the orange fleece skin, and the rope toy looks like its been through a war! It pays to order a lot of toys at once, when they are only a dollar or so apiece!