It's New Year's Eve..

and we're keeping our celebration low key. We're not wild animals, you know. We're domesticated, which means we like to lay around the house either on the furniture, the dog beds or the floor; take frequent naps; eat; snack; and have the occasional tummy rub or behind the ear scratch. At the stroke of midnight, we'll probably be asleep, just like Daddy and Aunt Pat.

We do like to play. I know people play something called party games, like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Musical Chairs, Truth or Dare, and The Name Game. The first one sounds a little painful for the donkey...ooh, I guess you don't use a real donkey, that's a relief! Aunt Pat tells me that you have to be very careful what names to use with The Name Game. Chuck and Art aren't ones you want to include.

We play with our toys. Chloe likes to see what I'm playing with, then take the toy when I'm not looking or I'm done with it. She also likes to play tug-of-war. I prefer fetch, and I'm starting to play catch with Aunt Pat. I don't think regular party games would apply if we had the neighbor dogs over. I know we'd let them play with our toys, but there's a limit to what we can do. Fetch with five or six of us going after the same ball could get a little dangerous for the smaller dogs. I suppose we could play "Find the Biskee"- I'd win that one hands, err, paws down. I'm sure we'd have fun just running around the yard with each other.

Yes, I know this picture is a little older, but it proves the point about our playing in the yard. To celebrate the start of 2009, tomorrow we'll post more of our favorite photos from the past year.
Some you may have seen before, but some not. Whatever you do to celebrate tonight, don't drink and drive.

Aunt Pat Cleaned...

and I helped! Aunt Pat sorted her CD collection today. She'd picked up some new storage containers in hope of freeing up more space under her bed. She also has a lot Cd's she hasn't listened to in a long time, so she thought she'd sort them. Aunt Pat had them scattered on the floor in piles, so I came in to help her sort. I laid down on the floor to make myself comfortable. Unfortunately, I knocked over a couple of piles. Well, more than a couple of piles. I sat on a few too. But, when I shifted to lay down all the way to allow Aunt Pat to rub my tummy, they came out from beneath me. I made sure her Cd's made it into the containers alphabetically by artist.

We spent more time outside today between rain showers. It was very warm, which is nice, except that there's a lot less snow around for me to eat. But, the grass has been easier to find and eat which is nice. I guess there's the possibility of more snow later next week. I guess I can stick to purely water bowl water until then. Winter just started, you know, so there will be more snow to come!

This is the last Christmas picture. Chloe and Katie conked out in the dog bed in Aunt Pat's office for a good part of the evening.

Happy Boxing Day!!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Boxing Day! No, Boxing Day isn't a celebration of going to the after Christmas sales and fighting over bargains. It isn't a celebration of fights at Hockey games either. It's a holiday that celebrates giving to others. You can read about it here.

We like to share. Chloe put a biskee beneath an evergreen shrub on Christmas Eve. She thought the birds or a squirrel might like a Christmas treat. Well, they didn't, so she brought it back in the house and ate it.


Here are some more photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

We spent some time outside on Christmas Eve, making sure the back yard was all set for Santa.
Sure, I know it looks like I was playing, but I wasn't.

And no, Katie did not have to take my ball away so I'd get to work. She was just walking by and letting Aunt Pat know to pick it up. Katie's mouth is a little too small to pick up the tennis ball. Not too small to give orders, though, yeesh!

The snow has been melting with the warmer temperatures and we've seen more sticks and stones exposed in the snow. We wanted to be sure that he had a clear landing spot, and if the reindeer needed a spot where they could take a break, if you know what I mean, there would be a clear trail for them to use. I made a long trail near the lilac bushes.


Chloe and Katie made one by the back fence and on the side, and Katie made sure the shoveled paths were clear. I think Santa gave us extra toys because he was so happy with everything we did.




We had so much fun playing with everything!

Aunt Pat is sorry if some of these images are a little blurry. Her tremors were getting bad yesterday because of the migraine she woke up with. We stayed pretty close until she felt better.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah!!

We hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas, as we had, and those who celebrate have a great Hanukkah. Our fun started Christmas Eve. We thought Santa came early when a couple of dog toys fell out of Daddy's bag! He'd gone out and done some last minute shopping and visited with friends. He quickly got one back in his bag, but Katie got hold of a croaking frog and wouldn't let go! She had Aunt Pat carry her up the stairs and she marched right into Aunt Pat's office. She plopped herself on the rug and growled any time Chloe or I got near the toy. The croaking was so realistic we had to investigate. Katie let Aunt Pat take the tags off of it so she wouldn't choke, but Katie still had it in her mouth at the time.

Chloe and I could only watch and wait. We didn't wait long enough, because shortly after Katie put it down and walked away to see what Daddy was doing, Aunt Pat picked it up and took it into Daddy's room.

Later on, Daddy and Aunt Pat left a huge tray of cookies out for Santa. Well, they've been sitting on the dining room table and have been eating them. We've left them alone, despite Chloe's attempts to climb onto a chair and then the table. Yes, we'll beg Aunt Pat or Daddy when they get a cookie out. We were just reminding them to leave some for Santa. They left a lot of cookies for the Jolly Old Elf. Santa must have been very happy, because when I got up this morning I found all this!

We didn't hear anything either! No Ho! Ho! Ho!; no reindeer sounds on the roof, nothing. It was pretty windy last night, so they must have landed in the back yard. There were a lot more foot or hoof prints in the backyard, and it took a lot longer for Daddy to clean up back there...if you know what I mean.

No, all the presents weren't for us, there were some for Daddy and Aunt Pat, too. I stuck around to make sure the girls didn't rip anything open before everyone gathered around.

Katie is inspecting a book on the White House that Daddy got. She's a real history buff.

Katie also had fun ripping open her gifts! Here's the croaking frog from Christmas Eve!

At least today I had a chance to play with it too! Daddy bought two of them so we all could play.


Mommy sent us a bag full of goodies, and she came over!! It was so nice to see her. She was on her way to see Aunt Allie, and Gabriella. Katie couldn't wait to see what was in the bag. She stuck her head inside and looked around. There were tennis balls, two of which I chewed up within 20 minutes of opening the package. I got a third one this afternoon.


There were some yummy treats and a stuffed teddy bear.

Chloe wanted to eat her biskee before she explored our new toys. She got into the spirit of things very quickly.


While we were outside, we wished our neighbors a Merry Christmas as well. The S's had company that we barked at, err, talked to, since they were out on the patio. Chloe went out again before Daddy and Aunt Pat ate to make sure they knew we were talking to them. They were talking to each other when Katie and Chloe were barking at, err talking to them. Chloe ran back to the fence and Daddy had to carry her in the house! She's such a sweet and social little girl. The G's had company too, but they didn't come outside to talk. We gave our best wishes to the neighbor's new dog, also. He seems like a playful sort.

Aunt Pat has more photos to post, which she'll do tomorrow or Saturday.