The puppies enjoying their gifts from Santa and cuddling with dad

Here are a few pictures of the dogs playing with their dad and the toys they got. And one of them all cuddling on the couch. i took them with new camera Bryce got me for Christmas that I am still learning to use.

Puppies opening presents

I somehow managed to not take a single picture of Bryce or myself opening our Christmas presents but I did get a few snap shots of the puppies. In one picture Prudhoe is even smiling despite the huge roll of giftwrap in his mouth. The Puppie made out like bandits on Christmas they got a fetch it from mom and dad, bones from Grandma Great, and to Prudhoe's absolute joy and entire bag of tennis balls from Grandma Lisa and Grandpa Terry (they're his favorite toy!).

My Christmas tree and PJ pictures!

I've been waiting forever to post the pictures of my Christmas tree and us with our new pjs thatnks to Grandma Crabtree! My sister Nicky came over and spent an evening helping me set up and decorate my tree to her standards, I will admit it looked gorgeous. Just like MArtha Stewart herself stopped by and set it up. we had My sister take a few pictures of us in our pjs with our dogs for everyone. I've also added a few pics of my favorite ornaments from the tree.

Denali gets a Brother!

I was very pleased and a little amazed that Bryce allowed me to get Denali, so I thought I would test the waters and ask if we could get her a companion. I figured that Bryce would put up a fight and I would have to wait til this spring to get another puppy. To my great shock he agreed! I didn't know how serious her was though so i casually brought up that there were two adds in the paper for Black lab litters and he agreed to call the one in Eagle River that very day. the shock kept coming when he asked if we could stop by that evening and take a look at the litter. The owner was nice enough to allow us to bring Denali to see how her and our possible new pup got along. Prudhoe came from a litter of 11 puppies! We had 6 males to choose from, well really 5 cause one was spoken for. We went through a process of putting each puppy in a play pen with Denali and eventually selected the one in the red collar. We picked him up a week later and Bryce named him Prudhoe. Denali now has a brother and Bryce has a little buddy. I call him the little monster and its really catching on. He's the most adorable trouble maker on earth though!

Our New Puppy!

In September I started preparing my case to get a puppy and with the PFD on the way it wasn't hard. I'm also pretty sure that Bryce wanted a dog as much as I did, probably more. I was watching the papers for litter announcements when I hit the jackpot! there was an add for yellow lab puppies in Palmer that would be ready for their forever home at the end of october. So on a Sunday evening we made the drive to Palmer and picked up our little Princess. I already had her name picked out a good year before I got her, I didn't care what anyone said or thought. So here are som pictures of Denali when she first came home.

A Home of Our own

I know I have been doing a really poor job of keeping up with the blog, but with so muchh else going on in my world: at the end of the day I have no motivation. I also don't take alot of pictures. So I left off with the death to my jetta and will zoom forward to the following summer. In July 2009 Bryce and I bought our first house. Very exciting! We got to stay in beautiful Eagle River close to family and friends and away from the big city life and noise. Although our house is not that old it was used as a rental property for a short time so it needed lots of sprucing up. We have done alot of work on it and have a few more things to do before it feels like our very own. So here are some pictures of the outside and a few of the inside before we painted, got new floors and decorated. I spent a wonderful day with Melissa, Lindsay, Lisa, Aunt Nancy, and Summer painting my living room. Without those girls I wouldn't have known where to start, nor would I have done such a fabulous job! It turned out beautiful and I get lots of compliments on it. We also were very lucky to have Matt and the rest of the crew (even Logan) help lay down new tile in our kitchen, laundry room, garage enterance, and the front entry. It turned out absolutely amazing and people are impressed when we tell them we did it ourselves. We also layed gorgeous dark hardwood floors in the downstairs living room. I did not get pictures of the process and I still have yet to take pictures of the finished product. I should really work on it!