He's Home :)

When Riley got home Saturday morning, he ran upstairs and woke me up, giving me hugs and kisses. That is the best way ever to be woken up. He sat on top on me, and smiled at me, and then hugged me, and then smiled at me and then hugged me over and over again. And every now and then he'd throw in a kiss, and once he kissed me bunches, all over my face.

We had lotsa fun that day after Mitch went to bed. He begged me to play with dot markers. He calls them dot dots. He loves loves loves them!! So I decided to print out a bunch of shapes for him, that I found after doing a quick Pinterest search, and he got to use all 6 colors, for the 6 shapes we did.

After that he still wanted to color with them, so I gave him a coloring book, and let him dot away! 

We also got our art caddy out and used crayons, colored pencils and markers to make some new art for his art wall. I have a lot of filler tot school activities up there, but we are slowly replacing it with "Riley's Art" and then we can go back to using our giant magnet board to display the tot school stuff.

Here you can see his art wall in the playroom. He loves having somewhere to hang his masterpieces after he finishes them. I have a project planned to cover up the nails holding up the yarn. Give the art display more of a finished look!! I'll share it whenever I get around to doing it. :)

To end the day, we went outside and played for a while. Trying to get Riley to hold still for pictures is nearly impossible. I did finally get him to give me his big fake cheesy smile. Cracks me up every time!! He is such a goofball.

He has such a great imagination. He is always coming up with new games. In the picture below, he is throwing rocks up in the air, then watching them fall back down. He entertained himself for quite a while doing this. It is such a simple thing, but it is so amazing to watch him explore the world around him, all on his own. :)

We also had some fun getting Chumba all riled up!! Riley loves his doggy bunches. Sometimes I think he misses Chumba more than he misses mommy and daddy, haha. The two of them fight like brothers, and even though Chumba is a dog, they "tell" on each other too. Cracks me up, and drives me nuts!!!

Mitch has had the last couple of days off, so we have been having fun with him. Yesterday we went to the lake, and went out on a friends boat all day. It was Riley's first time on a boat, and he was scared, I had to hold him the whole time. But we still managed to have fun, and he loosened up a bit by the end of the day.

We also played baseball in our front yard, Riley does pretty good at hitting the ball, although I felt bad for him, when I was pitching, I got him in the face a few times, ha!! Luckily they are wiffle balls, so it doesn't hurt. We ended the day with some music and frisbee golf on the PS3, where I totally beat Mitch, and Riley laughed at us while we danced around and sang along with Garth Brooks at the top of  our lungs. We were pretty hilarious!!

♥ Kim

Best Friends

I caught Riley and Chumba snuggling outside today.

Moments like these just make me smile.

♥ Kim

Visiting California {The Drive There}

I totally need to share my California trip here in bloggyland before it becomes ancient history!

Do you like how I call it my "California trip" instead of "Christmas"??? Hehehe.

There are more pics of family and fun, than of actual Christmas, so I think it is {quite} appropriate! :o)

Soooooo, for my first post of a few, I have pictures I took on the {looooong} drive over. OK, so it wasn't a "forever and ever, never ending" drive, but, it was MUCH longer than the usual 3 hours, due to the snow falling heavily from the sky!!!

To start off I have my backseat passengers number one and two. My little sister Sami and her honey buns Justin. I am the most awesomest sister for picking them up the night before {in bad weather I might add... GO ME!}


Of course they had to share the backseat with our little pain in the butt puppy Chummers. He kept trying to climb in the front with me and Mitcheal, but I'd have NONE of that!!!

He likes road trips, especially the pretending to have to go potty so he can get out and sniff the "new" surroundings for as long as he possibly can!

Oh, and sticking his head out the window, no matter how cold it is, FUN TIMES!


Here's my sweetie pie! I am so VERY very glad he drove. He is a VERY good snow driver! I love that about him. ♥


Let me just say this, I love where I live now. It's not big city, but it's city enough for me with all the shopping and well, shopping nearby.

But I also grew to LOVE the mountains, despite my initial dislike for them {come on, what would you expect form a 16 year old, bored outta her mind???}

Check out ALLLLLL the trees! And snow! I had to take this picture to capture exactly what the weather was like! {By the way, "The drive home" post will have TONS and TONS of scenery pictures. It was so pretty, I just couldn't help myself.}


Do you really know me??? Well, if you do, then you know how very girlie and in LOVE with shoes I am!!! Someday I'll show you my closet, and my fabulously organized perfectly matching boxes and boxes of shoes!

These shoes are NOT very pretty. But they are comfy, and good for a road trip, although, once I got out {for Chumba's sake, and to keep guard for Sami while she peed} I thought that my snow boots would have been better suited for walking in the wet snow.

I survived though! :o)


And finally, we have MEEEEE! And of course I had to take my favorite car mirror pic! No trip of mine would be complete without it!


We finally made it to California! And boy was I sick of being in that car!!!

Be sure to come back soon for some FUN with my mommy, sisters and their little ones!

All but the Star

My star disappeared! Actually both of my {two} stars never made it into my Christmas boxes last year, :o( Soooo, I need to buy, or maybe make a new one this year. But besides that, my tree is all done and pretty!

I always get a Charlie Brown tree. Mitch grew up with them, and I love you Mitch, but now that you caved and let me get "my" kinda tree, we are never going back!

Here is "my" kinda tree that we got this year!!! Before the decorating began!


Before I continue, I promised to share my FUN tree stand drama!!! Seriously, that thing had me almost in tears {Mitch too!}

Apparently, we lost our old tree stand too, in the move. So, we bought a new one, it was similar to our old one, the box said it was for trees up to 7 feet tall. Well ours is a little over 6 feet, so we thought "perfect".... ummm, wrong!!!! We struggled and struggled, screwing those stupid screws as tight as we could, trying so hard to get the tree to stand straight. Well, we thought we did a pretty good job. But I had to go and decide to touch the tree, it wasn't quite where little OCD me wanted it.

All of a sudden I was on the floor, and the tree was on top of me. Seriously! The tree FELL on me!!! It was funny, but Mitch, who had just spent over 1/2 hour under the tree twisting those dang screws was furious. He was yelling at me, asking why I had to touch it. Ummm, hello! I have to "touch" it to decorate it honey!

Well, we decided to try some more, after an hour, and nothing but a very wobbly tree, WE. WERE. DONE.

One of the stupid screws wouldn't even tighten anymore, I guess I stripped out the whatchamacallit! We put the stupid tree stand back in the box, drove back to the store {it was about 10 pm by them} and we spent a few more dollars, and bought the easy breezy {so the box said} sturdy looking stand.

This time, the box was right!!! I love our new tree stand. It makes me very very very HAPPY! Seriously, putting up the tree will never be the same again. I wonder if I'll miss the moaning and groaning that comes from Mitch's mouth ever year? nah! :o)

I FINALLY got to decorate my tree, hours and hours {and three trips to the store} later!

Here are a couple "during" pictures!



I always decorate my tree all by myself. I was shocked I was able to get Mitch to snap a few pictures of me doing it! It was as far as his participation went! Oh well, he'll be the one on the roof hanging lights on Tuesday! Heheee!

I spent hours decorating! But that is the fun part, and I didn't mind.I stayed up all night long! I really like my pretty tree!!! Wanna see?!


The only thing missing is the star on top! Oh and the presents underneath, hehehe! Here's a couple night time pictures, without the flash, to see the pretty colorful lights!


Falalalala, check out some of my favorite ornaments!






And I got this at Target, I couldn't resist! Too cute!!!


Even though Mitch didn't help, and fell asleep during the decorating process, Chumba was always right there to keep me company, and of course drive me crazy! He's managed to make a mess of my stuffed animals! Somehow, he thinks they are ALL his chew toys. Oh and Karma hides from him under the tree, so he thinks he's allowed to chase her behind it. It's a wonder it hasn't fallen over again, lol!!!

Here's my little Chummers, getting as close as he possibly can, without getting yelled at!


Last night at dinner the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" came on. Me and Mitch spent the whole dinner trying to remember what thing went with what day. I have a "The Twelve Days of Christmas" book, so we pulled out the book and sang it together when we got home, remembering all the words. We were laughing so hard, it was so much fun!

Anyways, I pulled another all nighter, so I'm going to bed now! I just kissed Mitch goodbye, as he left for work. And I'm getting a little tired! Happy Monday! :o)

Chumba Stand

In my last post I said I had a video of little Chummers to share. Since he was a pup, Mitch has been teaching him how to balance on his two back legs. He used to have to jump up on you to do it, but he slowly learned how to balance on his own, and now he doesn't even need anything to help him up. Mitch decided to call this a "Chumba Stand" and Chumba knows what it is, and will do it on command. It's sooooo cute!



He has also started doing "Chumba Stands" all on his own, like when he see's us coming back from the garage {where the treats are} or when he wants something that we have, like a bite of our dinner. He's sucha dork!!!

Here is the little cone head...



After gettin' his little self good and fixed on Tuesday, he got this cool cone to wear until he's all healed up! He almost got outta the vet without it, but silly puppers decided to lick his wound. He is adjusting to it! I really thought he'd be a whiner about the whole thing, but surprisingly, he has just kinda adjusted to it. Like the cone is now a part of him or something.

Check out how dirty it is.... ewwww yucky! The only sucky thing is that he can't seem to get his head into his food bowl to eat. So I have to tilt it up for him. But he gets all mad at me, cause he doesn't want help, and starts barking at me and the bowl, lol! So I gotta sneak my hand under the bowl, so he thinks he's doing it all by himself!!!

Anyways, one final thing before I go... my presents {I also promised to share}.

I told Mitch about two books I wanted to get, and asked him to see if he could check for one of them while at the grocery store. Well surprise! He got me both of them!


Amber had told me about "Marley and me" she said Chumba reminds her of Marley. So I am excited to read this book. It looks really good! I also got "Twilight". After hearing so many good things about this book, I gotta read it, and then go to see the movie! Actually both of these books are also movies! "Marley and me" comes out on Christmas! How exciting!!!

Anyways, it is about time to get dinner going. Mitch is on his way home! Have a great night!!!

Happy Birthday Chumba

Little pain in the butt pups is 1 today! I have a love hate relationship with my adorable little terror of a doggy.

I'm the one that "had" to have him at the pet store. Mitch really wanted a new basset hound, but I thought it was "too soon" since we lost Bongo. After only 3 months I wasn't really ready to love a new dog. But Mitch kept asking {well begging and begging for a new dog} So we went to look...

Well, after several visits to the pet store they had a new basset hound in the back... he had just arrived and hadn't even had his grand entrance into the main part of the store yet.

We had seen other basset hounds, but when we seen this one, we just knew we had to have him. His little tail wagged, and he got so excited when we held him. And he looked at us with this sweet look that said "take me home, I belong to you". When we had to go, he cried and cried, we could hear him all the way to the front door. Me and Mitch talked and even though "he" was the one that wanted a puppy soooo much more than me, "I" am the one that had to talk him into getting this little guy.

A few days and $482.06 later, he was ours. Here he is when we first brought him home!



He was such a little cutie pie, and he had the hardest time climbing those stairs. He was a little whiner too!!! Mitch decided to name him Chumba. We spoiled the little guy, and gave him lots of love and attention, and tried to earn his love and trust, while we worked VERY hard to potty train him.

Chumba chews everything, as anyone who visits my blog often knows. His latest "favorite" chew toy is my bedding. Yep, sheets, pillow cases, bed skirt, all shredded. He still whines and barks when he doesn't get what he wants. He even got the cops called once for barking too late at night. He thinks he is the king of the house, and no amount of training, attention, discipline or exercise that we have tried has changed him one little bit.

My final two hopes are (1) that he grows out of it! and (2) that he will mellow out once he gets fixed. Well wish me luck... today he is a little bit older, lol! And on Tuesday he finally gets fixed!!! We weren't able to afford it before, with everything that has happened this year. But Mitch got a Christmas bonus, and more than half is going to Chumba care!!!

Despite his stubborn craziness, and my despair over my poor chewed up belongings, I LOVE Chumba. At just one year old he has learned to love and trust both me and Mitch, while making himself a happy little home in our hearts! Happy Birthday Chumba!!!

Cold weather and warm brownies... mmm mmm good!

Brrrr... it's not really cold in my house {with the heater on}, but my feetsies are COOOOLD!!! And my dog being a pee machine tonight that refuses to stay out and do his business unless I LEAVE the freaking door open, isn't helping matters!!!

I made brownies tonight. They are the easy from the box kind, I wanted something quick, but they are still YUMMY! And they made my house smell "oh so good" while they were getting all done in the oven! Mmmmmmmm. I EVEN cut them up and put them on a plate this time! Such an improvement from my brownie cookie bars! LOL! They made it outta the pan see?


Wooo Hooo! LOL! Yeah, I already ate like 3 of them, warm brownies with a cold glass of milk, yum!

Since I've already mentioned my crazy dog, I wanted to also share a picture I took of Chumba the other day, he was sleeping on the stairs. Literally, on the stairs.


Too funny! I was waiting for him to roll over, and ALL the way down to the bottom, he did that once {only down like 2 stairs though} when he was a little pup. It cracked us up. Notice the bits of chewed up toilet paper roll on the stair next to him?? Yeah, he knows how to make the lid go up on the trash can, and finds lotsa {often yucky} new chew toys in there! He is sucha little weirdo dog. :o)

Anywho, I'm gonna go catch up on House {my DVR is getting quite FULL!} Good night!

And behind door number four...

You've met Chumba, my PAIN in the butt {really he is} basset hound! I can't help but love his sad little puppy face, but seriously he drives me nutsos!!! Today he followed me into the kitchen, and as I was throwing away some trash, starting barking at the cabinet, sniffing and freaking out!
I know my trash isn't stinky enough to attract that kinda attention! I mean come on... I just emptied it. The weirdo made me take a second look inside, and guess what I found?

Karma! My friendly {we'll get to that} cat, found herself a new home. On top of my canvas shopping bags, next to the trash!!! A place in the house that is truly Chumba free! My poor kitty gets terrorized by him, they get along, but he always wants to play, and considering how big he is, and how tiny she is, I seriously feel sorry for the poor kitty sometimes {most of the time!}. So I am glad she figured out how to open the cabinet herself, and have a quiet escape all for herself!!!

Oh, and as for the friendly kitty comment. Yesterday not one, but TWO of my neighbors asked me if the little white cat was mine. Yeppers. Well, they then proceeded to tell me how friendly she was and how much they loved her! Freakin cat! She hasn't been fixed, due to the fact that she gets herself knocked up before we have a chance {this trip to Nevada was supposed to be DIFFERENT, mom you were supposed to keep her locked up {inside} until we got her! ARGH!} So apparently she has not only been friendly with the neighborhood cats, but the neighborhood cats owners! If only I could make new friends that easy!

I love my Karma, I wish Chumba would be more like her..... my life would be so much less stressful then! :o)

Coloring...

Every time Mitch called me yesterday he would ask what are you doing? And every single time I would answer "Coloring".
It got pretty darn funny, and to the point where he would just say "are you still coloring?" Well kinda, but not exactly. I was coloring, embossing, glittering, layering, cutting and gluing. Plus playing on the computer, cooking dinner, picking up around the house, taking a lunch break, and dealing with Chumba (aka bad doggy in case you weren't sure) every 5 freakin minutes!!!
He drives me nutso's. It is like babysitting, and no that wasn't a typo, dog sitting would be a breeze. But I was "babysitting" my own dog, who thinks everything, and I mean everything is his chew toy. And baby proofing, oops I mean dog proofing my home is pointless now, because he has recently discovered that furniture and vinyl floors are the best chew toys. What to do? What to do? Maybe I'll go insane???
Sorry, back to my "coloring"... You remember my drawing? Well yesterday I finally managed to squeeze in some time to work on it. So I took a few pictures of the different stages.
Notice the red circle in the last picture? That is the next thing to be colored, the little bear that is going to get layered on there just one more time.

Now don't judge me based on these pictures, they aren't the best, I seriously need a new (better) camera. And am not gonna scan my work in progress. But come on admit it, seeing my creative process is fun!!! Now I'm off to finish this baby. Next up: The completed card. WOO HOO!

What am I gonna do with him?

So, do we all remember the post about my beautiful plastic oranges??? Well 2 of them suffered a terrible fate today at the hands (or should I say teeth) of Chumba! Poor little oranges, and BAD little doggy!!! Mitch had to vacuum them up, and Chumba got banished to the backyard, with the blinds shut for a few hours. GRRRR, I tell you, that dog is never gonna learn! Thank goodness I learned from our first basset hound Bongo to keep my shoes safely put away at all times in their home, my closet!

Bad Dog!

I haven't posted anything on here lately, I have been so freakin busy!!! Mitch just made chicken Shish-Kabobs. Well, he bought them at the store, and put them on the BBQ. They were really plain. Not what my tummy was desiring!!! And...... Chumba stole 2 of them off the BBQ!!! Crazy, annoying, disobedient dog! He never listens. And, because I try sooooo hard to make him listen, he doesn't like me very much. I'm the mean mommy, and Mitch is the nice, loving daddy, who spoils him!!! GRRRRRR. Here is a picture of the little punk.

He is an 8 month old basset hound. He thinks he is king of the world, seriously. I have never ever met a dog as stubborn as him. I really do love him. But seriously, I never knew such a cute little puppy with such an innocent sad little face, could make me sooooooo mad! He chews on everything! Like my coasters.....
Yep, he is the reason I need to buy new coasters. Well, these are rather plain to begin with, so I was gonna buy new, funky, unique, pretty coasters eventually. But now, they are at the TOP of my shopping list. Etsy has some cute ones.

He still hasn't learned how to howl. I only pray that my neighbors won't call the cops all the time when his howl finally comes in. They already have for his barking. Which is so very loud, you wouldn't think such a sweet face could make such awful noises. Whining, and LOUD constant, run together barks!He never even takes breaths in between, I'm shocked he doesn't pass out! I know I'm whining bunches about my little whiner. I really do love the brat. And someday, he will be all grown up (and fixed) and calm and normal. And I'll miss the crazy wild puppy he is right now. So I'm gonna end this blog, and go find my little Chumba, and give him kisses. Just as soon as I kick him outta my chair he knows he is not allowed in..... LOL!