Buster, the Other Reindeer

 

So in my Kindergarten class, we read a book called Olive the Other Reindeer.  It's a really cute book about a dog named Olive who thinks she's a reindeer and helps Santa in all kinds of funny ways. 

Anyway, my kids love Buster (probably because I talk about him too much) and decided to insert "Buster the Other Reindeer" into Rudolph's song. After my class busted out singing a round of Buster the Other Reindeer to Santa yesterday, I decided to do a photo shoot of my little reindeer.

 

Buster was not as amused as I was.

Merry Christmas! 

Love, Buster

Things I'm Thankful For - My Little Family Edition

I'm thankful for a lot this holiday season, but my little family is definitely the thing I am most grateful for.

It's so strange for me to be able to call my hubby and my puppy "my little family," but they truly are. I never would have thought that in a matter of two years I would be grown up enough to have a family of my own. My husband is a constant support system in my life. As my mom always tells me, he can calm me down and reason with me better than she ever could. He's my best friend and the best puppy daddy...and I know he'll make a great father one day! In the past two years we have grown so much together. We got married, bought a house, went on a few amazing trips, and of course adopted our little Buster.

Our wedding in January 2010, our one year anniversary in Napa, and our family trip to the Bahamas this summer

Who would have thought a little furry thing would change your life so much in all the best ways? My goodness, we love our Buster Boo (as I'm sure you can probably tell)! He'll be a year old in just a few weeks. We adopted him in February, and we're pretty sure he was around 2 months old at the time. Time really does fly!

I honestly think this dog was meant to be in our lives. He is so quirky, and we love him so much for that. Remember his strange addiction to hiding his bones around our house? Yeah, he still does that. At least he grew too big to be a piranha under our table. He likes to help me change the sheets by laying on them. And he steals our socks out of the laundry basket if we're ignoring him. Clearly it's his cry for attention. Why he doesn't just bark, I'll never know. My favorite thing about him though, is his wiggle butt dance. When we get home from work, he always greets us in the happiest way. And he does that for literally everyone that comes in the door. He's always so happy...I just love that little puppy!

Buster hiding his bones, helping with the laundry, hiding our socks, and cuddling with a toy

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween from Buster!

I swore I would never be the crazy woman that dresses her dog....BUT when I saw these costumes at Target, I just couldn't resist.

I'm slightly obsessed with the movie Up, so this costume made me laugh out loud. The best part, you ask? Buster wouldn't stop chasing his squirrel tail and trying to eat his nut.

And just because I couldn't resist, here's Buster as a turtle.

Happy Halloween!!

My puppy's crazy ears

It's no secret that my dog is extremely strange and quirky. One of my favorite quirky Buster features is his ever-changing ears. I'm not going to lie. For a while there I was praying his ears wouldn't end up sticking in the crazy positions they went in while he was a puppy.

The first picture is his cute puppy ears we fell in love with...and then they just kept on changing.

He would go for a whole day with one ear up and one ear down, or mostly up with the tips pointing down, or slicked back, or other crazy ways I can't even describe. I guess we're lucky his ears ended up being relatively normal...most of the time.

And then sometimes he's just plain crazy...

I just love this picture!

One of many reasons everyone needs a puppy

I can probably count at least 50 reasons every person should have a puppy, but this is hands down my number one. When you get home from a long day of dealing with 20 five-year-olds, this is the best way in the world to be greeted at your front door. (please pardon me saying "hi" to Buster about 200 times...it's just what we do. I say "hi," he wiggles his butt.)

My puppy has a case of the wiggle butts. I'm assuming it's because his tail is so long that he doesn't know what to do with it when he's happy, but it's kind of the cutest thing ever.

PS: My mom used to have a shirt that said "greet everyone as you would your dog." I feel that should definitely be implemented because Jordan just got home and had the same high pitched "hi, oh hi" response that I did. haha

I sure do love that Buster Boo!

A Shark Week Conversation

First off, let me just say that I have been obsessed with Shark Week on Discovery for years now. I remember watching it way back in middle school and loving every minute of it. There’s just something so fascinating about sharks. And I’m sure many people agree with that because Shark Week has been a very popular topic this week.

I love those great whites!

Anyway, we have been calling my brother’s dog, Brewster, a shark for a while now. Whenever my brother leaves, the dog starts circling around everything in the house. He also has random other shark-like tendencies while playing with other dogs or interacting with people.

Circling, attacking cameras, and stalking his prey

My brother and me had a nice conversation about this via Facebook today that I just have to share.

Me: Have you been watching Shark Week? If so, are you starting to find more similarities between Brewster and a shark? Because I'm pretty sure Buster is 50% shark at this point.

Joey: yea I have, I’m actually shooting my own documentary to give to discovery channel called The Great Brown Brewster. It's about how even though this beast may be dangerous and hunt pray, it can and will interact with human beings. And till this day, even though many people fear the animal of the deep, there has been no recorded attacks or deaths....

Me: Hahaha! That just made my day!

Joey: I don't know what’s up with our dogs. Some say they get the terrible twos, but I guess our dogs get the sharks. Very rare and incurable syndrome, but it sure as hell beats the alligator gar phase and kangaroo hops.

Me: It appears you are correct. Our dogs do get a case of the sharks. Tell Evan to watch out for Charlie (his girlfriend and her new puppy). The shark syndrome might be contagious. I can only imagine how much Buster is learning while listening to shark week!PS: I kind of liked the kangaroo phase. That was when he was a cute little puppy! What I didn't like the piranha under the table phase...

Buster's piranha under the table phase...good thing he doesn't fit under there anymore!

My Crazy Buster

Since I haven't posted regularly in a ridiculously long time, you haven't had any updates on my crazy, crazy puppy. (He's sort of one of my favorite topics of discussion) You know how people say dogs start to look like their owners after a while? Well, apparently mine just latched onto our quirkiness instead. I have so many stories about the weird things he does, but lately this is my favorite strange habit.

"Me? Quirky? No way!"

Here's the scenario. Buster looks at the laundry room door (where we keep his treats), and I (being a pushover even to a puppy) give in and get him a bone. Next he walks around the house anxiously, whining and pacing all around the house - in and out of every room. If for some reason one of the doors in the house is closed, he will whine at it until I open it. Not quite sure why, but he likes to walk into every single room with his bone.

Anxious, pacing puppy

My best guess is that he's trying to find a good hiding place for it, because next he goes to work looking for a place to bury it. Yes, you read that correctly. He paces around until he can find a good place to bury his bone...inside. His current favorite bury locations are: on the guest bed, in the lining of his bed in our room, on the couch in the living room, or under his bed in the living room.

Completely normal, right?

It seriously feels like hide and seek. As soon as I figure out where the bone is, he will move it to a new location. Guess he can't trust his hiding spot for more than a few minutes. His other favorites include under the day bed, in the bathroom, in the laundry basket, and on the couch in the man cave. After much pacing, wining, burying, and relocating, he will finally sit down to eat his bone he worked so hard to protect.

Yum!

So there you have it, folks! My dog is a strange one, but I love him to pieces. Stay tuned. I'm sure there will be many more crazy Buster posts!

You can't help but love him!

Apologies

I realize I haven't blogged in a VERY long time. I wish I had some eloquent explanation as to why. I guess mainly the end of the school year and the beginning of summer weren't particularly interesting. We did go on a fabulous vacation to the Bahamas - which maybe I'll write about later, but besides that life has been exceptionally boring. The good kind of boring. The kind of boring that includes limited to no drama.

Hopetown, Bahamas = Paradise

School ended. My Kindergarteners graduated and are moving on to first grade. The summer of a teacher (that has no personal children) is generally spent doing things that require a minimum amount of brain power. I started working at a summer camp almost immediately afterward school let out and that lasted for 6 weeks. I now have 3 weeks off before I start up full time again at school. This time off is amazing...for example today I spent all day on the couch, reading on my Nook, and playing with Buster. See - nothing newsworthy.

Buster Boo is getting so big!

I do have a fun story to share. I've been working in my classroom...you know, trying to get things clean and organized before the crazy crunch time starts. I decided to wash all of the stuffed animals and random other things the kids used this past year. The first few loads came out perfectly. The came these.

Mean, mean Target bags

Apparently I had a brain fart while washing these. I had the sense to tie all of the handles so they wouldn't get tangled and even washed them on the delicate cycle. Then came the problem: the dryer. I knew not to put them in there. I knew it, but I did it anyway. Que melted bags and little red bits everywhere. It took me 3 hours to successfully feel like the dryer was clean and wouldn't ruin future loads of laundry. 3 HOURS. Ridiculous.

So, make a mental note. Never ever put your eco friendly grocery bags in the dryer. And if you do, find a swiffer cloth, a magic eraser, and scrub for 3 hours.

Oops!

My crazy life lately

My goodness. Life has been absolutely crazy lately! Between teaching and this new puppy, I barely have time for anything. I'm so sleepy, this post will have to be in bullet points.

* Buster is growing fast. Generally he's a very cute puppy. Sometimes he does things like rip my pants, act like a piranha biting my toes from under the table, and dig holes in the yard. As of right now the cuteness outweighs the bad puppy-ness. Let's hope that sticks. haha

Top 2: being a cute little puppy.
Bottom 2: being a piranha

* Last Friday we decided to put our deep fryer to use and fry some eggplant, shrimp, and catfish. By "some" I actually mean a ton. It was a lot of fun though. Always fun to hang out with good friends, make dinner, and have a game night!

Such a fun game! If you haven't played it before, go buy it right now!

* Jordan was the best hubby ever and made me surprise french toast the next morning. I'm not sure he's ever cooked me a fancy breakfast like that before. He definitely gets a good hubby award for that!

SO YUMMY!!! I love breakfast food

* Saturday I was cleaning the house all day in preparation for a bridal shower at my house on Sunday. Somehow cleaning the house morphed into learning how to garden. Great idea at first (as most things like that are). THEN we realized we had no idea what we were doing. It took us literally all day, a lot of digging, a dog tied to our door, and 3 trash cans...but it turned out ok!

The garden before (well, actually before it got absolutely horrible)

So much better! Notice that the circle patch doesn't have a ton of grass in it anymore.
Digging that up was the horrible part!

* Sunday was the bridal shower at my house! Besides the inability to produce trash (because all of our cans were filled with grass and weeds and such), it went very well. Lots of good food and a champagne punch that went over very well. Congrats Rachele! Can't wait for your wedding!

Decorations and the bridal party! I forgot to take a picture of the food - oops!

* Speaking of weddings, I have some exciting news! I will be in 4 weddings this year. One this May, one next March, one next April, and one next June. My goodness, I'm excited!! I've never been in a wedding (except for my own), so I can't wait to have the bridesmaid experience times 4! Next March-June will be crazy, but oh-so-much fun!

* Apparently I'm chocolate dipping challenged. My niece's 1st birthday party is this weekend and I'm making cake balls. Tonight was the trail run, and I have to say - trying to dip them in chocolate = MAJOR FAIL. Hopefully the couple of tips I got tonight will make tomorrow's trail run (part 2) go ok. At least I have a few days to master this!

Something I hope never changes

Do you ever dance when no one’s watching? I do. All the time – while I’m cooking, or cleaning, or getting ready, or even watching TV. Apparently I’ve rubbed off on my hubby.

The other day I had on music in the kitchen while I was cleaning before people came over. Jordan grabbed me and started twirling me around. I’m not going to lie – this isn’t abnormal. Ever since I got a super cool kitchen ihome for Christmas, this probably happens once a week.

My new favorite toy!

I really hope the random kitchen dancing never changes.

Not in the kitchen, but you get the idea

In unrelated news, my puppy-doodle is getting a lot bigger. And developing a pretty strong personality. He’s sleeping through the night (I guess we can consider waking us up at 6am every day sleeping through “the night”), learning new tricks, and getting really smart. Seriously. He knows exactly what he’s not supposed to do in our house, and learned very quickly only to do those things when we aren’t looking or are ignoring him. Things such as eating shoes, my camera cord, and dirty laundry.

Who? Me?

The other day we took Buster over to meet his uncle and cousin (both of the dog variety). It was pretty funny. Even though they are both triple his size, Buster decided he was the king of the castle. He got in their bed, stole their toys, and had absolutely no problem holding his own. I have a feeling this is going to get interesting as he gets bigger...

They sure are big, but I can handle them!

Because of this, my hubby decided it was a good idea to start watching The Dog Whisperer. Sorry to break it to you honey, but watching half of an episode doesn’t make you Cesar Millan. Hopefully we can learn a few helpful tips anyway.

And just for fun, here are a few more cute pictures of my Buster!

Next up, my Mardi Gras checklist.

Introducing Buster!

Oh my goodness. I had a very long, unintended blogging hiatus! BUT I have a very good excuse. There's a new addition in my family taking up a lot of my time. His name is Buster and he's seriously the cutest puppy I've ever met.

Last weekend me and my hubby decided to go to an event hosted by our local SPCA that they called a Puppy Party. We weren't definitely planning on coming home with a puppy, but wanted to check it out and see what the event was all about. We've been wanting to get a puppy for some time now and had been seriously considering adopting. We knew we couldn't miss out on this event. Even though the timing in our lives isn't the best to be raising a new puppy, we kind of figured there would never be a perfect time.

There were over 40 puppies all under 3 months...how could you not have a great time just playing with that many sweet babies? There were pens set up with different litters of puppies, and the puppies kept rotating in and out of the shelter throughout the day. We were there for about 3 hours before we decided on this sweet guy. It was a big decision, but I'm so glad we ended up with a new family member!

 

All we know about him is that he is around two and a half months old. They told us he is a lab mix and then said he could maybe be a st. bernard mix...although we don't think either one of those are accurate. The more we look at pictures, he seems to look more like a beagle or a jack russell terrier. Who knows. All we know is that he is freaking adorable! I could go on and on about our first week with him. He has such a cute little personality already!

I love this little guy! To be honest I'm not sure why people DON'T adopt. He was only $150 and that included all of his booster shots, heartworm medicine for a month, and a bag of food. He's already neutered and he has a microchip. PLUS our first vet visit was free (he had worms and we needed to get that taken care of right after we got him).

He's mastered sitting before eating, getting in his crate at bed time (or when we're annoying him too much), barking at the door to go out to potty, and even knows to fake potty when he doesn't really need to. Here's a video of his new adorable trick:

I'm sure there will be much, much more to follow!