Who Let The Dogs Out?

Alternate titles for this post:

"This One Goes Out To My Dogs"

"Dog Day Afternoon"

"This Site Has Gone To The Dogs"

This space reserved for a well-deserved doggy shout-out to our favorite puppies; Riley (a.k.a. Riley-Boo, Boo), Dusty (a.k.a. Dusty-Moto, Hey $%!#$ come back here with that!), Darcey, Amber, Sammie & Blue.

Wait, January Is Almost Over?

All I can say is it's a good thing we don't rely on this site to put food on the table or pay the mortgage because we have neglected to post any updates for some time! Hmm, where to begin, there is literally so much to write about here.

First of all, I had the week "off". Read: "off" equals 5 days of forced buy due to economic downturn. No worries though because as soon as the announcement came out, I became excited to spend the time with Ellena. We kept her home, even though our Day Care contract requires us to pay for the time anyway - you just don't get this time back!

Secondly, we have successfully visited (or been visited by) a good majority of the Grandmas lately, in this order:

-Grandma Gigi flew to see us and stayed for 4 nights / 5 days. We just bummed around and drug her around to all our usual weekend chores (bulk-shopping at Costco, grocery shopping at Kroger, people-watching at the mall, etc.), but we had a great time together. I don't think she believed us when we said Ellena enjoyed going to the mall, but she experienced this first-hand as we walked her around and let her take in all the sights, lights and people. She enjoyed checking out the shiny objects in the stores and touching all the fabric.

- E and I surprised Grandma Lou Lou at work and hung out in the front offices until it was time for all three of us to eat. Ellena and I were then treated to lunch - yummy! E just loved playing with that toy on the desk, you know, one of those boards with those crazy all over wires and slides. We really need to get one of those for her!

- I drove E over to Grandma Mimi's, where we also saw cousin Lily and spent some time walking around the floor (see below)

Now for some of the Ellena updates....hmm....this is tough because she is doing SO many things lately. I guess one of the coolest things is she completely knows her name! If she is preoccupied, like crawling on the floor, and her name is spoken, she will actually pause and turn to look at you. I find this spectacular!

She is also pulling up on objects like the coffee table, ottoman & us if we're within reach! She stands a lot and really enjoys being walked around by her fingers. Let me see if I can find a video of this...(looking behind where I'm sitting)...I'll be right back...

Happy Feet

Check out these feet in action. The camera can't keep up...it's just a blur of green!

Recipe: Ultimate Pizza Dough

Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F / 45 degrees C)
2 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar

Directions:
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes until it foams.

In a large bowl, combine bread flour, olive oil, salt and yeast mixture; mix well to combine. Work well until dough has formed. Cover and allow to rise until volume doubles (approximately 1 hour). Punch down dough.

Turn dough out onto a well floured surface. Form dough out into a ball and roll into a pizza crust shape. Let rest approximately 10 minutes. Cover with your favorite sauce and toppings and bake in a preheated oven (475 degrees).

Important note about timing:
After over is preheated to 475 degrees and pizza is ready to cook, open over door and place on center rack. Then, turn off oven and turn back on, setting for 475. When 475 temp is met, cook for 15 minutes exactly.

For Best Results:
Mix end product with the following - Enjoy!

A Cold One &

Classic Movies!

Recipe - courtesy Ryan & Rachel Olechnowicz

Webfound: Monikers; Personalized Calendars, Sort Of…

One man’s pursuit of the perfect sign name can now be the perfect gift for the “guy who has it all”. Do you know a Bill, Bob, Chuck, Dave, Dick, Jim, Joe, John, Mark, Mike or Tom with some wall space? Then a 2009 Calendar could be your answer to an endless search for something special.

According to the Monikers website “These photos are the result of over 145,000 miles in a rusty minivan looking for a sign. Now, they are unique gifts.”

The fun does not stop at the monthly picture though. Oh, nelly, no. Each month features 1 main picture (example: Bob) as well as the locations of the photos. Also, more than 50 intriguing, whimsical and literate “Bob” trivia are highlighted on the appropriate dates throughout the year (example: October 31: Bob for apples). And many have footnotes.

What an interesting concept. Don't ask how I stumbled upon this one! Now, if only the artist had more obscure names available…because for an inconceivably brief moment, and perhaps also for the only time in history, I wished I was a "Chuck".

Wanted: Faster Internet Connection

Welcome to Oh-Nine, Baby

Happy New Year!

Wait, what do you mean today is the 5th of January? This year is going by even faster than the last one did! Impossible! Hard to believe that E is 7 months old to the day. I KNOW!

Today was our first day back to work and it was....a.....rough.....go. I needed a bit of extra coffee to keep myself at the helm. Let's just say we had a good vacation together. Other than celebrate Christmas (several times with our several families), we really didn't do anything special. It was nice to have some time for each other though.

Allow me to speak for Ellena for a second, she had a great Christmas! It was enjoyable to watch her light up when she saw her many relatives. She really enjoyed being passed around, kissed, hugged and pinched. She also had fun hanging out with her cousins. Funny thing actually, S and I both noticed she seemed to want to stand more (supported, of course) when they were around her - like it was the cool thing to do!

As with most children, she also really enjoyed the gift-opening, although it had more to do with the tissue paper than anything else we feel, but I must say all that time we spent practicing ripping out magazines pages really paid off! She looked like a professional!

Good news too - we shot lots of new pictures and even captured some video!

Here she is in the box (of course) of one of the presents from us. No child, we said think OUTSIDE the box!

And here she is crawling, or scooting/shimmy-ing. Uh-oh, she's getting faster!