So cute!

This bird is so cute! Turn your volume up so you can here her voice. Adorable!

Happy 86th Birthday Grandma!

Today is Grandma's birthday! She is 86 and as beautiful as ever! We had a family get together and it was fun! The food was great and the company was great and fun was had by all! LOVE YOU Grandma!

In this one, my Uncle David is helping with the blowing out of the candles!

BTW....the cake is a chocolate pecan praline cake made by my Aunt Cynthia.....she is a great cook! Chocolate cake covered in chocolate ganache and then covered with pecan praline icing.....HELLO....YUMMY!!!

Finally!

So Mom retired the end of June and her birthday was the first of July. Had to find a present big enough for both. So my Grandma, my aunt and I went in and got her a new big chair. She had one that needed to be replaced desperately. The old chair is below:

It is not a bad chair but the arm is a little punched down. AND btw...that is a shadow in the bottom left corner...NOT a stain on the carpet. I don't know what happened there. The main problem is the ottoman. It was a nice ottoman until evil happened upon it. Below is the evil:

When the evil twins were about 1 they did this to the ottoman:

They did this about the time we were first letting them stay out of their crates while we were at work. Thanks Kids!
So for Mom's surprise, I had to find a way to let her know we were going shopping for chairs. I wasn't going to go shop and buy one for her. She needed to have her stamp on it. I was thinking a card with a "gift certificate" or a message in the card, then I thought about creating another blog with pictures of lots of chairs. I went to all these furniture stores and took pictures and created this:
http://bdayretirementsurprise.blogspot.com/
I think you can copy and past the link to see it. I put the website in a card and made her pull it up on her computer. She was confused at first and then she got it and was very excited!
We went shopping on July 3rd. We hit several places. The last place we went was La-Z-Boy. If you ever need furniture, they have some beautiful things besides recliners. I will say some of the recliners though are pretty cool. But she wanted a chair and a half with ottoman. She got to try several out and picked the one she liked best. What was great though is that she could also choose a fabric and have it made to her taste. It was sooo much fun picking out the fabric. Once chosen, it was going to be 6-8 weeks before it was delivered. They were not kidding about that....ordered July 3rd.....delivered FINALLY this past Thursday. It is beautiful!

Here is a close up of the fabric:
I love the fabric and so does Mom. It blends with the Tiffany lamps and the eggplant couch. It is girly and feminine and it works!
Happy Birthday and Retirement Mom!!

The Shuffledesks

I know this is not a very important entry to most people, but it is sentimental. Mom and I have these Shuffledesks. They are a VERY, VERY early version of lapboards. Dad bought these for us way back in the day. He died in 1976 so these are super old. They have finally had it. The material is shredding and I have tons of little white beads coming out of mine. The dogs have them stuck to their beards and they are all over the carpet and chairs. Sad as it is....we decided to man up and get new ones. We use the lapboards for our laptops and it has been kinda sad to let the old ones go.

Here is the top of Mom's. It is cracked and beat up all around the edges. It was used well for all these years. Loads of crossword puzzles have been conquered here!

Here is the back....she had the handkerchief motif on the back:


Now here is the top of mine.....a little more destuctive I am. I scratched in "WOW" and then there are a ton of other scratches....got nothing. Have no idea why. And the Winnie the Pooh stickers? Again....don't ever remember putting them on there.


The back of mine was Raggedy Ann. What I hate is that you can no longer see where I wrote "I love Erik Estrada" and "I love Shaun Cassidy". I loved "Chips" and "The Hardy Boys" and I had all of Shaun's albums (yessss....ALBUMS!!!) Speaking of albums...I was rocking The Osmonds and Leif Garrett! WOOT!!


Those have been replaced now with these cool ones from Barnes and Noble! Love 'em and added new cool wireless mice because we hate the touch pad on laptops.....

Every Ding Dang Night

You see that pink flamingo pillow.....that is MINE! Where are the pups every night right before I crawl into bed? They are in MY spot! Have to move them every night!! Nerds!


and THEN they go and do something cute like be snugglebugs!

Sissy!!!!!!!

Help me! I have a face on my leaf!!!!

HA HA HA HA.....Awesome!

First saw this contraption on "Bert the Conqueror" on the Travel Channel. He is a hoot! But here is an extreme.....poor girl....and the boys....they are trouble- makers! Bless her unaware heart!

China

Saw this picture from China. Trying to keep cool from the heat, they all crammed into the BIGGEST swimming pool I have ever seen....at least it seems super big and what about the kids? Someone could so go under and no one would know.....sad and scary at the same time.....I think I would find a sprinkler somewhere.....

Messing Around

So messing around with the blog and templates and colors. For right now, I am loving the green and birds...frustrated with the header though. My cousins have awesome headers so I am going to have to call them and find out how to do that....not smart enough on this area yet. BUT once I find out....the headers will be flying!!

USA vs. Algeria

I am not the biggest soccer fan, but seeing this win for USA was awesome and here is the video of the winning goal and the video of the reactions from across the US and world.....made me cry....love seeing sports of any kind bring people together! This is GREAT! Go USA!!! I will be watching and thank you Landon Donovan! Volume up for this one!


and the reactions.....

Got this email

This email owned me today and I needed it!!

A Positive Thought For the Day:

I don't want to brag or make anybody jealous,

but I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high school

This Made Me LOL!!!

Don't know if I got more of a kick out of the sweet baby or the dog.....both made me LOL!!! Thanks Cute Overload!

Thanks Mr. Landscaper

I love color as much as the next person but come on!!! The landscapers were out today around the neighborhood spraying fertilizer. Well....one...they didn't let us know they were doing that and TWO....the fertilizer has blue dye in it. Thanks so much Mr. Landscaper! So glad we just spent $80 to have the pups groomed so they have beautiful little white paws.....again...thanks so much Mr. Landscaper! AND I did call to make sure they wouldn't be poisoned.....the fertilizer is animal friendly BUT still! This has made me laugh so hard...not mad at Mr. Landscaper...I find it super funny and it really is a beautiful blue....I like it! I have dogs with circus clown feets!!!

Birthday

I cannot express how thankful I am for my Mom, family and friends for making my birthday so perfect! Thank you all sooooooo much!

Rabies

It was that time of the year again to take the kids in for their annual shots. They have a new rabies shot that lasts 3 years instead of 1. Decided to go ahead and do that. Probably won't be doing it again! My Daisy, bless her heart, had an allergic reaction. Went and picked them up. They were a little tired after a day of shots and grooming. Got home and had them up on the bed giving them some tummy rubs. Noticed a little swollen spot on on Daisy's bottom right eye. Thought maybe it got irritated from the grooming. Then I noticed her eyelid was a little swollen. Then noticed the ginormous lumps coming up on her head. Then noticed her eye was swelling more. So grabbed her and ran out the door back to the vet. Of course it was 5:00 traffic but fortunately the vet is only a couple of miles down the road. I called ahead and they were waiting for us. By the time I got there both her eyes were almost swollen shut. It was awful!!! They grabbed her and gave her an IV of steroid and basically doggy Benadryl. They gave me another Benadryl for the next morning. My vet is awesome and they had us back on our way in 10 minutes. She was pitiful for the rest of the night. Her swelling got worse before it got better. She was sooooo beet red and hot. Her ears were very very red and I just watched her. Finally she went to sleep. By the next morning, she was all good, still sluggish and not feeling great, but much better....swelling gone. She had a very long day AND not to mention all that, the groomer accidentally clipped one of her nails too close and I had little blood spots all over the car.....BLESS HER HEART!!! See the pic below to see poor Daisy: