Smaug

If not for the crazy animals in our house, it was a pretty uneventful week.  I don't have much to share with you guys but Jordan and I had some good laughs.

The last two weeks we've been babysitting my parent's pup, Sophie (aka Sophia Maria Consuela Gonzales, Rodriquez).  I'm not quite sure how she ended up with that nick name....  Her nick name at our house has been "Sophie the Grouch".  I truly love this pup, but her constant growling is very confusing.  Little Soph has a sort of "love growl" that she voices whenever she's happy, being loved on, being played with, etc.  Yes, Sophie is complicated, but we love her.

It was fun having two dogs for a while.  We took them on walks and they didn't even drag us!  Sophie has her own harness when she is at our house.  It is just easier to control her without hurting her but she kept trying to shake it off.

Here is a picture of our ladies on a recent walk.  Both were happy to smell new scents and see the neighborhood.  We ran into at least 3 sets of neighbors and both pups were very good, especially Sophie, and especially around kids. Good girls.

Sophie is on the left and Abby is on the right.

We had some beautiful weather so we decided to give the dogs the freedom to come in and out of the house as they please.  This is very rare in our household and they both LOVED it!  

Here I caught Sophie and Abby bringing toys out into the back yard to play with.  Those cute innocent faces couldn't possibly have taken the toys out in the backyard, right?  

I'm sure my Mom wont be thrilled about this, but the running joke this week has been at the expense of Sophie's teeth.  Abby's teeth are far from perfect, but Sophie has "country teeth."  They are crooked and didn't even grow in a single row!  Sophie's teeth are more like shark teeth because there is a row of teeth growing behind the first row of teeth!  I managed to snap the following picture (while Sophie vigorously growled) and got such a good laugh out of it.  Her growling teeth reminded me of Sully from Monsters, Inc.

James P. Sullivan somehow just wasn't quite ferocious enough.  For one thing, his monster teeth were too perfect.

So.... I found a more predatory picture to pair Sophie's "smile" with.  Smaug from The Desolation of Smaug seemed more appropriate.  Sophie can totally pull off the role of "last remaining dragon from Middle-Earth."

I realize I'm a nerd, but this picture has given me so many laughs for days now.  Days! One look at it and I get such a good giggle out of it!  

A few Christmases ago we bought Sophie this tag for her collar.  We've decided that instead of saying "lick you" it should say "If you can read this I will growl at you."

Meanwhile, bed time has been more interesting...  We let Abby sleep on our bed and we could hardly extend that courtesy to one dog and not the other.  So, Sophie has joined us at bed time too.  The competition they have with each other is crazy!  Both pups want to be snuggled and loved on.  Neither wants the other to have any attention of any sort so it is a delicate existence.

Abby usually sleeps at the foot of our bed, but with Sophie added to the mix, she has adopted a new habit of sleeping between Jordan's and my pillow up by our heads.  I think she feels more protected because she only has to worry about 180 degrees of Sophie attacks.  Plus, she gets to be close to both of us at the same time.  In the following picture, Abby is a wee-bit jealous that I'm loving on Sophie.  Grouch or not, Sophie needs some loving too!

And the licking!  Sheesh!  You'd think the dogs have some sort of sodium deficiency!  Both pups loooove Jordan's legs.  He has had to wear pants to protect himself!  Why do they do this?

There is not much else happening in our world.  I recently started to work on a few more blankets.  I bought this fabric with my brother's in mind so hopefully I can finish them before the weather warms up.  A blanket sort of loses it's point in the warm months of Spring and Summer (for guys at least).

Here is just a general picture of what I was working on.  I don't have a great area to do my work so I've been using the island in our kitchen.  It's a good height and works pretty well.

I've only accomplished a few of the first steps, but I wanted to share some pictures of my progress so far.

Top Left: This is an example of the fleece fabric before I've squared the edges.  These ratty ends have to be cut off.

Bottom Left: This is a straight edge now that the ugly stuff has been cut off.

Top Right: I then used a skip stitch blade cut holes in the fleece.  You can purchase the blade (#3) HERE.  

Bottom Right: You can see a small slit in the fabric.  This is where I will finish the edge of the blanket with yarn.  

Hopefully I didn't bite off more than I can chew with this project.  Eek!  I'll keep ya'll posted.

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!