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"Can a dog die from consuming wrapping paper?"

I Wonder if She Understands the Severity of Coal in a Stocking

As I have said in an earlier post, Christmas time makes my dog evil. I don't know why but she has been acting horrible lately. Last night took the cake.

First; Beau grilled steaks and made a couscous salad and baked russet potatoes for dinner. My sister called as I finished eating so I went to the couch to speak to her while Beau finished at the table. The whole time I was on the phone I heard a fork moving on the plate so assumed Beau was just taking a really long time to eat. Once I got off the phone I called for Beau in the dining room....I got no response so yelled at him. This time he responded but from our bedroom. Mind you there was still a fork on plate sound in the dining room. I jumped up from the couch and ran into the dining room just in time to see the dog spring from the chair she was sitting in at the table. Both of our plates had been cleaned (we had both left steak, couscous and potatoes on our plates too). They looked as if I had just taken them out of the dishwasher.

Of course the perpetrator denied the whole thing but she was busted when I found steak sauce in her ear.

That's right, you are looking at A-1 in Mamie's ear. This picture was taken after Beau cleaned the large clump of steak sauce out of her ear. I only got the leftovers picture.

Next, Beau discovered that one of his shoe laces on his new tennis shoes had been chewed on. You need to know that Mamie has never chewed on anything in our house other than her toys so this was totally out of character.

Because I am a sick parent I recorded me shaming her. In the first few seconds you will be able to tell that our living room is a disaster so please do not judge me. I just hope that every one's house looks like this at Christmas time.

So I've made a deal with her; if she doesn't act like a heathen and embarrass us at Christmas, I won't drop her off on the front steps of the shelter at 7 A.M. on December 26.

More Decorations

I'm sorry that I'm so late updating (I'm sure that all five of you who read this blog have been unable to eat.) Christmas is a crazy time of year, that is for sure. I've got lots of things to update you on so I will start with more decorations.

Here is the front porch:

How cute is she? Who doesn't love a Christmas Hippo?

The dining room:

Christen: I think your parents gave us these candlesticks for a wedding gift. We love them!


I painted these last year:

Kinda dinky, kinda sweet.

I think that covers it! I need to capture the house with the lights at night. Beau insists that all the lights on the house blink. I hope we haven't caused our neighbors any seizures.

Proof that I have Christmas Decorations Up

This is not all of it but a glimpse. I will add more later.

The breakfast nook (featuring Mamie's kennel.)

This is our "random" tree in the living room. Every night we say to each other, "That really is a pretty tree." Growing up my family always had a random tree with homemade and mismatched ornaments which I disliked because I wanted to have a fancy, uniformed tree. Well look at what kind of tree I have in my home now and I would not have it any other way.

But I do have a smaller, more formal tree in the dining room:

Mamie particularly loves the tree skirt (she thinks it's her fancy bedazzled blanket) and lays on it while we eat dinner. Without fail she manages to knock the big ornaments off of the tree leaving Beau and me chasing after them as they roll across the hardwood. Darn that dog!

Be on the lookout for a 44 pound Beagle/Heeler on Craigslist

Apparently Christmas time makes dogs behave badly. This is what I caught her doing last night. Yes, that is my dog wearing a wreath like a tutu. I'm not sure how she managed it but it happened, nevertheless. Note how she is after the second victim. Maybe she was planning on wearing that one too, like a circus animal or something. I really think the wreath skirt was unintential on her part. I would be willing to bet that she was tossing it up for one of her ever-so-famous arial maulings and the wreath just so happened to land that way.

I wish the picture could additionally convey how she unwrapped presents as I wrapped them. She really got a kick out of pushing the rolls of wrapping paper with her nose . No amount of spankings deterred this activity. In my desperation I told her that it was a shame for her to make Baby Jesus cry on his birthday. She then literally yawned in my face. In fact, the only person the message got through to was Beau because I heard his voice yell from down the hall, "KENDALL! DID YOU JUST TELL MAMIE THAT SHE MADE BABY JESUS CRY ON HIS BIRTHDAY???!!!!"

Family Christmas Pictures

I'm really running behind on updating my blog. I have recipes and Christmas decor pictures to post but I left my camera at Courtney's so I'll have to post those later. I do have our family Christmas pictures which my good friend Meredith took right before Thanksgiving. I wanted to have some professional ones of us with our latest addition (the mutt). They turned out amazing. We could not be happier. Let this be a reminder that I have little, squinty eyes.

Modeling her Christmas sweater. Can you tell who loves the camera?

I'm a little partial but isn't my husband handsome?

That is the corpse of a squeaky toy over her foot.

My favorite!!! Is that not the cutest dog?!

Beau's parents also joined in and Mere got some really cute pictures of them too.

HaHa!

Apparently, I'm a Scrapper

Whenever someone thinks of me I guarantee a word that probably never comes to mind is "scrappy". My mom and husband might even go further by calling me a wimp. I learned on Black Friday that if needed, I can be a fighter.

For the past several years, BF Courtney and I have done the Black Friday thing. Last year, the other BF Irish joined us (practically against her will). This year we added Court's little sister, Ashton. As we add more shoppers our seriousness grows. Every year we get better and better deals. This year we were pretty hard core, mapping out our destinations days in advance and planning a strategy (who is going to drive, how many cars do we take, who will be on what team.) To prove our hardcoreness we started our venture at midnight. We racked up at Walmart and then broke into our teams: Irish and I headed to Target at 1:30 A.M. to get in line; Ashton and Court went to Toys R Us and planned to join us afterwards.

At Target we, like the rest of the world, were going after the 40" Westinghouse flat screens for $298. All four of us were going to go after one (actually Ashton didn't need a TV so she was going after one for my in-laws.) We knew the competition would be fierce so Irish and I wanted to get in line early. Of course it was freezing! To remember the event Irish took pictures with her phone.

She looked like a terrorist. I'm guessing that would be her van of explosives in the background.

And I looked like a turtle.


After a while the other two team members joined us. Courtney looked like Apolo Anton Ohno, minus the weird facial hair. Ashton was the only sane looking one of the group.

Because the hot items were scattered all around the store we were given a map. The TVs were in section B located in Maternity. Because nothing says "expecting a little bundle of joy" like a bunch of adults fighting over a television. Being the self-respecting young women that we are we agreed that regardless of what everyone around us did, we would not run and make fools of ourselves. Especially since the news crews had their cameras rolling to catch the madness. However, when the doors opened at 4 A.M. our plans were shot to pieces. People were running into the store as if they were being chased by a heard of lions. Although I did not run, I felt the need to walk faster that I ever had in my life to avoid being trampled. As much as I love Target, I do not want to die there.

Ahead of me were Ashton and Courtney who managed to get three TVs quickly (Court's, mine and my in-laws). Actually, a woman pushed Ashton over and she just happened to fall on top of the boxes. As soon as Ashton recovered she yelled at me to let me know that she had both of my TVs. That was a total relief because the scene around me was insane - people pushing, grabbing and screaming in efforts to secure a television. I have never witnessed anything like it. I would liken it to the first 15 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan".

As I tried to get around the craziness to meet up with Court and Ashton I looked up to see Irish in the middle of it all standing with her TV in hand. All of a sudden, a couple (who looked like they might have just taken a hit of meth on Thanksgiving instead of pecan pie like the rest of us) yanked the box from her. I went into Mommy Bird Mode and charged the couple, grabbed their arms and said, "Hey!! You just took that TV from her!" They were quick to inform me that the TV was theirs and then tried to get away. Irish and I grabbed the other end of the box and started to pull causing a tug of war match to ensue. We would have grabbed another one but there were none left so this TV was Irish's only chance. I kept yelling at the couple to let go, "Because we are leaving with the TV!" They just yelled back, "NO! It's Ours!!" So what did I do? I began peeling their fingers off of the box, one by one. Every time they re-established their grip, I went after the hands. Finally, they gave up leaving us disheveled but with the TV.

Actually, we all left Target with a TV. I also left with a little less dignity.

Always a Pilgrim, Never an Indian

With the approaching Thanksgiving holiday I'm reminded of my preschool and elementary days when we would learn about the famous feast at Plymouth between the pilgrims and Indians (forgive me for not being politically correct enough to say "Native Americans" but this is a childhood memory, therefore, no P.C.)

Every year, it seems, we would reenact the feast with our own party where the kids were cast as a pilgrim or an Indian. Thanks to a little invention known as construction paper we were able to fashion period costumes although I'm not sure how accurate the attire really was.

Being blonde, fair skinned and blue-eyed I was typecast. That's right, every year I was stuck with black and white construction paper making my own costume. No use of color for the pilgrims. The fact that we had to make our own costumes was like rubbing salt in a wound; a sad reminder that in a few days you would be stuck with an itchy paper collar while the kid across the table would be eating their cupcake (because as we all know,cupcakes were all the rage in 1621) wearing a fashionable hat with colorful feathers.

This typecasting continued into Christmas every year with the Christmas play where undoubtedly you could find my name under the role of "Angel" in the program. Unlike the pilgrim issue this was not limited to second grade and under. I was seriously in high school with aspirations of playing the coveted role of Mary. One year my dad was the play director and I knew that was going to be my year to shine. Turns out, I shone as "Angel 2 and Inn Keeper". I didn't speak to Dad for days.

Of course I'm not bitter about any of this (I promise). I just had to share some seasonal childhood diva moments.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Our Little TSA Agent

I Promise Officer, That is Not my Pot

Do I have your attention yet? If you cannot tell by the title, this will be an interesting post.

This past week I've been on the road for work, traveling the lovely state of Arkansas. On Tuesday I went to Jonesboro, accompanied by my co-worker Chassity. Before we picked up our rental car we stopped and had lunch and were more than delighted to be in the presence of a Red Hat Society group. P.R.E.C.I.O.U.S. Of course we had to take our picture with them (we are the ones in the back, not wearing purple attire and sassy red hats.)

This picture is actually very irrelevant to the story but I find it funny how quickly the day changed.

After lunch we picked up the rental. Much to our dismay the Buick SUV was filthy and had no gas. However we did not complain too much because it was that or a mini-van. After a stop to the gas station for fuel and soapy paper towels to clean the car's interior we were on the road. As we were driving through the farm lands of northeast Arkansas and listening to Celine Dion's Christmas CD, Chassity opened the glove compartment and said, "What's this??!!" I looked to see a dried, green, leafy substance. Being the calm and level headed adult that I am I began to scream, "OH MY GOSH!! THAT'S MARIJUANA!!!" I'm sure the car was swirving all over the highway too.

Before I go any further you should know that if you are ever in a pickle, do not call me as I will only freak out, squeal (Beau refers to it as a rabbit shrill, actually) and make matters far worse. Oh, and then I'll probably blog about it three days later.

Back to the pot-mobile.

Chassity began googling marijuana images on her phone to self-diagnose the substance. This convinced us that we were, indeed, carrying an illegal drug in our vehicle. I called my boss to get his opinion on what we needed to do. I also felt the need to repeatedly tell him that our location was on a highway in between Cash and Newport, Arkansas. That was important because these small southern towns are typically full of Barney Fifes just waiting for a drug bust! I kept seeing the headlines in my head, "Girl Scout Employees Arrested for Possession of Drugs." Seriously, how many times do you watch Cops and the perpetrator says, "I swear! Those drugs aren't mine, officer!!" And where does that get them? In handcuffs and a ride to the slammer!

Another thing you should know: I am, always was and always will be a goody two shoes. I mean, I've never even smoked a cigarette so I was horrified by the whole scenario. And in my heart I just knew I was about to be pulled over, searched, arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to a 45 year prison term. Overreact much?

Anways, we all agreed that the best thing to do was to get through the small farming towns without dumping the potential drugs out of the moving vehicle, call the Jonesboro police and meet them in town to identify what we were carrying. By the way, dumping the stuff out of rental car was discussed at one point. That happened to be the point when I was irrational but still, it was brought up.

Once we made it to town the cop looked over and smelled the alleged weed and said, "It looks just like marijuana but doesn't smell like it so I'm going to say that it's not." I quickly came back with, "Well that's not oregano in the rental's glove compartment!!" I'm sure he wanted to slap me with the latex glove he had just removed from his hand but instead humored me and said we did the right thing to call.

Chassity's cop friend who looked at the pictures she had taken of the substance said that if it was not pot it was K2, a synthetic pot.

I'm still not totally convinced that what we were transporting was not illegal. In fact, I'm going to continue to say that we found marijuana in our rental. Just because one always needs a good conversation bit tucked away in their memory.

Happy Birthday Beau

Don't you love this picture? That nose crinkle!! Full of mayhem, that one.

I love you Beau (and Mamie does too!) I'm so blessed to have you in my life and cannot wait to spend many more birthdays with you.

Pre-Christmas: To Each His Own

In the past few days I have realized that Beau and I have opposite views on when to begin what Christmas festivity. It's not that one of us wants to start celebrating Christmas before the other but that both of us want to kick off their own celebration. However, the other individual views the celebration as premature.

I have some specific examples.

As soon as the calendar hits November I want to blast Christmas music. Beau, on the other hand, thinks Christmas music should be reserved for December 21 - December 25, with a healthy dose of classic rock thrown into the mix.

Over the weekend I bought egg nog and after I announced this to Beau he looked at me like I had died my hair purple and in an elitist tone said, "It's waaaaaay too early for egg nog!"

The man is no Scrooge, however, because he has been itching to put up lights on the house for two weeks. In order to prevent this I've had to practically hide the ladder because I believe the lights should go up the day after Thanksgiving. I have the same thoughts on the tree. He, of course, feels differently. He announced last night that we were putting the tree. I threw a squealing fit appropriate for a two year old but that did not deter him. In fact, the only thing that did was that Mamie (who has never seen a Christmas tree in her short puppy life) decided to dive into the tree's box and chew on the faux branches. Yes, she did this before the tree was even out of the box....we are in big trouble. Because we did not want "The Great Thornton Christmas Tree Massacre of 2010" to occur before Black Friday we decided to hold off and let her get acclimated to the tree in the box.

By the way, she had the same reaction when we showed off the precious stocking we bought her the other night. Apparently she views the stocking in the shape of a fire hydrant as a direct security threat to her home.

Regardless of when we decide to decorate I am thrilled to celebrate our first Christmas in our new house. Many pictures and stories to come!!

Like a 40 Pound Teenager

Last night I spanked Mamie for something I had repeatedly told her not to do. Instead of running off, tail tucked and ears down, what did she do? She barked at me! It was a hateful tone too.

She's lost all cell phone and Facebook privileges for the rest of the week.

Wicked

Last week a large group of girls and moms saw Wicked which is currently showing in Little Rock. We all went to celebrate BF Courtney's birthday. We had the best time and the show was amazing!

Here I am with other BF Irish. We all ate dinner before.

Some of the group.

I think this was intermission when we all had to use the restroom but were too afraid to face the crowds and miss the beginning of the second act.

So glad we all went. You know who is even more glad we all went? Beau, because that means he did not have to go.

Kendall's Pearl of Wisdom for the Day

Show me someone who can confidently spell “hors d’oeuvre” without the aid of Google and I’ll show you a liar.

Watch Out!

There is an evil super bug strain of a stomach virus going around so WATCH OUT! !

I came down with it last Sunday and finally decided today that it was safe to eat solids...I was that jolted. I was praying for the rapture all day Sunday. I believe I caught it from a little germ carrier, known as a child, at my nephew's birthday party on Saturday. My sister and nephew came down with it the same time as me.

I've spent my free time bleaching the house so I've not had a lot to blog about. I'm pretty sure I'm down several thousand brain cells (and layers of skin).

WASH YOUR HANDS AND O.D. ON VITAMIN C!!!

Happy Halloween

Saline County opted to celebrate Halloween on Saturday this year instead of tomorrow so we've already handed out all of the candy to the trick-or-treaters. In an effort to out-do my neighbors I made goodie bags filled with candy and a Halloween pencil.

I got these precious bags at Target, my happy place.

Here is my assistant candy passer-outer:

I feel sorry for the kid who dressed up as a cat...

This was the candy station but eventually we moved it outside. By the way, I went through all of those bags, made some more and went through those too. Apparently we are in the right neighborhood if you like to pass out candy.

She looooooved it! All day I told her that trick-or-treaters were coming so she had been on the lookout for a while. I wish this picture could convey how fast that tail was waging.

In order to avoid a lawsuit from knocking a small child over, I leashed the 40 pound pumpkin. Actually, Mamie was dressed as a cat dressed as a dog dressed as a pumpkin. At least that's what she told people when they asked, "and what are you supposed to be?"

I thought I'd throw this in too since it's sweet.

Happy Halloween!!

Caramel Apples and Fire

Last night I made caramel apples to give to the wonderful group at the vet's office and the girls that do my hair. I've never made them before so they did not turn out as beautiful as I had hoped but I'm sure they were delicious.

Side note* I wouldn't know how they tasted because I have a near fatal allergy to apples. No, I'm serious. It is called an oral pollen allergy. These allergies are caused by plants or fruits that interact with the pollen in the air when eaten. For most people the reaction is limited to a small rash but rarely the reaction can be more serious causing the throat to swell, cutting off oxygen supply. Well that would be what happens to me. One weird thing about this allergy is you can have the fruit or plant when it is fully cooked so I can have apple juice or apple sauce just not raw apples. You also can touch the fruit just not consume it. It's strange but true. Now you know how to off me.

Here are the ingredients: Caramel, apples, toppings, popsicle sticks, milk and vanilla extract.

First you clean the apples, remove the stem and stick the popsicle sticks through middle.

This is about a bag and a half of caramel with two tablespoons of milk and one teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Melt in microwave.

Roll the apples in the caramel and toppings. I had three varieties; plain, nuts and Reese's Pieces.

Next you take your photo with your creation. Normally I would have my husband take the photo but he was long asleep on the couch.

I wrapped the apples in cellophane and secured with fall ribbon.

This the platter I made for the vet's office. I feel like I owe them for taking care of our little handful of a mutt. Although I don't think 40 pounds qualifies a dog as little...

This process took some time so at 11:45 p.m. I was cleaning the kitchen when I heard some sirens near by. I didn't think much of it since our neighborhood is close to a busy road. A minute or so later I heard a loud explosion. This I did think something of and ran outside to see what it was. This is what I saw...

It was a house on fire. This is not in our neighborhood but in the one that backs up to our culdesac. There are two empty lots of land that are between us and their tree line. I took this picture after a while - don't worry, it was not my first step of action. That step was to start screaming at Beau to get off the couch and get outside. Once he saw what was going on began throwing on shoes and a coat. I, on the other hand, was frozen. The scene was eerie. We could hear the fire alarms going off in the house, someone yelling, "No! No! No!" (obviously the homeowner), firemen yelling back and forth, emergency personnel radios, windows bursting and of course, the fire. The heat was so intense we could feel it from our backyard. Standing there I all I could do was cry and pray. At the time we had no idea if everyone had made it out of the house (we later found out they did but lost their cats.) I have never seen a house fire and especially at such close proximity so the whole thing was overwhelming to witness.

It's hard to tell from my picture because the flash was on but the blaze was insanely high, reaching way above the tree line. You can also see the ashes landing in the lot beside our house so we decided to go outside and get out of the house just to be safe, Mamie in tote. As we got to the street we saw about five police cars - they were knocking on doors on our street to warn people of the fire and prepare them to evacuate just in case. We all stood there with the police and watched as the fire spread to the house next to the house where the whole thing had originated. It was horrible and yet nothing could be done because the blaze was so intense. There were countless firemen working furiously but they hardly appeared to phase the fire.

I cannot even begin to imagine what it's like to watch your home burn to the ground along with your most priceless items; pictures, heirlooms, everything. Don't get me wrong, I am not focusing on material possessions because in the end, they mean nothing. However, I know it must be wrenching to watch everything you own go up in flames.

It took the firemen close to two hours to contain the fire to the point where we all felt safe to go inside our houses. Of course it was impossible for us to go to bed so we continued to watch from outside for a while. Eventually we did go to bed. Beau left the house at 5 a.m. to hunt and said the firemen were still on scene putting out what was left of the fire.

After work today we drove to the neighborhood and could not believe what we saw; total destruction of the first home. Hardly a beam standing. The other house looked to be a complete loss but was still standing minus the side closest to the other house. I got out and spoke to a man who owned the second house. I wanted to see if there was anything we could do to help. He was in total shock but very gracious. As I'm sure he'd done a hundred times today he began to tell me the whole story and how everything happened so fast. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

Something like this really does put things into perspective. I will certainly snuggle close to Beau (and the mutt) tonight when I go to bed and be thankful for the Lord's protection.

Please say a prayer for these two families. I know it will be tough rebuilding their lives, especially with the holidays around the corner.