Livie the Be-to-grapher

In the past few days, Livie has been on a picture-taking kick! She says she's a "Betographer" pronounced bee-taw-graf-er. Not sure how that's different than a PHO-tographer, but the differences are there. The things she's chosen to take pictures of are quite interesting. Maybe it's her artistic side that seems to find beauty in the weirdest places or it's just the fact that she herself is weird. Either way, she's having a ball with the camera and wants to take pictures all day long, despite where we might be.



This is the one that started it all. I think having Tater in the house has inspired her to be the betographer. Guess it means you take pictures of everything you find enjoyable. I find she took pictures as a group or series, as you will. The first series is called "Tater's Butt".

"Tater's Butt No. 1"

"Tater's Butt No. 2"

This one was a singular piece entitled "Rolled-up Blanket on Arm Rest".

She went through a series of self-portraits. I only selected a couple of the 12 she took. First she went with this darkened version.

Then tried her hand at a blurry version.

Next was a series on Tater's dog toys. At first, I had no idea what this was. Looked like a butt to me, but that's because I'm obviously not as elevated of an artist as she is. It is the open mouth of the fish toy entitled "Open Mouth of a Fish".

This is called "Smiling Green Dog", close-up.

This is "Puppy Kong", again, close-up.

This is.... well... I have no idea what this is. We'll call it "A".

Lastly, in this series, she did a collage of sorts, using chewed up Eggo boxes and a squeak toy. She called this "Things on the Floor".

She gets tired of sticking with just one series or forum. Opting instead to expose us as a culture to the many facets of life. She did a quick series on cleaning products. She's using her influence as a betographer to show the world the darker side of the cleaning product industry. This one she simply called "No. 409". Breathtaking!

Yet another blurry interpretation. This time of "Oxy".

She ended that series with a total departure from the norm. This is called "My Open Mouth". Makes you really think, doesn't it?

After spending the day at the house, working on her art, she took a break, slept, and woke up the next morning revived to do more. This time, she took her skills with us when we went to the physical therapy office.

This one was called "Rolled-up Paper in my Hand"

"Rolled-up Paper on my Knee"

She went a bit more avaunt-garde with this piece. It's called "Sideways Front Desk".

Another self-portrait.

Ending with a picture of me and my ankle. Obviously her budding career as a betographer is picking up speed. I'm sure once news leaks out about her prowess as a betographer, she'll be getting calls left and right. I know there is a high demand for blurry pictures of open mouths and Tater butts.

Madie's Birthday

Today is Madie Moo's birthday! I can hardly believe she's 10. In fact, it doesn't even feel like her birthday. She's having a big birthday bash on Saturday, so nothing's been decorated. There's no cake. So, it seems kind of dull, but at least she got to open some presents and go out to eat! The decorations and cake will come in a few days. :-)



We got her four things and she got to open one of them with breakfast, which ended up being the bigger of all the gifts. It's the Wii game Glee Karaoke. She absolutely LOVES it!! She loves singing, so this was right up her alley. :-)

Right before we left for the restaurant, she got to open the other ones.

We got her a Cinderella book that comes with scripts for 5 different parts and masks for the different actors to wear. It's so cute and as much as she loves acting too, this again was right up her alley. Though the beautiful story of Cinderella took a turn on the car ride home from the restaurant when Noah, the narrator, started referring to Cinderella as "Pooperella". It was all downhill from there.

Madie chose to go to Jardines, a local mexican restaurant. I was as excited as she was, because this is my very favorite place to eat! You can see the kids were pretty happy with the choice. :-)

Noah announced to the waiter that it was Madie's birthday and he brought her out a fried ice cream sundae. How sweet was that?! Not to mention absolutely DELICIOUS! For a quiet birthday celebration, it turned out to be a pretty fun one. Can't wait for Sat though! We're having a baking party, complete with aprons and cupcake-making. Should be super-fun!

Two Days In..

Well, we are two days in and so far, so good! He's doing a pretty good job on the potty training end of things. Our biggest concern right now is his nipping. He's a chewer, as are all labs. But, this boy likes to chew on PEOPLE! That's not good, so we're working to get him to redirect himself to his toys. Sometimes it's working, sometimes, not so much. But, hey, we're only on day two here. Hopefully he'll continue to learn what's best and what the word "no!" means. :-)



We've already started training him to kill skunks. He likes to carry this one around like it's fresh kill. Take that, skunks!!

This is just a shot of cuteness. Finally got him to sit still for a second, so I could take a picture of him. :-) And, yes, he's really that cute in person too!

We wanted to find a way to keep him mostly in the kitchen on the lino until he's potty trained. Pete came up with this idea, which worked out quite nicely. Just wasn't easy for the me or the kids to get over. You'll see he came up with a MUCH better idea last night.

We bought this gate, so we could corral him during dinner or if we had to get a shower or something. He doesn't like it very much though. He'll sit there and whine until you come pay attention to him. Thankfully Livie likes to hang out in there and play.

Here is Tater's toy bin. He usually just likes to dump it or attack it. We actually caught him laying in it and had to take a picture. Couldn't you just eat him up?!

I think being around his 10 other brothers and sisters caused him to be a little on the stinky side, so we gave him a bath yesterday. As much as he seems to like water (he ALWAYS dumps his water when he's drinking), he did NOT like having a bath. We'll see if that changes as he gets older.

Livie wanted a picture with him as they were both getting ready for bed. Tater was off to dreamland shortly after this picture was taken. :-)

... that is, until Pete got him out again and the playtime began!

Today was a busy day. We went to his first vet check and, after that, headed over to the pet store to get a bell to hang on the door for when he needs to go outside. All that running around tuckered him clean out! He came home and promptly fell asleep mid-bite into his new doggie pillow. :-)

Since Tater wasn't liking the boxed in thing very much, we used it as a divider wall. It's worked out GREAT that way! And much better than the wall of bins we had before. Gives him more room to run around too. You see part of his plethora of toys laying there on the floor.

Here are the rest of them. He's not spoiled at all, is he? So, here we are on day 2 of puppiness and so far things are going well. He's a very sweet boy and, other than the nipping, is wonderful. He loves meeting people and loves to pounce around outside and play with you. Everyone has fallen in love with him already - that is, except the cat. He keeps trying to convince her to play with him, but she's having no part of that. I don't see their relationship improving any time soon. ;-)

The Baby Shower

Before the Tater Invasion 2011 happened, we had a morning of party planning. :-) Saturday morning was a busy morning as we prepared to have 20 guests come and celebrate the upcoming arrival of my friend Patty's new baby boy, Jonathan.



Madie was a spectacular helper for me. She made up all the party trays and did a little decorating too.

My living room isn't quite big enough for 20 people, so we put Patty in the recliner by the kitchen, so we could open up the space more. Please notice on the floor on the left side of the picture is a lady and her daughter sitting on their knees. They sat that like for a good hour! I couldn't believe it! And, the mom is in her mid-80s! I was so amazed. I wouldn't have been able to FEEL my knees, let alone stand up if I had done that.

Patty was all smiles and seemed to have a really great time. :-)

She walked away with lots of super-cute stuff, as well as some gift cards that they went out and spent today, getting those last minute items. She's being induced next week, so we were on a time crunch! It was a really fun afternoon and the calm before the Tater storm that came later that evening. :-)

Look How Fun

Here is more Tater Tot fun!

TATER is Here!!

Today has been a crazy, busy day! But, so full of good stuff. :-) First we had a baby shower for a great friend of mine who is due in like 2 weeks. I have pictures of that too, but I knew how many people were waiting on news about Tater. Figured I should post about that first. :-) After the shower was over, we headed up to Elburn, IL. It took an hour to get there and I swear the kids must've asked if we were there yet 27 times in that hour. They were beyond excited!




When we got there, they went running up to the house!

We were taken to their basement where 6 of the cutest little boy dogs and 2 of the cutest little girl dogs were. It was so hard to pick just one!! They were all so excited to see us and were jumping up and licking us. Oh my gosh. Just pure heaven!!

Pete picked up a couple of them and the last one was the one we chose. THIS was our Tater. :-)

We had to weigh him and sign some paperwork before we could leave. He's a whole 16 lbs right now.

Apparently all that work tuckered the poor guy out and he slept the entire way home.

We took him right outside when we got home. We cheered as he peed and then we ran around and played with him.

I expected him to be a little shy and quiet. Maybe a little scared, after leaving his brothers and sisters, but there is not a shy bone in this dog's body. He's ready to go and has been chewing on everything in sight and getting himself in a whole lot of trouble already. :-) He's cracking me up!

The kids all love him to pieces. It was like love at first sight with him.

I mean, how could you not love this precious little guy? Welcome home, Tater!