Soccer season is here

This weekend saw the first 2 games of the YMCA soccer season down here. Paige played Friday evening and Emma had a game this morning. Paige's team did really well and had the ball most of the game, but they couldn't manage to score and ended up losing 1-0. Paige had the bad luck to be the goalie when the other team scored, but it wasn't all her fault... The players Melissa had tagged to play defense kind of zoned out and the other team just ran past them so it was just them against Paige! Oh, well... She had a great game once she got out of the goal. Last time she played soccer she wasn't too into it and just stood around, but she has been enjoying the practices and was really good during the game. She went after the ball a lot, which is something she didn't do last season.

Emma's team has a bunch of the same players that she played with on the fall season, which was when her team went undefeated. They're off to strong start this year with a 2-0 win in their first game. Ian scored and then Noah put one in to seal it. Emma had a good game as well with a couple of good breakaways. Her team TOTALLY dominated the other team. Those poor kids didn't even really get a chance to score... And they were all dog tired. The opposing team only had 3 substitutes and the kids are playing 7-on-7 on a MUCH bigger field than last year. They're really having to run this season.

Em ready to kick off.


Heading down the field.


Em concentrating.


Paige practicing before the game.


Warming up to play goalie for the first quarter.


Look at that hair fly!


She's really getting into it this year, so it's nice to see her chasing down the ball like this.

Enough with the dogs already!

I know you're all tired of looking at dog pictures. Okay! We get it! Your new dog is cute or whatever! So here is a picture of Emma to try to get this blog back on track. As some of you know, I bought a new studio style light. Not because I love to spend money or I'm a shopaholic or anything like that, but because it will better help me document the lives of my precious girls! SO THERE!!!

Anyway, Melissa is out in Orlando picking up Greg and she has the other girls with her. I brought home Em from soccer practice and she jumped in the shower while I started messing with the camera. When she got out she was all wrapped up in her duck towel and I finally had someone to sit in front of my new flash! I just got it and I need some practice, but this one came out pretty well.

After her big photo shoot she requested a gourmet dinner. So I whipped up a little recipe I call "applejack's". No one pours milk on a bowl of cereal as good as I do...

Easter... Fer Realzies!

Nice blurry pic! Doi!!!
That is Sailor on the far left, next is Em and behind her, Paige. A bunch of soccer friends are in the pic too. That bunny was pretty scary. The person's face was peeking out of the flower in the hat!


OK, my camera must have been foggy or something. It was pretty dampy that day. Do these pics look blurry to everyone?
Paige, Sailor and Em. Scary face/hat bunny lurking....And Mrs. Big Ass in my pic who wouldn't move!!!! Sailor is Uncle Denny's Cousin Judy's granddaughter. Judy married Mike and I. We will probably get her to marry us again next summer for our big 10 year anniversary, right hun?


Sophi, Bunny, Annie and Paige.


Egg-tastic Frenzy. Soph managed to grab me a stuffed purple bunny! They were shooting them out of a cannon!


Em and some girls from the team, except Gigi, she takes dance.

Happy Easter...Here are some pics of some Dogs!

Still not tired of puppies? In case you haven't checked Jen's page....she got a puppy on Saturday for the boys' Easter present. Ok, maybe it was a little for her too. Who cares! Its a puppy!! Her name is Abby and she is Fin's girlfriend. Jen and I always joked about having babies at the same time. I knew I wouldn't get pregnant again so that dream was ruined. But having puppies at the same time is almost as sweet. She is a pretty big girl, 5 weeks younger than Fin but two pounds heavier!

We had a big hunt in our front yard for Easter and while we don't have any pics up yet of it, here is one of the dog's wrasslin' while the hunt was taking place!





Another good shot of Bo, relaxing.



Go Dawgs! Me chillin' with Fin whilst everyone was partying in the backyard, even though you can't see them.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well today is/was a great day. Except for the fact that I had to work on my birthday everything went great! It actually was nice working because a million, literally, people wished me happy birthday. I like having people know it's MY day!!!! Yippee!! Jen made me a cake for my school lunch so that was awesome, and unexpected, so THanKS! Mike made me a sweet shirt that said "Why yes, I do turn 29 today. Again." Everyone at school loved it and came to find me just to read it....so you know I loved that attention! Mom got me some sweet CROCS. I know I said I would never wear those awful shoes, but I don't mind the Mary Jane style, which is what she got me. But, I'm sad to say, Jen won the bet and has me wearing crocs finally! I got lots of money from my Dad and Nannie and some family friends, the Donnels. So thanks everyone for making it a great day!

And for the grand finale....Mike, the girls and the Schraders all went in together and built me a sweet agility training course for Bo and Finley. It is so awesome, I thought it was a set that you bought, but come to find out, they MADE it!!!! It is all cut perfect and firmly put together so I was really impressed. Thanks Chris and Mike for all that hard work!

You see, they're already using it!


Zig zag bars. I'm not up to date on the terms yet, but the dogs zig zag thru the bars, hence the name! Em had Fin running thru it in no time. Wish I had taken a vid.


The hoop is from the Schraders. We got Bo to kind of jump thru it. We had to put her legs up on it though. It's a start!

After our big rager Finley passed out by the can!


Self Portrait. Totally gangster.


In other news.....my garden has sprung. These are beans. Just planted them a week ago and they are already 6 inches tall!


That is zucchini to the right of the cage. Those are also from seed. Everything else is growing from a plant.

Blarney!

We had some St. Paddy's festivities Friday night. Green pancakes were involved and some Irish art work topped off the night.



The kids cut out the body parts and glued them to paper. The older kids wrote sentences and the younger ones just drew a body in its rightful place.


Em convinced the others that "happy" Leprechauns have pink faces...I get a pink happy face too....after a mojito!


Last two cuties, working hard.

Arf Arf!

Saturday was Em's 8th horse lesson. She will be transferring to a Wednesday class this week. Finley and I took Em and Will to their lesson. Finley had such a great time playing with the farm dog, Lucy. After a while Hope convinced me to let him off the leash. He ran all around, outside the ring thankfully, and tried to stay away from the horses!



Some herding instinct! Your not supposed to take those eyes off the horse!


Let's get this class started!


Now that's more like it. Pay attention!

Delta II

Last night the Schrader's came over for dinner. The kids also watched the new Nancy Drew movie and after we put them to bed, the grown ups started some hurting Jodi Foster movie where she's a vigilante... It was really long. By the time that was over it was pretty late and there was a Delta II Launch scheduled for 2:10 in the morning, so Chris and I decided we'd drive over to the river and take some pictures. The clouds were spotty last night and for a little while it seemed like we'd have a clear view, but as you can see we had some drift back in just before liftoff.

We went to the dog beach last weekend. It was *freezing* out and very windy so I felt safe taking Boda, knowing that no one else would be there. While has been doing extremely well on our walks by the house and in Jen's neighborhood, she has not yet mastered walks with the girls or walks in more public type places. During these walks she will nervously emit a high powered sonic pulse thru her vocal cords and if you're lucky enough it won't damage your ear drum that much. Anyway, she was OK. We walked around the new path made especially for dogs. Dogs were kicked off the boardwalk path because owners weren't picking up poop (what kind of weird dog poops on a boardwalk???) and there had been some bites within the recent years. The new path is very beautiful and has new benches and baggies everywhere but it is so short! I have lots more pics but blogger wouldn't let me post anymore! Enjoy and I'll try to post more later!

Skinny grandma poses with the girls.


Work it girl!


Over yonder!

Banished to the sandy path like we are some mere commoners...not fit to walk on the fancy boardwalk.


Nice rocks, nice girls.


Paige posed like this on every rock she could find and wouldn't move until I took her pic!

We Have Success!!

Not much to say. I have been working incessantly! I might have off on Friday....yeah!!!! I won't get my hopes up! I feel so badly for Finley since he has to sit in the crate so much. At least Mike is home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sometimes he gets to go play with Kiki during the day too. Which he loves.

Soph and Finley get along great. I am teaching him to wake up the girls. Each morning I tell him "Let's go wake up the girls." We run into their rooms and he puts his paws on their beds. He isn't strong enough to jump up there yet, but I lift him up and he starts licking them. Hopefully, if my training missions are successful he will do this on voice command alone!


Here we were getting ready to go for a nighttime walk. I am in my new Wildcats jacket. I am sticking my stomach out. It looks like I am five months pregnant, but dont' worry! My back is just bent and you can't tell cause I have a jacket on!


We had a few days with some cold weather. Paige insisted on having a fire one day and then called us liars because we never built her one when we said we would. So the next day we put together a fire and all ate dinner together in front of it.


As you can see, I am really tired. I cant stress this enough. I dont' know how old people get puppies. I can barely keep up with mine and I am only almost 29. This was a rare moment when I was able to lay on the couch during nap time and the dogs cuddled up together. The calico perches by my head as always.


Friday night, Em's friend from class stopped by. Isabella actually lives a few houses down and this is the first time she has been over. Now Em is obsessed with trying to play with her. She was nice. We ordered pizza and I made them cookies.

Attention Peoples. I have been trying to update tonight but blogger just ain't having it! I didn't really do anything all week so I didn't really take any pics. If you click on over to my bro's website you will find a slide show with tons of pics Karen took. She came on Sunday and left Monday...she had been working in FL. We had a fun filled 24 hours and the girls didn't understand why she could only stay one day!

As for me...I will try to update again after work on Monday. Sorry.

Check out our new puppy website:

www.doggiebounce.blogspot.com