How does he know?!

I'm talking to my dog this morning as I'm searching my closet for something to wear.

"Hey hun, let's go potty!"

He looks at me like um. no..I'm good.

"C'mon Trey, let's go potty!"

He stands up, and stretches. Taking his time, he makes his way over to me.

Seeing that I'm still looking through my closet, he makes a split second decision and takes a hike *back to his bed*!!

This, apparently, isn't his first ro-dey-o.

I so love this dog! :)

Random bits

..Still going through my vacation pictures..

I went to The Wood Connection the other day and picked out these adorable letters!! I made this, and now I'm working on xoxo. The best part about that whole ordeal is the fact that it's a wood shop. They just happened to be fresh out of the "O" that I needed. Instead of me waiting for the next "shipment" to come in, the kind man went to the back of the shop, and cut me some O's within about 5 minutes. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!! Love it!

A week or so ago, I decided I'd start to build up an inventory, so I bought some words to stock up. I wanted to work on them a little each night. As it turns out though, this is still what "Home" looks like. I got another order early this week that I've been busting out, and I had to hurry and finish the Valentine's Day letter set before the season passes! Maybe one day I'll be able to casually work on "home".

I ordered some earrings from Etsy so I could see how they were shipped out, if the lady sent business cards, how the pictures compared to the actual product, etc...And well...it turns out that my picture (below), looks a little (lot) more like the actual product than hers did. I was actually *so* excited to purchase these earrings. I thought the little rock piece was going to be bigger than a quarter. In reality, they're smaller than dimes. :( Oh well though...I'll still sport them. It's just crazy how pictures can be so deceiving!

My little guy always sits in the most relaxed positions, and I love, love, love it. So much that I have 34389 pictures of him sitting in the same position. It never gets old! This one, however, is one that we've never seen before. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We are so lucky to have this little guy as our doggie.

My sister went to her first Opera performance (Hansel and Gretel), and she looked so beautiful!! A good friend took her, and they had a wonderful time. I asked her how it was when she got home and she said "It really was just like the movies...the whole time it's like Oooohhhhhhh...AAAhhhhhhh.....OOoooooo..." (Sung in her best singing voice).

I ordered this case for my phone a few weeks ago. It was from a site where you can create and submit any design, or use designs that other people have uploaded. You stretch it, resize it, and position it to get the perfect look! I love how it turned out!!

So, remember my first sale? Well, I got my second one and they want the exact same thing! So, I've started making this again. :) It will be slightly different as they want theirs connected! I'll post pictures when I get it all done! I'm excited to finish it tonight!

We were at the store the other day, and Kassi noticed the "Make your own jewlery" section. She was overly excited! "Jess!! Let's get these, and make our own earrings!!" I agreed, so we purchased a few to give it a shot. Once we got home, the mood changed a little. Kass decided she didn't want "us" to make our own earrings...she wanted "me" to make "us" some earrings. So that's just what I did! We love how they turned out, and I can't wait until "we" can make some more!!

And, last but *soooooooooo* not least. I officially have a new home for all of my crafts!!!! Yesterday my Aunt and I met with the booth coordinator at *The Quilted Bear* in our local town, and she totally loves our stuff!!!!! Our booth will be ready mid-February, and we'll be in business. Literally. The Quilted Bear is a store that I've admired for so long. It's for handmade crafts (sort of like Etsy in real life, I guess), and it's one of those stores you can get lost in. I've spent so much time there, and I cannot believe that now I'll be spending more...not because I'll be shopping, but because I'll be *stocking*!! I cannot wait!! I'll definitely post pictures once we get everything all set up!

(This picture is one of the locations about a half an hour away. You can kind of see what the inside is like though.)

A Puppy Story--

--To be read every time I long to buy another puppy.

It started about 6 weeks ago when my Dad's dog had her puppies. I went with my sister Kassi one day to see them.

And, then I went back again with Travis, to see them again.

Then, I went back again by myself.

I had fallen

totally, and completely

in love with her.

Let me clear that up some. By "I had fallen..." I mean that I still am one hundred percent in love with this little girl and I hope (even after this weekend, and the following examples) that no one wants to buy her.

So then Trey and I started to convince Trav that we need another puppy, and that Trey wants a friend. (Trey mostly let me convince Trav, he supported me though, I am sure of it.)

The only problem with this situation is that my love..well, she's a Great Dane puppy.

Apparently she is supposed to get big or something.

The other problem is that Travis does not want another puppy.

--

To sort of cure my puppy craze, I told Mari that I would puppy sit for her for a few days. She bought a puppy from someone down here, and wasn't able to come pick her up for a few days.

Kass and I went to pick her (Bernelli (Nelli)) up over the weekend. We took her to a nearby school to play, and to take lots of pictures.

The puppy craze was cured after a few hours.

And even though

--You cannot let a puppy out of your sight for more than 30 seconds.
--Puppy pee and puppy droppings are not nearly as cute as the puppy.
--Sometimes puppies like to scratch you with their really sharp claws.
--Puppies get scared at night, and they make really loud noises which can prevent one from sleeping. This also causes Travis to be a little cranky.
--You cannot leave your house as much when you have a puppy.
--Working a full time job and trying to potty train a puppy is no bueno.

I still want a puppy.

Now that Nelli is gone, I miss her. Especially when I look at her:

I should probably stay away from my Dad's for a few days. Unless I want a mini horse with droppings the size of a basketball.

I don't think this post went the way I was intending. I'm not sure if it's enough to steer me out of a puppy purchasing decision!

Camping...two weekends in a row.

Camping two weeks in a row is the perfect start to any summer, imo.

Last year I had to ask someone what imo meant. (Rookie, I know.)

Oh well, the past is the past, and this year I'm rockin' it.

Sort of like how I "rocked" going camping one weekend, going out of town during the next week for work, and then going camping again the next weekend, which happened to be the day I got home from out of town.

Packing was pretty easy that month. :)

Anyways, here are some pictures from our camping trip like 3 or 4 weeks ago.

Turns out I like to post *lots* of pictures on the blog. Also, I'm pretty indecisive, so I have a hard time deciding which pictures should stay and go.

But I don't like to wait for them to individually load.

So, I throw them all together into a collage (Well, not really throw...sometimes I try to make the pictures look pretty, and put them in a collage with other pictures that "flow".

That way I only have to wait for a few pictures (of pictures) to upload.

I know it's taking the easy way out.

Don't judge.

1-- I've always wanted Trey to love the water. Kinda weird, I know. There's just something about a puppy swimming, playing in water, that I absolutely adore. This time when we went camping, I decided to trick him by throwing a rock into the river behind our tent and tell him to "Go get it!" (I knew he wouldn't want anything to do with the water if I just told him to "Go in") Being the disciplined doggie that he is, he ran right into the water. I know if he could speak English, he would have thanked me over and over. From that point on, we couldn't really get him *out* of the water. He really loved it! It also helped while we were packing things up, I'd throw a rock in and tell him to go get it and he'd spend a good 20 minutes in the river looking for the same exact rock that I threw :). I am almost as excited as I was the first time he lifted his leg to pee on a tree

2-- I'm trying to talk Trav into us getting a truck. In the meantime, Trey and I share the front seat. Um, not necessarily a favorite of either of ours. I suppose it's good "quality" time though. I took the first picture on the way up, and the second one on the way back. He was a tired little boy on the way home. I don't blame him though. Peeing and marking territory on every single tree within a mile radius has got to be rough. He lives a rough life I tell ya

3-- I adore these flowers, and love how they look against the black car that was passing them. I bet the people in the black car thought that I thought they (or their car) was awesome, but that's not the case. They can still think that though, I suppose.

We saw this blazer catch on fire on the way up the mountain. I didn't know that the name of the vehicle was a literal name. That's a super quick way to put a damper on things. (Note to self: Don't buy a blazer

4-- Camping was wonderful, as always! Someone was in *our spot* so we had to camp right next to it, which wasn't so bad...but we're thinking about putting a permanant sign by our spot that says "The Johnsons" or something. I hope that's not illegal. We did all of the usual things: Fished, Rafted, Canoed, Cooked, Hung out, Made someone fall out of a boat, Laughed, and had a great time! --Even the falling out of the boat (canoe) part. One thing that we tried that we'd never done before was cook "Hobo Dinners". These are probably the most amazing thing in the world! I highly suggest them..we are definitely going to add this little dinner to each of our camping trips from now on!!

Fishing, Crafting, Visiting, BBQing, Wanting, and Loving.

Love this!! Trey and Kassi, sharing a pillow. So adorable.

Ok, I'm going to have to blog a lot this week because if I see these cute puppy wrinkles every time I open my blog, I will give in and bring home another one, and Travis will not be happy. Must. Blog. More.
*Also, while we're admiring the beautifulness that is this puppy, if you can't tell he was trying so hard to get under our gate. Our neighbor's daughter was visiting and brought her two dogs (one of them being this puppy). The second the puppy came to visit, he darted to the gate and wanted to play with Trey, who was on the other side...doing the same exact thing. It was the most precious thing I've ever seen. If there weren't 42 dogs in our front yard, I would have let Trey out. He gets a little hump crazy, so instead, I brought wrinkles around to the back and they met. I really, really want another puppy.

Thanks to the long weekend, I was able to get a few crafts done and I absolutely LOVE how they turned out. This one is a shadowbox frame with real objects inside (actual block letters, real (fake) flowers, etc..)

And this is just wood block letters. The first of many to come. I'm officially in love.

We were able to do some fishing, which was nice because I was pretty bummed about having to cancel our camping trip/ :( (See: Weather,yousuck!)

That just about sums up our Memorial Day weekend!!

Have you ever had one of those days...

...where you're SOOOOOOOOOOO tired, but you don't want to go to sleep, in fear of missing any excitement??

Trey has. This weekend was full of that! Finally, late Sunday night after we had an empty house, he crashed in front of the couch in the living room and I had to actually nudge him to wake him up when we went to bed!!

Dog Bliss.

Our rug *finally* shipped in today!

Due to this, Trey has been a busy boy. He has sniffed every inch of the 8x10 bit of goodness and has laid on about half of it, and so far,he seems to approve.

Glad we have his vote too!

Little loves for today..

Valentine's Day is coming up quickly! I thought I'd share a few things I'm loving today...

This keeps me sane. The creator of Pandora needs a raise.

How could I not love a dog who will pose for me any day...it also helps when he looks so dang studly!

One of my new favorite scents!

MAAHH DEE OHHH equals obsession. Except for Trav and I finally beat the game last night (Kass, you should have been there. There was excitement for all. Even Trey...except he didn't know why he was so excited. He just was, just because we were, I guess.) Now how will we spend our nights?! Nintendo, I'd like a Super Mario Bros. 2 please. I'd also like that sometime this week. Thanks.

Finally planning a *mini* vacation with the bestest and um...I couldn't be happier! Vegas, here we come!!

Our doggie.

Today (and always) I'm thankful for my Treydogg.

It was about a year after graduation and I'd already started telling Trav how badly I wanted a puppy. "No way!" He would say. "We don't have a house, we live in an apartment, and they are a lot more work than you think!!" I assured him that we had plenty of puppies growing up and and it would be just fine. I said the apartment had tons of grass, so we'd have no problems. It still didn't change his mind.

I still knew I wanted a dog though. I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted a beige (red nose) pitbull.

One weekend I was in Idaho visiting the bestest and she mentioned that her parents got a puppy and then decided that they didn't want him after all. She didn't know what kind of puppy it was because he was too little. She THOUGHT it might have been a pitbull.

The minute she told me about him, we picked up and left to go see him!

We pulled into her parents house and there he was. Huddled in the corner of the house and the step, all by himself. He was a pitbull, I could tell right away. He wasn't beige, or even a red nose...He was a brindle, but I loved him. I picked him up and didn't put him down until we got to the Petco to get his "free puppy nail clipping." I couldn't resist. He was the most adorable puppy I'd ever seen and I was pretty sure Trav would be just as happy about it as I was!

Mari (bestest) lived with her cousins at the time so when we went back to the house, everyone was getting ready to go out and have fun and I didn't want to. I couldn't really. I had this little puppy...who was a little scared because of all this new excitement. Deep down, I started to worry at that moment...What was I going to do with him while we were at work? What if we couldn't have puppy's at our apartment? Would I be able to afford anything he needed? Shots? Food? Toys? It didn't matter though, he was mine and I would do the best I could. I didn't want to let anyone know I was worried about it, mainly because that part couldn't get to Travis! I remember it was a Saturday and all I was thinking was how excited I was to get home with my new puppy and show Travis!! I couldn't wait until Sunday, so Kass and I left that night, instead of going out with our friends.

I went home with Trey and he slept on the couch with me that night. Travis had spent the weekend at his dad's so he saw Trey when he got home the next morning. He wasn't the happiest Travis in the world, but he knew how bad I wanted a puppy and agreed he was adorable. He kept saying over and over though, how much work it was going to be to have a puppy!

Trey was 4 weeks old and so, so, small and cuddly!!

Now, he's 3 1/2 years old, weighs 55 pounds, and still likes to cuddle! In fact, he gives hugs and kisses for free, anytime!!

I'm extremely lucky to have Trey as my first dog. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better dog. I couldn't even pay $1000 to buy a better dog. He is such a sweet boy! With any other dog, we most definitely had rough times. Potty training was fairly hard because Trav and I were both working during the day. He had a few months where he decided he wanted to see how many hoses he could make us buy, and he chewed a few of his 30 dollar beds up, the night after we bought them...but now, he is perfect and everything we went through to get to this point was 100 percent worth it. There are also many, many things that we never even had to worry about with him. Things that kind of just came in the package deal. We never had to worry about him going out of the yard. In fact, he's a scaredy cat sometimes and won't go potty by himself unless you walk with him to the part of the yard that he likes to conduct business with. We never had to worry about him jumping (or stepping) over any type of gate that we'd put up when we weren't home, and he's always just been nice. (For awhile there, we didn't think he even knew how to bark!)

He is extremely nice, friendly, playful, and lovable. He will follow you until...well, he never really stops following you. When you stop though, he stops and lays down and gets comfy till you're ready to move again :). Then at the same time, he has a personality! Sometimes he is stubborn and when you tell him to shake, he will look at you and let you know he knows what you are talking about, he just decides not to do it. He eventually gives in though, so he has a cute stubborn-ness to him. Not an annoying one!

If our next dog is even half as amazing as Trey, I will be satisfied!

Here's a pic of my buddy. (He has been right here, resting his head on my lap, the entire time I've been writing this post!)

Now we're off to bed!

Busy weekend!!

This weekend we had some family come up (down?) from Alabama so Saturday night we all went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house and I made some delicious chicken enchiladas! There were like 6 of us in the kitchen cooking so we had the enchiladas, a green salad, a fruit salad, spanish rice, garlic bread, and a cake!! It was yummy!! After dinner we enjoyed some live music from the Nay Family Band (Our cousins/Aunt/Uncle) for a little over an hour and then we played some games! We played Scattegories, Apples to Apples, and a hilarious game with no name. At one point we were all laughing so hard we were crying and sniffling! Grandma ended up bringing in a tissue box and putting it in the middle of the table for us all to share. We all had a fantastic time and can't wait until the next time we get to hang out and play games together!

Trav spent the majority of the weekend over at his Grandma's doing finishing touches on the roof so I watched most of the game by myself at home. Kassi came over about halfway through and finished it with me. In the beginning I thought we had it made!! Two touchdowns in the first half, we were drivin it like crazy, Ravens couldn't do anything! It was awesome! Then after the half things went downhill!! Thank God we had enough of a lead to stay safe!! The last two seconds of the game depended on a field goal that the Ravens kicked. If they were to make it, they would have won by a point!! It was so intense!!! They missed it though, that's all that matters! So now, SIX and 0 for my boys!!!! They have not been 6-0 since 2003! This has been an awesome year so far! I'm so excited to watch them play their game each week, such a fun team! I suggest everyone jumps on the Vikings bandwagon right now. This shall be the year.

After the game Trey and I went to the park. I've been wanting to take pictures of the trees down here for a couple of weeks now! The seasons are changing and it is beautiful everywhere right now. Trey's also wanted to go to the park for a few weeks (I'm assuming) so it was a win-win situation!!