Mish Mash Monday - King and Jester

We were supposed to post this earlier today for Mish Mash Monday -- butt Mommy couldn't get her act together AGAIN !!!

Have a great night!

Lassiter Chase & Benjamin the Shelties

We are the real winners in this story!!!

Grandma made pizza today. (I'll get to that later in this post...)

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Yesterday, Mommy's sister and family came over for dinner and Mommy's sister said she won a supermarket gift card at her work. They were having an Appreciation Week for employees and Mommy's sister won like a $20 gift card in a Raffle.

Mommy was so excited for her sister. Mommy was practically jumping up and down with her sister celebrating the good news that she won a prize. (I must emphasize the word "practically jumping" cause Mommy doesn't jump!)

Anyway, so they were all going "Yay" and "Hooray" in those high-pitched voices. They were so excited.

Then Mommy says to her sister, "So, are you going to buy DOG TREATS with that gift card?"

The room suddenly turned ugly -- and Mommy's sister says in a really low voice "EXCUSE ME!"

I couldn't blame Mommy for trying to get us treats out of the deal!

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Anyway, Mommy had to go to work today, butt her sister had the day off.

Mommy's sister texted Mommy that she went to the supermarket with her gift card and "bought something for your dogs."

Mommy's sister's next text said -- "Your dog's spotted the treats and they want them NOW!" (Mommy thought to herself -- Yep, that sounds like my dogs alright!)

Finally, Mommy's sister gave into us begging her for treats -- and she gave us some.

Mommy texted her sister thanking her for buying the treats! Does Mommy have a great sister or what!!!!

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They were those Filet Mignon Soft and Chewy bones. (Mommy has a hard time finding these in the store -- she keeps finding the Chicken Flavored ones, butt not these.) Mind you, Mommy only shops at like 2 stores. She hates to drive, and only shops at the 2 closest stores to the house. So, the 2 stores she goes to, doesn't have the Filet Mignon ones anymore.



This picture is what heaven looks like to us!!!!

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Anyway, now for the pizza part of the story.

Mommy has been wanting pizza all week. Mommy doesn't watch too much tv when she gets home from work -- but it seems what rare TV shows she's watched all week -- ALWAYS had a pizza commercial in it.

So, Grandma said she would make Pizza for today, cause Mommy kept going "ooo and ahhh" when those pizza commercials came on! (She was making us drool with all her "ooo-ing and ahhh-ing!"). Above are Grandma's pizzas. Mommy said that was Grandma's best pizza ever!!!!

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Is it wrong that the humans only ate Pizza for dinner today, and us dogs ate FILET MIGNON ?

What a glorious day!

Lassiter Chase & Benjamin the Shelties

True Color Thursday - Polka Dot Challenge!!!

Today's challenge was a 2 week challenge. We had to find items with polka dots. It had to be items that specifically had red, blue, purple, green, black and yellow with white polka dots!

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1. RED


Our cool mushroom toy from Finn is red with white polka dots!

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2. BLUE


Mommy created this pinwheel out of blue duct-tape with white polka dots. It's made from a pencil, duct-tape, paperclip and a piece of round plastic (kinda like a straw.) How creative is Mommy! It even spins!!! We made a video that has the pinwheel in it. http://youtu.be/J1Ps2o55QZY


Did you hear our neighbor dog bark in the video? Hope you didn't think that was Ben who barked. Ben yaps just like me, butt not as often! Anyway...



Mommy's sister has a pair of garden gloves that are blue with white polka dots too!

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3. PURPLE


Mommy saw a Lilly on the window at church and it has a purple with white polka dot plastic paper around it.

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4. GREEN


Mommy's niece actually thought of Mommy's green dice, doesn't it look like white polka dots. (Mommy's nephew calls dice a "domino". )


Mommy thought the green leaves on the apple tree on the right, with the white flowers blooming on it looked polka dotted! We were too busy playing with our ball to notice the polka dots though!

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5. BLACK


Mommy ate jellybeans at work. A co-worker brought them in. Mommy hasn't had a jellybean in probably 20 years or more. She never buys them, she knows she doesn't like all the flavors, so she doesn't buy them.

So, it was like a blast from the past for Mommy eating jellybeans.

She took out the black and white jellybeans and arranged it in a polka dot fashion above.


She ate a few of the jellybeans! She felt like a kid again! Thus the "Jellybean the Clown" picture. I thought you weren't supposed to play with your food -- Mommy!

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6. YELLOW




Mommy arranged the Yellow and White push pins. And we made a sign with our names on a yellow piece of paper and Mommy added "white-out" dots to it!

Mommy also noticed a Yellow ribbon that had White polka dots -- but she couldn't snap a picture of it in time. (Guess you just got to imagine it.)

We sure had fun with this polka dot challenge (including Mommy)!

Lassie & Benji

Mish Mash Monday - Toilet Paper is NOT a necessity!

Not sure what our faces are saying in the above photo -- it was a rainy weekend.

Anyway...

On Sunday, Mommy started off the morning grabbing the weekly supermarket circular that comes in the mail and started to read it.

I immediately thought -- oh no -- she is going to spend money and ruin our budget!

I instantaneously jumped on the sofa next to her and tried to smack the newspaper out of her hands with my paw. When that didn't work, I kept putting my nose under the bottom of the newspaper and tried to knock it out of her hands.

Mommy said -- Lassie, I need to go to the supermarket because we are down to our last roll of toilet paper.

I told Mommy -- Toilet Paper is NOT a necessity! If us dogs can go potty without using any toilet paper -- then you humans can do it too! Besides, if you need to wipe -- there is always the grass outside or the living carpet!

Mommy's like -- I don't think so!!!

I put my paw down and didn't want Mommy to go to the store since it was raining.

Then Mommy says -- Besides, Lassie, we are almost out of your dog food, we will need to buy it at some point this week or you will run out of it.

My ears perked up immediately, and told Mommy -- why didn't you say so in the first place!

I practically pushed Mommy out the door to buy dog food and said, make sure you take your jacket with the hood so you don't get too wet!

Then I added, maybe you should take an umbrella too so my bag of dog food doesn't get wet either!!!!

Mommy bought the toilet paper, dog food, and also bought us treats too!

So much for the budget!!!!

Lassie and Benji


This picture is of me and Ben snapped right after the other picture. I want to go back to bed for another nap on the sleepy rainy weekend -- and I think Benji is doing a potty inspection check on me. See, you don't need toilet paper when you have a little brother who can help clean up.

Ball in the Tree

Mommy was still on the quest to take a good picture of us with the ball.  In the above picture, I kept barking non-stop, butt, Mommy kinda likes this photo anyway.

Mommy figured, it's so hard to get us near the ball, so maybe we need a decoy ball for the picture.  You know how Magicians use a 2nd or 3rd ball to make the illusion work.

Anyway, we placed the Cat-Rat Basketball in the yard, and brought out a little yellow character ball.

Look what happened to the little character ball -- it got stuck in the tree.  Nonetheless, Mommy is a big "Survivor" and "Big Brother" reality TV show fan -- so she was up to the challenge of getting the ball out of the tree!

This is the photo Mommy took the next day. She gave up on the decoy balls!   

Our regular ball got stuck behind this little bush that is starting to bloom and I am trying to pull the ball towards me to get it out.  It kinda looks like we are playing with the ball.  

Have a great weekend!

Lassie & Benji

P.S.  Our blogger layout changed, and we are crossing our paws to hope this post looks ok.

I saw a Cat-Rat !!!

Inquiring Bloggers want to know what I saw in the yard at 5 am on Sunday!!!

It was a Cat-Rat -- well, that's what I called it! It had the body of a Cat but the face and tail like a Rat! A "Cat-Rat"!!!!

Here's the whole story...

On Sunday, April 15, 2012, Mommy woke up at 5am, she decided to just let us dogs out for a quick potty break and then go back to bed.

That was wishful thinking!

She turned on the outdoor light for us, since it was still pitch black outside, and as soon as she opened the back door, I spotted something in the back corner of the yard! I took off running at top speed to chase it.

At first, Mommy was like -- oh no, is that another bunny.

She couldn't see too well, because the outdoor light doesn't shine all the way in the back of the yard that well. But from the shadows it looked like something fat with a really long skinny tail.

Mommy said to herself --- I think that's a Possum.

Mommy screamed -- Lassie, NO!!!

Lassie, NO!!!

Lassie, LEAVE IT!!!

I couldn't hear what Mommy was saying!

The Cat-Rat climbed on top of the fence and wouldn't move!!!

My eyes were focused on the Cat-Rat. I was barking non-stop at it --- Cat-Rat, Yap! Cat-Rat, Yap! Go Away, Cat-Rat! Yap! Yap! Yap!

Benji, just stood in the middle of the yard -- he didn't know what to make of what was going on. I heard him ask me -- what's a Cat-Rat? Butt, I was too busy barking at the Cat-Rat to answer questions!

Mommy tried to call me and Benji in. She said "Lassie - Come, Benji - Come! "

Didn't work!

Plan B. Mommy shook the treat box by the back door! "Who wants a treat!"

Benji came in running for a treat and got a treat!


Can you believe I heard Benji tell Mommy ---- I'll eat Lassie's treat, Mommy!


Here I am trying to protect my land, my little brother, my Mommy and Grandma, from this Cat-Rat -- and all Benji is thinking about is food!!!!



Mommy put on her shoes and grabbed a flash light and went to the back corner of the yard.

It was slightly drizzling outside.

Mommy just was saying in a mean voice --- Lassie! No! -- Lassie! Come! -- Lassie! Leave it! -- Lassie! Bad!!!

Nothing seemed to work -- Mommy said I seemed fixated on the Possum. I was staring it down and barking!

Mommy couldn't get a read on the Possum either, she saw it move it's head a little. She's not sure if the Possum was staring at me, but all she knows was that I was staring and barking at the Possum and that the Possum was NOT going to move from the fence! It was a tense situation!

Mommy doesn't know much about Possum's -- do they bite -- do they attack -- can't do research -- in an emergency!

Mommy couldn't get into the back corner where we were at because it is behind our grotto and there are a bunch of overgrown bushes, and Evergreen Trees back there. Mommy needs to do some Spring Cleaning in this area big time!!!!!

The grotto has a bunch of rocks on the ground, and it's tricky walking on there, since the rocks aren't cemented in -- and the rocks were wet.

Mommy didn't want to poke out her eye trying to get back there in the dark. And didn't want to hurt herself slipping on the rocks. And if the situation got ugly -- Mommy really couldn't run in that area cause of so many branches and obstacles.

Mommy needed a distraction. Something to focus my attention away from the Cat-Rat because Mommy's yelling wasn't getting my attention!

She quickly looked around for something to use as a distraction!

Guess she could have used one of the hundreds of rocks right in front of her nose -- but nonetheless, she looked for something - something that would make a noise.

So, Mommy grabbed a Basketball in the yard and threw it near me. She didn't hit me with it -- butt it made enough noise bouncing in the crinkly leaves and hitting the fence, to break my eye contact away from the Possum!

I heard Mommy this time saying --- Lassie -- No! Leave It! Get in the house -- Bad!

I barked about 5 more barks at the Cat-Rat, and then left it alone and went in the house. (It's like it didn't interest me anymore.)

Mommy is so thankful no one got hurt!



This picture was taken later in the day on Sunday. Trust Mommy when she says, the rock and tree obstacles looked scarier in the dark! (Especially, when you only have a small flashlight with a practically dead battery in it!)

1) She put a white cat stamp on the fence where the Possum was "harassing me". They didn't have any Possum stamps in her computer program! 2)She put a dog stamp where I was. I was hidden behind the Christmas Tree branches, you can't really tell from the picture. 3)The arrow stamp on the picture is the basketball, you can kinda see the blue coloring of the basketball behind the bush!




As if the Cat-Rat situation wasn't stressful enough for Mommy. I came in and wiped my muddy pawprints all over the rug. (Look at Benji's feet all "white-as-snow", and how mine are all muddy!)



After Mommy calmed down a bit -- she practiced our recalls in the house. Lassie, Come! I went over to Mommy with lightening-fast speeds whenever she called my name in the house. She walked to one end of the room and said, Lassie, Come! And zoom -- there I was with a big smile on my face. She walked to the opposite end of the room and said, Lassie, Come! And zoom, there I was again with a big smile.

Mommy forgave me and knows I was just trying to protect her.

Have a great day!

Lassie & Benji

P.S. Do you know, Mommy did a little research on Possums on the internet just to make sure what she saw was actually a Possum. She was right - it was a Possum!

Butt she also read an article about how Possum's are good at getting rid of snakes, and mice, and other kinds of small rodents and bugs in the yard. And they hunt at night and sleep during the day!

When Mommy read that - she was like -- Lassie, how could you try to chase that thing away from our yard. :)

Happy Belated Mish Mash Monday -- Trying out Honey's Photo tips

Hi Blog friends,

I know today is Tuesday. We wanted to post a Mish Mash Monday post since we haven't done one in a few weeks. Butt, it seems Mommy just can't get her act together on Sunday night or Mondays! We will try to wake Mommy up even earlier on Monday morning before work so she can help us post on time!!!


When Mommy gets home from work, we have been playing ball in the yard with Mommy (and Mommy's niece.)

Mommy tried taking these pictures with her cell phone.

Mommy can't zoom well with her cell phone, so we end up being tiny dots in the picture. She had to crop the picture above so you could see us in the photo.

MISH MASH PHOTO = Mommy told her niece, try throwing the ball "at me" so I can try to get a picture of the dogs closer to me. Well, the ball ended up hitting Mommy in the leg. (Mommy has to remember to say-- try throwing the ball "towards me butt don't hit me with the ball" next time!) :)

So, Mommy remembers reading Big Honey Dog's Post earlier that day about Photo tips.

Mommy told her niece to hold the ball in the air. And Mommy squatted down like a baseball catcher, and tried to snap some photos of us from that angle (something she hasn't done before.)

Mommy was able to get some good photos.

MISH MASH PHOTO = Mommy tried to do one of Honey's other tips about trying to talk to the dogs to see if they make different facial expressions. So, Mommy tried talking to us while she was squatting down -- and we immediately ran over to Mommy and ALMOST KNOCKED MOMMY DOWN ON HER BUM!. Mommy was able to save her fall by reaching out with her hand. (That's the picture she was able to take when she was falling backwards.)


What has Mommy learned from the Photo Shoot = she likes the pictures from getting down low. She wishes the ball was in the photo with us, we will keep trying. And, the most important thing Mommy learned is -- try kneeling when she starts talking to us dog in the photo so she doesn't fall backwards again!!!

Have a great post-Mish Mash Monday.

Lassie and Benji


P.S. We can't wait to tell you about what happened when we went outside to go potty at 5 am on Sunday morning!

True Color - gingham & Easter Basket Questions Answered

True Color Thursday color is gingham. We never heard the name "gingham" before, so Mommy keeps having to look it up on the True Color Thursday blog, because she can't remember that name for nothing!!!


1. Mommy found this piece of material that is the gingham color. It was in Grandma's bag of material that she is saving. Grandma said it could make a good pillowcase set one day. So, anyway, here we are in the meantime, having a little photo-shoot on the future pillowcases.


That's me, Lassie.



That's me again! I'm so handsome!


There's Benji!

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2. Mommy was having trouble finding more gingham color stuff.



So, Mommy's sister came over with a bag of old kids clothes that the kids outgrew, and told Mommy she could look thru it and donate the clothes in a clothing bin.


I didn't like where this was heading. They started pulling out shirts and holding them in the air against me and Ben -- and then look what happened!!!!



OK - we look ridiculous. (And here I thought nothing could make us look worse than that black and white stripe headband a few weeks ago.)



Anyway, they ended up finding this gingham shirt. It's Mommy's oldest niece's shirt from when she was a little girl, that ties at the bottom of the shirt. The shirt didn't fit us dogs -- thank goodness! So, Mommy made us some great looking bandana's out of it. I think we look good in it -- butt, Mommy sent the gingham bandana off to the clothing bin with the other clothes right after the photo-shoot. That's ok, at least some little girl will get to wear it properly as a shirt one day.


Benji had fun wearing the bandana too! (I know Benji and I are looking similar in these photos -- keep in mind, Benji's front legs are both white and one of mine is brown -- that's how you can tell us apart!)

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3. Mommy wanted to dye an egg a gingham color. She wanted to make it properly with straight lines butt, Mommy was just out of time! So, Mommy hurried up and drew any old lines on the egg in less than a minute, and had her niece dunk it in the blue dye so she could put it in the Easter Basket for the Blessing. (It looks horrible, butt, the thought was there for the blog.)


See the gingham-colored egg. Ok, it doesn't look as bad as I thought.

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That's all the gingham colored stuff we had.

Mommy wanted to thank everyone for saying she is so creative and talented, not just from her last post about the butter lamb, but for all the other times too, like the duct-tape Shelties, and the retro-Shelties, etc.

It really means a lot when she gets positive compliments, she's not used to it! Thanks everyone for putting a big smile on Mommy's face when she reads your great comments.
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Answers about the Easter Basket



Mommy wanted to answer a few questions in the comments from her last post about the Easter Basket. So, here it goes... Mommy celebrated Easter on April 8th, she is Ukrainian-Greek Catholic, but some Ukrainians do celebrate on April 15th, it depends which calendar you follow, the Gregorian Calendar or the Julian Calendar.

Mommy spends about an hour making a lamb. It's not perfect, I guess if she took more time on it, she would define the back legs of the lamb more.

Yes, Mommy's family and guests eat the butter lamb. One of Mommy's nephews ate the m&m nose and one of the eye's on Easter -- so the lamb is looking a little pathetic right now!

Mommy couldn't see making more than 2 lambs for one holiday, just too time consuming! One commenter said her mom made like a billion lambs for a fundraiser -- she must have a really big refrigerator and a lot of patience and courage to tackle a project that big. Kudos to your mom! That is a really big achievement!!! Mommy knows how hard it is to make those lambs.

Someone commented about what was in the jars in the easter basket. Well, we bless salt, honey, and this year we blessed Beets with horseradish in a jar. We have the actual horseradish root in the basket -- but we wanted to try something new this year.

Someone also asked - why do we bless the foods. Well, during Lent we fast. (In the old days, people used to be more strict than they are now -- but before lent -- there is a "Cheesefare Sunday" and a "Meatfare Sunday" and on those days you are supposed to eat up all those meat and cheese foods in your house before Lent starts. ) On Easter, we Bless those foods that we were fasting from. Nowadays, we can just get away with fasting from meat on Fridays during Lent. We can't eat meat or dairy products on the 1st Day of Lent or on Good Friday. And no meat on Holy Saturday. And optionally, you can fast from meat on Wednesday's during lent -- but that's not mandatory. I know, it's so confusing!!!!

Someone asked a question about the bread. Here is a picture of the Paska design. It isn't the actual one we blessed, we kinda have been eating that one, but it's similar. It has a braid around it, to resemble the Crown of Thorns, and there is a Cross in the middle.






Have a great day everyone!

Lassie and Benji

Butter Lamb vs. our Sheep Stuffies!

Mommy's family is Ukrainian and they bless Easter Baskets for Easter! Easter Baskets are full of traditional foods like eggs, cheese, meats, a special bread with raisins in it called "Paska", etc...

All of the foods symbolize things, if you want to read about different symbols of the foods in the Easter Basket you can visit website http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/easter.htm .

One of the items in the Easter Basket is a Butter Lamb. Butter in Ukrainian is called "Maslo".

Mommy has been making her own butter lamb for many years now. Butt, you can find butter lambs in grocery stores around Easter. Who knows, maybe Mommy will buy her butter lamb in the store next year to save time.

Lot's of people always tell her -- that doesn't look like a lamb! You be the judge!

She started her lamb with 3 sticks of butter. She puts 2 sticks for the body, and she cuts the 3rd stick in half. Half the stick goes on top for the head and the other half a stick she used for the front legs to make the lamb longer. You can kinda get an idea from the picture above.


Here is a picture of me (Lassie) watching Mommy form the lamb with a knife. She cuts triangles here and there, and puts those extra pieces of butter for the head or to build up the butt part of the lamb, etc...



Here is the lamb almost done. She put it in the refrigerator at this point because the butter was too soft to work with.


She put a bunch of butter in a dish and took the lamb out of the refrigerator and placed it on top of the dish. Then she put a bunch of butter around the lamb so it wouldn't fall off the dish.


Mommy didn't rotate this picture. Lazy!!!! Here you can see she takes a fork, and pokes it up and down to make the wool part of the lamb.


Here is a picture of Benji watching Mommy when she was making the wool of the lamb.


Mommy put M&M's for the eyes and nose and here is the finished lamb! Mommy's lamb in on the left and she helped touch up the lamb her oldest niece made. (That's the one on the right.) We don't think those look like lambs, Mommy!









We decided to show Mommy what real lambs look like! So, we pulled out our Sheep Stuffies that make a squeak noise when you squeeze it! Now, those are lambs!!!!


Here's their Easter Basket that they took to church to bless.

(I will show you another picture of the basket in Thursday's post -- the color for Thursday is like a blue and white checkerboard pattern. Can you see what we made that was supposed to be that color? We will tell you what it was in Thursday's post.)

Thanks for reading this post!!! Happy Easter!

Lassiter Chase & Benjamin the Shelties