Just think… Last year at this time I was a VERY TIRED new Mama.
Grammy has been so busy that she is WAY behind in getting these things done to show you, but since we PROMISED, we finally were able to herd her into getting the job done. Also, we had to wait until GrandPaw Robert could go into town to upload them into YouTube so we could post them, because, even though Grammy TRIED, Blogger refused to let her upload them through either Explorer OR Mozilla!
We woke up on Christmas morning and GrandPaw Robert got out his gifts for Dott and Mercy first. Papa was eating, so Mercy was a bit distracted as she wanted to make sure the rest of us didn’t get something she wasn’t getting…
AND Mercy’s Tuggy Lizard… THAT made Mercy mad and she wanted it back later, when her Mama was playing with it! 
After GrandPaw handed out their toys, he handed out the toys that Santa had gotten us! Unca BG got a Squeaky on a Rope w a ball, Grandma OC got a Squeaky Hamburger, and we got Ball colored Squeaky bones.
We all got to play with all of the toys! I herded a bunch of the toys onto my blanket, to keep them from getting away, but Mercy decided SHE wanted some of the toys I had carefully gathered up and we had a tug-a-war. Grammy got to laughing really hard because Mercy’s ears reminded her of a bat trying to take off in flight!
Santa brought a BROWN bunned hamburger for Grandma OC and a GOLDEN bunned hamburger for Mama Dott, and there was a bit of a tiff over a misunderstanding about which was who’s. GrandPaw explained it to Mama Dott, finally. Grandma OC really LOVED her hamburger and since she had taken her medicine, she was feeling pretty good and played with it a lot.
Grammy wouldn’t let us open our own presents because she says we need to learn NOT to tear paper up and she didn’t want us getting the idea that it was ok to do that, and that’s why GrandPaw handed out our gifts. After all our toys from Santa were handed out, we all got to play with everything for a while. 
I started carefully herding those toys back to my blanket, but GrandPaw came and scattered them again. THEN, Grammy sent GrandPaw Robert in to get the gifts she and Papa had gotten us! It was a BIG BAG of TREATS!!! There were all kinds and we got so excited we were jumping all over the place. 
I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of our Christmas morning! We are having a blast with our gifts… at least the ones that are still stuffed and squeaking… 
I have been trying for several days to get Grammy to post this, and if you are a fan of me on FaceBook you have already seen it.
(Sing to the tune of “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music”)
Small puppy noses and handfuls of jerky
Nice, soft squeakies... did I mention the jerky
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things...
Yummy cheeseburgers and small pasta noodles
Mashed potatoes and funny cut poodles
A big hunk of steak and fried chicken wings
These are a few of my favorite things…
Hiding things deep
In my stashes
Begging and batting
My big eyelashes
Nice comfy beds without metal Springs
These are a few of my favorite things
When the pup nips
When they leave me
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad.
Grammy had gotten this idea from some of the “intellectually stimulating games” that Honey the Great Dane , Moose, and Mango (see the movie) talked about on their blogs a couple of months ago.
She fills some of these “Sweet Tea” bottles up about 1/3 to ½ way full of our Puppy kibbles and then puts them down on the floor for us to play with or feed ourselves with.
It only took ME a couple of days to learn how to work the bottles, but the boys still have some problems and usually have me help them. 
Pippin is starting to get the knack of it and can get some of the food out if the bottle is pretty full, but I can flip it well enough, now, to get out even the last few pieces! 
Note from Pippin: To my friends (I got mad at Grammy when she snatched it away from me, but she was right) – If you find dried up dead toad jerky… Don’t chew it no matter HOW GOOD it tastes… It will make you PUKE! 
The other day, we had a BIG STORM! It got REALLY COLD that night, and in the morning, when we went out, there was a lot of hard white beads on the ground. GrandPaw said it was called hail. 
It had gotten into piles in some of the shaded spots and hadn’t finished melting. Here is Mama Dott standing by some of it and checking it out.
Here, you can see her up on the table part of the obstacle course and you can see the snow on the hills just behind the hills behind our place 
There was something weird going on with our water, too! The top of it got all hard and looked like a window! GrandPaw took chunks of it out of our water dish and out of the horses’ water barrels.
He broke up the big one in the pool, and I got in and checked it out. After a little while, Pippin peeked in to see what I was doing, but decided he didn’t want to get in there with me.
I tasted it and then ate a little of it and it was really cold and crunchy!
Gimli decided to jump in there with me to see what I was eating, but he didn’t like it much and got back out.
Pippin came back and almost decided to get in so he could check it out too, but then he changed his mind.
A few days later, it rained ALL day! At first, we didn’t really want to go outside, but then we found out that it wouldn’t hurt us, so we went out and had a GREAT time runnin’ around out there. 
The next day, the sky peed a lot… Grammy calls it “Rain.” OK!! I guess it “RAINED” a lot. We woke up Grammy wif with VERY muddy feet! 
GrandPaw went out to work on our obstacle course, which he was making out of Mama Dott’s Lookout. He had already made it much safer so Mama wouldn’t get hurt again. They said they will do a post about making it later.
He had let us run on it a bit, but was afraid it wasn’t safe enough to let us play on it whenever we wanted.
When he would come in, he would take down the ramps so we couldn’t get on it unless he was right there watchin us…
It’s been a lot of fun to play on, and we begged him to fix it so that we could play on it whenever we wanted.
So, that day, he went out and fixed several things on it, and then he put a net over the whole run so that we CAN’T fall off of the high run parts!
After they were finished, they went around to the front yard to turn on the water to the back so Grammy could go out and water and feed the horses. She was thrilled to see this rainbow in the sky! It wasn’t a whole one, but it WAS a double one. She said it was another “God Smile” for her. They ARE kind of pretty!
Grammy sold one of her pictures of Mama Dott on Ebay. It was done from one of the photos in Mama’s book, and is from when she was sad. She was kind of happy about that.
We hope Grammy will be able to finish getting some of the vids of us on our obstacle course finished for next time… You should see us speeding around! It's a BLAST!!!
