Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! We sure did! We have had four Christmas gatherings so far (including our own) and we still have one more to go this weekend. I love Christmas but it sure can be exhausting! Ginny came with us this past weekend and although she was pretty well behaved, she wouldn't stop singing Christmas carols in the back seat of the car....

Silly dog! :) I hope everyone has a wonderful New Years Day coming up. I think I'm officially an old woman because I have NO interest in staying up until midnight! I've gotten into my routine and I'm perfectly happy being in bed by 10:00pm. :) We'll see....

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 25

Merry Christmas! Without further adieu (after many failed attempts, mess ups, camera, uploading and sound issues) we present to you:


Matt & Lauren - Baby It's Cold Outside




Well, I guess there were still parts that we failed to do correctly, missed notes, and sound issues, but Merry Christmas anyway! :)

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 24

Bing Crosby - White Christmas





Merry Christmas Eve! Don't forget the milk and cookies! :)

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 23

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Christmas Time Is Here

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 22

Bing Crosby & Carol Richards - Silver Bells

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 21

Chris Rice - Welcome to Our World
(I don't know why, but none of the videos on YouTube have the LAST note/word of the song... sorry!)

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 20

Jackson 5 - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 19

Brad Paisley - What Child Is This

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 18

I haven't forgotten about today's song! We went out of town yesterday to spend Christmas with Matt's grandpa and we just got back in. Here ya go! :)

Sara Bareilles - River

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 17

Louis Armstrong – Zat You, Santa Claus?

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 16

Dave Barnes - Meet Me At the Mistletoe

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 15

Brenda Lee - Rockin Around the Christmas Tree

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 14

Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 13

Frank Sinatra - I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 12

Harry Connick Jr. - Winter Wonderland

Hide and Seek

Matt and Ginny were playing hide and seek today. I would go into the bedroom with Ginny and close the door while Matt hid somewhere. As SOON as I would open the door Ginny would take off sniffing and looking for Matt. She knew EXACTLY how that game worked. :) He hid in the bathroom, in the closet and his best one....


...in her crate. HAHA! He had the sheet pulled all the way over once we let Ginny out. It didn't take her too long to find him, but when she did she went nuts!

She didn't know what to think about that. When Matt got out she walked in there sniffing around checking things out. Matt said she was probably thinking, "You guys don't let me up on your bed, so why can you get in my bed?!"

It was pretty humorous watching them play. :)

My Black....errr....Yellow Eye

Earlier this week I was out playing with Ginny and we had a bit of a collision. Her head slammed into my face and it immediately brought tears to my eyes. My nose started bleeding and I couldn't feel the entire left side of my face! I really, honestly, thought my cheek bone was broken or something. I could feel that it was swollen already. It never got too swollen and it was only slightly red but I couldn't even touch it. This morning I woke up and I have a yellow eye! I have no idea why it is yellow and not blue or black or red. The weird thing is, the part that is yellow doesn't even hurt! It is just my cheek that still hurts pretty bad. It is definitely better though, so hopefully it will continue to feel better and better each day.

That is a nice yellow eye, huh? :)

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 11

Michael Buble - I'll Be Home for Christmas

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 10

Gayla Peevey - I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 9

Willie Nelson - Pretty Paper

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 8

Ok... today's song is a little different. :) This is the Kung Pao Buckaroos with Brad Paisley. On each of Brad Paisley's albums he has a song with the Kung Pao Buckaroos and they are always pretty funny. This one cracks me up! Enjoy! :)

Brad Paisley & the Kung Pao Buckaroos - Kung Pao Buckaroo Holiday

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 7

I just ran across the song about a week ago and thought it was pretty cool. :)

B.B. King - Merry Christmas Baby

A Boy and His Dog

We were taking some pictures of Ginny the other night trying to get some of her "tricks" in pictures. We didn't have much luck with the tricks, but there were several of her and Matt playing around that made me laugh, so I figured I'd share! :)

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 6

Today's song is a new one. It was just released a few weeks ago. This is an artist that Matt and I really like named Dave Barnes. It is kind of a modern day "Baby It's Cold Outside".

Dave Barnes w/ Hillary Scott: Christmas Tonight

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 5

I almost forgot to post today's song! Enjoy!

Boston Pops - Sleigh Ride

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 4

Today's song doesn't have a video with something to watch, so just hit play and listen! Matt picked this one out and I loved it!

Ella Fitzgerald - Frosty the Snowman

Christmas Decorations

I put up our Christmas decorations this week... :) Fancy, huh?

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 3

Growing up we listened to a lot of James Taylor so I have been a fan for a while. However, I was just introduced to his Christmas album a year or two ago by my wonderful husband. Enjoy!

James Taylor - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

25 Days of Christms Songs - Day 2

Matt's brother introduced this group to us last Christmas. They do a funny take on the song "12 Days of Christmas" so I thought I'd add it to the list!

Straight No Chaser - 12 Days of Christmas

Pictures of Ginny (gasp!)

Gasp! More pictures of Ginny? Unbelievable!! ;-) It has been a while since I've posted some pictures of the dog. :) We are getting all settled into our new apartment so I'll post some pictures of that soon. We are hoping to have EVERYTHING done and put away after this weekend. Now for your viewing pleasure..... Ginny!

The "stay off the furniture" rule hasn't been carried out too well... mainly because of me. We are still trying to have some rules for it like that she has to be invited up. What can I say? I'm a softy... and if she looked at you with her big brown eyes like she does me, you'd know what I mean. ;-)


This was on our way back home from spending Thanksgiving with our families. She wasn't crazy about the car rides, but she was pretty worn out by the time we were heading home.

This was also during our Holiday travels... I think what bothered her most was being in the backseat by herself. She kept sticking her head in the middle or up on our shoulders by the seat belts. She got settled in this position and went to sleep!

She thinks she is a lap dog...

This pictures cracks me up! This was several weeks ago, I think. I looked down and almost snapped at her because I thought she was chewing on Matt's shoe, but then I realized she was asleep! Maybe her nose was cold....? :)

(I don't know why else you'd put yourself through the pain of smelling Matt's shoe... teehee)

Matt and I were playing with her one night and I got a pillow to lay on and she came over and just plopped her head down on my pillow! I still made her share...

A few weeks ago I bought her a new toy. It was a pink pig that was supposed to be difficult for dogs to chew up. Ha! That poor pig never had a chance! She looks mighty proud of herself, wouldn't you say?

She is such a mess! She really is a GOOD dog though. She has calmed down so much just since we got her. She is very smart and very entertaining. She does one new trick since my last video... I'll have to try to get it on video sometime soon. Catahoula Leopard Dogs are bred to hunt wild hogs so the trick is that we say, "Ginny... what do you think about hogs?" and she snaps her teeth and sometimes kind of growls. However, she rarely waits for you to say "hogs" and just starts snapping as soon as you say, "Ginny what" It is still pretty cute though. :)

That is it for this Ginny update!

25 Days of Christmas Songs - Day 1

We always had the rule of "NO Christmas music until after Thanksgiving" in our family. Usually I have no problem keeping that rule. This year, however, was a different story! I definitely cheated and started listening early. There are so many great Christmas songs so I decided to share a different Christmas song every day in December until Christmas. Some are new, some are old, but to me they are all great! So here is song #1:

Nat King Cole - Christmas Song

First Anniversary

Yesterday Matt and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary! We didn't have any big plans but we still had a lot of fun spending the day together! Even though I said I was going to, I didn't take any pictures. :) Oops! It was a chilly, cloudy day outside so we spent most of the day wrapped up in blankets on the couch... and boy was that nice!


One down, many more to go!

What We're Doing (Besides taking videos of Ginny, of course)

All of my posts lately have been about Ginny! She is the most exciting thing going on around here right now. However, things are about to get busy! First of all, this weekend we will be celebrating our first anniversary! I absolutely can NOT believe that it has already been a year! Time really flies! Then, NEXT weekend we are moving! We are moving to a new apartment complex in Austin. It will be closer to work and school and church and the rates were cheaper. It is a much smaller complex which we really like. Everyone has been so friendly to us so far and we are really looking forward to being there. We are NOT, however, looking forward to the actual move... but then again, who looks forward to moving? Luckily we are going to have a lot of help! :) A few days after that will be Thanksgiving! We all know how quickly Christmas creeps up on us after Thanksgiving, so things will be busy busy busy! AND hopefully not TOO long from now we will get to meet our new niece! I absolutely can't wait for that!

So we have a lot to look forward to. I will try my best to take pictures to share... we all know nobody wants to read a blog post without PICTURES! ;-) I guess I better add a picture to this post to keep my readers interested... so I'll leave you with this.

(this was breaking the rules, of course... but look how cute and sweet she is!)

Ginny "Bow"

In my last video of Ginny you saw that she had just learned the trick "BANG!" Well, she KNEW that was cute and that we liked it so every time we would give her a command she would roll over. Even if the command was "sit". She has learned a NEW trick since then and now THAT is all she does! She KNOWS what we think is cute.... silly dog. Her new trick is "bow". These videos are funny because you can see how she does it before Matt even tells her to. The end of the second video cracks me up... she is aiming to please! She does 3 tricks right in a row and FINALLY gets the one she was actually told to do. Haha! She is a nut... she was also pretty wound up this night.

This was our first attempt:



Then the second...

Ginny's Tricks

Here is a video of Ginny doing some of her tricks! She just learned "BANG!" today! When I said "leave it" I threw a treat across the room. You can't really SEE the treat... so just to clarify, that is what I did! :)

Tennis Ball

I mentioned that Ginny tore up her old tennis balls? Yep. There it is.... what is left of it anyway. :) Silly dog....

New Toys

Ginny got some new toys yesterday and she LOVES them! She got SO excited when we gave them to her in the apartment. So today we took her outside to play with them and we took a few pictures.

You can clearly see in this picture how VERY athletic she is..... HA! Rarely does she actually CATCH the ball. She misses and runs into the fence or the wall or the ground. She has a good time though! She got new tennis balls made for dogs. She destroyed her regular tennis balls... so hopefully these will last a little longer!


She also got a frisbee! We didn't know if she'd be interested in a frisbee or not, but she LOVES it! Again, she can't catch it (not yet, anyway) but she loves to chase it.

This one shows her athleticism again... ;-)

This was when she was starting to wear out a little, so I got a picture of her and Matt.

She had a pretty good time! :)

Ginny vs. DVD Player

Oh my goodness.... our dog cracks me up! Matt and I watched a movie tonight and when it was over Matt hit the "open" button on the remote control so the DVD popped out of the player. Well this just REALLY confused Ginny! She started turning her head from side to side and creeping up on it. Matt hit the button again and it pulled the DVD back in and Ginny JUMPED back! She started growling at it and making all sorts of funny noises and just didn't know what to think about it! She wouldn't even come close to it for a while. She definitely keeps us entertained! Here is a video we took of her watching the DVD player.... (and Matt scaring her!) :)

(sorry it is so dark... :-/)

Pictures of Ginny

Here are a few newer pictures of Ginny! She is such a sweet dog! Once it gets to be around 8:00pm Matt starts saying it is "HIS" dog. At night she gets so calm and sweet and loves to cuddle. When she is hyper and crazy he says she is MY dog. :)

In this picture she had been playing with my feet and petting herself with my shoes and rolling around on them... she LOVES feet for some reason. She finally wore herself out and rested her head on my shoe and it was so cute!


This was the night that the Rangers made it to the WORLD SERIES! WOOHOO! She was EXTRA sweet and was cuddling with Matt.

I caught them playing here. :)

Ok. She is really is weird sometimes. She fell ASLEEP like this. This is not an "action" shot where she was playing and rolling around... she was sleeping like this. Weirdo! (at least TRY to ignore the dirty dishes and cups on the coffee table, haha!)

Just being sweet... :)

And again....

This was also the night that the RANGERS MADE IT TO THE WORLD SERIES! WOOHOO! (Can you tell I'm excited??) She came and rested her head in my lap and watched with me. She didn't know what to think when Matt and I were jumping around at the end of the game. :)

Caught Matt playing with her again... :)

When you lay on the floor next to her, she will wrap her paw around your arm...

She lays on her back quite a bit. When she is playing with her toys she'll roll around on her back and sometimes she'll roll over then just FREEZE that way. Sometimes she'll stay that way for quite a while!

So anyway, there is your update on Ginny! Matt and I both have the day off today and we're about to take her to the dog park. She LOVES to run!! And BOY IS SHE FAST! :)

Pork Loin Recipes

Lately Matt and I have been making pork loin quite a bit... there are so many different ways to fix it! We had it on Saturday and Sunday two different ways and both were DELICIOUS!!! So I figured I'd share! :)

1. Hidden Valley Ranch Pork. Seriously, this is all you do. Buy a packet of dry Ranch mix. Dip your pork in it until it is covered, bake it for 25 minutes at 450. DELICIOUS! I worried about it being more dry or tough since it was just seasoning but it was the most tender, juicy pork loin I've ever had. Try it! (NOTE: I thought I wanted a LOT of seasoning on ours, so after I put the pork in the pan I put a little MORE on top.... don't do that! It is TOO much! Just cover each side of the pork loin with seasoning and let it be!)

2. Put your pork in a casserole dish. Put about a teaspoon of butter and mayonnaise on each piece and spread it over the top. Then, season each piece with seasoned salt (I used Nana & Grangoat's seasoning - which you can find at http://coxragamuffins.blogspot.com/ ), garlic powder, parsley, and crushed red pepper. Put a handful of grated cheese on top of each piece and bake for 40 minutes at 350. SOOOO GOOD! Is a little spicy (depending on how much red pepper you put) and is juicy and tender. Try it!

Last Giveaway!

OK PEOPLE! If you haven't already gotten your "Go. Seek. Love." shirts DO IT NOW! I just ordered mine today! Check out J & Summer's blog to find out how to get your name in a drawing for a FREE PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION! I haven't won a giveaway yet but I'm not giving up that easily.... :) I'm feeling good about this one! So check it out!

http://coxragamuffins.blogspot.com

Adoption

HELLO AGAIN! I am determined to win one of the giveaways going on over at Jason and Summer's blog! So here goes on of my entries! :)

Go to http://coxragamuffins.blogspot.com and support their adoption! Buy a tshirt in the month of October and get your name in the drawing TWICE! Plus, all of the proceeds go directly toward their adoption! The giveaway this week is a free CUSTOM CAKE! I'm thinking that the Rangers are going to win their upcoming series and someone is going to want a sweet Texas Rangers cake to serve at their game watching party.... :) So check it out!

Gumbo

Recently Matt and I have been putting together weekly dinner menus. Because we spend more time planning out our meals, we have been spending less at the grocery store! I HAVE to have a list when I go to the store or I come home with all sorts of junk food that we don't need. :) We try to plan our meals to where we can use leftovers for the next meal. SO... for example, we had sausage for our "Beans, Rice and Sausage" night, and shrimp for our "Broccoli Shrimp Alfredo" night. THEN, you take the leftover sausage and shrimp and mix it in with this $1 box of Zatarain's Gumbo.... WOW.


This stuff is DELICIOUS!!! It is spicy but not too spicy. All you have to do is mix the package with water, let it boil for a little while, add your meat and let it boil a little longer and its done. Did I mention that it is delicious? This will definitely become more of a "regular" around our place! Especially since it is so cheap! We buy a big bag of shrimp for $5 and use it for several different meals.

Try it sometime and let me know what you think. I don't think you'll be disappointed! :)

Music Video

These are two of my favorite artists! Check out Brad Paisley and John Mayer:

Not Much

Yes, another post about Ginny. You see, there really isn't much else going on with us right now. Besides the fact that Matt was sick for nearly a full week and now I'm at home sick today. :-/ I am REALLY hoping I don't have it for as long as Matt did.

Matt took Ginny out to the lawn area behind our apartment. I snuck out on the balcony and watched them. :) We take her to a big fenced area every day so she can run off the leash and that is where she usually uses the bathroom. We are trying to get her to go on the leash so when it is raining or FREEZING we can just step outside and not have to walk around to the fenced area. So this was Matt trying to be patient with her. :)


Going for a walk!

She LOVES to lay on your feet. I don't know why, but she does! She fell asleep like this on Matt's feet the other night. She is so sweet right before bed. She falls asleep on the floor then when we wake her up to get in her crate she wants to cuddle and will just lean her head on you. She'll stretch a little and grunt a little then crawl into her crate and plop down and go to sleep. She is really good about going in her crate at night... not always so good during the day, but OK. :)

Ginny Meets Vacuum Cleaner

Lots of posts about Ginny, I know. :) She is about all that is going on with us right now! It was a pretty rough week around our apartment! Monday night (the night we got her) Matt started feeling sick to his stomach and ended up being up all night long back and forth to the bathroom. He was sick almost all week! He still doesn't feel 100% but he is MUCH better now! So picture Matt being VERY sick.... then add a new dog (a BIG dog) to the mix that wants to play and get in his face and who is still learning the rules and you have one grumpy husband! :) Now that he is feeling better they are getting along more. :)

She still has a lot to learn, but she is really learning very quickly. She is a really good, sweet dog and I think she is really smart. The only issue we're seeing is that we're not sure how well she gets along with other dogs. She seems to get a little more aggressive when she sees another dog. Her paperwork and her previous owner say that she gets along fine with other dogs... so hopefully thats true. We are going to try to take her to a dog park this weekend sometime to "socialize" her some and see how it goes.

Occassionally she just kind of acts like a dummy and will start rolling around and chasing her tail or something then she'll just freeze. The other day she froze on her back and just stayed there for several minutes. She was perfectly comfortable just like this!

Ok, so you're probably wondering about the title of this post... so I'll get to it! This is actually her SECOND experience with the vacuum cleaner but we didn't get the first one on video. She basically had the same reaction though! She definitely wanted to stay BEHIND me, but her reaction is so funny when it came right at her!

Notes about the video: It is pretty loud. We had the washing machine, dishwasher and then the vacuum cleaner going. Plus we used the digital camera and it squeals the whole time. Also, you might notice the hole right in the middle of the front of my shirt.... we were out in the "dog area" at the apartments today playing and she tore a whole in my shirt. :( Anyway, enough delay - here is the video!

What All Did Ginny Do Today?

She went outside for a short walk EARLY in the morning.
She ate her food WAY too fast when she came back in.
As a result of the last thing, she threw up on the living room floor.
She played "fetch" with a tennis ball.
She went outside on the balcony and watched all the cars passing by and LOVED it.


She went in several times to check on Matt because he is sick today. (She can open the bedroom door if there isn't something holding it shut on the other side)
She went for a ride in the car and kept her head out the window the ENTIRE time.

She sat on the floor with me and kept pestering me to keep petting her.
She fell asleep with her head rested on my feet and it was VERY cute.

She just went for a walk and had dinner and is now laying on the floor resting (like in the picture above!). She sure is cute. :)