Finally...

Finally opening birthday presents!!! Poor Marshall. There was a big delay on the opening of family presents. After his big party last weekend, it seemed we had a nonstop week and it was too hard to find a time when we were all together and Marshall was awake and up the the task. Here are a few pictures of the fun. Thanks for all the goodies, everyone.

Not sure who likes the baby armadillo more...

Marshall heard it was fun to fall off of boxes of Little People so he thought he'd try...didn't work, he just sat there in the super cute sweater Daddy got him in Peru.

Thanks for helping, Fado!

Story Time

Just wanted to share a couple of cute (in my humble opinion) photos of Marshall and his Daisy dog. He was busy reading one of his birthday gift books (thanks again, Williamsons!) and I guess the activity on the bear hunt just wore poor Daisy out.

"Okay, Daisy, I'll read you a book."

"Wake up, I didn't finish reading the story yet!"

Fado, of course, was not far away - sleeping safely on her comfy dog bed.

Party Time!

Marshall's 1st Birthday Party was today. We had a bit of a puppy theme - big surprise! Dog bones on his cake, bone cookies as party favors, hot dogs for lunch and puppies helping clean up the cake and open gifts. Marshall had a great time and found out he loves cake and ice cream...then woke up tonight about 15 minutes after he went to bed with a bit of a belly ache. Too much cake, perhaps? As I write this, he's sleeping soundly so I think all is well.

A few random shots of the day...

Oh yeah, and I loved Aunt Erica's picture idea so much that I did my own version with a random selection of Baby Marshall pics for decoration.

CAKE!!!

He's never even had a bite of cake before, yet the sight of it makes him laugh with joy!

And once he takes a bite...pure love!

After all that cake, he had to take a break.


Then on to opening presents. Thank goodness Sahara and Daisy were there to help!

Finally, Marshall's guests helped themselves to gingerbread bones and milkbones when they were on their way back to their own dog houses.

Big thanks to Zannie and Pops who came up for the weekend to "visit" which means help us out with the projects around the house, build a fence for the dogs, organize the house and take care of Marshall.

After all that partying, there's nothing better than relaxing with a Grandma...I mean, a Zannie!

Now, I'm off to bed because tomorrow is his real birthday and we get to celebrate even more.

Ski Outing

Actually, there was no skiing on the outing, but there were slopes, snow and cool head gear. The other morning David decided to take Marshall on a drive to Pennsylvania to check out a ski resort. It is about an hour and a half from here and he thought it might be a fun thing for us to do one weekend, but wanted to take a look before we planned a weekend around it. Since he had the day off and I had a mountain of things to do here, Daddy decided to take his boy to the slopes. Looks like they had fun - David took a few self portraits and then some of Marshall at the commissary where they stopped on the way home to restock our dwindling supplies -- what a dream day for me!

As for the head gear, David bought the cutest hat for Marshall while he was in Peru. I couldn't believe how adorable it was when he showed me.

The hat is so cute it even makes ol' Daisy dog look like she's ready to hit the slopes...or yodel.

By the way, Erica, that is the Ergo David is using (in the top photo). He loves it! At first he just thought it was a good thing for me to have, but more and more he wants to use it (instead of stroller) when we go somewhere and he wants to carry Marshall. Thanks again!!

Bath Time

In our house, Daddy is the primary bath giver. This works great for everyone because he lets Marshall do more fun stuff than I do, it gives the boys some time together at the end of the day and I get 10 minutes (ok more than that really) alone to finish cooking dinner, clean up the kitchen, pick up toys or have a glass of wine (yeah, right!). Daddy has things totally under control and I am never called in for back up...until last night...but then it was just to bring the camera.

Hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my ragtime gal....

or

Hmm...the bottom of this bowl is so interesting.

Top of the morning to ya.

Look at those eyelashes!

More Halloween...

Happy Halloween!

What do y'all think - do you see any similarities?

I would definitely say that Marshall enjoyed his first Halloween. We stayed in and let him help us answer the door and "hand out candy." As you can see, his idea of handing out candy was to grab it out of the bowl and chomp on it himself. Isn't he a bit young for that? You'd never know from these pictures that he's never had a piece of candy in his mouth (I guess I have to qualify that as an "unwrapped piece of candy" now) and won't for a while, but he sure looks like he's an expert sugar-a-holic.

After a while, Marshall seemed to have enough of the hood in his face and ears dragging the ground -- how does Daisy stand it? -- so we stripped him down to the bare bones and let him stay up for a little more trick or treat fun.

These last ones are just for his great aunt Carol. A new favorite is the stuffed rattler. His favorite part is the rattle -- not to rattle, though. Marshall prefers to suck on it. Who knew rattlesnake tasted so good?!

Oh yeah, one last comment. I am NOT showing dog favoritism with the costume choice. I'm just not that skilled a costume making and figured I'd better go with the one that was easiest to make recognizable. But just to be fair, here are some cute photos of Fado!

Another Basset Hound???!!!

Yep, we are adding to the pack. This Halloween we've added Daisy - part Deux!

What do you think???

I'll try to post more, but these are the first from today.

And after the costume top comes off. Well, that's when we see what little boys are really made of and it is NOT snips & snails (though it does involve a puppy dog tail!). Nope, this one's made of cute little heart shaped bones!

The shots below are from this afternoon when I took his costume top off and let him hang out in the kitchen with me.

Don't all topless dogs love to roam around and forage for raw potatoes?!