Christmas Tree Pictures

A few years ago I switched from regular Christmas cards (which I love) to the photo ones. You know, the ones where you just plug in a picture to a website and order as many as you need. I had resisted for a while, but my kid was just so cute! In 2008 I took her to Downtown Disney (DTD) to take pictures of her in her Christmas dress by their beautiful tree.

I don't claim to be a photographer. I have a simple point and shoot camera I barely know how to use. I am not creative with poses. But I had a great time. It was slightly challenging to get a 2 year old to hold still, but she's such a ham. We both had fun.

And then I remembered that the various Disneyland hotels would had trees in their lobbies. So we took pictures by the trees at the Disneyland Hotel, Paradise Pier Hotel, and the Grand Californian as well.

This was a little more difficult because I can never get the lighting quite right. It was also fun just seeing the different trees. I ended up using a picture of her in front of the DTD tree.

The next year I knew I wanted to do the same thing. Again, we had fun. This year she started doing poses, which I thought were hilarious.

Besides trees in the hotels, we found Santa's photo spot at DLH. Without him there, we could take as much time as we wanted taking pictures in front of the amazing set up they have.

 We skipped 2010 because we went to Walt DisneyWorld in Oct/Nov. They started putting up Christmas decorations in Nov so we used pictures from the trip.

2011 we went back again. This time there were a lot more poses that Melodie wanted to try.

And that brings us to this year. We were so excited. It was threatening rain, so we quickly went to DTD since that's the only tree that is outside. It wasn't there. Instead there was a Disney Fairies ice skating rink. I was pretty sad. They did have a little photo op spot with two snow covered trees. But I really like traditional Christmas colors. These trees were decorated in pink, blue, lime green and purple. I went with it anyway, because that's why we were there.

The DTD pictures are the two on the left. We also never made it to the Grand Californian because it started raining. It wasn't quite worth the walk over there because it had started raining and the tree is so orange.

 Next year I'll be doing this with two kids!

Meet Princess Minnie

 I did have intentions of being a really dedicated blogger, but who knew I'd feel this yucky all the time? I have finally accepted that I'll just be sick this whole pregnancy. It only took 6 months for me to give up hope, but at least there's only 3 months of nausea left.
 So, what did we do while I'm not feeling well and with a new baby coming? Get a new puppy of course!
 It wasn't expected. I'm still not okay from saying goodbye to our two dogs we had for over 10 years.
Everyone knows Jock was my favorite. Trusty was really Rocky's dog.

 

 Friends of ours got two puppies. They brought them to visit in August. They weren't sure if they still wanted two because the puppies would just play together and not with the children. They were adorable.

 Our friends were thinking of finding a new home for Kris, but still weren't sure. At the end of the month they asked if we could watch the dogs for a weekend. This turned into, "Why don't you keep Kris a little longer to see if you want her?" So we did. Melodie and Rocky quickly fell in love with her. I was excited that Melodie liked her. She didn't really care about our other dogs. It's not that she didn't like them, she just didn't care if they were around her or not. But she really liked Kris. However, we didn't care for the name, and in an effort of wanting Melodie to feel this might be more her dog than the others were, I asked what she would name Kris if we kept her. Princess. I was not going to call a dog Princess. In an effort to compromise, we decided to add another name. Melodie wanted Minnie after Minnie Mouse. I was okay with that since our other two dogs had Disney names. So, Princess Minnie kind of had a new name. She must have been confused for a while because we changed between calling her Kris, Princess Minnie and Minnie.

By this time, Rocky and Melodie were sure we were going to keep her. I was still not sure I was ready to "replace" Jock and I know puppies are a lot of work. Since I wasn't feeling well, I knew I wasn't up to the task. But watching Melodie with "her dog" was a big push in the direction of keeping her. Then one day I found myself at the pet store with Melodie and Minnie and we bought a dog tag.

 It was official. She was ours. Everyone knew she was ours long before I accepted it. She's a pretty good puppy. She chews on everything, but that's what puppies do. She has a lot of energy, but so does Melodie. She still doesn't fetch with a ball or walk on a leash as well as I want her to, but we're working on it. She's the first dog I've had that loves to bury things. I love watching her play outside with Melodie. Melodie and Minnie are great friends, although Melodie does get a little annoyed when Minnie doesn't do what she wants.

 After having her for about a month, one eye started to look funny. A friend of ours told us it was cherry eye. I'd never seen that before. We massaged it back in, but it turned red again. I took her to the vet and scheduled surgery. We had to wait a little bit because she was in the middle of puppy boosters. During that time, the other eye developed cherry eye too. For a time they didn't bother her, but a few days before they surgery she started scratching at her eyes. I had to put a cone of shame on her.

 

Look at her poor eyes! The surgery went well, and in a few days she was back to normal. I was NOT happy with the amount of money we had to spend, but I left it up to Rocky and he said we were doing it.

 When Halloween came around Melodie wanted to get Minnie a Halloween costume. I don't care for dressing up dogs, but Melodie asked every time we went to the pet store. A few days before Halloween, all the Halloween stuff was 75% off. There wasn't much of a selection left, but for $5 we got her a Halloween scrunchie collar things, a witch hat and a skirt.

Poor Minnie tried to get the hat and skirt off for about five minutes. Unfortunately it was kind of funny, so we put it on her a few times. She would finally accept her fate, but not happily. The scrunchie collar thing didn't bother her at all and I actually didn't mind it either.

In fact, Rocky and Mel just bought her a Christmas one. The bad thing about that one is that it has jingle bells on it. That's a little annoying.

 She's been fun to have around, but she's so funny.

We have two perfectly good dog houses, but she hangs out in the play structure instead. Maybe it's because the houses smell like Jock and Trusty. I don't know, but she doesn't really think she belongs outside anyway. Her favorite toy is this hideous blue cat. She shakes it, plays fetch with it, walks around with it in her mouth and is very upset that I won't let her take it outside to bury it. She also sits and lays down in the funniest positions.
 The week of Thanksgiving we took her to the dog beach. We'd never been there before, but since she has so much energy we thought it would be fun for her.

I think she was in heaven. We'll definately go again.
 I'm still not sure I was ready for another dog, but she's growing on me. As I was looking at all these pictures, it struck me how she doesn't really even look as much like a puppy as she used to. That actually made me a little sad.