My girls are the most amazing little beings. Arwen is a handful yes, but she gives us so many smiles and laughs that you can’t help but smile when you are around her. Even her cry is cute. She rarely cries unless she wants something and she’s very smart. She already tries to control the TV and the Wii by pointing them at the TV and has been caught making calls to Ireland and Japan…
She is a truly amazing little girl and while she drives me batty at times because she has so much energy she is so much fun to be around.
Anya is equally amazing. Incredibly smart, knows all her letters and can identify them all to me…but too shy to identify them to Granny or Pop Pop or Aunt Charee. And she can count to 100. She knows what the red light/green light and stop signs are for and can read a few words quite well. And her memory is unbelievable…I think she may have a touch of Mommy’s photographic memory because she usually can remember something from just telling her or seeing it one or two times.
Both of my girls are beautiful and both of my girls are so loved! They have their Daddy totally wrapped around their fingers and he has them wrapped as well.
I just saw Travis sleeping with Arwen on the sofa and had to brag about them all a bit. They are so sweet and I’m very blessed to have such an amazing family.

Everyone, by now, knows how much I support adopting a dog from the local shelter. Congrats to my friend Margot on her new addition…Lola! I guess I have accepted the fact now that I have a bit of sixth sense when it comes to dogs as I have managed to help place two dogs in excellent homes over the past week. Two dogs that otherwise would have been put down. Travis and I decided to foster one of the dogs. His name, that I gave him, is Dean. He’s a Golden Retriever and has fit into our family quite nicely. However, he has found a permanent home in New Hampshire. See the Yankees are very good about spaying and neutering their dogs so when puppies and dogs come up for adoption at the local shelters they are picked up very quickly. Versus our abundant supply of animals that are unwanted down here. Hopefully, we will get to the point where we have a similar problem, however, Dean has found a new home up North. It will be hard for us to let him go as he’s such a sweetheart, but he’s going to a family that also has two little girls and I think he won’t have a hard time adjusting at all. I very rarely foster dogs but we have enjoyed having Dean the past few days.
Here’s some photos of Mr. Dean…(he was named after Dean Koontz because Koontz is an avid Golden Retriever lover and since I love Dean Koontz books the name only seemed appropriate).

So, on the day we got married it rained just a bit in the morning and then was about 50 degrees and sunny with a beautiful sunset by the time we got married and had the reception. We got married at the Children’s Harbor Chapel on Lake Martin. You can read about it here…
www.childrensharbor.com
10 years later and it snows on our anniversary! Quite a lot of snow. My parents came up to watch the girls but we were getting a bit worried as to what we going to be able to do due to the weather. At about 2pm we decided to head up to Decatur if we could and see a movie. The original plan was to go to Huntsville. We got on the interstate and the snow wasn’t too bad but we worried about the roads freezing. We got to about exit 318 and there was no snow! None on the roads, none falling, nothing! So we decided to keep with our plan and head to Huntsville to Bridge Street Shopping Area. We wanted to see a movie at the Monaco, but the only thing showing at the time we were there was Avatar and neither of us were overly excited to see that, so we just walked around and shopped for a while. Travis had fun playing with the IPOD touch in the Apple store and I had fun in the bookstore reading some of Dean Koontz’s book about his dog. We then headed to dinner at The Smokehouse. It was good, not quite what either of us was wanting really, but the important thing was that we got to be together for about 8 hours by ourselves! That part was great. What more can I say, I married my best friend and soul mate and I fall more in love with him every day!

This past weekend we went to the Birmingham Feline Fancier’s Cat Show and it was very interesting. We went to see Anya’s tiger painting that she did in her preschool art class at the Zoo. I have to say seeing her painting was the best part! Cat shows are very different from dog shows, although the principals are the same it seems. The cats are all in cages and you can walk through and look at them but you are not allowed to touch any of them. There was one lady with her cat out on a table and I asked her if we could pet her and she told me no because that’s how her cat gets sick and that she had to spend $5000 on a vet bill once because someone touched her cat and got it sick. Okay. Strange.
Travis was even less impressed with the show than I was. And Arwen could have cared less as well. She was happy to have a lollipop but otherwise she was just excited to be out in her stroller as she was to be a cat show. Anya did enjoy looking at the cats and she took lots of pictures with her camera that she got for Christmas.
Her tiger painting is on the top row. I took a photo of her standing with all the paintings and then just one of her painting. I think its very good for a 5 year old! She loves to paint.
In other news, Arwen is walking. She’s taking about 10 steps at a time, but she still seems to think its faster to crawl, but she’ll get there in time. And she’s getting 4 new teeth all at the same time. Two on bottom, and two on top. No wonder she’s been a bit grouchy the past 2 weeks. I think all but one has broke completely through the skin though so there may be a light at the end of the tunnel, at least until the next set. I wonder why my girls have to get so many teeth at once. Anya and Arwen both get at least two at a time. I guess it might be better that way, but I’ve never experienced it where they just get one tooth at a time so I can’t really say if its better or not.
And finally my all time favorite TV show has returned and I’m loving it! LOST is back and even though its the final season I am thoroughly enjoying this show still. I even love all the characters, its hard to pick a favorite, but my top 3 favorite characters are probably Sawyer, Juliet, and Sayid. The interesting news I found out is that the blu ray complete DVD set of the entire series is tentatively scheduled for release on my birthday this summer! I guess Travis knows what he’s getting me now!
Here’s one shot from the cat show that I thought was cute…this was the owner of the cat, one of the few men there to show cats, and his Siamese cat named Simba…

And here’s the shots of Anya and her beautiful Tiger Painting…

Excellent movie! Made me want to rush out and buy Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” book! A simple movie but fun to watch and very well done, flashbacks are done well and the acting is quite entertaining. It has to be somewhat hard to make a movie essentially about cooking, but Nora Ephron pulled it off splendidly, and I adore both Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Meryl Streep has impressed me ever since I first saw “Sophie’s Choice” and Amy Adams, she’s just so cute and fun to watch who wouldn’t like her? I first noticed her in “Enchanted” which remains to this day to be one of my favorite movies to watch with Anya. Speaking of who, Anya watched “Anastasia” for the first time today and she really liked it. I think she was most impressed with the fact that her name was in the movie too.
Arwen’s new favorite thing to watch is the Baby Einstein DVD called Baby’s First Sounds. I’m continually impressed with the educational value of most of the Baby Einstein DVDs. Although I don’t agree with the concept of Baby’s First Signs, so I won’t be purchasing that one.
Travis and I are going to watch Bruce Willis in “Surrogates” tonight and it looks interesting.
As far as reading goes, I don’t really recommend Dan Brown’s latest book “The Lost Symbol”. In one word, boring. I love the Robert Langdon character but this book was simply a replay of “Angels and Demons” and “The DaVinci Code” both of which were far superior to “The Lost Symbol”. I was very disappointed because the book which revolves around the Masons and the “secret” Masonic code intrigued me as I am the granddaughter of a Mason. However, I could hardly get through the first five chapters, I kept putting it off until I just had to force myself to finish it. Again, not impressed. So, I have reverted back to one of Dean Koontz’s old books “Sole Survivor” so far its much better!
I really recommend for everyone to watch “Julie and Julia” though, it was really entertaining!