Wishing you a Happy New Year

Hi Blog Friends! Here is a picture of us from today just relaxing! Mommy and her older niece were busy making things out of Duct Tape, so we stayed out of their way. Oh, and guess what --Benji lost a tooth today. (We aren't sure if that is good or bad -- he is almost 5 months old.) Grandma said we couldn't put his tooth under the dog bed for the doggy tooth fairy- boo!


1. Here is a picture of Mommy's first ever Duct Tape Wallet. She put our paw prints on the front. We were her inspiration when she made it.



This is what the inside of it looks like with the pockets. Too bad we don't have any paw print duct tape, or Mommy would have used that. We don't even know if they make paw print duct tape. Oh well.


2. Mommy's sister made cookies for Santa Paws for Christmas Eve. Mommy made her make a couple with paw prints on them. So, Mommy's sister made plain cookies and peanut butter ones. They look great don't they. We wrote a letter to Santa Paws (it's the letter on the right) besides dog toys and treats, I (Lassie) decided to ask Santa for a Girl Sheltie. Well, it can't hurt a guy for trying now does it! Anyway, Santa paws crossed off my request for a girl Sheltie and said no girlfriends for us. Oh well. Santa paws brought us brown footballs, a new wubba, tennis balls and a chew toy.


3. Mommy's brother got a new dog for his family. So, we now have a new cousin. He isn't a Sheltie butt don't hold that against him! No one is sure what kind of dog he is, he is from a shelter. We made a short video of his visit on Christmas eve. It was so nice of him to come visit us!



http://youtu.be/Cjfk_KcLjFY


4. Mommy has a lot on her head -- well that's what she says -- but we don't see anything balanced on her head. Turns out our roof is leaking and needs to get replaced. And Grandma needs heart surgery because one of her heart valves is closing. So, 2012 is going to be busy! In case we don't get a chance to visit your blogs for a little while, don't hold that against us. Mommy says reading blogs helps her take her mind off things -- she is so grateful that she has such nice blog friends like you!

Have a Happy New Year everyone! Don't party too hard!

Lassiter Chase and Benjamin the Shelties

Merry Christmas from Lassie and Benji

We know we will be super busy with Christmas, so we are wishing everyone a Happy Holiday a few days early!

Below is a video in the making of our Christmas Card. Benji had two hats - a hat and antlers. The hat was giving us major wardrobe malfunctions with the string on the hat -- so Mommy got the antlers for him instead.

By the way, this isn't related to Christmas, butt wanted everyone to know, Mommy has been letting Benji sleep in her room for about a week now. That's where I sleep too. Benji and I sleep on the floor in dog beds and Mommy gets her human bed. So, instead of locking up Benji in the crate at night -- he has been sleeping on the floor with me like a big boy. The only problem is -- he is sleeping in my dog bed, and I get stuck sleeping in his little dog bed. Oh, well. At least Benji is sleeping during the night and not biting the wooden computer chair anymore like he did the first night in her room.




http://youtu.be/RKEAhB9_HQE

Lassiter Chase the Sheltie and my brother Benjamin

Santa Paws & Benji's new Christmas Sign

1) I promised to show you the video of us seeing Santa Paws on December 17th-- so here it is.

It is SUPER LOUD. So, you better have your humans turn down the volume on their computers. Santa came by on a Fire Truck. I don't know who was more excited to see Santa me or Mommy. Benji didn't know what was going on.

http://youtu.be/WdlW4xKAcJ8




2. Mommy finally finished painting the Benji Sign on December 18th. It matches the sign she painted for me last year. Too bad the clear coat was still drying, so we couldn't put it out in time for Santa Paws -- but at least its up now.

http://youtu.be/WI4hFF_jOQ4




The Pictures...


Benji's new sign.


The sign Mommy painted for me last year. It's getting a little faded on the left. Probably from the snow -- last year the snow was higher than my hat on the sign. I still can't believe Mommy painted that hat on my head! (Oh, can you tell Mommy used 2 different shades of blue to paint my sign because she ran out of the one color.)


Here are our signs together. One of the spot lights shines our signs up at night. (The Looney Toon sled was from a pattern that was painted years ago -- Tweety Bird is missing a foot, Mommy kinda broke it off by accident one year, when she was trying to put it up.)


Here's our house. The house doesn't have a fence in the front of the house, just the back. So, us dogs don't get to go out front much. But when we do get to go out front -- I water each bush 2 or 3 times each! I know how to get out of my harness, so Mommy doesn't let us go out front much. When Santa came by on the Firetruck, she put a big cardboard box on the porch to try to use as a gate.

Mommy says she just doesn't understand it, the harness goes on super tight. She even had the pet store and the vet adjust the harness two different times -- and I still can get out of it when I back up the right way. Mommy says -- it's like you see in the movies from when the women had to wear those corsets with the draw strings to try to get their dress to fit -- that's like how she puts on my harness, saying -- breath in Lassie, now hold it, so I can get this harness snapped.

And everytime, I can get out of the harness! Drives Mommy nuts everytime!

Lassiter Chase and Benjamin the Shelties

P.S. Next post will be our Christmas Card Picture!

Lassie's Birthday Present !

Hi all!

Mommy was supposed to post this earlier in the week. She took a quick video of me opening my Birthday Present for my 2nd Birthday on December 12th. Remember when I showed you the picture of a leg or antenna hanging out of a plastic bag from the grocery store. Well, finally you can all see my gift! Oh and by the way, at the end of the video Mommy, Grandma and Mommy's sister and family sang Happy Birthday to me (Lassie). Mommy's nephew started singing in Ukrainian -- so the word's "Mnohaya Lita" in the song mean "Many Happy Years!" Mommy thinks we usually sound better than that -- guess she was singing to close to the camera and drowned everyone else out. Nice going Mommy!

http://youtu.be/dZQ0iGPWBdA




The pictures....


Here's me with my new Reindeer Stuffy. Benji and I like to play tug of war with it!


Here are Benji and I enjoying the treats I got for my birthday. Thank goodness Mommy got me more than one, because Benji kinda started helping himself with my treat!



Here we are with the party hats on. You all know I hate hats -- so I didn't want to smile for the picture. Thank goodness I didn't have to wear the hat too long!


Lassiter Chase the Sheltie and my little brother Benjamin too!

P.S. Guess who drove by our house yesterday -- Santa Paws. I got it on video too! I will post the video in my next blog post!

Liebster Award

My friends Tucker and Stewie sent us an award on their blog Pupparoos! http://pupparoos.blogspot.com

We were so surprised to find out we were named for the Liebster Blog Award. So, Mommy spent all morning helping us compose this blog post on her slower than slow computer. We had to pick 5 blogs to receive the award in return. Mommy did her best helping us research the 5 blogs to pick. Mommy wasn't sure if doggies that had blog's for a couple of years now, counted as "up-and-coming blogs". Then she couldn't figure out how many followers some blogs had. So, hopefully they don't disqualify us or something for not following directions, we did our best.

We didn't want to offend anyone by not picking them. We don't have too many followers, so we didn't know if we should accept the award or not since we value everyone's comments on our blog. It makes us so happy reading all the comments on our blog, so, by just chosing 5 was very hard for us.

In the end, Mommy said, we will explain to everyone, we wished we could nominate everyone, butt the directions said only 5 blogs with less than 200 Followers. We hope no one has any hard feelings about not being nominated. (And who knows, by the time we finish posting this blog post -- the people we nominated probably already got this award anyway.)


Drum roll......hear is how the Liebster Award works:

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. As with any award, there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award, we must do the following:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award

3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.

4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs

Here's who we nominate to receive the Liebster Blog Award too...

1. Oreo and Chewy the Shelties

We really love reading Sara’s Blog and hearing all about what’s going on with Oreo and Chewy and seeing all of Misty’s memories on Misty Monday blog posts. Sara’s first dog, Munchkin, looked a lot like me (Lassie) and scrolling back thru her older blog posts – it’s amazing to see the resemblance between us – sometimes it’s like I think to myself – was that me standing next to Misty – no, I guess it was Munchkin!. All of Sara’s Shelties are so talented. The trick that Oreo can do that Mommy is most impressed with is turning the light on and off by stepping on the switch on the floor by the bottom of the lamp. Mommy is so impressed with all of the things Sara is able to teach her dogs especially agility. Sara makes everything look so easy and she stays calm, cool and professional. Mommy kinda gets a little stressy when she tries to get us dogs to do something new, especially when we don’t listen to her, and Mommy always takes a step back and says to herself – how would Sara handle this – well, she would smile, show them love and affection, and reward them for improving the trick!. Mommy really values Sara’s comments and is learning a lot from reading Sara’s blog. Oreo is older than me (Lassie) and Chewy is older than Benji – it is very useful reading about what’s going on with them and watching their videos – they are our role models!

http://saralovesdogs.blogspot.com

2. Bailey and Katy the Shelties

Bailey and Katy are from a Sheltie Rescue. Oh, how Mommy is so impressed that Bailey and Katy are from a shelter, and all the time and effort it must have taken for their Mommy and Daddy to spend adopting them. If Mommy remembers correctly, she thinks their Mommy and Daddy had to drive quite some distance to go adopt them – that is what you call going above and beyond the call of duty to adopt a dog! But not just any dog – a Sheltie! It is so interesting reading about how well Katy is adapting to things. Katy wasn’t a puppy when she was adopted, so her history is uncertain. It is always great hearing the progress Katy makes handling new and different situations than what she must have been accustomed to before she met her furever family now! Mommy gets so happy reading Bailey and Princess Katy’s blog posts and hearing what they are up to. Mommy was ready to start up a petition in support of Bailey and Katy when their Thanksgiving toy “Tyler the Turkey” was going to be banished to the attic with all the other Thanksgiving toys. Butt, in the end, Bailey and Katy got to play with a whole bunch of new Christmas toys – so it all worked out well, for now I suppose. What happens to the Christmas toys once it gets to be New Year’s Day? Guess we got to keep watching and reading their blog to find out what happens next! This is better than watching Mommy’s soap opera on TV!

http://sheltietimes.blogspot.com

3. Ricky the Sheltie

Ricky is so smart! Mommy often wonders to herself – how in the world did his Mommy train him to do that! Like hiding on the bookshelf - Priceless! And Ricky’s agility – his Mommy just has to stand at the finish line and say “Go” – and zoom, there goes Ricky knowing exactly what to do jumping over all the obstacles. Wow!!! Words just can’t describe it! Mommy is so amazed everytime she watches Ricky’s videos. We really love reading Ricky’s comments on our blog too! Oh how my Mommy wished she could take beautiful pictures of us like Ricky’s Mom takes of him.

http://rickyitsadogslife.blogspot.com

4. Finn the Golden Retriever

We really enjoy reading Finn’s blog. We recently found out she was named after the book Huckleberry Finn. How cool is that to be named after a book! Finn is a Golden Retriever. Mommy holds the breed Golden Retrievers close to her heart, her brother used to have one and Mommy used to babysit Day-Z the Golden Retriever all the time. Mommy had a really great bond with Day-Z. Day-Z went over Rainbow Bridge a couple of years ago and Mommy still misses her. It’s hard for Mommy to talk about Day-Z, she still has a hole in her heart from Day-Z’s passing. Mommy got me (Lassie) right after she had to part with Day-Z. That helped Mommy’s heart heal a little. Getting Benji helped heal her heart even more. However, Finn’s Blog is helping Mommy’s heart heal too. Seeing Finn’s blog and watching and reading about all her adventures and seeing how much fun and all the love she is getting from her family is so nice to see. It brings back a lot of the warm fuzzy feelings Mommy had with her brother’s dog Day-Z. Golden Retrievers are a really great breed of dog, butt, Mommy definitely says SHELTIES are #1 in her book!

http://finnhoward.blogspot.com

5. Lilli

Lilli lives in Finland. She doesn’t have any pets, but don’t hold that against her! We really love reading Lilli’s blog. She posts everything in two language’s Finnish and English, we are really impressed that she takes the time and effort to translate everything on her blog. Right now for Christmas she is posting everyday, it’s like a countdown to Christmas during Advent. She is posting Christmas Songs and it makes us very happy to hear all the Festive Songs she is posting on her blog. The Christmas Songs are in Finnish, and eventhough we don’t know the Finnish language, we can recognize the melody of a lot of the songs because they sound a lot like the American version’s of the songs. We recognized the song – “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, eventhough it was in Finnish. We recognized other songs as well. We find it to be like a game – hearing the song – then trying to guess if it sounds like an American version of the song – then writing Lilli a comment asking her about the name of the song. Do you know that Lilli wished my Grandma a Happy Birthday all the way from Finland! When Mommy told Grandma – Grandma said that was so nice of her to wish me a Happy Birthday – and wow, all the way from Finland. Grandma says that Mommy sure has a lot of good friends on the blog! Grandma is happy that Mommy is able to have such good friends in the pen-pals she found thru Lassiter Chase the Sheltie’s blog.

http://lilithevoly.blogspot.com/

Thank you again for our award Tucker & Stewie at Pupparoos!

Lassiter Chase the Sheltie and my brother Benjamin

Birthday Weekend

1. It's Grandma's Birthday today Dec 11th. And my birthday (Lassie) is tomorrow Dec 12th. Let the celebrations begin! (Actually, we don't drink beer -- butt if we did -- that would explain why "Big Ben" is overweight by 2 pounds -- blame it on a "beer belly."


2. Mommy is painting a Benji sign for outside. She painted one for me last year and is working on one for Benji -- she made him look older -- butt, that's ok. I don't know if she will ever be finished painting it in time for Christmas! (By the way, if you are wondering about the antlers and scarf on Benji -- you have to wait until our Christmas picture in a future blog post.)


3. I saw Mommy bring home a bag from the grocery store. This is all I got to see -- but she quickly pulled it away as I started to sniff the bag. She says it's my birthday present! Can you believe she is making me wait until my birthday to open it. I wonder what it is? It kinda looks like a foot or antenna -- definitely some kind of stuffie. Don't you think?

Got to go,

Lassiter Chase and Benjamin the Shelties

Benji Got Bling...

1. Mommy and her oldest niece finally got Benji some bling. They have been wanting to make Benji's name tag for a while, butt, finally got to the store to make it. His name tag is blue, they wanted a green name tag to match his new green collar -- butt, they didn't want to put it off any longer -- so he got blue. Benji also got his last round of puppy shots and his rabies shot -- so he got a green name tag for his rabies shot.



This is the machine that engraved Benji's new blue name tag.




2. Here is a picture of us, Benji is showing off his new bling and I am trying to sleep in Benji's little bed. It was very cozy.




3. A couple days after Thanksgiving, we helped Mommy put up her $16.99 Christmas Tree with her oldest nephew. Everyone always makes jokes about Mommy's tree. They say it's $16.99 and it looks it too! Mommy likes her tree and won't get a new one. See, before Mommy's brother got married and moved out, he always kept getting real Christmas trees for the house. Sometimes he even got the trees with the roots still attached. So, Mommy was always stuck with getting down on her hands and knees and and trying to water the real trees. She always had to clean up all the dry pine needles that fell on the floor. And then one year, Mommy was stuck trying to decorate the Christmas tree all by herself that had the root ball attached to it, and it was so heavy. She decorated the tree lopsided because she couldn't turn it around because it was so heavy. Everyone was like -- why is your tree crooked -- Mommy said, because she couldn't even move the tree to try to straighten it out.

So, when Mommy's brother got married and moved out, Mommy took Grandma to the store and they got the $16.99 tree back in 2003. Mommy wanted a tree that she didn't have to get on a chair to decorate the top -- and she wanted one that was in a lite box, so she could carry it herself.

So, that's the story behind the $16.99 tree. We are still decorating the tree, so we will send a picture when it is all finished.







4. We heard on the news that Mommy's favorite Phillies Baseball player Chase Utley had a baby boy a few days ago. My middle name is "Chase", because I am named after him. Well, on Thanksgiving Mommy saw Mommy's niece's little Chase Utley jersey from when she was a kid and put it on Benji to wear. So, these pictures are from Thanksgiving of me and little Benjamin in my bed. Guess what Chase Utley's son's name is.... BENJAMIN. Wow! I wonder if Chase Utley will nickname his son "BENJI"? Congratulations to Chase Utley's new addition.

5. No pictures -- but wanted to let you all know Benji has been constantly doing his pee and poo in the yard -- we still have a pee pad in the house (just in case) -- butt we don't think Benji needs it anymore!

6. Unfortunately, Benji's poop sample still showed some bugs -- so he has to take another round of medicine. My poop sample was ok. The vet said -- that bug is stubborn, so she told us ahead of time -- don't be surprised if the poop sample showed the bug is still there -- they will just have to give more rounds of medicine till they get rid of it. So, it's more liverwurst time -- Mommy puts the medicine in liverwurst. Benji is addicted to liverwurst. I love liverwurst too -- it's the best! (The vet said Benji is a little overweight by 2 pounds. Mommy said, it's from all the liverwurst from giving Benji all those medicines when we first got him.)

Got to go,

Lassiter Chase and my little brother Benjamin too!