The Final Five!

**Hopefully you've noticed the voting widget has changed - Meg made it to the Final Five of the Paper Crafts Gallery Idol competition - and her final creation is totally rad, dude.**

Supplies: striped paper from My Mind's Eye;
birdie card & red pp from Fancy Pants;
Sakura clear glaze pen (on heart 'flowers');
buttons from Basic Grey and hearts from Dress it Up!

Funny, I don't necessarily enjoy making wedding cards all that much - I find myself reaching for the same images over & over, and that gets boring. (I know, boo-hoo). Love cards, though? Love them. I think it is a truly lovely thing to give someone an "I love you just because you're you" card - a friend, a family member, a child. Who doesn't need to hear that they're loved? I wonder if I could fit the word 'love' in there one more time in some fashion...lol.

The boys are back to day camp after vacation. {whew!} It'll be nice to be back to routine. So far Abby is really making herself loved. She's not as housebroken as I would like, but one positive is that she returns to the scene of the crime, so to speak, so I've just put Puppy Pads down in that spot. She's already improving her on-leash behaviour, and she's very quickly learned to 'drop it' and 'sit'. I think she probably already knew those two, but her first day with us was too exciting to remember to use it. She's also responding to "Abby" already, and comes just when you say her name. The first night she was too whiny to sleep in the kennel (and we weren't too determined yet.) Last night she only whined for about 5 minutes, instead of the full-out barking of the night before, and she stayed quiet for about 2-3 hours. I think within a few weeks we should have her settled into a night-long routine. Something funny that I've noticed walking her alone - she barks only at men. She doesn't bark at anyone if Rob is walking with us, but when I'm by myself she goes nuts...but not if she sees a woman. A guy passed us this morning wearing a hat & dressed all in black, and I actually had to hold her! I think it's quite something that at only 4 months old she's already that protective. She tries to keep the 4 of us herded together when we're out as a family, too.

The cats are settling down. The first night, Gertie slept on one side of me, Abby on the other. It took until yesterday afternoon for Maggie to come back upstairs at all. (No dogs allowed in the basement.) She's scared, but curious, and has been sort of following Abby around, and checks her out up close when she's asleep. Sophie, the deaf one, isn't afraid. She's MAD. Even she's starting to come around - she puffs & hisses, but she's stopped the terrible screaming noise, and hasn't charged since yesterday morning. Connor was really worried about Sophie, and keeps lecturing her that "We don't scratch family members, and Abby is part of our family now!" I'm glad it isn't taking as long as I thought to show him that see, the cats really will adjust & already are.

OK, enough blathering. I've got to take the dog out for a pee ;)
xoxo,
Jessi