lately.

ok. so you may be wondering {but probably aren't} why i haven't been posting much lately. and although austin and i have been up to lots here in the past few days, it turns out i take too many pictures. at least according to blogger. apparently, you only have so much photo space on their server and i have exceeded that, mostly because both of my cameras are so awesome {at least i think so} and make the picture size so large. so now, in order to upload pictures, i have to do a little bit of editing and resize the pictures to be fewer pixels. so now, with smaller pictures in tow, i share with you what we've been doing lately.

we did some copper-sitting one weekend when his people were both out of town. and copper took the opportunity to find his inner yogi and meditate a bit.

namaste, copper, namaste.

dinger has been soaking up all the fresh air he can get while the windows are open. and even attempting {and succeeding a few times} to sneak out the door when we come in and out.

one night, austin wanted to head to the driving range and hit a few golf balls and invited me to come with him. i, of course, instantly wanted to put on an entirely plaid outfit and one of those funny hats and be all fancy at the driving range.

but i didn't realized what kind of driving range we were going to...

but it's fine, they have a range and restaurant.

and interesting targets to aim for.

austin is actually pretty good at golf. me? not so much. and i was too annoyed by the millions of mosquitoes biting the heck out of me to try to learn. so i took pictures instead.

we ended up only staying for about 20 minutes and austin didn't even hit all the balls, because the mosquitoes were getting way too bad. and austin was getting way too angry.

also, i got a lovely new hanging basket of begonias for the front porch. lovely, yes?

and of course, we've all done our fair share of lounging and relaxing.

and jules does her share of being so stinking cute.

our garden is growing well and we've been working on a few other things around the house, so i'll have a few more posts coming soon. i know you'll all be waiting anxiously.

empty nest.

we're empty nesters!

well, almost...

our little joee is all grown up and has moved out and left us empty nesters, but we've been hanging on to copper for a little bit while joe gets his apartment all set up. i feel like our house just doubled in size. i forgot what it was like to not have to share a teeny closet with austin or have to climb up in to the attic if i needed a certain pair of shoes or pants. i can reeeally appreciate even the little bitty closet that i have all to myself again {turns out i have a lot of clothes}.

a little update on our square foot gardening beginnings. our seeds have really taken off and we've begun trimming down the weaklings.

the tallest ones there are my cucumbers!

and austin bought some already growing tomato plants over the weekend.

and lastly for this post, i've put pepper on my plant.

actually, i think it's chili powder. but as you can see, someone mischievous {ahem, dinger} has been chewing on my new house plant's leaves, that little jerk. he seems to be attracted to the little droplets of water that appear on the tips of the leaves {because he's obsessed with water} and then decides to just starting eating. or maybe he's just being the problem child that he is. so in an attempt to not have the ugliest houseplant ever, i've put pepper on the leaves, hopefully dinger doesn't like spicy foods.

the one low hanging leaf he hasn't chewed up yet. prevention is key.

is this safe for dinger? the plant? i have no clue. i guess i'll do some googling to find out what i can. anyone have any other suggestions as per what to do about this problem?

forgot one.

i forgot to include this adorable picture.

i think juliet just might miss copper when he moves out...

weekend works.

austin and i got to work on our garden this weekend. we bought our seeds and jiffy pots to get the seeds going in. after a few weeks, we'll be able to transfer the little plants to the garden, once it's staying warm.

here's austin adding water to the jiffy pots.

{please excuse the ugly green couch. the couch cover was in the wash}

i think these are beet seeds {yuck, i know}.

all of our seeds planted and ready to grow.

so far we've got:
lettuces.
spinach.
beets.
broccoli.
cucumbers.
carrots.
onions.
potatoes.
strawberries.
and austin plans to buy an already growing heirloom tomato plant.

i can't wait to get them out to the garden!

austin, steve and taylor went on saturday morning to get the dirt for our garden outside. somewhere around here there is a mushroom farm and after a few uses of the really rich soil they sell the compost. so that's what we've got in our yard, waiting to be put into the box. and it stinks to high heaven. juliet, however, thinks it smells awesome. so she rolls in it. thus, requiring a bath.

bath time for juliet!

all clean!

and lastly, just a little picture of copper i'd like to share. this is how he sleeps.

all flattened out. he looks like a copper skin rug. cracks me up.

so that was our weekend, for the most part. i hope you all had a great weekend, too!

protesting.

for safety reasons, joe has decided that copper needs to not be allowed to jump up on the couches anymore {it wouldn't be good if copper smooshed baby paxton}. so joe got him a nice and comfy orthopedic foam-filled bed.

however, poor copper does not like the idea. so he's protesting. instead of sleeping in the bed, most of the time he shows his discontent with the new regulations by sleeping in odd places. like the corner by the door.

he makes me feel so bad... but it's for safety reasons so i'll do my best to enforce the new rules.

and besides, at least someone is getting use out of the new bed.

{sorry for the poor cell phone picture quality}

sleeping dogs...

we've had some really nice weather lately {well, not so much today, bleh} so last week i took the dogs on a big walk around the neighborhood. we walked and walked until my legs hurt, though the pups didn't seem phased.

that is, until we got back to the house. and they. were. out.

and let's just be honest, i was out, too, shortly after these pictures.

hopefully we'll have lots of nice weather days coming up soon. maybe i'll even get to take the pups to the dog park!

big girl toys.

i. am. so. excited.

i've always been obsessed with pictures. always wanted to take a photography class. always wanted a big fancy slr camera.

and now...

i have one!

i am the proud {and ridiculously excited} owner of a nikon d3100. i've got two lenses for it, an 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm zoom lens.

and i'm not going to lie, i really have no idea what that means. this camera is confusing. but i'm working on it. continuously searching for tips, tricks and guides on the never ending interweb. one blog i've found to be really useful so far is 31 days to a better photo - a step by step tutorial on the different features of most digital slr cameras. i've been working on the "assignments" darcy posted in the series and so far, i'm understand most of what she says. key word: most.

{fortunately, the camera has an "auto" function, so until i learn all the ins and outs of my camera, i can still play.}

i also just got a nice little bag to pack all of my camera supplies in. it's a "sling" style backpack {one shoulder type} so you can sling it around your body real quick to grab your camera without having to take the bag off.

i like it because the camera gets nestled in all snug-like.

with the purchase of the camera, i got 18 tickets to photography classes and since the place offers 9 different classes, austin gets to go with me to learn about the camera, too!

i really can't explain how unbelievably excited i am.

i've taken quite a few pictures so far, mostly of juliet and copper, of course. so i'll share just a few.

and here's my favorite. because i love my puppy so much.

and she's just so darn cute.

hopefully i'll become a pro at my new camera and i'll have all kinds of awesome pictures to post in the future.

one of us.

copper has been learning lots of new things since he and joee have been staying with us.

since he seems to think he's a lap dog, i guess he thinks he's just as small as a lap dog and sitting on top of the couch like the small dog does must be ok.

this was too cute.

he looks like he's trying so so hard to be comfortable up there, but it just doesn't seem to work...

he's also learned to peek out the window to see what's going on out side like schrodinger does.

i guess copper is becoming one of us now. :)

it snowed. again.

they were right. the weatherpeople said it was going to snow. and imagine that, it did.

the view we woke up to this morning {i wasn't ready to bundle up to get a picture without a window in the way}.

i'm kinda annoyed with it, though. i mean, snow is great if you get out of school or even work. and if staying home means you get to play in the snow and go sledding.

i'm not in school. didn't have work today. so now i'm just stuck. i got a little bit excited because i thought maybe austin would get to stay home and we could play in the snow, but his work actually sent someone to come pick him up at our house to transport him to work.

i did get a few pictures of us and the puppies in the snow this morning, as we all went out to clear a space for juliet to, well, take care of business...

we measured the snow on top of our patio table. looks like five and a half inches...

julie is not so much a fan of the snow {so austin threw her in it, of course}.

where she quickly hopped to me so she could get out of the snow.

copper, however, looooves the snow.

he ran.

and ran some more.

and then hid from austin who was throwing snowballs and hit both copper and me a few times.

we could hardly get him to come inside. i told him we'll go play in the snow again later.

i just wish austin could have stayed home all day.

and p.s. it's 1:30 p.m. and the roads haven't been touched by tdot. where's my timmy on the tractor when i need him?