Trees and Dogs

I have two random things to share with you today so I thought I would lump them together into one post. 

First, in art class we carved lino blocks and printed the designs onto blue-striped IKEA tea towels. You can see them in the photos above - the green trees are mine and the red trees are my mom's. Have you ever done any printing? It is a very satisfying project.

I printed evergreen trees down the sides of the tea towel and then dipped a pencil eraser into silver paint and dotted the sky with stars (I'm sure you knew those were stars, right?)  It is a fun project and I like that you end up with a useful item.  I'm using mine as a table runner rather than a tea towel. 

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It was the husband's birthday last Friday and we celebrated on Friday with dinner out and on Saturday with lunch out with the family.

It was a significant birthday so the kids and I went all out and did some extra special things for him. One of the things we did was list all his accomplishments on a long paper. It was so long I hung it across the lights in the dining room. We had fun reading them together and adding more things we had forgotten to the list.

And the really big news is that the husband is getting a dog for his birthday. And no I didn't wrap a dog up in that big box on the table - it if filled with dog paraphernalia. The husband has wanted a dog since Juno passed away in February, but I have been reluctant to get another one because of the difficulties when you want to go away. There is always give-and-take in a marriage and since this was the husband's heart's desire it seemed the perfect time to give it to him (well the permission to get his heart's desire anyway, as getting a dog is turning out to be quite the process). 

A funny thing happened - on Wednesday I bought a dog collar to give him as a placeholder for the actual dog and tucked it carefully away. The next day I realized I had no idea where I had put the present (honestly, I can be so absent-minded sometimes) and the husband's birthday was the next day. So at lunch on Friday I had to run out and buy another placeholder. Since I was in the pet store anyway, I decided to buy a bunch of things like a dog bed and a leash and some food which is why the box was so big. 

Now we just need to find the right little dog - one that will fit the adorable coat and sweater I bought for it!