Welcome back, Mrs. Welch!

Oh my! Has it really been almost three years since I last posted on this blog? I guess life got a bit busy to say the very least. I'm going to commit to blogging more frequently in the coming year as I have lots to talk about. In my blogging absence, I've said goodbye to several of my furry (and not so furry) critters and welcomed a new critter to the family of the human kind. Now 18 months old, he's a pretty special little guy. On that note, I leave you with my new love and vow to be back soon!

Owen's Hiking Adventures

Hello out there! Is anyone still with me? LOL! I know I've been absent from my blog lately. We've had A LOT going on over here in the last couple of months. Between Owen stepping into a mine field of cholla balls and Sedona developing pneumonia along with a knee injury, we didn't exactly ring in the new year with good luck. We still have a bunch more stuff coming up like surgery to correct Owen's cherry eye as well as his neutering, so I'll likely have periods of time where the blog is quiet. However, despite the lows of the new year, we've had some really good highs, and I hope to be sharing them with you all soon. For now, I'd like to take some time to share the adventures we've been taking with Owen out on the hiking trails.

We started walking him around our local BLM trails late last year when we were confident that his leash training was successful. We began with short, mild walks around the base of the hills and then slowly eased our way on up.

The views from the hills are spectacular as you can tell from these next photos. You can see the entire valley and even our house!

We also see a lot of beautiful plants and animals while we're hiking. Here's a cotton top cactus.

And here's a road runner that was beeping on the side of the hill.

Of course, we also see a lot of hawks riding the thermals.

But one thing is for sure - we always, always have the best time ever!

I put together this fun video of our adventures together. Enjoy!

Post Christmas Post

Hello everyone, and Merry Post-Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday whether you spent a quiet day at home like we did or had a house full of guests or traveled across the country to be with loved ones.

This season I decided to surprise my family and friends with handmade gifts. I made quite a bit of jewelry including several pairs of earrings and necklaces. These first two earring pairs went to my sister-in-laws in Oregon.

I've been using a lot more vintage inspired beads and findings lately, and I'm really pleased with how everything has been turning out. Of course, I had to wrap everything just right, so I made my own packaging as well.

This next piece went to my BFF in New York. I took some hand-dyed silk and strung it through the chain links to give it a more bohemian look.

Lately I've been really enjoying wire wrapping briolettes so I was excited to find this gorgeous turquoise colored Czech glass bead. I used a few personal touches like the hand-stamped "Q" to make this necklace even more special for her.

And here's how I packaged it all up:

I made these next two necklaces for Owen's grandmoms. This first one went to Owen's daddy's human :)

She has three pups of her own, so I thought I would make a bird's nest pendant with three Swarovski glass pearls to represent each of her furry kids.

This next piece went to Sedona and Owen's Grammy-D (their breeder and our long time friend).

Once again I added a personal touch by hand stamping the "DANES RULE" sentiment onto a normal, every-day washer.


Both of the necklaces have a really fun clasp that I found at the bead store.

Lastly, I put together a platter of goodies for Travis' co-workers. I made an assortment of cupcakes, cookies and fudge. YUM...

As you can see, I added some fun decorations using my die cutting machine and some toothpicks.

Finally, speaking of gift-giving, my very talented mother-in-law made this gorgeous quilt for us.

The theme of the quilt is Americana-cow boy. She used pictures of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans as well as their signatures all over the blanket. What she didn't know is that both these old world actors hold a very special place in my heart as I used to run up to the cemetery that houses their beautiful grave site.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year's weekend! See you in 2012!

Tortilla Soup & Friday Favorites

Hello all! Today I want to share a few things with you, and first up is a recipe for tortilla soup that I got from my good friend, Susan (hola chica!). She first made it for me earlier this year, and I absolutely fell in love with it. It's an awesome soup to make when it's cold outside and considering it's been getting down in the mid-teens here lately, I'd say it's time for soup!

Ingredients for the soup:

*2 cooked chicken breasts OR an already fully cooked chicken from the grocery store (I use the latter)

*2 large cans of chicken broth OR 2 boxes of chicken broth

*1 can of corn, drained, OR one bag of frozen corn

*1 tsp Ground Cayenne Red Pepper (you can add more to taste, but I found that anymore makes it really spicy)

*1 jar of mild salsa

*1/2 jar of a 5.75 oz bottle of minced onions

*2 carrots

*2 stocks of celery

Ingredients for soup topping:

*Tortilla chips (I use the Mission Tortilla Strips)

*Avocado

*Sour Cream

*Green Onions - chopped

*Cilantro - chopped

*Cheese

Preparation:

*If using chicken breasts, bake in oven at 400F for about 30 minutes until the juices run clear, flipping every 10 minutes. After it's done, tear it up into bite size pieces and set aside. If using an already prepared chicken, tear it up into bite size pieces and set aside.

*Cut up carrots and celery into bite size pieces. Put carrots, celery and the above ingredients into a large pot with chicken broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until the carrots and celery are tender (about 20 minutes).

To Serve:

*Crunch tortilla strips and put at the bottom of the bowl

*Cover tortilla strips with soup mixture

*Garnish the soup with avocado, sour cream, green onions, cilantro and cheese.

This recipe serves about 6-8 bowls of soup. Since it's just Travis and me, I cut the ingredient list in half. You can also freeze this soup and have it later (which is what we do)!

Now it's time for an update on this little man:

Okay, so he's not so little anymore, but he'll always be my baby. He just turned six months old a few weeks ago, and he's probably somewhere around the 100 lb mark. Just look at how big he is compared to Sedona.

Sometimes I get a quick glance of the two of them out in the yard, and I can't tell who's who! It's hard to remember that he's still just a baby, but his cute puppy antics never let me forget! He still naps pretty regularly which is nice, and his favorite place to snooze is directly in the sunlight that streams through our big front window.

He loves the sun so much that he actually seeks it out no matter where it's hitting at the time. The other day it was on the couch, so he did what he needed to do.

When I asked him what he was doing, he just gave me this look like, "Ah, mom! I'm sunbathing!"

I was cleaning out my e-mail the other day (I had almost 500 e-mails in my inbox - ridiculous!) and came across this picture that my friend (thanks, Aprile!) took of Owen and me when he was just a baby-baby. I think he was about 12 weeks old in this picture and getting to the point where picking him up was a bit difficult.

I also stumbled on this picture from when we took Owen to my parent's house during a trip to get his parvo shot. If I remember correctly, he's about 18 or 20 weeks old. Look at how little he is!

Now that the weather has cooled off significantly, I take the kids out for a walk every afternoon. We have a big patch of desert right in front of our house that the dogs love to explore. Owen does extremely well on his leash, and he knows how to "heel" and "wait" during our walks. Most of the time I let them just wander where they want to. After all, it is THEIR walk, not mine :) The other day Mr. Owen must have gotten a bit too close to a creosote branch because I later noticed that he had a tiny cut under his right eye. Poor thing! It has completely healed since then, thank goodness. If that's the worst of his puppy ailments, then I'm good with that!

Of course I can't forget to mention Ms. Pebbles who is never far away from her two big Great Danes :) I love that little quizzical look she's giving me in this picture.

You know, I talk an awful lot about the dogs mostly because they are a constant presence and Owen needs a lot of attention right now. However, we do share our lives with three awesome kitty cats who are just as loved as the puppy dogs. We are very lucky in that we have a very harmonious house. Everyone gets along with each other. None of the cats are destructive in anyway. They are very sweet, very affectionate critters who love us and the dogs.

First we have Attila who just turned 13 years old this November. He's a very loving, very loyal boy who loves to sit in the bathroom with me while I take a shower. His favorite place to be during the day is on our bed snoozing with his two girls, Abby and Kellie.

Next we have Kellie, aka Kell-Kells. We're not sure exactly how old she is since she is a rescue, but she can't be more than a year and a half. She's definitely a kitten all the way though! Her favorite thing to do is sit besides us on the couch when we're watching TV at night. Her and Pebbles sleep back-to-back most of the time for hours on end. She's very much a mama's girl who loves to follow me wherever I happen to be. And my-oh-my if you could feel this girl's fur through the computer! She feels like a chinchilla!

Last up is Abigail, aka Abby and Abby-Gabby-Budah-Belly, our blue-eyed beauty. Found wandering a parking lot tired and dirty, she was brought into the rescue I used to volunteer for as was Kellie (that's how both of them came to be with me). Abby is the sweetest, oddest cat I've ever met! She LOVES sitting on my lap and getting a belly rub. Just like Kellie, she often falls asleep on my lap while I'm watching TV. She enjoys being in the same room as me, so she has her own basket in my craft room that she uses quite often (you can see a hint of Kellie's brown basket in the top left of the picture). Another interesting bit about Abby is that she's fully declawed, a practice I find rather barbaric. Claws or not, she's still the sweetest thing ever.

Thanks for stopping by today! Enjoy your weekend :)

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

But better late than never, right? I know I'm a bit tardy with my Thanksgiving post, but I wanted to share our feast with all of you. Despite the fact that it was just the two of us for dinner this year, we wanted to make it special since it's the beginning of the holidays in our new house. We obviously didn't want to roast an entire turkey so we ended up buying a bone-in turkey breast which Travis prepared.

We had no idea what to expect when we opened the turkey breast package, but low and behold it looked just like a full turkey except with all of its limbs cut off. It even had a little cavity that Travis filled with bay leaves and seasoning. It may not look like much, but it was incredibly tasty.

For my part, I made my grandma's stuffing for the first time ever, and I must say it came out pretty dang awesome. It's not your traditional stuffing made with bread cubes or crumbs. As a matter of fact, it doesn't have bread in it at all. This stuffing has ground pork, ground beef, potatoes and a whole lot of other yummy seasonings and vegetables. I think it was our favorite part of the entire meal.

Another first for me was homemade cranberry sauce. YUMMERS! I never knew it was so simple to make, and it adds such lovely color to the table.

Here's what our feast looked like right before we dived in. As you can see, we also made creamy mashed potatoes, gravy, home style biscuits and had some pinot noir to drink. It truly was a dinner fit for a king (and queen)!

And here's a plate of our delicious meal.

Lastly, I snapped a quick picture of the two of us in the midst of our cooking extravaganza. I'm wearing my Christmas apron :)

As most of you know, we moved into our new house about five months ago. Having moved MANY times prior to this, I knew it was going to take at least this long to get the house in order and to sort through our stuff. I had a feeling it might even take a little longer this time around since a lot of our stuff had been in storage for three years. Over the course of those years, I wasn't able to decorate for the holidays, but that didn't stop me from buying holiday decor when it was on clearance in late December ;) Having said that, we had a *few* holiday bins to sort through the result of which was a purge-fest and a very early decorated house.

My first decorating mission was the dining room which came equipped with this interesting wall of built-in cubbies and a matching buffet underneath it. We didn't quite know what to do with it at first, but it turns out that this area makes for a very fun area to decorate!

As you can see, I merged both Thanksgiving and Christmas decor this year mostly for convenience's sake. Everything will stay up until early January. Here are a few shots of some of the cubbies:


On the buffet we have our little Christmas village set up. I love the soft glow that the lights give off at night.

To the left of the Christmas village I set up a little corner with fall decor. The pumpkin sunflower cookie jar is my favorite, and I love the scare crows (got them at Bed, Bath & Beyond one year at a super clearance price).

Moving along to the entry of the house, we have a glass curio cabinet and an antique phonograph that used to belong to a dear friend of mind who has since passed on. We normally have pictures and random house decor up there, but I thought it would make for a lovely nativity scene.

At night, I light the Yankee Candle and the three small votives inside the crystal candle holders. The tree and the garland also light up. It really looks nice in here when the sun goes down.

On top of the phonograph I put a glass reindeer and sleigh I got at Costco a few years back. The sleigh is filled with holiday candy that I all too frequently indulge in :)

In the kitchen/dining room, we have this really pretty baker's rack that I got from a friend right before we moved. It couldn't have fit better where it's at if we had planned it that way (which we didn't)! I wrapped some garland around the wrought iron and added a few other Christmas items. The "Cheer, Joy, Peace" Santa banner is my creation :)

Lastly, we couldn't forget the exterior of our house! This year marks the very first year that Travis and I have actually hung lights on our own house (and we've been together for a LONG time). Of course, it looks much better at night, but you get the picture.

I hope all of you are enjoying the season!