Why do I fall for it every time?

Lately, just about every night, Daisy waits until I'm almost asleep and then whines and paces and jumps on the bed like she really has to potty. I tell her no, because I know she just wants to go bark at the deer, but eventually, I give in because I don't want to clean up a mess if she really does have to go out. Then commences the great deer chase, and me standing outside in the cold, yelling and waiting for her to get tired and come back, before I can climb back into my warm bed! Do I bother with the leash? no... that would be way too sensible.

I must really love that dog.

This good deed is for the birds...

So the boys and I made some homemade "suet" treats for the birds, since we're having this really cold weather (insert jokes about southerners who don't really know about COLD here).  These are a mixture of peanut butter, bacon grease, crisco, bird seed, oats, dried cranberries and breadcrumbs.  We put some on a pine cone, and the rest went into the muffin tins to be hung, or put in the suet feeders.  Definitely NOT suitable for anything but this cold weather, as they'd melt easily, but they work well for now, and the birds seem to be enjoying them.  They were all over them about 5 minutes after we hung them up!  I looked out the bedroom window this morning and the suet feeder there had 3 little birds right on it - 2 tufted titmouses (titmice?) and a chickadee. 

We're enjoying the snow.  We went down to the lodge and the labyrinth today to check out the snow, and eventually made it down to lake, but we didn't stay out since it was about 12 degrees here.  Daisy really enjoyed the romp in the cold, though.  While we were trudging along all bundled in sweaters and coats, she pranced and ran and went "crazy dog" all around us.  The boys got really tickled at her.  And me?

I got really tickled, too, because I got to spend some time with my handsome camp guy, my amazing kids and my darling dog in a beautiful setting on a snow day!