Bella VS. The Bunny

Recently, Makaela was given one of those little furry toys that have plastic feet on the bottom, and you can wind them up and they hop/jump all over the place. I must admit, there are a whole slew of toys that make me think "I wonder what Bella would do with that". :) you know you've got a good dog who will provide LOTS of entertainment when you look at things and ask yourself that question. So, of course, I thought "I wonder what Bella would do with this bunny". Well, here are 2 videos of what she did. We knew she would probably freak out a little and definitely want to play with it. In the first video, you get the idea of how she initially reacted to it. It wasn't even 2 minutes before she had the plastic feet off of that little bunny, so you were left with the bunny, the little winder gadget on the side, and a buzzing noise when the area where the feet used to be was triggered. The result is in these 2 videos. Enjoy an if you're like me, grab a tissue or 2 because I was laughing so hard I cried :) We love our crazy Bella

p.s. please excuse the condition of my house in these videos :) We were having a lazy day :)

p.s.s. I just watched the videos again and yep---still laughing so hard I cry :)

Bonding with Bella

Makaela has taken a particular liking to Bella lately which has been really fun!! She loves to "play" with her, and sweet Bella is so gentle and patient with Makaela. She is constantly sitting on her trying to ride her, or checking out her feet or her mouth or something. I see a budding friendship here :)

Bounding Bella

If I didn't know any better, I'd think we had a deer, not a dog. Often when she runs across the backyard she goes bounding. It is so funny. So yesterday, I finally decided that we had to get a video of it. So while Nathan threw little rocks (yes, rocks, not a ball, not treats--rocks) around in the backyard she would bound to go see where they landed.

Bella's New Hiding Spot

Several weeks back, I noticed that Bella wasn't lying on her bed. I started walking around looking for her and low and behold she came crawling out from underneath Makaela's crib of all places! I have no idea how she fit under there, but she does. It's pretty ridiculous. Here's how she does it.

Bella Vs. the Easy Button

Yes, thats right, the easy button. You know those red buttons from staples that say "that was easy" She was extremely frustrated/annoyed/perturbed that when she would pounce (yes, pounce, like a cat) on the button it would say "that was easy". So as usual, video was necessary and here it is :)

Bella Vs. "The Bug"

Ok for all you Zerlang/Board people out there. We did it. We went and bought one of the Bugs. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, this is what it is.

So my cousin, Jonathan, got a few of these for Christmas. Naturally, Nathan and I immediately wondered what Bella would do with one of those. Once we got home from vacation, we promptly bought one and the following videos are the result of her reaction to them. I just have to apologize for the shakey video--its really hard to keep the camera still when your laughing so hard your whole body is shaking, and in my case, tears are streaming down my face!! Oh Bella...

Bella Vs. the Curtain

Yes, thats right, the curtain. As usual, I did not get the camera fast enough to catch the ferocious barking, but I did catch some of the growling. The vents are in our floor, and consequently when the heater comes on, the air blew our curtains out. Bella at first was laying on her bed--sleeping. But as usual, her 6th sense (the one that lets her know she's afraid of EVERYTHING) kicked in and she got up and started growling and barking at the curtain!
The noise at the beginning of the video is the episode of Dancing with the Stars that we were currenty talking about. I think I should just develop a once for all title for posts about Bella. Any ideas?

Bella VS. The Swiffer

Yes--another Bella Vs. Video :) We can probaby post these for the entirety of her lifetime. Here are 2 videos--similar but enough differences that both are hilarious. :) What else would you expect from her?

By the way, we don't know why she is afraid of the swiffer (or anything else for that matter) but it always adds a lot of laughter to our lives.

On a side note--please ignore the massive baskets of laundry (which is all folded) and the ironing board (which is waiting for quality time with me) that are out. I had to take a break to play with the dog :)

Bella and the Spray Bottle

Oh Bella...She has adapted quite well to Washington--although we haven't had a ton of rain yet so we will see how she REALLY does when that season comes.
Typically Bella is not a big fan of the spray bottle I use when I iron. It's just a bottle filled with water, but she does not like it. However, on this night she seemed quite fond of it...
And no...our walls are not really that color green. They are green but they are a nice green...not a lime green like they look in the video. :)

August...what?

Where have June & July gone? It has been a crazy few months for us. June consisted of exactly 1 night where there wasn't something going on. So I guess that means June flew by and now here we are in July...or wait here we are mainly in August.

Makaela wasn't sure what to think of the fireworks on the 4th. Her only reaction was her eyes getting very big. Bella on the other hand...Bella was very interested in them. There weren't a ton of loud fireworks so she didn't really react that much but the sparklers--oh the sparklers. Bella decided she would like to try a taste of the sparklers...while they were lit. I suppose we should have expected this but for some reason we didn't. This video is hilarious...probably a small amount of animal cruelty, but we didn't make her eat the sparkler...she bit into it all herself. And just for the record...she was a bit shocked but she was fine. Here's the video and again...This action was not forced so don't turn us in to animal control :) We already had one encounter with them...and they are pricey!!

For some reason, the video didn't upload with sound but thats OK because I don't really say anything except for "oh bella" at the very end.

Bella vs. the Orange Peel

As promised...

Oh Bella

I just really feel the need to talk about Bella a little bit. We've been talking a lot about all of the weird and quirky things Bella does, and something prompted me to search youtube for other boxer videos. I quickly learned that Bella is neither weird nor quirky but right at home with the rest of her breed. Here are a few hilarious things Bella does...plus a video or two of other boxers doing things that I can totally see Bella doing. I'm working on uploading a video of Bella (its about 5 minutes) that I will hopefully be able to post later. For now....Bella's quarks...or so we thought:
She barks at nearly everything...and I mean everything...with the exception of people. Hopefully we wont need her as a watch dog because she loves people too much!! Some examples of things she barks at include:

• food/water dish
• large branches that have fallen off trees in the backyard
• rake
• shovel
• and my favorite of all...the sky. Yes thats right, she barks at the sky. Because we live so close to the base, we often have sonic booms and her response to such a thing is to bark at the sky because thats where that noise comes from.

One of our favorite and most hilarious things she does has to do with when she passes gas. Its a pretty raunchy smell so we have taken to having a febreez spray bottle close at hand. Bella does not like the spray bottle. It used to be that whenever she passed gas, we'd spray the bottle to help mask the smell and she would run away from the bottle. Now, we don't even have to get to the spraying part before she runs away. When she passes gas, the perks her head and ears up real fast...looks back toward her rear end (as if she was saying "what the heck was that?!?!") then proceeds to quickly look at us (with the most guilty look I might add) and run away from the place of the incident.

She is afraid of nearly all the baby paraphernalia around the house and will run away if we put any of it near her (including the bags of dirty diapers). Anywho...here is a video of a boxer who is barking at/seems to be afraid of a little white jewelry box...something I could see Bella doing.

This video is will also give you a great idea of what Bella would do. This dog named Stella (maybe Bella's long lost cousin) is barking at the lawnmower. Bella doesn't bark at the lawnmower, but she does bark at the vaccuum and try to bite it while I'm vaccuuming.

How Bella Gets Her Exercise

I know that Makaela has been on center stage, and mostly will continue to be, but I thought I should put something up about Bella. We still love her too :)

She has actually become Destructor Dog since Makaela was born. This is mostly because I'm in bed pretty late into the morning with Makaela, and Nathan leaves for work which doesn't leave much attention for Bella so she finds other ways to occupy herself. Don't get me wrong, she does get attention... its just not usually in the mornings.

Makaela has taken to prefering to be walked to be calmed down. I can no longer just sit on the couch and do it...I guess I was getting too spoiled. Walking is good though because its better than just sitting on the couch, and Bella gets some exercise too. Whenever we walk the circle in our kitchen, Bella is always close behind. She is a little lazy though because if we speed up our walking, she doesn't keep up. She just continues to walk at her very slow pace, but we still get a kick out of her following us every time... without fail.

Also, for some reason, i'm not sure why, Bella is afraid of our kitchen dish towels. I should take this opportunity to note what a skiddish dog bella is... she actually often seems to resemble cat-like manorisms rather than dog ones. She will rub up against our feet arching her back... she uses her paws to try and grab our feet when we play with her, much like a cat with a ball of yarn...and the likes. Today we helped bella get some exercise by taking her outside with the dreaded dish towel. All Nathan had to do was wave it in the air and she would run laps around our backyard. By the time I got the camera... she had already been running for a while and was pretty tired out. I'm having trouble getting the video to upload, but I will keep trying. For now, hopefully the story is funny enough and hopefully I will get the video up before too long. Who said you have to take your dog on a walk to get them exercise? :)

Playtime

I feel like we are using our new dog as practice for our new baby on the way. Whenever we are home, we are always playing with her and we always seem to have the camera close by because she just does some hilarious things. On this particular night, I was playing with her as she was trying to catch my feet. It kindof reminded me of that arcade game with the alligators and the big hammar you used to smash their heads. The alligators would pop out and you had to try and hit their heads. With bella, you'd taunt her with your feet until she popped out and you had to try and get them away from her. We are having a ton of fun with her... most of the time :) I will say, we have to work on learning how to go outside to go to the bathroom even when its rainy. On Monday, the weather was cold and rainy, and she decided that she did not want to step on the wet grass so instead she did all her pottying inside. Needless to say, she spent much of the day in her kennel in trouble which is really sad because it was her half birthday :) Anyway... here's a video of us playing.

Bella the Boxer... and Christmas too :)

So big news to those of you who don't already know! We got a puppy. We thought we'd try out our parenting/child rearing or "puppy rearing" skills in preparation for little baby fogde to come. Not exactly...

We have wanted a dog for a long time but had decided we would wait. We started talking more seriously this fall about getting a dog, but again decided we would wait. Then the week before Thanksgiving, Nathan decided that he really really wanted a dog... so the search began. Our initial intent was to get a puppy from up by where my parents live, but after a little more searching we found a much better option. I think the Lord knew that having a brand new puppy plus a baby in 2 months would be a little (understatement of the century) too much. What we did find was a 5 1/2 month old puppy who is still a puppy but she is already partly trained and has such a natural good nature in her! We have added Bella the Boxer to our family. She is so very cute, and she has been great so far! We have had to work on a few things, but she is catching on quickly. We haven't had an accident in the house in several days now, and she will go by the back door and give a little whine when she needs to go outside... YAY!! She also only seems to enjoy chewing on things that are fuzzy... so shoes are not her first choice (unless they are my slippers) :). But we don't have many fuzzy things in our house (yet at least) so chewing hasn't been a problem... YAY!! She enjoys jumping up, but she is learning that she cannot jump on people and she is definitely learning she cannot jump up at the kitchen counter to check out the goods. She has learned that one the hard way. She loves to play and be roudy, but she settles down so fast and is very calm. We just love her! We're so excited that our little girl will be able to grow up with Bella... we think it will be fun for them to grow together :)

Now, Christmas is just right around the corner, or so it seems as everything with church musicals etc. is kicking into high gear! We did a little decorating of our own at our house this year which we very much enjoyed. We even indulged ourselves and bought a Christmas Tree. Our very first one (how cute :)). Bella was a good sport, and she even let us decorate her and she wishes everyone a Very Merry Christmas.

This is Bella :)

This is Bella's version of Rudolph.

She's such a good sport!

Beginning the Decorating

We have a real mantle!!

Nathan working hard on the tree. I have to admit that he did most of the work because by the time we got to this point, I had been on my feet for quite a while and I just needed to take a break. He did a great job though!

Finished product and proud of it!

Showing off my excuse for supervising:)

Testing out the new timing on the new camera