Winner!

Matt is one of those " I don't need a greeting card holiday to express my love" kind of guys, and so for our married life we have compromised by only celebrating Valentines day every other year.  It might seem lame to some of you, but for us it has worked (despite pouting by me on OFF years, and equal pouting by him during ON years. )
This year is an OFF Valentines day year. And rather than my usual nudging and pouting, I decided that I could still celebrate Valentines day with Wheeler. So we got heart stickers and made cards and pink frosted sugar cookies (which Murphy helped to eat)... and  low and behold this morning someone  decided to ignore the OFF year and join in on our celebration with cards and gifts of his own!
WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!
 I should have guessed that the one thing Matt hates more than Valentines day is being left out.
So a very Happy Valentines Day to my funny Swan boys. I love you  both so much!
ps. as a reward for joining in on our greeting card holiday I made a marshmallow pie (Marshmallows are Wheelers favorite and Pie is matt's.) It was my first attempt, and this recipe turned out delicious!

acceptable alternative?

I have been considering moving our little blog over to the "private" side of the blogging world. A certain amount of anxiety always creeps up when you stop and think that anyone out there has  access to our little pictures and experiences. And I am not as responsible as I should be in remembering to leave out personal details in my blog posts. However, the lazy side of me just wants to be trusting and keep it open to one and all... rationalizing that I don't really get too much traffic on here anyway.  What is an amateur blogger to do? Thoughts?
For now, a compromise with my over-anxious nature has been made and I have added a tracker to my blogpage. I copied it off my friend Annie's blog ( thanks Annie) and hopefully it will be an acceptable alternative to making everyone go through the hassle of logging in each time they want to check out our 100th updated picture of Wheeler. (oops I mean our son, who's ambiguous name may or may not start with a W.)

Proof

This post is mostly for my dad.
Here is the PROOF that Murphy does not bite, scratch, eat, or otherwise hurt your grandson in anyway. Moreover, as evident in the pictures, it is usually Wheeler who is terrorizing the poor dog. Our formerly crazy puppy has turned into a gentle giant who just lies there, knows his place, and takes whatever our mischievous toddler dishes out.

Wheeler thinks it is funny to try and steal the dog's blanket.

and to taunt him with Matt's dirty socks... 

He likes to pull on Murphy's dog tags

And isn't shy about pushing or pulling him out of the way when Murphy has the audacity to eat his scraps. (while yelling "No, NO, NO NO!)

But since he is such a good dog, he usually gets a hug afterwards...

Or two.

Or three.