Christmas Success (and a Giveaway Announcement!)

I don't know about you, but I feel like Christmas zoomed by so quickly this year!  This was Athena's first Christmas with us, so we weren't quite sure how she would react to houses filled with lots of people, plates full of delicious food, and presents decorated with sparkly bows.  As expected, Athena was a superstar and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas holiday!

1.  Athena got dressed up for the occasion

Being her first Christmas, I wanted to make sure that Athena was in full holiday spirit and dressed for the occasion.  On Christmas Eve I attempted to sew my first ever flower to attach to Athena's collar.  The flower turned out well for being my first attempt, so Athena wore it on Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  She also sported a very festive red tutu and a pair of reindeer ears that complete her holiday outfit.

Fancy collar flower & red tutu

Athena modeling her reindeer ears

2.  Athena visited with lots of family and met some new people (including her first toddler)

We went to different family members' houses on Christmas Eve and Christmas day which meant that Athena got to visit with lots of people.  She did great reuniting with much of our family that she has already met, and she was fairly calm when meeting new people (she is sometimes fearful of strangers).  Athena even met her first toddler and was totally in love with him.  She was his shadow for all of Christmas day and was extremely gentle with him even when he bonked her a few times and screamed really loud (this reaffirms our belief that Athena lived with children in her past).

Athena watching her toddler's every move

3.  Athena was spoiled

Of course you knew that this would happen, but Athena was totally and completely spoiled for Christmas.  She got so much stuff I'm embarrassed to even post a picture of everything.  A few items that I'm most excited about are a 5 day pass to her doggy daycare, a Buster Food Cube, and Musher's Secret Paw Wax, along with a slew of other fabulous gifts.

Just a fraction of the many toys that Athena received for Christmas

4.  Our Waldo Bungie is hosting their Giveaway-a-Day this week!

And we are first up on the list of giveaways!  If you visit their blog today, you can enter to win a custom Pitlandia tutu handmade by me!  We are so excited to be a part of this year's Giveaway-a-Day and hope that you head on over to Our Waldo Bungie to check out all of the awesome giveaways.

************************THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED************************

How did you and your dog spend Christmas?

Santa's Helper: As Told by Athena

Hi Guys!  Athena here.  Can you believe that it's already Christmas Eve?!  It seems like just yesterday that I was writing about all of my pre-Christmas cheer and my special letter to Santa.

This weekend was very special because my mom, dad, and grandma did some last minute gift wrapping and I was invited to their wrapping party!  They have been impressed with how I don't bother with any of the wrapped presents under the Christmas tree (wellll....unless a present has a shiny bow on it), so I got to be around while they wrapped some more presents.

I'm a very good girl and don't eat any ribbons or wrapping paper

My favorite part about wrapping presents is when the wrapping paper runs out because then I get to have the JUMBO toilet paper roll!  You might not know this about me, but I LOVE chewing up toilet paper and paper towel rolls (mom lets me have them because I usually don't eat any and she says that they are free toys for me to destroy).  Well, yesterday I got to chew up THREE jumbo toilet paper rolls during the present wrapping.  It was pretty much the best day ever.

Jumbo toilet paper roll #3!

How come I didn't notice that bow on my bum?!  I would have tried to eat it if I would have known!

Chompin' on my jumbo toilet paper roll!

Something very silly about my family is that they said they celebrate Christmas Eve AND Christmas day.  So, tonight I get to open lots of my presents even though it's not really Christmas yet!  I guess Santa comes early to their house or something.

Merry Christmas to all of my bloggy friends!

Even though I'm super excited about getting lots of presents tonight, I'm mostly feeling very lucky that I have my new family to spend Christmas with.  I hope everyone out there who celebrates Christmas has a very happy holiday.  My mom and I will be back to blogging after all of the festivities!

Athena Gets Elfed

Call me crazy, but every year at Christmas time I MUST elf my entire family on elfyourself.com.  I sit and roar with laughter at the computer screen as their little heads bob around.  This year I've been super busy (hence the lack of blogging), so my mom so kindly elfed Athena, B, and I.  Of course, I practically fell on the floor laughing at Athena as a dancing elf!

Am I the only one who participates in this Elf Yourself tradition?  If you've already elfed yourself, or if you decide to do so after seeing our silly dancing, I would love to watch your video.  I would especially love to see other dogs who have been elfed!  E-mail me your videos at PitlandiaPooch@gmail.com (or post the link to your video in the comment section below for all to see its hilarity!)

Wordless Wednesday: Santa Baby

This picture was taken during Athena's weekend of holiday cheer.  Clearly she enjoyed posing with this Santa a bit more than she did with this Santa.

Christmas Bug

If you couldn't tell already, we have caught the Christmas bug.  With posts about Athena's holiday shopping trip and her plea to Santa to resume on the 'nice' list, the blog has also caught the bug.  And as if we haven't subjected Athena to enough of our Christmas festivities, she joined me last week to help decorate my grandma's tree and we also partook in another photo shoot with Santa over the weekend.

On Saturday we took Athena to Personal Beast where they had a Santa available to take pictures with.  It was much more casual than the Santa picture event that we attended last weekend because there wasn't a professional photographer.  We simply brought our own camera and set up Athena in front of Santa for some pictures.

Athena wasn't as interested in this Santa as she was of the one last weekend, so we had a hard time getting her to sit near Santa for pictures.  But, she did a great job fulfilling her duty as one of Santa's reindeer from afar.

Athena even practiced her newest trick in front of Santa..."jump!"  Too bad he doesn't look very impressed.  Perhaps he's still contemplating her naughty/nice status.

This weekend Athena also joined me at my grandma's house to help decorate her Christmas tree.  Athena surprisingly had no interest in the Christmas tree or ornaments.  She simply sniffed them and went on her merry way.  She did however have an incident with the tree topper which happens to be a collectable Muffy Vanderbear angel (it's a stuffed bear!).  My grandma set it on the ground for one minute and as soon as she turned around Athena had the bear in her mouth!  Luckily we have no plans for trying to sell the bear on Ebay anytime in the future.

Seeing as Athena has a pouty face in every one of the pictures above, I'm thinking that she may not have been hit with the Christmas bug as bad as I was.  Have you and your dogs caught any holiday bugs lately?

Are You There Santa? It's Me, Athena

Dear Santa,

Christmas is quickly approaching (only 20 more days left!), so I thought I would send you a quick letter to confirm my gift receiving status for this year.  You see, it's my first Christmas living with my new fer-ever family and I've been trying REALLY, REALLY hard to be on my bestest behavior all of the time.  But, sometimes my puppyness gets the best of me and I get in a smidgen of trouble here and there.

Sometimes my mom and dad say things like, "Naughty this and naughty that.  No, no, no Thean.  That's so naughty Thean.  You are not allowed to do that, Thean!"  I try real hard not to do things that will make them say the naughty word because I definitely don't want to be on your naughty list, Santa.

But here's the thing.  Not only do my parents talk about the naughty things that I sometimes do, my mom has even started to post the evidence for the world to see!  She got this new thing called Instagram on her phone and now all she does is post pictures of me doing the naughty things.  I need to make sure that this naughty evidence is not tampering with my 'nice' status, so I would like to explain myself:

This toilet paper roll was left in my reach while my mom was taking a shower, so I decided to surprise her with a toilet paper confetti party.  Naughty NICE!

After the confetti party, I went and found mom's fluffy slipper.  I decided to pick some of the white fluffies out for her because I think her feet were getting too hot with all that fuzziness!  Naughty NICE!

Mom has recently been indulging in lots of holiday chocolates.  I make sure to keep a careful watch over the bag of chocolates so that none of the chocolate elves come to steal her stuff. Naughty NICE!

I found this cardboard packaging from a new blanket that my mom bought for me.  I shredded it to pieces to let her know that I love the blanket so much that I don't ever want her to return it to the store!  Naughty NICE!

So you see Santa, I have not at all been a naughty girl this holiday season.  It's all just a misunderstanding.  Please continue to hold my spot on your nice list.

Sincerely,

Thean the Bean (AKA Athena)

Holiday Cheer: As Told by Athena

Hi guys!  Athena here.  My mom says she's been real bizz-ee lately and hasn't been maintaing my appearances like she should be, so I decided to give her a little break and write the blog today about our fun weekend that was filled with holiday cheer.

You're welcome for this bloggie favor, mom.  You owe me something real tasty tonight.

We got into the holiday spirit as we shopped around Portland with one of my most favorite people ever-- my grandma (P.S. today is her birthday.  Happy birthday, grandma)! We visited places like Sellwood Dog Supply where my grandma bought me a brand new fleece pullover (she called it a "only spoiled girls get early Christmas presents" gift) and my mom and I donated some bully sticks to the Born Again Pit Bull Rescue Bully Stick Drive.

My new hot pink fleece pullover by Gold Paw Series

Mom thinks I finally look like a girl!

We also went and sat next to a strange man with a loooonngggg white beard and a red suit while some people jingled bells and tried to get me to pose for their fancy cameras.  My mom says the guy's name was Santa Claus.  She wasn't sure how I would react to the silly looking Santa man because I can get a little bit nervous around strange looking new people (she even had the nerve to tell the camera people that if I seemed nervous of the Santa man that we would just leave without a picture).  But guess what guys?  I thought the Santa man was the best!  I snuggled right up next to him and looked straight into the fancy cameras for my photo shoot.

The Santa pictures reminded me a little bit of a photo shoot that I had not too long ago.  You may remember seeing my pouty picture from the shoot here.  Well, while we were shopping at Sellwood Dog Supply, my mom came across the December issue of Spot Magazine which I happen to be featured in!  Take a look here and see if you can spot my pouty face amongst the crowd.

Do you see me?!  Do you see me?!

There I am!

As if I could handle any more holiday cheer for one day, my mom couldn't help but pop into one more pet store to search for "Spoiled Athena's" Christmas gifts.  We went into Meat for Cats and Dogs where my mom got me a very special present.  She said that since I have SO many Christmas surprises coming, she would let me see this one thing that she got:

It's a handmade "I Love My Pit Bull" ceramic water/food bowl!

Thanks, mom!  If I got a fuzzy pink sweater and a shiny new water bowl on just an ordinary day, I can't wait to wake up on Christmas morning to see what else is in store!

Was your weekend filled with any holiday cheer like mine?

Athena and Bingley: Holiday Shoppers

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  We sure did!  Athena has been pretty spoiled with the turkey leftovers.  She also got to meet a new friend this weekend whom she LOVED!  Our friend from college was visiting Portland for the holiday, so we decided to meet up for a doggie date with her and her dog Bingley (a seven month old Corgi).

Athena & Bingley- besties in a heartbeat!

We started our date at Furever Pets in NE Portland to do a little bit of Christmas shopping for the pups. Athena and Bingley acted like they had been pals forever as they paroozed the store together.

Shopping at Furever Pets (notice Athena's fancy reindeer antlers that she tried on)

Next we took a break for coffee and as we sipped our drinks, Athena and Bingley became the stars of the day's news.  We were approached by a local news station to be interviewed for a segment about Cyber Monday.  Below you can see the segment where we talked about our holiday shopping for the dogs (start at 30 seconds):

If you viewed the video above, you may have noticed that Athena and Bingley were getting a bit restless sitting and waiting for us to finish our coffee and interview.  We rewarded them by taking them to a local park where they chased each other all around, played ball, and tumbled in the mud.

Bingley gave Athena a run for her money!

Hanging out at the park

Sir Bingley was in his glory as he splashed in every mud puddle that he could find.  Much to our dismay, Athena chased him in the puddles (she usually avoids getting dirty at all costs) which meant that our afternoon ended with a trip to the self-serve dog wash.

Bingley says, "C'mon Athena!  Let's roll in the mud!"

I couldn't help myself, mom!

How did you celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with your pups?  Have you started your holiday shopping for the dogs yet?