happy birthday...

...to my sweet puppy Shiloh! I can't believe she is 4 years old already...I wish time would just stop flying by so darn fast!!

Here is the first pic Joe ever took of her when he first brought her home, she was about 2 months old then...and those eyes have NOT changed and they still break my heart every time (this sad stare is what I get when I'm leaving, not paying attention to her, etc):

She was such a little squirt back then, it's hard to believe my 80 pounds of muscle used to be this small:

Here she is about 4 years ago with all her brothers and sisters, she is the one on the far right. I think it's so cool that half the litter was chocolate and the other half black. Her parents were full bred American Bulldog and Chocolate Lab...Shiloh has black hair but when she lays in the sun, you can see the brown undertones in her coat.

And here she is today...pretty as ever (but I know I'm biased :). She really is a phenomenal dog and we are so incredibly lucky to have her. Even though she has her occasional outbursts of chewing or eating random things that send me into a panic...I have to remember that she is a dog and most of the time, it is usually our fault since we've either left her for too long, not taken her on a walk, etc. We just love her so much and she's brought so much to our lives, I can't imagine our house without her. I know life is going to change with kids...but I will still love this dog like crazy!

See, those eyes have not changed since she was a puppy:

We celebrated her 4th birthday tonight. I have bought her a pig toy every year for her birthday...and this year is no different, although I know this particular pig's fate will be a very quick death. It has a squeaker and she will have chewed through it and have the stuffing all over the house by the end of the night, guaranteed. She also got a cupcake toy (which also won't last long, it has a squeaker) and her favorite, a raw hide bone!

And 20 minutes later...mission kill pig is complete. Le sigh. I really shouldn't expect anything less...at least they were relatively inexpensive...

I'm sad I'm not allowed to make her a "cake" anymore...for her 1st birthday, I found a recipe online and she LOVED it. However, around that time, she also started to figure out she could jump on the kitchen counters and grab things from it...Joe believes this "cake" was the culprit to this bad behavior and won't allow me to make anything for her that has people food in it (we don't ever feed her table scraps, she is on a strict dog food only diet so she NEVER begs, which we love). I think he's full of crap and the two incidents are mutually exclusive...but I don't fight it, it's not worth it...so we celebrate without fun cakes or treats.

Happy Birthday Shiloh, I love you baby girl!