Hi everyone! Samantha here and today I want you to meet my furry babies. I will tell you the crazy story about how we ended up with FIVE, yes that is 5, dogs living under one roof.  At times it is chaotic, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Meet Skyeler
Skyeler is our loudest of the dogs, as she is a pure bred Siberian Husky. If you should know anything about Huskies, it is that they are SUPER sneaky and SUPER loud. She is the epitome of all that is Husky. Although she is 11 years old, she is always getting into something. Her list of bad behaviors includes: chewing up an uncountable number of shoes, ripping up an entire couch, chewing up any piece of paper left around, stealing socks & underwear from the laundry baskets, doing the usual Husky screech/howl the ENTIRE time her dinner is being prepared, and digging countless holes in the yard. Despite all her evil Husky antics, she is an incredibly loving and affectionate dog. She can often be found laying at my feet while I am working on the computer. She also loves to play with Tennis balls, but watch out! If you aren’t paying attention, she will fling one right at your head!

Meet Snow
Snow is a husky mix and it also around 11 years old. When I was in high school, my mother and I stopped by Petsmart to pick up some dog food for our (at that time) two dogs. At the time Skye was about a year and a half old. Well we walked by the rescue area at the front of the store and, little did we know, our lives would be changed forever. There were many people around oo-ing and ah-ing and the dogs in the kennels, and as we looked at them, we noticed Snow. This thin, dirty, scared looking dog. I saw her, and she saw me too. When she laid eyes on me, her whole demeanor changed. She calmed and wouldn’t take her eyes off of me. I looked at the other dogs and people kept commenting, “That dog won’t stop looking at you!”. Yep, she picked me! My mom knew it, I knew it, everyone around us knew it. When we walked into the store, we had no intention whatsoever of adopting another dog. We drove home to collect Skye and Taylor to take them back to meet their potential new sister. They hit it off right away so we took her home that day. Snow was a very skittish and malnourished dog when we got her, but through a lot of loving years she has turned into the most loving & friendly dog. And she is quite plump weighing in at over 70lbs!

Meet Mya
Mya is my husband’s little darling. She is a 6 year old border collie mix. She is a total snuggle bug and always wants to snuggle right up next to one of us in the bed (even though she has her OWN bed!). She is a total sweetheart & when our friends come over, she is the one everyone automatically falls in love with. She prances right on over to anyone and wags her tail & people just melt. She is very obedient and will listen to any command her daddy gives her, but she doesn’t listen to me AT ALL. (grrr!) Despite her friendly personality, she will bark at ANYTHING!

Meet Bella
Bella is also about 6 years old & we adopted her from the local shelter the same time we adopted Mya. They are definitely sisters for life. Bella is a husky mix. She thinks she is the baby of the family although she is about 55lbs now. She is a true Husky in that she is always very vocal with her Husky howl/screech. Bella is a momma’s girl and always comes up to me and just lays her head in my lap. When the other dogs are outside or in the kitchen trying to get food from someone, Bella will come over to me because I always sneak her special treats!

Meet Emma
Emma is the apple of my eye. She is a 3 year old Rat Terrier mix that we also adopted from a local shelter. We adopted her shortly after my first dog Taylor passed away (Taylor was 14 and I had adopted Taylor when I was 7 years old). Emma could never replace Taylor, but she has definitely filled up a place in my heart. She IS the baby of the family, & still acts the part even at 3 years old. And even as I write all of this, she is curled up right in my lap taking a nap! She is ALWAYS with me. She follows me around the house. She even tries to follow me into the bathroom. Since I work from home, she isn’t used to me being gone very much. She also LOVES to play and will pester the older dogs until they will play with her. She loves to chase them around outside. When she’s more calm, she can be found burrowing inside some of her favorite blankets.

The Story of Five:
My (at that time) fiance (now husband) and I moved into our own apartment when we were basically fresh out of high school. We thought we could do it all. I had three beautiful pups at were now living with my mom (Skye, Snow, and at the time Taylor, who is now deceased).  A few months into living in our own place, I was so lonely without a doggie. We couldn’t split up the doggies that were living at my mom’s house because they had been together basically all their lives. So we decided to adopt a dog from the local animal shelter and save a life. Well, we both have such huge hearts that we ended up adopting TWO adorable and perfect pups (Mya & Bella)! Of course, us being fresh out of high school and new to college, we didn’t realize just how difficult life on our own would be so we ended up moving in with my mom within the year. Well, the two new pups were already a part of the family and my mom (who has an even bigger heart than both of us do!) welcomed the two other pups with open arms. That meant we had 5 dogs.  Eventually our eldest dog Taylor passed away & shortly after we opened our hearts to another shelter dog (Emma), which meant we again had 5 dogs. So that is how we ended up with FIVE dogs under one roof! My husband is about to finish grad school & when we have a house of our own, we will take the youngest three pups with us to our new place (Emma, Mya, and Bella), but until then, we will have 5 🙂

Michelle here, and today’s post for MarkerPop is to learn a little bit more about me!  If I’m not playing with pretty paper…I love to putter with beauty in nature!  While my little plot looks very meager to a real garden, I do enjoy the flowers I’ve managed to plant in my small town lot!

If you want to take a peek…..these were some beauties that can be found in my garden! Click photos to enlarge them….nature is so beautiful when we take time to stop and look!

….talk about stunning, glorious and fantabulous!

….may all your weeds be wildflowers~ c’mon, admit it….those dandelion photos are very pretty!!! LOL!

Hi, everyone!  It’s Kelli here today!  When I cook I almost always use a recipe so I’m constantly searching for them online and when I come across a good one, I make it constantly, especially slow cooker recipes.  I prefer to use my slow cooker whenever I can because it’s simple and everything that comes out of it usually tastes great!

So, since I follow recipes I wanted to share a two of my favorite shredded chicken, slow cooker recipes with you.  I would absolutely LOVE it if you’d share some of your favorites with me down in the comments section!  I’d like to try them!  🙂

After I’ve made a recipe a ton of times, I will tweak it a tiny bit for my liking.  I’ll link to the original recipe, but underneath the photo I’ll put what I’ve been doing.

This is the one I’ve been making the longest and it’s Shredded BBQ Chicken.  I’ve barely tweaked this one.  I omit the brown sugar because I prefer this not to be sweet.  If you like sweet then you can definitely add it.

Photo courtesy of allrecipes.com website.

6 (approximately) Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (thawed or frozen)
1 (12 oz) Bottle BBQ Sauce
1/2 C Italian Salad Dressing (I’ve used light dressing and that works too.)
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

1. Place chicken in slow cooker.  In a bowl mix BBQ sauce, salad dressing and Worcestershire sauce.  Pour over chicken.  Cook on high 3-4 hours or on low 6-8 hours.  Shred chicken in slow cooker and serve on sandwich rolls.

I’ve noticed that the time doesn’t change much if you used thawed or frozen chicken breast.

This next recipe I make all the time as well and it’s Chicken Taco Meat.  I actually made this one last night, yum!

Photo courtesy of food.com website.

I normally double this recipe because the leftovers freeze extremely well!

1 lb Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
3 Tbsp Taco Seasoning Mix (I add some extra Cayenne Pepper because we like spicy)
1 C Chicken Broth

1.  Place chicken in slow cooker.  Dissolve taco seasoning mix in chicken broth and pour over chicken.

2.  Cook on high 3-4 hours or on low 6-8 hours.  Shred chicken.  If freezing, put meat and juices in freezer bag and press out excess air.

If you love slow cooker cooking like I do I hope you’ll give these a try!  Please feel free to share your favorite as well!!!  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great day!  🙂

Welcome to another week of Freebies here at MarkerPop!  Our team members will talk about all sorts of things this week!  Melissa from Melissa Made here to share a fun project I did with my family for Halloween!

I LOVE Halloween and am always looking for fun and easy projects for the kids to do this time of year.  I like to have supplies on hand for all sorts of projects and since I craft, like most of you do, they are right in my craft area.

First, I start with a number of supplies: a clean rinsed out jar with the label removed, glitter, vinyl (but a sharpie would work too), a FAKE tea light (real candles should not be used), spray paint and last but not least Pledge with FUTURE WAX.  The future was is very important because it will help the glitter stick to the jars.  Many of you might have seen this as a Christmas ornament project in the past and it’s the same concept.

First, take the lid and spray paint it a color of your choice.  Once the lid is dry, simply coat the inside of the jar with Future Wax and pour out excess.  Place a good amount of glitter inside the jar.  Close the lid and turn the jar in your hands until the entire inside of the jar is coated in glitter.  Cut out some eyes, nose, mouth in vinyl or draw on in sharpie.  Remove lid and let dry at least 24 hours.  Place fake candle inside and you have a beautiful Halloween project made from recycled jars!

There even adorable in the light!  We made pumpkins, ghosts and Frankenstein!  I hope you enjoyed this fun and easy project and are inspired to make your own!  Thanks for stopping by MarkerPop today!