Yesterday was a day of celebration when our precious pup turned 11!

I’ve been thankful for all of her birthdays, but never like I was yesterday. She has come so amazingly far from where we were just last year.

Back then, she was so sick and we were all so scared. Little did we know we had six more months of her getting worse before she got any better. But, her resilience is nothing short of astounding and, though she doesn’t quite look it here, she’s very joyful these days.

(Yes, she desperately needs a haircut, but I find something torturous about shaving all of her hair off when it hasn’t been above freezing in weeks.)

Since, frankly, this wasn’t a milestone we thought we would have together (if you asked me last year), we went all out in spoiling her.

First up was a fresh pair of snow boots, which she insisted on breaking in that moment.

She. LOVES. snow.

After drying off, we gave her some Frosty Paws doggie ice cream…her second favorite thing, after that snow.

But, our most exciting adventure was to take her to PetSmart, which I’ve actually never done before. We wanted to let her pick out her own toy, which was as ridiculous as it sounds.

Road Trip!

Maybe a little overwhelming…

She We finally picked one and let her watch the birds for a while. She was happy. Confused, but happy.

Overall, it was a perfect day honoring our perfect girl. This caps what was/is/will always be The Year of the Bella for this house. This, and the amazing painting Joe gave me for Christmas.

A picture perfect depiction of our girl. She is everything to us.