Who's THAT girl?

I'm not sure I recognize this little girl with the neat shorter hair, no snarls or food in it.
It's Rose!  Thanks David for the nice cut.  Now it can be brushed without tears.  But who is this other person?

It's me!  No more tears for me either :)

It's been a busy first full week home of summer vacation.  Saturday the 13th we celebrated our 5 year anniversary of Rose joining us (we call it Family Day).  She got a Webkinz, book and swim goggles.

Sunday Rose's kindergarten class had a year end get together at one family's home (no pictures).  It was alot of fun.

Monday C-girl spent the day with us.  We hit Como Zoo for their once a month free carousal rides. 

Had a nice little picnic.

Enjoyed the beautiful conservatory.

Viewed some of the critters.  I could watch the sea lions all day.

Add a playdate with N-girl on Tuesday, haircut and then lunch with Auntie M today, and now playing Legos with the boyz, summer is speeding right along!

Someone had a bad day

Someone had a bad day in shipping at Pampered Chef...

Saturday I received a very kind phone call from a woman in Michigan who had received her Pampered Chef delivery addressed to her, but my order was inside the box.  Today I got a Pampered Chef order addressed to me, but inside it was an order for a woman in Louisiana.  And I bet the woman in Louisiana will receive an order addressed to her, but with someone else's order in it, and so forth and so forth.

PC said they will ship me the correct order, and a prepaid label or pickup auth, so no big deal to me.  I think it's actually funny because the woman from Michigan sounded like someone I could be friends with, and my last name is her grandmother's surname so we had something in common.  But I'm really curious just how many orders went out that way :)

The puppy

A little lower of a shot and I'd get to see if it's a girl or boy.  This is the one that Rose wants.  Still seeing how it all shakes out later.  But, shhhh, don't tell her.

New Mexico Photos Part 4

These photos are for Laura L, because I know how much she misses cactuses...

That's all I have for photo's so far.  I forgot to unload my memory card before leaving home, didn't have my cable with to offload them while in NM, and ran out of memory.  Sister M's camera wasn't cooperating, she got only 9 pictures the whole trip.  Sister B will have to save the day - I'll post more if she is able to get me a disc of hers.  I'm hoping she has pictures of the puppies because for some reason I now think I need one of those puppies.  But don't tell little girl in case it doesn't work out.

New Mexico Photos Part 3

This is Morphy Lake state park and campground.  We just did a day visit.  The lake is small, and we walked all the way around it.  That is snow on the mountain.  We got to explore pretty remote places since my brother knows the area.  The little windy roads can be a little unsettling to the stomach though :)

Rose was lagging behind with my sisters, and when she caught up to me she said "MOM! Look, I have crab hands!"  She had been collecting crawfish parts...yummy.  She refused to throw any away when we left (big tears too) so I agreed she could keep two pinchers.  I found them later stashed in our candy bag and discreetly tossed them.

It was pretty rocky around the lake.  But Rose did discover this rock with a fossil embedded in it.  You can't see it too well, but it really is there.

Photo opp!

Taking a break with Uncle D.  

New Mexico Photos Part 2

My brother D and Rose at his house.

GG the dog that had puppies (see previous post).  

This was the sunset the first night in Las Vegas NM.  Those are the Sangre Di Cristo mountains, part of the Rocky mountain range.  
This is the same sunset, but facing the other way.  My brother's property is on what they call the highland plains.  I love the colors in this photo, very peaceful feeling.
This was the sunset on the 2nd evening in Las Vegas.

New Mexico Photos

In the car, heading to the airport.  Rose and her aunties M and B (my sisters).

Rose the world traveller.  We went carry-on only.
Spent the night in Albuquerque, then next day went into Old Town Albequerque.
There was a fiesta going on, and these characters were on their way to do a re-enactment.  We didn't get to watch because our parking was about to expire.  They had vendors selling their jewelry on blankets, very reasonably priced.  I wish I would have bought some for gifts.  We ate lunch in an old former adobe church that had alot of memorabilia and artifacts, pretty cool.

Backpack Sludge

Dumped out little girl's backpack since kindergarten is over, and this is what I got after I removed all useful/keepable items.  Yuk.  This doesn't include three pine cones I set aside, but it does include chunks of asphalt from the playground, a grimy piece of fringe from her blankie, broken hair thingies she likes to pick up on the playground, and someone's grody (thats a word, right?) headphone cover.  Go figure.

In New Mexico

Rose girl and I are in New Mexico with my sisters Betsy and Marion, visiting my brother Don. He lives in Las Vegas, NM, a small town NE of Santa Fe. We flew into Albequerque on Saturday evening, stayed overnight there, and then headed to Don's on Sunday. Having a great time, but didn't bring the cable for my camera, so can't download any photos.

A sweet chow dog and her older puppy were abandoned near his home in December, and he took them in. Three weeks ago she had a litter of 4 puppies in a dog house next to the house. Rose of course is begging for a puppy. She really loves animals, and we couldn't keep her from holding and petting the puppies. Monday morning we woke up and discovered the puppies were GONE! We didn't know if something came in the night and got 'em, or what. Then we saw the mom go into a hole in the siding of the house, and she would come out and lay outside the hole. We couldn't see the puppies, but when we came home later that day she had moved them closer to the hole and we could hear them. So we knew they were safe, whew! Needless to say, Rose learned a lesson about how mother dogs are very protective of their puppies, and that she needs to stay away from them.

Rose doesn't know it but her mommy would love one of the puppies too. But they are too young, and too far away for us to add to our family.

She just came next to me and said "Are you writing on your blob"?

Will try to blob more about our trip when we get home, but then again, I said I'd write more about Rose's b-day and never got around to that. We'll see!

whopooped.org

My new favorite website is  http://whopooped.org/.  It's for kid's, but I have a childish sense of humor sometimes.  Turn up the volume for the sound effects, they are the best.

Now you see 'em

This is how full and lush my hosta plants normally look.

Now you don't.

So, I'm sitting at the dining room table and I look outside and see the cute baby bunny that has been growing up in our backyard.  Then I notice the hosta plants.  Mangled.  Broken.  Looking really sad.  My first thought was "that DARN bunny".   I just watered these plants yesterday, they were beautiful. I was amazed that they had come back so healthy after being pounded to shreds last year by a freak hailstorm.

Outside I tromp, scaring the once cute bunny away, and look a little closer...

Did the once cute bunny stuff all the leaves into the crux of the tree?  And did it also peel the bark off of the birch tree and fling it all about?  Uh, no.  A once cute daughter did it.  Needless to say, she went to bed early tonight without any storytime.

Oh my, what is summer break going to be like?  Tonight alone she did this, AND repeatedly rode her scooter without a helmet after I reminded her to wear it (got the scooter taken away), ran around in bare feet after I asked her to put shoes on (house had to be reroofed after the freak hailstorm and I don't trust that all the nails are accounted for in the lawn), and dumped water out onto some tables in the garage and then sat in it (when she knows she is banned from all sources of water due to previous incidents).  This is all after she got the cat's food bucket and made a trail of cat food that led from the dining room down the hallway towards her bedroom, because she wanted to lure the cat to her room.  That's when she got sent outside. If you are wondering why I wasn't keeping an eye on her it's because a neighbor friend was over playing with her and she is allowed to play outside without mom or dad as long as she is with a buddy and stays in the yard.

Sigh.  Something must be going  on inside her normally pretty sweet head or heart because at dinner she accidently bit her finger (hard enough for me to hear it go crunch - not a pleasant sound) and then proceeded to bawl uncontrollably, but much much longer than it warrranted, and insisted on being held and comforted by mom.  I guess sometimes you just need to not only get the tears out of your system, but all the little impish behaviors that seem to build up.  Here's to hoping we are imp free for a while.