LONESOME AROUND HERE!

We took our 3-year-old granddaughter, Miss Ella Bella, home Thursday evening and it really has been quiet around here! I miss her as I put away the toys until the next visit! Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took while she was here.

She loved playing with our dog, Daisy. And I believe Daisy loved all the treats that she got from Miss Ella Bella! She also enjoyed playing with the neighbor's dog across the street.

We made brownies for her dad and she licked the bowl clean!

We visited Great-Gram on Pet Pals day and she got to pet all the dogs that came to visit. Here she is petting Foxy as she sat in Great-Gram's lap.

Granddaddy read her a book each night. She insisted he lie down on the floor beside her little cot and read to her and Granddaddy obliged.

We did lots of artistic activities. She loved to water color and create animals with her Play Dough.

She spent a great deal of time in the backyard "preparing meals" for Daisy and me, using pond water, tadpoles and other "tasty items." She then washed her dishes in her "dishpan."

We went to the playground fairly early one morning before it got too hot. I noticed that our car thermometer said it was 91 degrees when we got there. We did not stay too long before we headed to the store for a cool drink!

The day we took her home we went to the photo store and got prints of all the pictures we took while she was here. As we drove her home, I put them in an album for her to take with her to help tell about her adventures while she was visiting us.

SUMMER FUN

We are keeping our 3-year-old granddaughter, Miss Ella Bella, this week. She is a ball of energy and has such an active imagination. This afternoon I told her that we (meaning ME!) needed to rest and she asked me to set the timer for "2 minutes." I actually set the oven timer for 20 minutes and let her choose her place to rest. She chose the living room couch and my husband sat down in the den next to the kitchen. Soon he saw a movement to his right and in tip-toed a blanket covered figure. The figure went up to the oven, raised the blanket, looked for a minute, lowered the blanket and returned to the couch in the living room where she fell asleep and is taking a good nap. He told me about Miss Ella Bella's antics and we both laughed until we hurt. I guess she figured that if she could not see him, then it stands to reason that he could not see her either.

Here are a few pictures from our activities so far. She loves to use my computer to do her Starfall ABC program--and does it very well, I might add!

We have had a couple of Play Dough sessions. Maybe it is time to make real cookies with cookie cutters?

Helping Granddaddy in the yard.

And "washing dishes" after "cooking dinner" for her imaginary family this morning. She got her water from my pond and was fascinated by the tadpoles that she scooped up with her water. She decided she needed to take some tadpoles home to show her mother so we have a plastic container full of water and a few tadpoles to take home with her.

I will include more pictures as time (and energy??) permits. Meanwhile, we continue having fun. I believe we have a playground on our list of activities for this evening.

Home Again

We traveled to see Son #4 and played with Miss Ella Bella for a couple of days while her mother rested on the couch with doctor's orders to stay immobile until Grandchild #7 is ready to enter this world. Miss Ella Bella is so wonderfully delightful! We spent time outside blowing bubbles. When we went to put on her shoes before we went outside, I got out her socks and she said, "No socks! Just feet!" She wore her shoes without socks. She spent time reading the morning newspaper with her granddad, and she showed us her new baby brother in her mom's tummy.

We also went to a wedding in a beautiful church and watched a friend walk his daughter down the aisle. The bride was lovely and we had a great time visiting with a number of friends who attended the wedding and reception. Before we left for home I got to walk in the sand and dip my toes into the water with the waves splashing on my legs for just a few minutes. What a marvelous feeling that was! I picked up a perfect shell to bring home until the next time!

Miss Ella Bella Is Two Today

We went to Miss Ella Bella's party to celebrate her second birthday on Saturday. She had a great time with some of her friends at a play gym for her party. She played in the rubber pit with her dad. She was fearless in climbing up the wall and loved running and running.


She conned her granddad into helping her put the basketball through the hoop and she did a front roll for us.

Miss Ella Bella had a cookie birthday "cake" and then enjoyed opening her presents.

I think she had a very nice birthday. Afterwards we went to their house and helped her play with a few of her presents; saw the nicely decorated room for baby brother, Colton, who is due in August; ate dinner together; and then we returned home that evening. A wonderful day.

A Babysitting Adventure

We were asked by Son #4 to keep their almost-two-year-old for three days last week. After raising 4 boys, I thought one little one would be a snap! Ha! I had forgotten about the continual motion syndrome when they are awake! And thank goodness for naps and early bedtime. The minute she was asleep I headed for bed also! I was pooped! Guess I am out of practice.


But Miss Ella Bella is a real joy! She runs--never walks! She laughs with glee at the simplest things like rolling a soccer ball down the hall and having me roll it back. She loves to clean things--the picnic table, our car when it sprinkled on it, the kitchen table after eating.




She enjoyed going shopping with us and had to have her purse over her arm just like mine. In the car she was always on the lookout for COWS! She loves cows and announces her sightings of cows in a VERY LOUD VOICE so that we would not miss them! We stopped by the roadside and watched one near the fence eating grass. Ella Bella watched for a minute and then announced: "BIG tongue!" Yes, that cow did have a very big tongue. Ella talked about the cow's big tongue all during dinner and gave several demonstrations of the way it licked its upper lip!


She loved story time with her granddad.














She was a great help in the kitchen. She learned how to snap fresh green beans, make Mickey (er, excuse me--she LOVES Minnie!)Mouse pancakes and then she helped make yummy brownies for the neighbor down the street who had surgery. She also very efficiently helped load silverware in the dishwasher after each meal.



The last day we were there I was taking pictures of flowers for possible painting projects and she had to take one picture "all by herself!" Not bad for a young 'un! Maybe she is a budding young photographer--or maybe I will paint it for her!



Most amazing of all are her computer skills. She has an ABC program at http://www.starfall.com/ that she loves. We had to call her mother to tell us how to find it and then we were able to access the program several times so that she could do her ABCs. Amazing!

THANKFUL THURSDAY

I am so thankful for our many blessings today! We were awakened this morning about 12:30 a.m. with an awful banging on our roof. It was a storm coming through with rain, high winds and hail. We jumped out of bed and ran to look outside--probably not the brightest thing to do--and saw the wind whipping the trees in our front yard and twisting them. As I stood looking out our living room window, one of our large trees broke off about midway and twisted to the ground leaving several huge branches hanging upside down. The storm passed quickly but our yard was strewn with millions of leaves and several large branches in addition to the one broken tree.

This morning at daylight all of our neighborhood was out surveying the damage. Each yard was carpeted with leaves and many, many branches were down. One neighbor had a tree broken off similar to ours, but it landed square in the middle of her new SUV. Another neighbor had a car window broken out by a falling branch. Several houses had large branches on their roofs and one neighbor thought the corner of his house was damaged by a falling branch

As the morning progressed we listened to the sound of chain saws as people began to clear and clean their way out of the mess. We were leaving town, so we left our mess behind knowing that our clean up would be delayed a bit because we are going to take care of Son #4's little one for several days. We are there now and have had a delightful evening with her. She is almost two and talking up a storm! She could tell us what she wanted and where things were. She was VERY definite about her bedtime--she did not want to go, but only fussed about 2-3 minutes and then was out like a light! Whew!

I am so grateful that the storm only damaged a few trees and left us and our house relatively unharmed. I sat up much of the night thinking about how bad it could have been in light of the spring storms across the country and giving thanks that we were safe! And I am also grateful for the chance to enjoy being with Miss Ella Bella for a few days.