One of Belle's favorite things to do these days is to read her little Bible to her animals. Red Bear (on the left side) is ALWAYS in attendance,
as well as any other animals she can find and bring out and pile on the couch beside her. Sometimes she will even put a blanket over them to keep them warm. What a sweetheart. Then she will open up her Bible and say, "Now where were we?," because that is what we say when we read to her. She will then start at the beginning and flip all the way through the book and point out things that she knows, such as little girls, frogs, baby, water, etc. It is a precious site to watch.
One of Annabelle's other favorite things to do is to get a hold of my camera and take a bunch of pictures. This is her classic foot shot! I think I found about 15 or so pictures on this picture-taking-extravaganza. Some were of just carpet, others had her feet in the shot and a few had a blurry finger over the lens. Haha! I think she is really trying to improve her technique!
Annabelle has successfully used the toilet twice now! We haven't spent much time training her. Every now and then I'll remember to have her try and use the bathroom. The first time she went was just after she had taken a bath. I finished drying her off and she walked over to the toilet and said, "Tinkle." I set her up on her special seat and gave her some books to read. She read books for about 4 minutes and then said, "Here it comes. Here it comes." I thought that was pretty funny, even though nothing happened. About a minute after that she actually went "tinkle", as she likes to say. We both looked at each other and got really excited!! I think she was most excited that she was able to use the toilet paper, since that is usually off limits. She was also excited to flush the toilet! Oh, the small things in life. She has gone one other time since then, but mostly she is content just sitting on the toilet reading her books and not actually going to the bathroom.
A few weeks ago Trev and I had a fun date night! Yes, I know it was a few weeks ago and I am finally getting around to blogging about it. That is how far behind on blogging I am. But I am determined to catch up! Anyhoo, our dear friend Missy watched Belle and we went to dinner and then bowling. We had not been bowling in a LONG time and felt like doing something active rather than passive on our date. While we were waiting for a lane to open we played two games of air hockey, both of which I lost (insert sad face here). We bowled our first game and I lost again. I didn't even get above 100, which I was not happy about. My goal for the next game was to at least get above 100 and if I beat Trev then that would be a bonus. He was ahead of me for most of the game but I bowled numerous spares in the home stretch and ended up winning by 2 points! I was really excited! Trev was pretty bummed that I beat him. I kept reminding him that he beat me at 3 out of the 4 games we played that night, but it was a hard loss to endure. However, he will have his chance at a rematch this weekend. My work party is this weekend and this year we are setting aside the normal formal dinner and going bowling instead. Here's to strikes and spares!!
Here is the proof. Trevy likes to call me Beauty.
Behold, it is I...Daddy. After many personal attacks and threats by you the reader, I have decided to make my first post. I even took these pictures...I know what you thinking. Trev, I thought you were incompetent. Well I'm not. After many days, I have learned to train my brain to connect my eye to my pointer finger to the silver button on the peaks of the capturer of photos. It might have taken longer to figure out than the average person, but I am not your average person. People with superior brain power simply take longer for everyday tasks.
Check out the grains on that log. 
My little girl longs for the day when she will be able to hold her breath under water for days, and so do I.
I told Belle a joke, and she was embarrassed that I am her dad. I thought it was funny.
If you look closely, you can see the many water ferries that accompanied us on our afternoon out. They were waiting for Belle to step out on the water so they could carry her (for she is royalty-daughter of the King) to far off treasure bearing coves, but our stomachs told us we needed turkey sandwiches. The cities of little taste buds in our mouths won out, but we will be back. Oh we will be back.
The Mauss Family is cat-sitting for a few months! Let me introduce you to sweet Lizzie. She belongs to our good friend Anne Marie who is traveling in Italy for a couple of months. We've had Lizzie for almost a month, so I am a wee bit late on posting something about it. I grew up with cats and was pretty excited for the chance to have one around for a bit. Trev never had any pets growing up, but was excited for this new adventure. Belle didn't really know anything about it until the night that Anne Marie dropped Lizzie off. That very first night Belle was scared of Lizzie and kept jumping up on the couch next to daddy anytime the kitty got close to her. The days following were the exact opposite. Belle was quite intrigued with Lizzie and kept running to her yelling, "Oh, Kitty!" and "Oh, Lizzie!", while Lizzie developed a fear of Belle and hid behind things to get away from her. Haha! Over the past few weeks Lizzie has become more comfortable with Belle and it almost seems more like a game when Belle comes after her. Belle will see her under the table and will crawl towards her. Lizzie will let her get all the way to her and maybe even let AB pet her a few times and then will dart off to another part of the room. The she'll stop and wait for Belle to come to her again, then dart off again, but never fully hiding from her. It's actually pretty funny to witness.The other night I snapped these shots... rarely seen footage of Belle and Lizzie sitting side-by-side. Lizzie even let Belle pet her for a few minutes. I think it was a real breakthrough in their friendship. :)
Look at how close they are! What progress!
One of Belle's favorite things to do these days is to read her little Bible to her animals. Red Bear (on the left side) is ALWAYS in attendance, as well as any other animals she can find and bring out and pile on the couch beside her. Sometimes she will even put a blanket over them to keep them warm. What a sweetheart. Then she will open up her Bible and say, "Now where were we?," because that is what we say when we read to her. She will then start at the beginning and flip all the way through the book and point out things that she knows, such as little girls, frogs, baby, water, etc. It is a precious site to watch.
One of Annabelle's other favorite things to do is to get a hold of my camera and take a bunch of pictures. This is her classic foot shot! I think I found about 15 or so pictures on this picture-taking-extravaganza. Some were of just carpet, others had her feet in the shot and a few had a blurry finger over the lens. Haha! I think she is really trying to improve her technique!
