April 9th, 2011

I thought that my mom and I would have posted quickly after the last one, but it didn’t seem to happen. Sigh.
The new friend I wanted to tell you about is Fyodor. I thought I would mention him here in case any of you know what kind of bear he is. His tag says that he is a Ganz Heritage collection bear, but we haven’t been able to find out what his tag name is or anything like that. We even scoured ebay for the name and it didn’t come up.
A few days after that, Mom brought home a new Build-a-Bear friend. Her name is Wheat, and she is Shirley’s cousin.

Mom named her Wheat because one of our friends on Flickr, Neoguest, had brought home a sheep called Clover! We already have a friend named Clover here (she’s a Westie), so she came up with Wheat!
Mom and I are sorry that we haven’t been commenting on people’s posts lately. Fred, our computer, is getting old. When we upgraded to Firefox 4, we started to see that he was working very slowly when we wanted to go on the internet. So far Mom’s figured out one thing that seems to speed things up a little bit. She started telling me about memory and CPU and all sorts of things—and it was very confusing. She said that I can just think about what to have her type up on our blog posts and leave the computer worrying to her.
And Mom’s had a cold for the past couple days—and along with work things, she’s been a rather unhappy camper. Well, she’s been a rather cranky camper really. Fred-the-computer should be glad that she’s not prone to fits of temper! (That’s what Mom says!)
I hope my mom feels better soon so she can take us outside! It’s the beginning of spring here in Wisconsin and there are plenty of brand new growing things to see! (That’s some moss!)
Talk to you all later!

March 28th, 2011

More pictures from the Building for Kids. Like I said yesterday, it is more of a play area then a museum. There are plenty of things that kids can do with their imagination though. Mom says that with all the video games and such, kids need a place to use their imaginations!

Mom doesn’t like posting pictures here that have other people in it. There were A LOT of people there. It seemed like hundreds!

This little girl was enjoying spinning the globe. (They’re all facing the other way, therefore exempt from Mom’s rule.)

We thought we would post this picture for Dilly. It looks like one of her cousins was immortalized in papier-mâché!

I have a new plushie friend and mail blog post thought up for next, but then I am going to show you one more place that Mom visited! I hope you all don’t mind my blog trip around where I live.

March 27th, 2011

We read all your blogs about the areas that you live in. My mom and I live in Wisconsin. We actually live in a little town near the city of Appleton.  We thought we would share pictures  of our nearest city like you all share pictures. Yesterday, Mom and Caleb went to downtown Appleton to see a children’s museum called the Building for Kids.

This is the corner that the museum was on. Mom was with some other people, so she didn’t want to cross the road to take a picture of the building itself.

Downtown Appleton is sort of recovering. There are some businesses, but there are also a lot of empty buildings. That large building is mostly empty.

The Building for Kids is supposed to be an educational children’s museum. It is mostly a gigantic play area, scattered with a few learning things. Mom thinks that if your visit was more structured, a kid might learn more! The two little girls we were with enjoyed themselves a lot, so that is the most important part!

Mom had seen commercials on television for their Japanese exhibit. It turned out mostly to be a room with a few manga-inspired things. It was still kind of cool—Mom was impressed that she recognized these characters! They’re from a movie called My Neighbor Totoro!

This is the cat bus! We’re not so sure what it is from, but it’s very funny looking. (Reading the Wikipedia article on My Neighbor Totoro explained that it comes from that movie too!)

My mom really enjoys zoos and animals. She was glad to see that they had some birds. They were all little finches and canaries.

They also had a few pet rats. They were female dumbo rats. This one was named Oreo. Some little child had put finger-paint all over the glass of the cage they were in, so there wasn’t too many places to get pictures.

Then they had a rainbow bearded lizard. He or she was pretty interested in sunning herself on the rock. I think that would be a pretty sweet life if I were a lizard!

Next time, I’ll show you some pictures of what else was inside the Building for Kids.

March 22nd, 2011

Things around here have been pretty calm for me, but exciting for my mom. My mom is a real book nerd—and one of her favorite things in the entire world is to meet her favorite authors! (You might remember Neil Gaiman and the House on the Rock.) Well, last week, Mom and one of her friends from work went to Minneapolis, Minnesota to see Jasper Fforde, the author of one of her favorite contemporary fiction works, the Eyre Affair.

This is Mr. Fforde. Mom says he was very funny. Caleb, who traveled with her in her purse, said that he didn’t get a lot of the jokes. Mom said that he probably would have to read the books to understand.

This is my mom with Mr. Fforde. She was kind of nervous and mostly giddy.

This is my mom’s signed copy of his newest novel, One of Our Thursdays is Missing. This made my mom a very happy person indeed!

She has the next few days off from work, so as long as the weather improves, I’m hoping to talk her into another trip outside. Right now Wisconsin is experiencing some very un-spring-like weather. I hope that will change soon. Hope you all are having a good day!

February 22nd 2011

It worked! I got to go outside! Well, I got to sit on the porch and watch the birds! Caleb and my new friend, Adelaide, got to come with.

Adelaide is an American Girl Addy doll that Mom found at Goodwill. She is extra special because she has two different colored eyes!

Caleb wants me to tell you all about his new shirt. It’s a Hawaiian shirt, and not really winter gear. He posed for this picture before he went back under the blanket with Adelaide.

He can be a very funny bear sometimes—He’s especially proud of his Boyds Bears pin. Some of his clothes come from Boyds and he thinks that it’s a designer label! Mom tries to explain to him that the clothes come from Goodwill, but he doesn’t want to listen!

I posed for a picture for Mom. It was still rather cold, so we went back inside and had a good nap on the couch!

Just because—another Wisconsin winter picture. This is one of our silver maple trees!

Talk to you all later! I hope you’re having a great day!

February 12th, 2011

Mom posted this picture on my Flickr account, but I figure I should post it here. You people are the people that my mom would listen to! I want to go OUTSIDE. It’s been ages! (Mom says she has photographic proof that it hasn’t been ages, but I don’t care!) I would put my foot down on this subject, but it doesn’t make too much of an impact when you’re wearing slippers! Mom says that it is still going to probably be too wet to go outside tomorrow. (It’s supposed to be 36* F tomorrow—warm enough so Mom can’t use that as an excuse!)

Sigh. I must be a good little bear! Mom says that we don’t go outside because she’s afraid I’ll get dirty—which would bring on one of the most dreaded things in a plush bear’s life—a bath—so she’s really only thinking of me. Maybe I can at least convince her to let me go out on the porch! I’ll update you all tomorrow or the next day!

February 6th, 2011

It’s still cold here in Wisconsin, although it has been alternating with weather warm enough so Mother Nature dumps snow on us. I don’t mind the snow, but Mom does now that she is driving. I’m often glad that I am a bear and not a human who has to go to work no matter what the weather! This website says that our area has had 46 inches of snow! It looks like we’re a few weeks ahead of our normal snowfall schedule!

What do you all do when the weather turns bad? I wish Mom would let me go outside and play in the snow. She’s usually more likely to want to curl up on the couch with lots of blankets!

We did have a new friend move into our house recently. She is an American Girl Addy, and we’re waiting until Mom washes her hair before we post a picture. Mom found her at Goodwill like most of my Build-a-Bear friends.

I’m going to go now and continue trying to talk my mom into letting me go outside! Talk to you all later!