January 30th, 2010

Well, my mom and her mom have decided that spring must come to Wisconsin sooner or later. They went and bought a lot of seeds to grow this summer in the garden. We can’t even start any of them for at least another month yet, but it’s certainly nice to look at the packages!

My mom likes sunflowers and heirloom vegetables. I know you really can’t read the titles on any of the seed packages, but there are approximately six different kinds of sunflowers there. She bought four different kinds of different tomatoes too. Grandma bought different seeds too. Grandma mostly likes growing every kind of vegetable possible. She is not as much into the pretty flowers like Mom.  She did buy a fancy tomato plant that is supposed to look like of like a tree as it grows. It is called a silvery fir tree tomato. It’s really not a fir tree, but it still seems cool. We will probably start them in March. It is a long project—I’m sure I will get to help. Mom let me help gather our first crop of tomatoes a year or so ago, and took me out to admire the pretty sunflowers.

Mom and I did go out and see the extra large full moon. Mom has never quite figured out night photography, so she didn’t take a picture. It was very beautiful though. I hope more people got to notice it!

January 29th, 2010

No photo story today, I am afraid. Mom is tired from working so many days in a row. I wanted to write an entry anyways. Before we forgot, I wanted to thank the nice lady who left a comment on my last entry saying that I have a nice blog! I like knowing that people read my blog! I love all the comments I get and appreciate every one!

I recently installed a web counter for the number of visitors that come to my blog, but couldn’t figure out how to make sure that it doesn’t count my own visits. So while the number is interesting, we’re not sure how many of them are visitors and how many of them are me visiting! My Windows Live Writer visits the blog after every post to make sure that it is formatted properly. We started to play with the Google Analytics thing, but didn’t get very far. That will have to be for another day!

I am going to try to be online this afternoon so I can chat with my new friends from the BearPlace. A lot of them are from the UK, so their schedules are drastically different then mine. But we’ve made an attempt to pick a time to chat! Mom has to work, but we hope to meet them!

Mom has to go to work now, and she doesn’t let me play with the computer without her around. I have to go—I will post more later perhaps. Apparently tonight there is an extra nice full moon. She says that we might go out and take pictures! Maybe I will share them with you later!

January 24th, 2010

Mom brought a group of us downstairs to sit with her on the couch today. We’ve been talking about all sorts of things. Mom is copying CDs to her computer for her Mom. (She then transfers the songs that her Mom wants onto her computer. Doing it this way gets her the tracks and gives all the tracks names. Her mom’s computer can’t get on the internet yet. It’s a long story.)

Mom has been uploading pictures of my friends and family to Picasa. She had previously uploaded one picture of each of the plushies that live in my hug as a catalog of sorts. Now there are more pictures of the plushies that are close to me.  It gave me an idea to take some photos of my own. Mom has two cameras, so she borrowed me one. I am going try to do a photo story here, much like the ones I see in the blogs I read every day.

So first of all, Mom lent me her old camera.

We then adjusted it so I could hold it better. It was kind of heavy!

I chose Opal for my first photographic subject. When we were cataloging and uploading photos, we discovered that we had the least amount of pictures of her.

It took us both a little while to figure out how we wanted the photo to look like. Finally we agreed on a pose that made a picture that ended up looking like this!

  Pretty good for my first photo! Opal liked it too, so I moved on to other subjects!

These are some of my friends sitting on the couch talking. Foster reminded me that we didn’t have many pictures of him either—although it has more to do with the fact that he’s newly arrived in the grand scheme of our hug! But I took his photo anyways!

  Ambrose was sitting next to him, so it became more of a photo of both of them. I’ll work on the zooming thing next time!

I hope you liked my first photographic foray. I liked being in charge of the camera! Mom’s always taking pictures of me! These photos are really by me like the watermark says! Pretty cool!

January 22nd, 2010

Mom did go to Build-a-Bear and bought my friends and I some presents.  BAB has a frequent shopper program. For every $100 you spend, you get $10 in a certificate to use there. So every four or five months, Mom gets a certificate in her email! She decided to print off the certificate today in celebration of her little vacation and go shopping! She bought two boy outfits and two girl shirts.

Mom likes this shirt because it had snaps. You can’t see them, but they are shiny buttons with snap backs. She says that I look like a have an attitude problem in this picture. I say it’s the silly tie that came as part of the shirt. She thinks the outfit has something to do with the Jonas Brothers—but neither of us are sure. She bought me another shirt—this one has an eagle on it. It’s supposed to be patriotic. It says strength and freedom on it. Mom liked the eagle. I think it’s cool—very trendy. I think it looks like the shirts that Mom and Caleb see at stores when they go shopping.

I do love Chloe—even when she’s being extra annoying in her little-sister-ness. We kept each other company for many long days in the beginning of our hug. I am happy that I have such a loving family with Foster and Chloe! Mom and I read Buttons BeCause’s blog entry about sending bears to Haiti to comfort the children who have been hurt by the aftereffects of the earthquake. I thought about all those children who don’t have anyone to go to and it made me glad that I have people and plushies to be with.

I wasn’t going to show you these plushies—but they’re so cute and so tiny that I couldn’t resist. They’re from Only Hearts Pets. They are Eggs the ostrich, Stretch the giraffe, and Tad the teddy bear. Mom found them when she was shopping today. To show how tiny they are, Caleb, Baxter, and Stegner allowed Mom to take their picture together.  Caleb is only six inches tall at the most, and he towers over the three of them. Even Baxter seems to be a giant compared to their littleness! Caleb says that he will keep track of them so they don’t get lost! I think it’s a very important job—they could get lost so easily!

January 21st, 2010

My mom has the next four days off from her job. She does not have to back to work until Tuesday! This will mean plenty of naps, pictures, and playing on the internet. She says that she might go to Build-a-Bear  and buy something, which usually means that I get a present of some sort. There are so many cool things at BAB that I am always surprised when she brings something home. Who knows? Maybe I’ll have a new friend by the time you read this! It all depends on what she finds there!

I don’t know how to get a hold of them, but I just wanted the bears at Teddy Bear and Friends blog that I cannot comment on their blog. I try—I especially like the most recent post about going to that teddy bear show. It looked like a lot of fun. He got to meet so many new bears! I think that would be the best part! I’ve never go to pick out a new friend before—or even be part of the decision making process. Even when I got Caleb, he kind of chose me! Well, I’ll admit that getting a new outfit or some other present might be the best part. Hm. I wonder what he thought about the whole thing?

The snow is melting around here now.  This weekend, the temperatures are supposed to be in the upper 30° F range. In exchange, it is supposed to rain and snow almost all weekend. I wish that it would just stay nice and snow-covered. I don’t mind the snow. I don’t like rain and mud and wet in the middle of January! How pretty is that?! And you can’t go out and play in the mud!  I never got to go outside and make a snow-bear! Sigh. I guess Mother Nature will do whatever she wants with the weather! All we can do is do our best to deal with it!

Since I spent that time reading to Chloe, she thinks that we should spend more time together. She’s trying to convince Mom to get another book from upstairs. Mom said that she would on one of her days off but I hope she forgets! Sometimes, sisters are so troublesome! We can’t agree on what kind of book to read! I don’t want to read a book about princess or something like that, but she doesn’t want to read a book about cars! Sigh. Sisters!

January 20th, 2010

Mom brought a book downstairs tonight. It is called Chester’s Way, and it is by a gentleman named Kevin Henkes. Kevin Henkes is my mom’s favorite children’s picture book writer. He writes books like Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse and Owen. I helped Chloe read the book for a while tonight. It is one of my favorite Kevin Henkes books. Chloe prefers the ones with Lilly as the main character—I think she wishes she could be that spunky! Mom wouldn’t allow that though! Chloe can read a lot of words—which is very good considering she is only three years old. I helped her with some of the bigger ones. She liked me reading passages out loud.

Mom made a group on the Bear Place a few days ago about books. She took our pictures so she could post a little story of sorts on there. I think she should bring more books downstairs so we can read more books to show on there!

Our hug seems to increase in bursts because Mom rescues Build-a-Bear plushies from Goodwill. When she finds one, if they’re not a species of BAB that she already has, they come home to our hug more often then not. Sometimes, they come home no matter what!She says that she can’t afford to bring home too many from the BAB store, but Goodwill’s prices are much more in her range. Some of the new, smaller plushies come from the place that she works. She gets a discount there. It doesn’t happen often because the plushies that are there don’t ask to be brought home. I am glad that as a bear, I don’t have to worry about money!

January 17th, 2010

We had some new arrivals yesterday. Mom found them all at Goodwill. The pony is Crocus, Saffron and Hyacinth's cousin. The bear is Walnut—a very dapper looking fellow. Finally the tiger is Cornflower, named for her soft blue eyes that you can’t see very well. They are fitting in very well here. Crocus is a little bit shy, but is glad to find some of her relatives here. Mom is going to introduce Cornflower to some of our other cats—like Daisy the Bengal tiger and Eira the snow leopard. She hopes that will ease the move into such a big hug! Walnut, on the other hand, seems to fit right in and is very sociable. He has already made friends with Roscoe and they are discussing soccer—Roscoe’s favorite sport. (Roscoe fancies himself quite the soccer player, but I think he intimidates any of the other plushies who will play with him. He’s an awfully big fellow!)

Mom took a photo of the introduction today. They seem to be getting along well. We worry sometimes that new hug members won’t feel welcome, but there is almost always someone who will take the new member under their supervision and make sure that they feel welcome! Mom is in charge of making sure they have something comfortable to wear, and then one of us introduces the new plushie to the rest of the hug. We don’t expect everyone to remember everyone’s name! That’s what Mom is for!

We spent the evening watching Mom play on the internet. Are there any websites that you like to visit? Mom lets us go to the BearPlace and the Bear Club often. We read our blogs that we are subscribed to via Google Reader. She will also let us look things up on Wikipedia.   Mom has plenty more websites that she checks. We check Mom’s mail, go to Mom’s Livejournal, and check her Twitter feed. We also check her facebook page often.

I like browsing on the internet. Mom does not let me go online by myself. She says that there are things on the internet that are not meant for small bears. I am glad that I found all these blogs to read. She will let me read blogs by myself! I usually need help posting on my own blog. My patience with typing isn’t very long!