Meow!!.. Halloween 2009

First, a disclaimer: My good camera has been shipped to some location in this country, and is hopefully being fixed sooner than later. In the meantime, I’m using my old trusty Kodak, which apparently is no longer as trusty. So I’ve been quite frustrated. However, Halloween was still fun with a toddler, who loves saying “Meow”.

On Friday, we went down to State Street, which had a kids’ trick-or-treating in and out of stores. It was quite nice. Yesterday we went to the mall, which also had trick-or-treating. Fun, but crazy and over-crowded, and a bit scary for Kajsa, but mostly fun.

Kajsa loves the cat costume. She wore it around the house this afternoon and evening as well. It was an easy costume–she had the pants, I bought the shirt, and bought the ears and tail. Easy, fun, successful Halloween.

Daily fun

A few more fun pictures… I love this face. I love it when Kajsa lets me put her hair in a headband (I’m trying to grow her hair out), because I think it looks fantastic. And Kajsa loves the color orange, which is fun.

Kajsa also loves Gaiden’s crate. Gaiden is Jen’s puppy (almost a year old), and we were watching him last weekend. Kajsa spent a lot of time in his crate–of her own doing, let me add! we did NOT put her in there… She put herself in there.. she loved it. She methodically dragged toys, books, etc. into the crate, then would sit in there for a while, then took them back out… she loved it. It was pretty funny.

Kajsa is her daddy’s little girl in many ways, but one of them is that she loves to check the mail, and Jim frequently lets her keep a piece of “junk mail”… she takes her mail seriously, as you can see. The other day she was sitting in her chair, “reading” it… talking to herself, while her eyes ran up and down the page of this junk mail.

And the box… Once Gaiden had returned home, and the crate was gone, I got a box from the gargage, which Kajsa then spent a lot of time hanging out in as well.

Another quick story: the other day I had Sesame Street on for Kajsa. I realized, after a bit, that Kajsa had left the room, and I was still watching Sesame Street. I won’t say I was engrossed, but I was enjoying it. So I went to find Kajsa, and asked her, “Kajsa, are you watching Sesame Street–or not?” She immediately responded: “Not!”.

Visiting with family

Last weekend, Kajsa and I drove to Elgin, stayed at new friends’ home, with Annie, Jeff, Jordan, and Kristina.. (Beaner.. MY Bean!) Great time. Too short. Wish we saw all our families more often. Sigh. The third picture is Kajsa’s funny pout face she suddenly made, out of the blue… then, of course, because we all laughed, she kept it up.

our little girl

is growing up.

Photo challenge, Kajsa as Vertical Line

I’ve been trying to participate in a “Photo Challenge” group online. It’s a daily challenge, and I’m not able to participate everyday, but many days since I’ve joined I have taken a photo based on the theme. Yesterday’s theme was “Vertical Lines”, and I took this photo in Target. I like it.

If you’d like to see more of the photos from my “collection”, some have been showing up on my Flickr badge on the right… others you can see on my other blog that I started specifically for this challenge: photo challenge. If you want to see more photos from the group (I have no idea who the rest of these people are in the group–it’s simply a great way to view and take neat photos, with someone else organizing it all!), go here: And, if you want to challenge yourself and join the group, and have fun in the process, go here…to the Photo Challenge site.

from Abby

Hi, Jen… and others who have wondered if I’m still here. (Jen posted a comment on Cathy’s last blog, asking about me….) Yep, I’m still here. Not nearly as photographed, or blogged-about, as I used to be. This kid has pretty much taken over… everything. Food, kitchen, fridge, bed, playtime, walks…. yep, she pretty much thinks she’s top dog. She walks around the house dragging her backpack and other bags, over-stuffed with who-knows-what?, and frequently forgets that I’m even there, dragging the bags right over my tail. If she’d put fewer items in the bags, maybe she could lift them… but hey, I’m just the dog.

Of course, I know that Cathy & Jim still adore me, which is what really counts, but jeez…. a few more appearances on the blog or camera wouldn’t hurt too much, would it?

The good things about having this kid around are: I’m pretty much guaranteed scraps from the table, I get lots of toddler hugs each day, when they leave the house, Kajsa gives me a treat, because Kajsa needs some running-around time in the early evenings, Cathy and Jim are playing a lot of hide-and-seek.. and I get to participate as well. There are a lot of paper scraps to shred, thanks to Kajsa making lots of drawings. And then giving some to me. Kajsa also occasionally opens my food bin and gives me a handful of my food–which works well, until the adults figure it out.

Today Cathy and Kajsa made Hot Chocolate, and had a “HC Party” with Kajsa’s tea set. I ended up licking up all their plates and cups, and even got a bit in my bowl.

I still get to hang out on the bed sometimes, even though it’s crowded. But when Kajsa’s in her crib at night, I get Cathy & Jim back to myself. It’s good to have that quality time, still. At the end of the day, I’m pretty exhausted, though. It is exhausting trying to keep track of a toddler. Good thing there are three of us trying to keep track.

So, thanks for thinking of me. I’ll remind Cathy to mention me more often.

-Abby

Bag Lady, Part 2

or… “Contents of a Toddler’s Backpack”. I’ve posted this photo on my other blog...(the one I started to post my Photo Challenge pictures I’m attempting to take each day. or most days.)

This is not a fake photo. This is real, folks. This is what I dumped out of Kajsa’s backpack today. Hmmmmm… Shes’ a riot.

In other photos… last week Jim found an old harmonica that he let Kajsa play with. Today when we saw “Zee”, the owl on “Noggin”, (a preschool TV cable channel) playing the harmonica, she wanted to find her harmonica. We couldn’t locate it, but Jim had another one… and let her play with that. She loved playing it at the same time as Zee, and kept playing it from time to time throughout the evening.

Retreat at Harbor

This past weekend I was at Covenant Harbor Bible Camp, in Lake Geneva. 8 other women from church and I attended the annual Womens Retreat. The weekend was fantastic. Great. And a superb speaker, even if I am a bit biased. Karen Hinz, one of my good friends, was the speaker, and did a phenomenal job at speaking to the issue of waiting… waiting on God… waiting with God… waiting with others… God waiting with us…. Way to go, Kar.

Sunday morning I walked outside before breakfast, to take a few photos, and I took this one. Of course, I love to be at Harbor, because of having worked there for two summers, but it is a gorgeous location.

Bag Lady

Jim took this photo of Kajsa the other day. I love it. It’s so typical of daily life here, now. Kajsa loves bags. And containers. And anything that can double as a container or a bag or any such thing.

Although she also loves to carry around empty bags, even the empty ones normally end up full. Or stuffed. She tries to stuff as much of her stuff in bags as possible, then tries to carry them around.. often successfully, but sometimes she gets frustrated at how everything does not fit. Oh well.

our little pilot

Today we had an incredible experience! We went for an airplane ride–in a private airplane. A 2-seater… so Jim went up first, then I went up. And in between, Kajsa tried on the headphones and sat in the passenger seat… looking very cool, of course. Hopefully I’ll post more photos later this week, but suffice it to say, for now, that this was incredible. Fun. Beautiful. Gorgeous. I could have stayed up there for a loooong time. At least I think I could have. Thanks, Nancy and Steve!