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!

Minnesota State Fair

Last week we did our annual Minnesota State Fair day.. it’s so fun. Only this year, for some odd reason, I wasn’t as hungry, so didn’t eat a lot of the fun fair food. That said, I did have my share of the good stuff.. just not as much as usual!

My favorites? The Tom Thumb Mini Donuts, and the Dairy Barn Raspberry Sundae.  We did try the chocolate covered bacon… which was ok. Not great, but ok.

Kajsa loved the animals, the baby animals, the adult animals… trying to pet them, etc. Some of them liked her, too. It was cute. And, of course, Kajsa LOVED the John Deere tractors. Fun.