Time with Books

My friend Joy and her babies came for a visit.

Happy Harry Potter Day

Today the final Harry Potter movie was released in theaters around the world. Ten years ago I went to the midnight showing of the very first Potter movie. Wow. Ten Years. I feel kind of sad that it's finally all over. When the last book came out (I went to the midnight release of that book as well) there was the consolation that we still had the movies to look forward to.  I almost don't remember what it's like to not have a Potter movie to look forward to every year.
I look forward to reliving the Harry Potter magic of the books and movies with Rosie some day.

So in honor of 14 years of Harry Potter (the first book was published in 1997) and Ten years of Harry Potter movies, I give you Dobby.

My little House Elf.

Smile for the camera!

Rosie's Smiles

Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen?

This is the face she makes when you tell her to smile for the camera.

Then she laughs

My perfect little angel is getting so big

Last Day with Auntie Julie

 On our last day with Auntie Julie we decided to take her into Nashville and show her a bit of the "city life" in this area.

We ended up in the Franklin's Historic District where there is a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream shop. Julie bought baby her very first, very own, cup of ice cream.  Bonnie Rose was very happy about it.

Then Auntie Julie took Rosie's mama to the Mellow Mushroom for Gluten Free pizza. Julie likes to spoil us.

After a nice walk around the old houses of Franklin, 

in the rain...

 and visiting a few shops...

Rosie drove us to the airport,

 where we played tag for a while and then said good-bye to Auntie Julie.

It was so nice to have Julie come visit us. I love seeing how much Rosie loves to be with her Godmother and I'm so thankful that Julie is a part of our family. 

I feel grateful to Julie for being such a good and loving Godmother to my baby girl and her devotion really touches my heart. Julie even got a tattoo in honor of Baby Rosie. It's one of my favorite tattoos ever.

Julie's Tattoo, on her right wrist and hand

I know that my baby is perfect and wonderful but it just makes me happy when other people think so too. And I'm so thankful for how many people surround my little Angel with love.

Celebrating the 4th

Here are some pictures of our Fourth of July celebrations. 

Julie and I had matching Mickey Mouse in an Uncle Sam hat.

We are very silly.

Girl's Picture!

Julie spent the whole weekend reading to Rosie.

A local church in the area advertised that they were going to have a free fireworks show. They also said they were going to have ponies. I got super excited about the ponies and made us leave like 5 hours too early. The ponies ended up not being there and we had to wait a really really long time for the fireworks show.

Be we did get to play on the play ground while we waited.

Julie took Rosie on her first slide.

Here's a picture of Rosie looking adorable.

Julie and I in the Aloha photo thingy

Rosie's favorite part of the whole day was this little play house. She loved that is was just her size. She spent almost the whole evening in there and loved opening and closing the Rosie sized door.

It made her really happy

Finally it was time for the fireworks. The show started with every one standing up and singing the national anthem and they perfectly timed the first fire work with the last word of the song.

It was a pretty good show and I think we were all glad we stuck around for it.  It's just not the 4th of July without a fireworks show.

There were lots of families and kids around and Rosie loved watching them.

This little baby watched the whole show peeking out from under her blanket.

Rosie did a really good job during the show. She didn't like the noise, but if her ears were covered she liked watching the lights. She watched almost the whole show with wide eyes and then said she was all done right before the grand finale.

Aunti Julie and blowing things up

 Julie is Rosie's Godmother. Her and I were roommates in college and soon found we were bosom buddies.

Julie and I have been a part of every major life event for the last 11 years in each other's lives. I don't know what I would do without her.  Even though I'm the world's worst Keeper in Toucher Julie still loves me. And every time we go months without talking we can just pick right back up where we left off.

Julie lives in New York but came to visit us for the 4th of July.  The day before the 4th we went to a road side fireworks stand to buy our explosives. Julie was rather nervous about all the large things it is legal to shoot into the sky here. I was very pleasantly surprised too. In California most of this stuff is illegal, but here in Tennessee they have stuff that could rival the Chinese New Year fireworks in China!

As you can see, I am quite pleased with our explosive purchases. We bought two different ones that shoot up into the sky and explode like professional ones. So exciting!

 Of course it wouldn't be a holiday with out some decorations. So we hung a bunting on the front door.

It looks very nice from the street. Very festive.

While we were eating dinner that night Julie got to meet one of our neighbors.  Yogi was tormenting this little cutie in the back yard and we had to go rescue him.

He made funny noises at us and then waddled off.  

Here's a cute picture Julie took of our little nerd in the making. She's such a good girl and loves to play on the computer.

Rosie loved having her Auntie Julie around. She was all smiles and goofy the whole time.  She had Julie wrapped around her little finger. She didn't want any one else to read to her or chase her except Julie.

At one point William was playing the "who's this?" game with Rosie, where he points at each person and she says our name. When he got to Julie, Rosie looked at her, paused, and then said with great confidence "BOOK"!  Julie said she'd take and will forever be called book.

Here is the only picture of our fireworks that turned out. Rosie did a very good job at watching them and was only a little scared. She sat behind me with her arms around me and watched with big eyes.

Busy Summer Days

I was talking to a friend of mine online the other day and I mentioned we've been really busy lately. She laughed at me. You see, she works full time and has to be clever all day, then she goes home to her toddler and nurses her and plays with her. During the week she goes to preschool performances. She spends every minute she can with her baby, but she also has to go to work all day. She is a busy Mama.
My busy days are not quite the same... but are still busy. My friend says it's "the best kind of busy" and think she's very right.

Baby Girl and I wake up every day and go outside right away. Some days I can get Rosie to eat breakfast first, but other days I feed it to her on the porch. We walk out to the goat pen and hang out with the goats.

Rosie walks around and says hello to all the goats. We check and make sure everyone is healthy, make sure they have food and walk and we bottle feed one of the babies.

Rosie stays very busy climbing on the logs and rocks with the baby goats.




When Baby Girl doesn't want to go for a walk outside, she wants to be pushed in her stroller. She loves her stroller. She can climb up in it all by her self, and then she asks to be pushed around the house or out side. Some times we just go around in circles and  sometimes we even chase William around the kitchen with the stroller. Baby Girl always loves that and laughs and laughs.

We take walks at sunset and admire the wonderful sunlight, walk down to the mail box and chase each other up the hill.

Sometimes we chase the cats too.

At dusk I like to go out and watch the fireflies dance. They look like fairies sparkling up from the lawn. Actually I just call them fairies when I show them to Baby Girl.

In my ideal world I would never live in a place that didn't have fireflies. They are so magical.

Despite how it sounds we do spend some of our day in the house.  Especially if it gets really hot outside. Rosie doesn't like to be hot.  We come inside and count the rocks in her rock collection, read books, stack blocks and of course have dance time.

Rosie is so creative and sometimes I just like to sit and watch her imagination work.

Of course there are normal life things that have to be done, like laundry and cooking dinner. Sometimes I even manage to clean the house a little.

By the end of the day we are all exhausted. We watch some Doctor Who (Rosie loves SciFi) and Shawn the Sheep (Rosie calls them goats) to wind down and then we all fall into bed.

We do have to convince Rosie that she is indeed tired. She fights it so hard and we usually end up running circles in the house and playing chase in the evenings. I am definitely more tired than she is.

So at the end of the day I can't always tell you what we've done or how productive we've been. But we are busy. I agree with my friend Diana. It's the best kind of busy and I'm so thankful for it. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

It is the best kind of Busy.

Bumps and Bruises

 Baby Girl and I take walks out to the goat pastures sometimes. We walk out with the goats and sit with them for a while. After a couple hours we try to sneak away before they notice. But they always do. Then when they see that we're getting away they start running as fast as they can to catch up with us. Sometimes they don't stop before they reach us, they just run right through us! or rather, into me.

They don't mean to get me with their horns. They just get excited and start running and then run into me... with their heads. They do it to each other too... I guess they think I'm a goat.

I got this bruise a couple weeks ago. It really hurt and was swollen for a couple of days. I couldn't even sit down comfortably for days. Actually it still hurts!

I don't mind the bruises. That's life on the farm, and really it doesn't happen that often. The only thing I mind a little is that William gets in a fight with a tree where the tree tries to eat his leg and he comes out with a couple of scratches, some sore muscles but not much else to show for it. I take a walk outside and come home with my leg falling off.

Video my Life

Today I followed Bonnie Rose around with the video camera and tried to capture her doing all sorts of adorable things.

Here's a video of Rosie playing the drums for the baby goats, Daisy and Danny. I'm trying to teach her not to push the goats, but she thinks she IS a goat so she likes to push them off whatever they are standing on. It's a goat thing.

I thought this was cute so I'm putting it up here. You don't have to watch it if you're not interested. It's Bella nursing her babies. I just love the little sounds Daisy makes when she's nursing.

After lunch we had dance time.  This was the first time Rosie has danced with one of her bears. This bear was given to her on her first birthday by the waiter at The Teddy Bear Cafe in TaiKang Lu, Shanghai China.  

You can hear Rosie say "more" when the song ends and then "dance" to her bear. 

Here's another one of Rosie dancing with her bear.  (Sorry for the mess behind her... it's laundry and cleaning day.)

Here's a couple pictures of our day for those of you who just want a quick glance or can't get the videos to work.

Bella teaches her babies and mine how to climb on a log...

 And Rosie makes her teddy bear tap dance.

Life's a Zoo

 Today we went to the zoo.  We've been wanting to visit the Nashville zoo for sometime. Bonnie Rose loves animals so much, and we want her to be exposed to them as much as she can as she grows up.

Rosie was so fascinated with most of the animals and studied them very intently. She tried very hard to say all of their names.

 She thought the Flamingos were fun because they were pink and drank water upside down. She stood a long time watching them.

In the petting zoo her favorites were the goats of course but she also liked this Sicilian Donkey a lot too. They also had 8 week old Camels that she really enjoyed looking at.

She was almost overwhelmed in the gift shop with all the fun things to play with. She loved hugging and giving kisses to the stuffed animals.  But of all the things in the gift shop she liked the table full of pretty polished rocks. Rosie loves rocks. She spent a good long time picking out her favorite ones.

The Meerkats made her laugh and laugh the way they wrestled and ran around.

But her very favorite  animals were the Gibbons. At first she wasn't quite sure what to make of their loud singing, but she was definitely intrigued.

Here you can see her clapping for them when they stopped singing and then asking for "more."

Every time we walked near the Gibbon habbitat she asked to go watch them again. They not only sang all day long but they would swing from tree to tree.

 Right before we left we found the "jungle gym" play area of the zoo. It was the nicest play ground I've ever seen. We will being coming back to play here for sure, and to see the Gibbons of course.