A perfectly perfect pet

My sister commented, during our outdoor tea party at cousins camp this weekend, on how well behaved the Hub's pretty blonde lab was. The yard, after all, is her domain. Kind of.
We've had such extreme weather of late that she's spent a good deal of time indoors. Neither I nor the baby daughter nor the grandbaby can stand to have her look at us with her big ole sad eyes their the back door and not admit her over the protests of the Hub.
He was going to make a duck dog out of her. Instead, she is the perpetual playmate of the grandbaby, her friends and cousins. She will allow snap barrettes to be clipped onto her ears and not infrequently, to be ridden like a small pony. She's about the size of one.
She has a deep, serious bark but that's about as deep and serious as she gets. She's still not gotten over having an extra large litter of extra large puppies. She still gives to the hip that has ailed her since she carried that load.
She still lounges upon the bench under a big tree in the backyard, when she is not in the house of scratching her back on the fence or begging with her eyes at the back door to come in.
And yes, she is fairly well behaved.
And no, she will not likely ever make a duck dog.
She is too timid and too much a pet. But for out purposes, she is a pretty perfect one.

Cousins camp? I' m calling it a sucess!

There were several spills, a couple of melt downs. The baby almost ate a hand full of dog food he snagged from their bowl. An elbow scrape (child) and a glue incident (adult) but every one survived and even had fun.
It's been more than a dozen years since our last cousins camp.
This was a whole new crew.
A much younger one.
Designing crests and monograms was put of the question.
Embellished initials  and picture frames seemed simple enough.
There weren't that simple.
I underestimated. I was overly ambitious.
Still, we managed the manners and etiquette lesson albeit a brief one.
It was nice enough that we had snacks outside.
Aunt Kitty brought cream horns and cheese bread.
I should have made a cheese ball and homemade limeade but I had the Hub pick them up at the market while I over did the decorations.
Some of the more ocd oriented "helpers" wanted to direct the frames. They wanted all bugs, or all sea animals or all Disney princess, not a child selected mix thereof. I am not naming names but suffice to say that particular helper was tasked elsewhere.
We  realized, too late, that we should have taken a group photo before we began instead of after we finished as some tired little campers are pictured in tears in the official photos.
One of them cried because her mother would not let her hold a piece of the pink duct tape she used on her  letter "L" embellished with buttons. The other cried because she did.
We'll know better next time. There WILL be a next time. There has to be. Now it's a family tradition.

we'll all have tea

 

I am still working on the blog post for cousins camp. In the meantime, I am sharing one more sneak peak post. The darlings above insisted on pouring their own tea. My middle sister, who is called Kitty by one of them and Nana by the other, was the gracious assistant for those endeavors.
While she did that, my other sister, the baby of our family, was getting hugs and kisses from her grandbaby, our Pierce who turned one last week.

cousins

 

A sneak peek of the fun we had at Cousins Camp. Details to follow!

wrapping paper tradition

Today I am making gift tags for Christmas.
The bad news is that my vacation time is winding down. The good news is I have gotten a lot of the things I wanted to do done. I am feeling pretty good about the projects I've completed. Making gift tags using the Avery site templates would be a small thing to some people but not to me. To me, it is huge. I feel so scientific!
Before I am done, I plan to make tags for friends and family... for gifts we mail and gifts we deliver ourselves.
Who I will not need to make gift tags for is my children. Nor my husband. Nor the grandbaby. No tags are required for their gifts. They will be able to pick them out pretty much on sight.
That is because I follow my Mother-in-law's lead and select a single print for each member of the family to wrap their gifts in.
She started this with my nephews, her two oldest grandsons, before my husband and I had children. I thought it was a charming tradition then and I think so now.
I loved watching them figure would which paper was theirs and then collect the packages from under the tree into piles all their own. They would arrange them and stack them and shake them.
They would return again and again during the days immediately before we opened gifts on Christmas eve to build small towers with patterned wrapped boxes.
She selected wrap surrounding whatever was going on in the child's life at that particular time. I recall Sesame Street character paper and Disney. Then there were comic book characters and finally sports motifs.
I follow the same plan.
For my oldest daughter, I have used pooh, purple, angels and the nativity. She would recognize anything with those as hers immediately.
For my son,  nutcrackers has been the most often used print ever since he outgrew cartoon characters and super heroes.
The baby daughter's paper usually has involved her activities: dance and tennis and piano and cheerleading. Last Christmas, with her in last year law school, I went with a book print. Other times, her "signature" has carried the day.
For the hub it's been Coca Cola Santas, alligators and pelicans (he's from Louisiana) or bulldogs (the mascot from his high school and college alma maters.)
The grandbaby, there's been kitchens and puppies and Disney princesses. I found a print with crayons for her kindergarten year Christmas last December.
As much fun as it is, and always has been for the kiddos, I admit, it is fun for me to select a new pattern every year. I just hope  my mother-in-law has as much fun when she was following her own tradition.

Some more of my favorite things

 

Posting some more favorites. I don't know why they are my favorites other than that  I like them. A lot.
 I don't know why I am posting them other than it makes me happy.
Very happy.
The end.

princess dance

 

Sometimes, if you go shopping with your Auntie and your Granddaddy and come home with a Disney princess dress, you have to put it right on. And then, once your have it on, you have to put on a crown. And then you have to do a princess dance. You have to spin and twirl  until you are dizzy.  You can hum the music yourself or you can get your grandmother to hum it for you.
It's just what you have to do when you have a new princess dress.