WE'RE LEAVING IN THE MORNING

Here we are on our last day at home before our great adventure. That's what we're calling our trip and our time at camp. The other bears and our friends have been extra special nice to us this week. We think they're going to miss us.

Mom took us to buy new bags to pack all of our stuff in. We also got new shower shoes and some swimming goggles and batteries for our flashlights. We each got to choose the bag we wanted and here's what we got.

Bellamine's new bag. She likes mermaids.

Clarrisa's new bag. She likes Flutterbys.

Wendy's new bag because purple is my favorite color.

We're leaving the first thing in the morning before it's daylight. We're going in you know who's sleigh and he doesn't fly during the day. We're not going straight to camp but to a friend of our mom's house. She is going to drive us the rest of the way. Her daughter Bitsey is going to camp too.

Mom made us some new clothes for the trip. We are so ready to go. The other kids won't give us any alone time.

Hey Guys, we're going to call home every day and we can send e-mails so it's not like we won't keep in touch.

We'll keep in touch with you too. We'll be talking and sending photos to Mom and she says she'll post for us now and then so you can see what we've been up to.

We'll be with most of our bear friends at camp and we're going to have so much fun being together doing some fun stuff.  See you soon.

Hugs,
Bellamine, Wendy & Clarrisa

WE'RE PACKING OUR BAGS

We've been making lists and checking off the sleeps on our calendar and now we're packing our bags. It won't be long now and we'll be off to see all of our friends at.....

Wendy, I don't think it's all going to fit. We still have a lot of things to get in here and there's only a little more room.

Here, let me see if I can wiggle around in here and open up some more space for you.

Uhh...Bellamine, I think my foot is stuck.

We've packed and repacked and we don't think there's enough room for everything we want to take. We're going to check the list to see if there's anything we can leave at home.

"Mom...I changed my mind. I wanna go to camp too. Can I? Pleeeeeease...?"

"I don't know Clarrisa. I had to send the paperwork for Bellamine & Wendy in months ago. I'll make some phone calls and see if it's too late. You might have to wait until next year to go."

Well, Mom is going to see if Clarrisa can come to camp with us and we're going to look for another suit case.

See everybear next weekend.

Hugs,
Bellamine & Wendy

Baking with Bellamine & Wendy

It's Bellamine and Wendy here with our Friday post. We didn't post last Friday cause we didn't have a single thing to write about. It's been a very boring time for us cause we have been shut-ins. A shut-in is someone who nevers gets to go outside and play.

For more than a week it rained nearly every day and we even had thunder bumpers. That’s what Robbie, Rudy and Bartholomew call thunder storms. One day when the storm was really bad we couldn't find Oakley cause he was hiding in the bottom of the linen closet cause he doesn't like the thunder. Mom won’t let us outside, even on the porch wearing full rain gear and carrying umbrellas when it rains. She’s afraid well get wet and then get moldy and lumpy or something we’re not even going to guess at. She is one big worry wart so we were stuck inside for days and days with hardly anything to do. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been busy with her dumb experiment.  

On Wednesday it cleared up for most of the day and we took our camera outside and took some pictures of our bushes that had some pretty flowers before the rain made a mess of things. Maybe Mom is right about going outside in the rain. Just look what happened to some of our pretty flowering bushes. The ones that are out in the open really got messed up.

Almost all of the flowers are on the ground.

The poor little things look pretty sad because they lost most of their flowers. The ones with trees protecting them didn’t get as badly damaged.

There were some really, really big bumble bees in Mom’s herb garden and we tried taking some pictures of them but they kept moving and when we looked at the pictures we couldn’t find them. Mom says they’re as big as humming birds.

Tuesday evening Santa and Mrs. Claus came to our house for Spaghetti Super night and we asked Mom if we could make the dessert. She did some hemming and hawing and finally gave us the go ahead but only after we promised to clean up our mess. You’d think she’d have learned not to ask us to clean up after what happened the last time but apparently not.

Once we got permission to make the dessert we weren't sure what we wanted to make. We got out the recipe box and some cook books and looked for something but couldn’t find a recipe that we could both agree on. Wendy suggested we make up our own recipe. Like an experiment.

We figured we’d make cookies since we’ve made cookies before and they turned out really good. We went to the pantry and started taking ingredients from the shelves. We knew we needed to have sugar in the cookies but couldn’t make up our minds about which kind to use so we brought out two different kinds. We both wanted chocolate chips. Walnuts are always good in cookies and we like coconut too so why not use both? Then we found some pumpkin in the fridge left over from the muffins that Mom made and we thought, why not? It was good in the muffins.

We measured and poured and stirred and whipped and blended and folded and scooped and chopped. Then we dropped spoons full of cookie dough onto the baking sheets and stuck them in the oven.

We had plenty of volunteers when the first batch had cooled. Every bear said they were good. When we asked Mom to try one to see what she thought and she said, “These are wonderful. Where did you find the recipe?”

When we told her it was our own recipe she asked us what we were going to call them and at first we were stumped. They weren’t chocolate chip cookies like Mom makes and they weren’t oatmeal cookies either. We had used some of this and some of that and then we decided that was just as good a name as any so they are our “This & That Cookies”.

After dinner that night we were helping clear the table when Santa said to Mrs. Claus, “See if the girls will give you the recipe for these cookies.”

Talk about being thrilled!! We were smiling ear to ear. Mom gave us one the recipe cards she uses and we wrote down everything we did and gave it to Mrs. Claus when they were ready to leave. We decided that since Santa likes these cookies so much that he wants Mrs. Claus to make them you might want to make them so we’re going to give you the recipe too. If you make them and like the way they turn out let us know. With some positive comments we might get more kitchen time and who knows, maybe someday we’ll have enough recipes that Mom can make them into a book. We can see it now. How about “Cooking with Bellamine & Wendy”? Or maybe something like, “Bellamine & Wendy’s Best Recipes”. We have plenty of time to come up with the perfect title since we’ve only one recipe so far.

This & That Cookies

Place the following in a large bowl…

1 stick softened butter

½ c. softened coconut oil

1 ¼ c. brown sugar, packed

¾ c. granulated sugar

Beat together until creamy. Then add the following and beat until fluffy:

2 large eggs

2 t. vanilla extract

1 c. canned pumpkin

Add the following and mix until thoroughly blended:

1½ c. flour

½ t. baking power

½ t. salt

2 t. cinnamon

Fold in:

3 c. old fashioned rolled oats

1 c. flaked coconut

1 c. chopped walnuts

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Using soup spoons drop spoonful’s on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees F or about 180 degrees C for 14 - 16 minutes. Leave cookies on baking sheets for 2 minutes after removing from oven then transfer to cooling rack or paper toweling. Once completely cooled store in covered container. We suggest storing them in a Snowman cookie jar but that’s just our preference although we wouldn't mind if Mom would get a teddy bear cookie jar. This recipe makes 5 dozen delicious cookies.

Mom has put a photo of us on the side bar and would like to put photos of our bear friends there as well. We already got permission to put a picture of Prudence there and would love to include the rest of our bear friends so let Mom know if it's alright to put your photo there too.

Speaking of bear friends, we'll be seeing many of you at camp after only 42 more sleeps. It won't be long now.

We're going to go visit our friends' blogs now so see ya later.

Hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy

WENDY'S PROJECT

 Wendy has been working on a special project and hasn’t wanted to share what it is until now. Our mom won some wonderful origami papers and a book on making origami figures in a giveaway from Orchid’s Daily Voice . Wendy wanted to see if she could teach herself origami so she has been working at it a few hours each day for the past two weeks.

You have no idea how hard it is for a polar bear to do something like this. Polar bears have rather large paws and making the folds takes a lot of patience and practice. It took lots and lots of practice, every day, and tons of patience. There were times when Wendy wanted to give up and admit defeat, but that’s not our Wendy. Nope, not our Wendy, she stuck with it.

First she used plain paper so she wouldn’t waste Mom’s special paper.

Once she had mastered a few of the figures she tried making a figure using the pretty paper.

And then she made more figures..

  Here she is making a turtle.

Here she is finishing up a cute little kitty.

Then she started teaching some of the rest of us to make origami cranes and frogs and turtles and after many failures a few pieces actually turned out looking like the pictures in the book.

Here's Bartholomew with his puppy that he is rather proud of.

Robbie and his pink bunny. It doesn't stand up by itself but it almost looks like the picture in the book.

Look at the cute beetle or whatever it is. Mom said she thought it was a beetle or a June bug.  Wendy likes the way the blue kitty turned out so she's going to give it to Mom for Mother's Day.

Even Mom got in on the fun and tried making a crane and then she made a turtle. Wendy said it was easier for Mom since she doesn’t have large paws. You should see the shelf above our TV. There are dozens of origami animals and birds.

Now we have another fun thing to do when we can’t go outside and play. It’s always a good thing to have plenty of options for having fun don’t you agree?

Since it is Friday some of our bear friends are posting so we’re going to spend an hour or so visiting with them. There are still 63 more sleeps until we’re going to be seeing everyone at camp. You all know we’re ticking off the sleeps on our calendar and wishing it wasn’t such a long time but Mom says that the time will fly by once the weather get nice enough for us to play outside.

See you soon.

Hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy

A Plot or Not

"Look Bellamine, Sebastian is having another adventure. Here he is with Cinderella and Snow White and Belle and Rapunzel & Flynn. I wonder where he is.  He is one lucky bear to have so many exciting adventures."

"Why don't we have exciting adventures Wendy? We never get to go anywhere.  We never get to have any fun. All of the other bears get to do things. Remember when we met Prudence? She had just come back from Camp Good Bear. Mom didn't let us go to camp. Remember when Wilbur was on TV and Mom wouldn't let us watch him?"

"You weren't even put together when Prudence went off to camp so of course you couldn't go. Lulu and Flora didn't get to go either because they're too little. We didn't get to watch Wilbur on TV because we don't get that station here.  We get to do all sorts of fun stuff."

"No we don't. I can't think of anything fun that we get to do. Mom won't even let me have my own blog. All of the other bears have blogs. We don't ever have any fun. Waaaa...."

"We do too have fun. Don't you remember when we went to play with the snow kids and we built a snow fort? Wasn't that fun? You like it when we get to visit the reindeer, don't you? How many bears do you think get to feed real live reindeer? There's probably not very many aside from us."

"Hey, what are you looking at? Didn't Mom tell you to turn off the computer and help us put things away?"

"Isn't that Sebastian with Cinderella? Ugh!! Bartholomew, scoot over. You're squishing me." 

"You're squishing me, Clarissa. Both of you move over and give me some room here."

"We can't see the monitor Wendy. You and Bellamine need to move over and make room for us too or I'm telling Mom you didn't put the computer away."

"Don't be a Tattle Tale, Clarissa. Here, is this better? Bellamine, scroll down and see who else Sebastian got his picture taken with."

"Whoa, is that Snow White? Oh look, there's Belle. Oh, she's so beautiful. Hey, there's Rapunzel and Flynn. Remember when we saw their movie?"

"Should we leave a comment Wendy? Let's see who else left comments. Look, there's one from Prudence. Hey, there's Wilbur's granny. Wendy, write something."

"What's going on in here? I thought I told you to put the computer away and pick up your room. You're not still reading your blog list are you?"

"Huh..hi Mom. We're leaving a comment for Sebastian. He just had another adventure. Look, he got his picture taken with some really famous people. See the crown he's wearing in this picture and see, here he is with Tinker Bell and there he is with Peter Pan."

"Go ahead and leave a comment but do it quickly. Santa and Mrs. Claus are coming for dinner tonight and I'll need someone to set the table."

Mom: For a minute there I thought they were plotting on ways to convince me into letting Bellamine have her own blog. Now, that's a subject I don't want to revisit.