GOOD THINGS HAVE BEEN HAPPENING TO ME

With all of the terrible things that happen to people like what has been in the news these past few days concerning the people who are still without power and the others who are even less fortunate due to the devastation wrought by hurricane Sandy I feel a bit guilty about how lucky I have been lately.

By now because my sister has let it be known, some of you have heard that my doll Lula seen here

Has her photo on page 68 of this magazine...

The same day I learned about Lula getting into the magazine I received an email saying another doll (or dolls because it' a Topsy Turvy doll) will appear in the Spring issue of this magazine. For someone who never expected to have one doll get into a magazine you can imagine how pleased I am. Surprised and pleased!

Then yesterday while I was out shopping with my daughter a package was left on my porch and when I opened it I found this inside.

This dear little bear is Teddy's Teddy (100th Anniversary Limited Edition) Isn't he adorable?

And I also found this...

  my very own Troll Knoll.

With this to add to my Halloween decorations I'm sure my collection is nearly complete. Thank you Oma Linda. You're too good to me.

Is it any wonder I think she's wonderful?

These two feline sweeties sitting next to Teddy are Kitty Galore and Itty Bitty Kitty both made by my sister Maggie. She and I made kitties like these about 20 years ago for a Christmas Craft Fair and I made one for my granddaughter Ariel.  Thank you Maggie. If you ever want these two back you'll have to fight me for them or beg really hard. Just kidding.

There are more good things that have happened to me lately but I'm going to save them for another time.

I want to wish you all a happy weekend and as always, thanks for stopping by.

Fern Gully

Hi Everyone. It’s me, Bellamine and I have some photos of camp I would like to share with you.

One of the things we all liked to do at camp was go hiking. There are several really great trails where we could choose to hike. One of Bitsy and my favorite trails was the one that went into Fern Gully.  Fern Gully is a bee-u-tee-full area where really big ferns grow everywhere.  Mom would have loved it. We climbed up on some of the really big ones and scooted under one and hid from Wendy and Clarissa for a while but when they didn’t even look for us we decided it was kind of creepy under there and Bitsy is really scared of bugs. I’m only a little bit scared of bugs but then I got to thinking that snakes might like hiding under those big ferns so we didn’t hide under them anymore.

Here’s Bitsy sitting on one of the ferns.

Here I am standing on a really big fern. Ferns are easy to climb up on when you're a great climber like me.

Bitsy decided to join me up here on this really big fern. She's a good climber too.

There are trees everywhere at camp because Camp Good Bear has forests and woods all around it. I know that bears are natural tree climbers but we don’t have a lot of trees at the North Pole and the ones we do have are all Christmas trees and we're not supposed to climb those so it was a new experience for my sisters and me.

Here I am starting my first climb. It's hard to climb this kind of tree because there isn't anything to get ahold of.  Some of the other bears climb the trees that have bark but I was afraid I'd tear my romper and my mom would have been really upset.

I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell my mom. Most of the time at camp we ran around  B-A-R-E. We were bare bears.  Yep, just wore our bear skins.  Hehehehe!!! It's the best way to go swimming in the lake and we went swimming every day because it was so warm and the lake was so cool.

Here I am again half way up. I had to keep my eyes closed because I’m afraid of heights.

Here I am as far up as I dared to go. It was really high up and when I opened my eyes to see how high up I was I got scared and couldn’t climb back down for a while until I got my nerve up and then I came down really fast. It’s a good thing there was a big ol' fern at the bottom because it softened my landing.

Since we got home we’ve been telling the other bears about all of the things we did at camp and now most of them want to go next year. The boys want to learn to fish and they want to learn how to paddle a canoe and they want to go to Fern Gully and climb trees. They want to sit around the camp fire and listen to scary ghost stories and have s'mores. Who wouldn't want to do all of those things? I know I want to go again next year.

Clarissa, Wendy and I have enough stories to last for weeks so we’ll be taking turns telling you about our adventures and showing you some of the photos we took.  Although I miss being at camp and being with all of my friends I'm kind of happy to be home too. I missed my family and my friends who live here. I've already made plans to spend the night at Dory's house on Friday. I hope all of you have been having a nice summer because it's almost over and school will be starting back up next week.

Hugs,

Bellamine

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE

Yesterday my mom said, “Bellamine, there is a new family who has moved in the house down the lane and they have a daughter your age and I thought it would be a nice thing for you to pay her a visit and welcome her to the neighborhood so I arranged a play date for you this afternoon.”

She didn’t even ask me if I wanted to meet this new girl or anything, she just went ahead and arranged a play date. I had a good mind to tell her I didn’t want to go. Since I didn’t have anything to do and Wendy was busy with some secret project I figured I’d make Mom happy and go meet this dumb girl. The things we kids do to make our bearents happy. Am I right?

So, just before it was 1:00 I got on my bike and rode down the street to the little green house that used to have the for rent sign in the window.

No sooner had I knocked on the door when it was opened by this human girl who looked very happy to see me.

“Welcome, welcome, come on in, don’t be shy little bear.”  The girl said. “My name is Dory O’Dell.  We just moved here because my daddy got a job working at the toy factory for Santa. Can you believe it? He’s going to be working for THE SANTA!! He says it’s his lifelong dream to be working for the big man himself.”

“Huh? Shy? Who, me? I’m not shy. Nobody ever calls me shy. My mom didn’t tell me that you were a human girl. Cool! I don’t know very many human girls. My mom works for Santa too and he and Mrs. Claus come to our house for dinner at least once a month. You’re going to really like him, he’s super nice. Oh, I nearly forgot, my name is Bellamine.”

“Wow!! You can talk! I didn’t know you would be able to talk. I never heard a teddy bear talk before.”

“Well, of course I can talk. All of us bears can talk because teddy bears almost always live with humans. Haven’t you ever had a teddy bear live with you?”

“Nope, I’ve never had a bear. I’ve got a clown doll and he never talks but I never have had a bear.”

“Do you want a bear? I know this girl bear named Clarissa that you might like to have come live with you. Only problem with her is you have to call her ‘Your Highness’ because she thinks she’s a princess. Ask your mom, I’m sure my mom will say it’s okay if your mom says it’s okay.”

“Okay, I’ll ask my mama if Clarissa can live with us. Come on, I’ll show you my new bedroom. Do you have your own room?”

“No, I have to share a room with my brothers, sisters and my cousins, who live with us, but it’s a big room and we have lots of neat stuff. We have our own TV and DVD player and movies. We have books and games and puzzles and lots of toys and a computer. We have a rocking horse named Woody and we have a puppy named Vinnie.  Do you have those things in your room?”

“Nope, I don’t have a TV or computer or movies in my room. My mama and daddy have a computer and we have a TV and DVD player in the den.  I’ve got toys and books and puzzles and my mama gave me some flowers for my room and I have my very own watering can to water them with. I’ve got a rocking chair. Do you have one of those?”

“We got a rocking chair but there’s this dumb old doll who’s always sitting in it. Oh, I see your clown is sitting in yours. Hey clown, why don't you talk?”

"Why should I? Nobody really cares what I have to say."

"I'll listen to you." Dory told the sad little clown. "I would have listened sooner if I knew you talked."

                                    

This is how our afternoon went. We talked about everything. I told her about my brothers and sisters, especially Wendy and I told her about going to camp this summer. I told her how my sister and I made things and how our mom taught us how to make cookies and ornaments to decorate our little tree.  I told her about feeding the reindeer and about visiting the toy factory and the elves. I told her that my mom has the secret recipe for the best hot chocolate just like the hot chocolate that Santa loves. I told her my favorite foods are honey and peanut butter and she said she likes honey and peanut butter and she had her mom make us a snack of honey and peanut butter on crackers.  I told her how my mom lets us post on her blog on Friday when we have something to blog about and told her that I was going to do a post on the blog about our visit. We had so much fun talking that the time just flew by and in no time at all Dory’s mom was saying it was time for me to go because my mom had called to say dinner was nearly ready.

As I was getting ready to leave, Dory did the most wonderful thing. She hugged me and told me we were going to be the best of friends. Isn’t that great? I have a new friend and she is a human girl and her name is Dory O’Dell.

When I got home I started telling Mom and Wendy about Dory and her mom and their house and how much fun I had there.  Mom said she knows what a good time I had because Mrs. O’Dell sent pictures to her phone of us she took with their phone. She said I could use them in my post. She also said she didn’t think it was very funny that I offered to have Clarissa go live at the O’Dell’s. Oh well, I gave it a try and that’s what counts. You never know, maybe one day Mom will say yes.

Today is Friday and some of my bear friends are going to be posting so I’m going to say so long for now so I can go visit their blogs.  Have a happy weekend.

Hugs,

Bellamine

PS

Mom just now saw the title of my post and said that it was a name of a movie from 1974 or 1976 starring Jodie Foster. I asked her why we didn’t have it. She said she didn’t think we’d like it. She says that a lot.