Random pics and stories

I was painting my toenails the other evening and Bella asked if I could paint her "piggies" too. We went with fire-engine red. Now, every night as she takes her socks off, she says, "Look, my piggies are still red!" For you Saint Louis girls, this always reminds me of Jen Stoces and her red pants. "Hey, who is wearing red pants? Oh, it's me!" LOL
My parents came over last Friday to spend the night. Anthony and I had an SAT the next morning, so Nana and Papaw had Bella to themselves all day long. Needless to say, she had no desire to take a nap, but that eventually caught up with her. Nana and I were talking about some political issues and we noticed that Bella had been veeeerrrry quiet. We looked over and she was sound asleep on the ottoman we keep underneath the picture window. Looks pretty comfy in her Notre Dame sweats, huh?
I went on the Brebeuf Freshman Retreat Tuesday and Wednesday, which is held at Waycross Episcopal Camp in Brown County. It was beautiful down there, but it just made me miss Bella and Anthony. Especially when Anthony told me these two stories:

Bella was looking at a Cinderella book this evening. She started talking and I asked her what Cinderella was doing. It was the page where the prince puts the slipper on her foot. Bella said "She's getting married...she's getting married to the king." "Oh, " I said as she turned the page back one. "And she's running out of the palace" Bella said, "and she lost her shoe." "Why did she run out?" I asked. "Cause why she looked at the clock," replied Bella. Also, I was on the phone with Mamaw this evening and Bella came up to me holding her donkey, window clings, and stickers, and said, "Papa, we can decorate!" (waving her arms around) "We can decorate the walls with stickers and have a party. We can have a cake party!" (long pause, sad tone) "But we don't have any cake." (with more enthusiasm) "But we can pretend!"

How could I not miss that little bugger every minute I'm away?!?!?

Finally, we have a little pet in our front yard. Zippy the Squirrel has been with us all spring and summer. He lives in the tree in our front yard and is the squirrel that I thought had rabies a few months ago (he doesn't, I just have a tendency to overreact to rodents that don't run away from me) . He came onto our front porch and I almost stepped on him. He has absolutely NO FEAR of humans. You could throw a boulder at him and he would just look at you like you're an idiot. Anyway, yesterday Bella was eating her "square crackers" (saltines) and looking out the front window. She started yelling, "Momma, momma, Zippy is here, Zippy is here!" We watched him out the front door for a while and she asked, "What is he doing?" I told her that he was looking for food to take back to his nest. I pointed to her cracker and said, "He would probably like a bite of your cracker." So we opened the door and tossed it to Zippy. He practically caught the darn thing in his mouth. Here he is nibbling away:

When Zippy finished with that cracker, he started rooting around the yard again. Bella asked again, "What is he doing?" and I said he was still hungry. I pointed to Bella's other cracker and asked if she wanted to toss that one to him as well. She looked at me and said, "Uh, momma, that is my cracker. Zippy already ate his."

Silly me.