Spring!

I'm so sorry to those of you who follow our blog and watch for updated pictures and funny stories of our girl. Once again I've fallen behind in posting and sadly I can tell you it won't be the last time. I've been working more, which is a good thing, but it means I feel I should be working while sitting at my computer rather than blogging. Sigh. But there are some fun things to share and cute pictures to post, so here goes.

We've added a family member! This is Josie (JoJo or black kitty-kitty as Elsie calls her). She's about 6 mos old now and is such a love. We adopted her from the humane society before Easter and she's settled in to our home nicely. She's incredibly patient with Elsie, loves to cuddle with us and greets us at the door when we return home. Unfortunately Lola is not impressed....but she's warming up.

We had so much fun this Easter! Elsie's now at an age where she understands the concept of gifts and appreciates the surprise. We started with an Easter egg hunt with eggs full of M&Ms ("emens") and jelly beans. She found every one of them and was pretty serious about the whole thing, which was hysterically funny.

This was her Easter basket. New Demma (her very favorite bunny-rabbit - this makes #8), stickers, candy, gardening tools and best of all --

--the filling! It was everywhere and stuck around for weeks. To be honest, we're still finding pieces of this stuff in random places. Josie loved it, too, attacking it from every angle and carrying it around with her like a victorious huntress. Ferocious kitty.

Seriously, it was the best part.

We had a wonderful dinner at Aunty Kel and Uncle Ed's house, complete with another

fabulous egg hunt and, of course, more candy!

Her new passion is washing daddy's truck. She helped her dad with this one day we had some sun and has not stopped talking about it since. The other day, while it poured rain outside, she begged us to "wash daddy's truck." She absolutely sobbed when we told her we couldn't. But she and I washed my car this weekend and it was great fun. She was drenched 1 minute after filling the bucket. However, she's decided she'd rather sit in the front seat while mom washes. At one point, she pointed to the back of the car where Bailey used to ride, and said "Beeble-Ba go?" (That's her name for her much-missed, four-legged friend.) She's definitely a girl without a dog right now.....often asking "more dog Elsie's house?" Breaks my heart. One day last week she asked "Beeble-Ba come Elsie's house?"

Enjoying some sun and an almond butter sandwich, looking like a rock star.

Our NWCF auction was Saturday night, celebrating its 25th anniversary, and it was a great success! 550 guests at Fremont Studios and approximately $600k raised. Thanks to those who attended and thanks to those who took care of our girl all day and all night while we were off doing our part for the event. We were exhausted yesterday, but we had a lovely Mother's Day. Kicked it all off with a walk to the park in the beautiful sunshine, along with Kayley who returned just Saturday from visiting Charley. Elsie was SO HAPPY to see her! After a much-needed afternoon nap, we played outside and were joined by Elsie's friend (our neighbor) Sophia, who will be 3 in June, and her parents, Peter and Amanda. We had a spontaneous dinner with them to end the day, ordering pizza because we were feeling so lazy. It was an adorable sight to see Elsie and Sophia sitting at our kitchen counter together, after a long day of play, eating pizza and talking like old friends.