Colbert

I


I just loved this!!
Steven Colbert with his friend Fr Martin.

Enjoy!

Love
Donna

Sweet Ginny

Ginny got into this sweet position without any coaxing.  Katie was feeling exhausted and Ginny could tell Katie was not feeling well.   We both think that Ginny is very sensitive to our little sufferings.  If we bang our hands against something, stub our toes or even if Gin's big foot steps on our delicate feet and we cry out...she immediately knows.
She will come over and lick our hands or feet.  Her ears will go down and she will come close.

It is very endearing.  We love her sensitive nature.

“People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to the story.” 
~Jim Butcher

Encourage one another,
Donna

One more from Hayward Wi/ The Pose

There is something familiar about this pose....










Katie always has her chin up and her arms out.
It was too cute to see Emma do this at her DePaul graduation.





I mean it I have a hundred pictures of Katie with her chin in the air..and usually with jazz hands...
but in this one she is swirling her skirt.








As I was saying...








Believe me now?

haha


I could go on....

How does that song go?

My heart will go on.

My girls share my mom's happy spirit and excellent posing skills.

Genetics Rock!

XO
Donna

We were together. I forget the rest. ~Whitman

This is a picture of my brother Jim and Cindy and our dad in the background.
Every summer we went to Hayward Wisconsin for a vacation.  It was a week...or two.  I'm not sure.
It seemed long.  Dad fished and never caught much more than a perch or sunfish on little School House lake.  We swam in the nice built in pool and swam across the lake a time or two.  We rowed the row boats and took trips to town.  A trip to the drive in movie theater in our pajamas and a visit to Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty were necessary.  We looked for bears at the dump and chased chipmunks around the 'resort'.  We went out to eat almost every night at Ken's Milwaukee Inn.  Mom must have decided NOT to cook that year.

It's 1966.  The twins were born in March of this year.



This was probably the following year.
Mom and Janice at the pool.


We were together.
I forget the rest.
~Whitman


XOXO
Donna Elsie

Tiny

My sister Janet is Tiny.  She was given that name by our maid, Pauline.
I can her her say it in my head and that is probably the best part...to hear Pauline's voice! :o)

But when I look at Katie with her two Middles from her summer volleyball team...all I definitely think...there's Tiny!


Brooke and Kirsten are Katie's good friends from school.... they are full of fun and life. ...and perfectly tall for volleyball!
Katie is not the right size for volleyball, BUT she works really hard and has a great feel for the court.
She is a setter and is not afraid to dive and go all out.
She really does love it.  We are hopeful that she will make JV this year.

No Excuses!!!

Making a difference.

I wanted to share this story.

Helpers.

Always looking for the helpers.


Encourage one another,
Donna

Summer time.

Katie bought herself a new dress with her lawn mowing money.  It is a big challenge for me to photograph white things....I guess she wants to challenge me.




****








We went to see the Brewers play on Saturday night.  It was a really great game!
They won and there were lots of hits, lots of action!


Our nights continue to be filled with volleyball and the days are extraordinarily lazy.
You know who is still sleeping.

August brings Drivers Ed for Katie.
I can't take it.
I have not felt like this before with the other kids...
but Katie seems way too young to drive!

Nope.  Can't imagine this AT ALL!


OY!
Donna

Mo Vaughn

I don't know if I ever told this story, but here goes.

It goes back to the 90's.

I was driving Matthew and at least three of his friends to the Marinette YMCA.
I'm pretty sure they were playing basketball.  They were loud and talking excitedly in the back seat about baseball.  They went on and on about someone making 30 million dollars.  I was sure they said he was mowing the lawn.  I blurt out, "You get 30 million dollars for MOWING THE LAWN!"

To which the boys laugh and shout, "NO!  The player's name is Mo Vaughn!"

I may go down in history as the nuttiest mom.

XO

Donna Elsie

It's clouds illusions I recall....

What the heck does that even mean....








With the summer fronts pushing thru come wonderful beautiful clouds.


I'm a bit obsessed.

XO
Donna

The Onion. Fitting and hilarious post yesterday.

Harper Lee Announces third novel. "My Excellent Caretaker Deserves My Entire Fortune."


Ain't I been saying....

Donna Elsie

Hey Boo

I will not be buying or reading Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee.

The reason why is this.  When she wrote it and gave it to her editor  she was told to go back and rewrite it.
"Go back and write it from Scout's perspective."
So she did.

In my opinion, Go Set A Watchman was her sloppy copy.  So wrong that she basically threw it out.

Harper is still alive but she is very unwell.  Her sister, her protector and attorney, died recently and with that came the decision to publish the book.

I do not believe Harper understands what is happening.

I believe she is being taken advantage of by Editor Hugh Van Dusen and  HarperCollins.  For money's sake.

Why am I so angry over this?

Our beloved Atticus is written as a racist/bigot.

The opposite of what Harper wrote in To Kill A Mockingbird.


It has long been thought that To Kill A Mockingbird was autobiographical; that Atticus was Harper's father.  So now Harper's father is being maligned.

Poor Harper has become Boo. 
She does not, sadly, have someone kind watching over her.



This book is being dragged out from a place it was kept.  Never meant to be read.

To my way of thinkin', Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight- to me, that's a sin. (Ch. 30)

And that's all I've got to say about that.

Donna Elsie

The best friends make you laugh.

Katie and Carrie became friends when they were about three or four years old.  Katie has always been a hugger.  Carrie is just naturally more reserved.

The above picture was not planned.

It just cracked me up.  I have seen that face before!

















Little girls growing up right before my eyes.



“Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it.” 
~L.M. Montgomery



“Laughter is the sound of the soul dancing. My soul probably looks like Fred Astaire.” 
~Jarod Kintz


“If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.” 
~Fyodor Dostoyevsky




Encourage one another,
Donna

New Jerseys

Katie found this little heard of Jerseys on a bike ride last week.
She showed them to me the following day.

They were timid yet curious with tongues like a kitty cat.
They moved as a group; a bovine chorus line.

Such pretty little cows.












XO
Donna

The apparently invisible Beautiful Comedians.

Over the weekend Michael Eisner (head of Disney) said,

"The hardest artist to find is a beautiful, funny woman."  

I'm just so confused.

I can list a million beautiful funny women!

Courtney Cox
Jennifer Anniston
Lisa Kudrow
Christa Miller
Busy Phillips
Mindy Kalin
Tina Fey
Amy Pohler
Melissa McCarthy
Jane Fonda (hilarious in Frankie and Grace)
Sophia Vagara
Betty White
Ellie Kemper
Sarah Silverman
Chelsea Handler
Julie-Louise Dreyfus
Maya Rudolph
Kristen Wiig
Sandra Bullock
Julia Roberts
Sheri Shepherd
Ellen DeGeneres
Sheryl Underwood
Renee Zelwegger
Aisha Taylor
Cameron Diaz
Leslie Mann
Elizabeth Banks
Rachel Harris
Mae Whitman
Lauren Graham
Kristen Bell
Goldie Hawn
Kate Hudson



I mean. Seriously.  This is just a list off the top of my head...and I don't watch EVERYTHING.  Almost....but not quite.

Look around Michael!

Beautiful, funny women are everywhere!


Encourage one another,
Donna

4th thru the years

(2007)



Happy 4th of July weekend from little Katie.



**** (2008)















Veterans standing during their anthems at the Concert on the Square.




**** (2009)






*** (2010)












*** (2011)


(2011)


*** (2012)


(2012)


*** (2013)



(2013)




















*****  (2014)




*****


“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.” 
~Erma Bombeck



Encourage one another,
Donna