The Bella.

Yesterday, we had Mark's family and their/our friends Gene and Amy over for a Chili Feed and chillout. The whole clan minus Annabel came, and it was a very nice time. We spent a good bit of time in the basement playing Playstation - we hit Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and I was proud to introduce them to Katamari Damacy - one of the strangest games ever, where you roll a sticky ball around picking up items (tacks, erasers, pieces of sushi, frogs, butterflies, electric tea kettles, pedestrian crossing signs... people... cows....)

Bella was enjoying being the "big girl" showing little Eve around (who just turned 3). Eve is almost eerily like Mark: Of all the kids, she looks the most like him, and she uses her features to the same comic effect: This three year old is a true comedian. Whenever she's around, you know Mark is too.

Bella stayed up WAY too late - past 10, because we were all having such fun. So Pamela and I both encouraged her to sleep in: Even if you hear us moving around, please, just get some rest. She actually took our advice and snoozed until an unprecedented 8:30...

And when she got up, she was in a great mood, and was making us laugh all morning. She started up with the "sassy waitress" routine pretty quickly, offering to make us all French Toast - which she whisks up, but otherwise isn't too directly involved in making. Last time, she tried to flip them, but touched the pan with her wrist, which hurt for the rest of the day. She said "Dad, when it comes to the hot stuff, I think I'll sit that out this time, ok?" That said, she DID flip them, and they were delicious.

Not that Bella actually ate them: She actually doesn't like sweet breakfast that much (pancakes, waffles, or French Toast have no sway over her). We did cook up some sausages, and I put two on her plate and mine. As I walked away she said:

"I could sure use one more of those Sausages... And i bet you could too!" So it was 3 on the plate. By the end of the meal, she had scarfed 5 of them.

She went off to play for much of the day down the block, but came home to be babysat (with Jenny) while we did our quarterly "non-progressive progressive" dinner. When I got home, Bella had on a silk chinese outfit, a pirate eye patch, the guitar hero guitar, and was doing Pete Townsend windmill arms yelling "YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!" while Jenny had on a dress with a purple wig, pretending to be the lead singer. Isaac, up past his bed time was dancing and laughing, and Tara the sitter was standing off to the side holding her guts in from laughing so much.

So Bella was pretty wild today... and she only just now dropped off. Now I'm going to take a little time and actually watch one of the netflix that have been sitting on my counter for over 4 weeks...