An Exciting Surprise!

Today a very exciting thing happened. Person went to the post office which is usually boring but today she came back with a package for us! It is even addressed to us! We could not wait to open it and wondered what it could be.

 

 

What do you think is inside this big envelope?

Person got the scissors and helped us open the package. For some strange reason we are not allowed to use the scissors by ourselves. Maybe because I tried to give Elsie a hair cut recently? Who knows with Persons. 

Oh it's a present and a card from our friend Ajdin!

It is always exciting to get a present in the mail especially when it isn't even your birthday. This is turning our to be a very good day. 

Such a pretty card. I wonder if Ajdin made it.

We asked Person to read the card to us because we are not good at reading. Ajdin is very happy with the sleeping bag we made and wanted to send us a thank you.

Thanks for helping me unwrap the present Elsie.

The present was wrapped very nicely in orange paper with a lovely ribbon that has little honeybees and sunflowers on it. I think the ribbon makes an excellent present too! 

Oh Elsie, stop playing and focus! This is important.

Once we got the present unwrapped, we saw that it is a lovely magnet that Ajdin made for us! Person says we can put it on our refrigerator.

We are lucky to have such a kind and thoughtful friend. Thank you Ajdin! We are very happy with our present.

 Sewing!

Elsie and I have been very busy helping Person with the important job of making a sleeping bag for our photo contest winner Ajdin! We emailed with Ajdin to see what sort of sleeping bag would be good and decided to make a space themed sleeping bag since Ajdin dreams of being an astronaut bear!

We went to the fabric store with Person and picked out some very nice fabric. We like visiting the fabric store because there is always a chance Person will buy some fabric to make something for us. She did not this time which was sad.

This fabric we picked is very soft and is Ajdin's favorite color, blue!

Once we got home with the fabric, Elsie and I got to work. The first thing we had to do was very difficult and required measurements and math. We aren't very good at math so we hope the sleeping bag will fit Ajdin. We did ask for Person to help so I think it will be OK. She is good at math.

Using the measuring tape is fun!

We used the big sewing scissors to cut the fabric.

Helping Person iron.

No, no Elsie! Don't touch the iron. It's very hot!

After we did all the preliminary steps, we had to pin the pieces together. Elsie poked herself with a pin and we had to give her some chocolate so she would calm down.

You have to be careful when sewing because there are lots of sharp things.

 When we were all done getting ready to sew, Person used the sewing machine to put all the pieces together. We are not allowed to use the sewing machine. Person says it is dangerous.

When the sleeping bag was all finished, Person showed us a very exciting surprise! This sleeping bag is kind of magic and we got very excited because it glows in the dark!

See how the astronauts and stars on the fabric glow!

The only thing left to do was package up the sleeping bag and mail it to Ajdin.

No Elsie! You can not go live with Ajdin! We would miss you!

Finally, we wrote up a little letter to tell Ajdin about the magic qualities of the sleeping bag. We had Person write the letter on the computer but we signed it ourselves.

I think we did a very nice job on our letter

We think our project was a big success. Now we just need to get Person to take us back to the fabric store to buy some fabric to make something for us.  We are both badly in need of princess dresses to go with the tiaras we got for Christmas! How shall we convince her of the importance of this?

We go on a fun hike!

This weekend Person took us hiking. We were very happy because we had not been in a very long time. We had a lot of opinions about what to pack for the picnic lunch. Sadly, Person did not listen so there were no potato chips on the hike. I'm sure the potato chips felt left out. We had to make do with sharing a chocolate bar. 

Stopping for a snack on the trail.

The first part of the trail was very steep and we were glad to be riding in Person's backpack. There were lots of pretty wild flowers to look at and we saw several squirrels. The squirrels were scared of us which was strange. They acted like they'd never seen a zebra before! 

So many pretty flowers!

We had a very good time on our hike. Next time we plan to talk Person into going to the coast because we want to go to the aquarium and see the sea otters and starfish. We saw a starfish on the beach once. I'm sure it wanted to play with us but Person wouldn't let us get very close. I heard that they have a program where you can go diving at the aquarium so we want to go right now! We really need to get our drivers license!

Photo Contest Winners!

Today we have very big news! We are announcing the winners of our photo contest! We received so many amazing photos from all our friends. It was super hard to pick the winner! We had to bring in George and Emmalina to help with judging since it was so difficult.

We started by looking through all the photos while eating snacks. Snacks are very important for thinking clearly so we had several different things. Next we all had some serious discussions about the winning photo. Person was not happy about this because we got really noisy and excited and some of us spilled our snacks. Finally we decided but since we couldn't pick just one, we have selected 1st, 2nd, 3rd and honorable mention. We aren't sure what honorable mention is but it sounds important. Here are the winners. Also make sure to watch the video with all our favorite photos from the contest!

First place goes to Ajdin Adilovic for "Ice Fishing"

Second place goes to Jerry Bear

Third place goes to Lisa Bear

Honorable Mention goes to Berkeley Bear

The good news is that Person has agreed to let us have another contest in the summer. Stay tuned for details later in the year. Thank you to all the fluffies who participated in our contest! We had lots of fun and hope you did too. 

Here's the video of all our favorite photos. We worked hard on it so we hope you will enjoy looking at all the great photos from our contest.

Julie Jane Zebra Winter Fun Photo Contest Highlights by Slidely Slideshow

Photo Contest!

Today we have a very big announcement! Elsie and I are having a photo contest for stuffed animals! The theme for the contest is "winter fun". 

Elsie and I having some winter fun last year when it snowed!

We hope lots of fluffies will enter our contest. The prize for the wining photo will be a custom made sleeping bag from Studio Lumio! Person says the winning fluffy can even choose the color of their sleeping bag! We will also post some of our favorite photos in a blog entry. 

Here are Elsie and Emmalina modeling a sample sleeping bag.

Sadly, Person says that Elsie and I can't enter the contest because we are the judges. We have to remain impartial. We're not sure what that means but will look up a definition today. We will be helping make the sleeping bag for the winner since we work at Studio Lumio!

To Enter the contest:

Send an email to julieandelsie@studio-lumio.com or Tweet us @JulieJaneZebra with your photo.

Each Fluffy can enter up to 10 photos per household.

The deadline to enter is February 28th!

Get out your camera and take some great pictures!

We can't wait to see what pictures everyone submits! We hope all our friends will enter and have lots of fun!

Happy Birthday Person!

Just a few days after Christmas was Person's birthday. This is an important day. We made sure Person had a good day by waking up very early to sing her happy birthday. I'm not sure she was as appreciative as she should have been. We gave Person the beautiful card we had made for her and offered to grant her a birthday wish in exchange for chocolate. Person said we couldn't grant birthday wishes but she aggreed to let us have a bite of her chocolate truffle.

Person opened her birthday presents and we were very excited because a new little bunny has come to live with us!

Here is our new Friend. Person has named her Jovie.

 Jovie is very shy and was worried about living at a new house. Elsie and I let her hold one of the new little bunnies that we got for Christmas. I think that made her feel more comfortable.

I let Jovie wear my little Christmas hat too. See looks very cute!

We have many important things to teach Jovie and her bunny training will begin shortly. There are many things she needs to learn about Person.

This Birthday pudding was very good!

Since it was Person's birthday, we got to eat lots of yummy things. We had a picnic in the living room because it was too cold to play outside. We had pumpkin pudding that we helped make, chocolate truffles, ice cream and birthday cake! There was other food too but we were only interested in the sweets!

Happy Birthday Person! We love you!

Next year we want to surprise Person with a trip to the zoo! We are sure she would like that very much. She always says no when we ask to go to the zoo but we're sure that is just because she is hoping for a birthday surprise!

Christmas!

Christmas is over. We know this because Person told us when we asked her. We are a little sad about this. To cheer ourselves up we will tell you all about our Christmastime.

Showing Person the best places to hang the ornaments.

There were lots of things that we needed to help Person with to get ready for Christmas. First we helped her decorate the tree. Next we told Person that we needed to bake some cookies for Santa. She said we would have to wait until right before Christmas to do this. This was very confusing and we got upset. Finally it was close enough to Christmas for cookie making.

Don't worry, we tasted every cookie to make sure they were yummy!

We think we were very good this year so we were excited to see what Santa would bring us.

Here is confirmation that we were very good!

On Christmas Eve, Person took us to see lights. This was very fun and we think lights should be up all winter. 

We have a very nice view from here!

After looking at lights, we helped Person make Christmas cake. This year it was chocolate cake with satsumas and ginger. 

Important cake analysis in progress!

Person was not happy that we tried to put our paws in the cake before dinner. She didn't understand that we were trying to make sure the cake is safe for Persons! We don't want them getting sick from cake that is too rich! 

Since it was Christmas, Person gave us a very big slice!

After that, we tired very hard to sit still but we were so excited that it was challenging. We looked at the pictures in our Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer book for a while. 

Elsie thinks she can read but the story is very strange!

Then we decided to watch for Santa from the front window.

It's too dark outside to see anything.

Finally, Person made us go to bed. She didn't understand that we had lots of important questions for Santa. The next morning we were up very early. We know we can't open our presents until Person gets up so we made lots of noise to help her wake up.

There are lots of presents for us!

Lots of things in our stockings too!

Santa left us lollipops and little packages in our stockings.

Oh, I think it's a tiny, toy bunny!

Santa brought these presents all the way from Japan!

A new little bunny for each of us!

Person's gift to us was little Sugarplum Fairy tiaras. We think these will give us superpowers to grant wishes!

Person, who is smarter than he looks, helped Person make these lovely tiaras for us.

 

Person's Person had also sent us packages. She made lots of beautiful things for us and the little Christmas hats that we are wearing. Person gave us the hats early but we had to wait until Christmas morning to open the other gifts.

We like these presents very much!

We made some earrings for Person for Christmas. After giving them to her, we decided to take them back because they look better on Elsie. Person says this is not how it works and that we can't take her present back but we did it anyway.

See! The earrings look very good on Elsie!

We made a very big mess from opening all our presents and Person made us clean up before we could eat Christmas cookies.

We wish we had a cleaning robot. Making messes is fun but cleaning is not!

We had a very happy Christmas and are already making lists and plans for next year since we realized that Christmas is either here or it is coming. That means that as soon as one Christmas is over, the next one starts coming right away. This is a very important scientific discovery! 

Love from Julie and Elsie