Medieval Dinner

This week our school has been celebrating St. Thomas Aquinas' birthday. There has been cake (yummy), pastel streamers (tacky), and birthday hats on all of the statues (silly). As some tie-in to this, the student theater group hosts a Medieval dinner, play, and showing of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". One of the sisters asked if I could help out with serving, along with other sisters and faculty. Sure...what a hoot...but I warned them that Brian would be working so I would have kiddo with me.

This first meant that I had to see if I was back to pre-pregnancy weight and fit into my costume (I do). Then, it meant I had to dig-out Tam's costume from the baby clothes buckets and see if I made it big enough that it still fits him (it did). I gathered up ye ol' diaper bag, kiddo, and headed over to the school receive instructions on serving the masses.

The dinner was attended by about 150 students and parents. I saw many students I knew from previous classes. The theater students kept the entertainment going with a royal court, funny puns from the jesters, jugglers, acrobats, songs, and short skits. They did a great job and I was quite impressed...even with all the modern-day references.

As a server, and a mom, I had a great time. Tam did awesome; he really is super good kiddo. All the sisters wanted hold, and hug, and squeeze him, which he totally let them do. With all the theater students there too, he had tons of people to interact with and enjoyed every moment of it. He flitted from group to group of students, babbling his martian-speak, and smiling at everyone. He loved playing with the jugglers' cloth balls. He didn't quite have the coordination to toss the balls back to anyone, but he's getting better at attempting to catch them. He also waddled around carrying a wooden car that he tried to show to everyone who paid any attention to him. It was so cute! I didn't have to worry at all that he was under-foot or getting into trouble because it seemed that there was always someone who had an eye on him besides me.

Next year, I told Brian he has to come too. Maybe even try to get him involved with the cooking side of things :-) Here's a photo of Tam at 8mths (I think) in the smock and from last night at 14.5mths. The gown was just a bit snug around his belly and I had him wear pants underneath for added warmth. I don't think it'll last until this summer and I will have to make something new to fit our growing boy.

Last Christmas Gift opened

For Christmas this year, I told Brian I didn't want him to buy me anything but instead I wanted him to make me something. The last few weeks before Christmas, I noticed boxes and lumber being schlepped into the house and ending up in our basement. I honestly had no idea what he was building down there. Right before we left to head East to see the relatives, I was led downstairs to the basement where Brian surprised me with a new unusable room! He had cleaned up, scrubbed downed, removed cobwebs, and re-organized the extra room down there. In the area, he placed our spare table with my sewing machine on top, erected shelves for all the extra material I have, and set up my exercise bike. Yeah! This new functional space is great for crafting and exercising now. The husband did good.

Now, Brian's second gift was to build a new headboard for our bed. We haven't had a head...well, ever, though we've had lots of ideas from watching design shows on T.V. He constructed a simple headboard that would attach to the front of the bed. However, he wasn't entirely sure how to cover it with fabric. I took over from here and gathered up the foam, batting, and fabric. Courtesy of our new stable gun (gift from family, thanks), I covered the board this weekend. The fabric was scrap we had, which is a pale green/brown velvety material.

I kept it simple, but still may add some buttons. And, when I'm tired of this fabric...easy-peasy to change for a different look! Project finished and last Christmas gift opened and loved!

Wordless Wednesday - A dance with the swiffer

Photos taken over 20minutes...

Seriously.

Walking at the mall

One of the cheap ways to find entertainment in the dead of winter here is by heading out to the local shopping mall. Now, note that I said free, so I didn't go there to shop. Instead, Tam and I spent a good 90minutes walking around the mall before it opened last Saturday morning. I brought along the small stroller for when Tam got tired or when he felt the need to push the stroller around.

It was great place because:

1) Tam could practice walking in great stretches of even landscape.

2) it wasn't crowded...no way for Tam to get lost while not holding my hand.

3) no stores were opened...no temptation to spend money & no detours for Tam to get lost in.

4) the other mall walkers are very friendly and always wanted to stop and say "hi" to us.

Tam thought this place was kick-ass because:

1) He loved exploring around and looking into the various shops.

2) He was entranced by watching several store workers as they vacuumed their shops behind the glass windows.

3) While walking past most of the stores, Tam always wanted to stop and pull on the cage/bar handles to make sure they were secure (they all were).

4) Whenever other mall walkers stop to stay hello, Tam would be shy at first but then often waddle after them bringing lots of smiles to everyone.

I had hoped that this would be good exercise for Tam and me since it was to icky to be walking outside in nature in this wet dreary weather. However, I barely strolled while Tam was in constant motion (at times it definitely seemed like Brownian motion!). We only completed one circuit around the floor plan...I know that some of the other mall walkers lapped us several times! So, I concluded that the exercise was mostly for him and not so much beneficially to me.

At the end of our walking, we stopped at the kiddy play yard at the center of the mall. By some weird quirk of humor, the play yard is full of over-size breakfast foods that the kiddos are supposed to find appealing and play on. I'm not too sure about this. Tam is currently quite fond of the large bowl of frosted-wheat with blue-berries that he can climb up and into. His second favorite is the bacon slice that forms a small slide. He's just figured out if I sit him at the top of the bacon and he leans forward, he can propel himself downwards. Many squeals of delight! Bonus is that at this early hour there is usually only one other toddler playing here and no larger students that may knock down the wee ones.

All in all, it was a thumbs-up and we'll try this outing again soon.

Monday Humor at Disney's expense

No wonder I'm not a princess!

Melting snow

It has (briefly) warmed up in temperature here in our corner of the snowy world. This meant that all weekend the dirty snow was melting all around the city. This has led to a couple of new problems in our house.

One of our outside walls is leaking water into the basement. Nothing major, but a slow steady seeping wet mess leaking out through the bottom of the drywall. With the melting snow, this became a slightly larger seeping wet mess, but still nothing that a few towels couldn't mop up over the course of a night. We've added fixing this to the list of things to do when the sun finally shines again here.

The second minor problem came later in the evening. Brian and I were just cozying up to watch "Legend of the Seeker" on TV when we heard a large CRASH. Dear Gosh...I haven't jumped that high in a long time. Now, we live in a quiet neighborhood and we know our neighbors, and I don't expect any burglary action while sitting in the house. Yet I can definitely say that my adrenaline started pumping with this un-expected noise. We first check Tam...he's fine and didn't even wake. We check the basement...nothing had fallen and no walls had collapsed. We check the garage...again, nothing had fallen and all windows and doors are intact. I look outside and remember all the dripping icicles from earlier that day. Hmmm...We come to the conclusion that snow or ice must have slipped off the roof and hit the side of the house which caused the commotion. I then ask Brian to go out and check the perimeter (he being the big burly man of the house). We then discover that not only had ice fallen from the roof, but it had dislodged a power line running from our house to the pole across the street. Nothing was disconnected, but the power line was hanging dangerously low so that people or cars couldn't pass beneath it. We concluded that it must be our Internet/cable line based on what boxes it was running from and to. Now who to call about this? Not AT&T who owns the wire since they aren't taking calls this late. I finally just called the electric company since I knew they had an emergency line. An hour later, a gentleman arrived heaved up the line, and temporarily attached it to the house.

Sheesh. It is always something to keep you on your toes.