Julie's Portraits

Julie "sat" for her official 2-year-old portrait today. She actually sat, stood, climbed, walked, pranced, twirled, and blew kisses. Our local photographer Don Taylor (who is GREAT) had a little white wrought iron table with 2 chairs set up for a tea party complete with a little white tea set and white tulips. We brought Julie's Pooh bear (the classic version, not the road-stripe-yellow version) and they had tea. The pics that we saw were so cute! Steve and I will go back on Wednesday to see all of them.

Christmas Outfits

The McCulloughs came over last night and we enjoyed a nice meal of Indian food together. They had Christmas gifts for the kids that we opened after dinner. The big kids desperately needed new clothes (they've both grown about 3 inches in the last 3 months) and the gifts were perfect!

Audrey's jacket is furry and she loves it. It took her about 12 hours to decide she loves it, but she now thinks it's wonderful. It has a hood, a crown zipper pull with a rhinestone, and it's the exact same color as her eyes. I told her it made her eyes sparkle - she stood in front of the mirror for quite a while admiring herself this morning. Caleb instantly loved his blue and green outfit, especially since it came with a t-shirt. He thinks sets are cool. So do I.

Julie got 2 Dora books. Perfect since she ADORES Dora. Plus she has more clothes than the other 2 kids put together

I've almost finished Julie's 2-year-old portrait dress. I just have 3 more steps to complete - hand stitching the straps to the waistband, doing buttonholes & buttons, and hemming it. I got the pattern in the mail yesterday for the Cabbage Patch Doll dresses I want to make to match Julie's almost-completed dress and Audrey's to-be-made dress. I have enough fabric, I might as well use it.

There are no more exciting things going on here. I'm re-listening to the Harry Potter books and am on book 4. "Goblet of Fire." The Quiddich World Cup game has just started. Interesting things you pick up. Like the fact that Rowling mentioned the Lovegoods in this book as living near the Weasleys and the Diggorys. I had not noticed that before. Interesting. I'm looking forward to hearing more of those little hints dropped here and there now that I know the whole story.

I'm going to scoot now and start working on a roast for dinner.

I'm Second Best

It's time to begin preparations for Julie's formal 2-year-old portrait. Usually I go to Sears for pictures, but the 2-year-old shot is important. My grandmother had all 6 of her kids sit for formal portraits (hand colored prints, very pretty), and out of that, her 24 grandkids had formal 2-year-old portraits, too (except for step-grandkids who came into the family post-2nd-birthday). Now the next generation, my kids' generation, her great-grandkids, are having their official 2-year-old portraits done, too. It's a cool tradition.

Anyway, most of the boys have worn the same outfit that my youngest uncle wore in his picture: black velveteen short romper-type suit with a pintucked white shirt. I had Caleb's portrait taken in that outfit and the photographer put him with some antique-looking toys for a really nice effect. To have consistency among the moods of all of my kids' portraits, I made Audrey a floral dress with a gingham pinafore for her picture. Her pictures look great next to Caleb's.

So now I'm working on Julie's dress. Audrey's was red, Julie's will be blue. Same pattern of dress and pinafore. Because I bought the fabric when I didn't have the pattern with me, I bought WAAAAAAY too much. Enough, in fact, for Julie's dress, a dress for Audrey, and matching dresses for their new Cabbage Patch Dolls they got for Christmas. I think I'll even have fabric left over after that. I went a tad overboard, but the fabric was $1.00/yard. Hard to go wrong with too much.

Anyway, Audrey came into the dining room yesterday where I have all my sewing stuff set up. She looked at me and said that it was cool that I could make almost anything. "Like dc, except he can make everything. You can make almost everything. So between the 2 of you, you can make everything."

How's that, dc? Your granddaughter thinks you can make anything!

P.S. Julie has pink eye. Good thing I filled Audrey's prescription from before Christmas. We did an in-home diagnoses (Steve is a doctor, after all) and put the gook in her eyes. She loves getting medicine, but wasn't so sure about this nastiness Mommy was putting in her eyes. But she fought less than Audrey.

Wanna Know What I Got in the Mail?

I got my mail on January 2 after being so rudely denied on December 31. Here is the breakdown of what all the fuss was about:

solicitations - 7
catalogs - 8
newsletters - 1
snack sample - 1 (a new Chex Mix - Chocolate Turtle...pretty good!)
magazines - 2
bills - 1
music club stuff - 1 (I haven't ordered anything from this music club in 6+ years yet they still send me garbage)
ads - 5
fundraiser letter - 1
interesting bit of nostalgia - 1 (a yellowed newspaper clipping of my mom as a young teenager after winning the 4-H food show)
Christmas cards - 5
requested information - 1 (writers' guidelines from a magazine)

That's what my little temper tantrum was all about. I loved every minute of sorting it out.

I do love my mail.

Using a Lifeline...Ask the Audience

I need to know the nutritional information for white almond bark. Just the stuff you get at the store to melt and make candy from. All I need are:

serving size
calories
fat
dietary fiber (if any)

I just ate 1 oz of the stuff (in candy form that somebody else made) and need to know what to enter on my weight watchers page.

Thanks very much!

My Gift To You For The New Year...

...a rant.

After traveling for 4 hours and 250 miles from Clovis, we arrived in White Rock at 4:32 p.m. Our goal was to get here, or more specifically to the post office, by 4:30 to pick up our mail after being gone for 10 days.

I love getting the mail. I usually meet the letter carrier at the mailbox. I hear the truck coming and I go out. I LOVE getting the mail! I don't know why, but it can't be a bad thing, right?

So I was REALLY looking forward to getting mail from the 7 non-holiday mail days. Yay! Seven days of mail!

After getting a bottle of Diet Pepsi at Santa Rosa and not stopping since then, my bladder was uncomfortably full. We passed 5 gas stations, but I decided that we were going to make it to the post office just on time, so I decided to fore go the potty stops. After all, it would be worth it when I had a stack of circulars, junk mail, Christmas cards, and other surprise gems in front of me waiting to be opened, read, or perused.

On the way from the Truck Route to White Rock (about a 2.5 - 3 mile stretch of state road with a 55 MPH speed limit), we got behind 2 slow pokes. I think we were going 45. So to add to the urgency of my bladder, I now have the urgency of the clock. 4:28. 4:29. We get to the stoplight at White Rock at 4:30. 4:31 we're turning on the street the post office is on. 4:32 Steve pulls up tot he curb and I hustle in. Well, I kind of waddle since my bladder is screaming now, but it's a quick waddle.

I get inside and see a patron and my favorite, very friendly post office lady. The door is locked to where they are. I patiently stand there as they do their transaction. I'm thinking when she comes to unlock the door to let him out I can ask if I can just pick up the mail. She looks up and says in a loud voice, "You're too late." 4:32. You're kidding me. "Can I just pick up my mail?" "No."

I waddle a bit slower back to the car and actually start to cry when I get in. I'm so mad! I thought the post office lady was my friend. That's what I get for thinking. As I'm fighting tears, I think, "Why am I so upset? It's just a pile of papers. Most of it is probably junk, anyway." So I get myself under control and manage to bolt out of the car as soon as Steve slows down to less than 5 MPH. I had to go. I think Steve didn't believe how badly how bad I had to go until I hopped out of the car while it was still moving.

So I'm pretty ticked off because of the post office fiasco and then I make the mistake of stepping on the scale.

HUGE, HUGE, HUGE mistake. It was ugly. After shedding my Levi's, it got a bit better, but it was still ugly. This morning it was a touch better but still unacceptable. 198.9. Man, was I ticked off. I started crying again. I stomped around the house for a while, then finally decided that I would give myself until the end of the current TV show ("Jeopardy" was on our TV) and then I would get over myself. After I made that decision I was fine. I didn't need the extra 15 minutes to get over myself. That was surprising.

So this morning I have 3 kids who are tearing into all the Christmas presents we didn't let them have at grandmothers' houses, a husband who is outside putting his new car stereo (birthday present that got here too late) in his truck, a cat who won't let me out of her sight, and my own coffee pot. Home sweet home.

I'm going to sign off now. I bought cinnamon rolls for breakfast (good trend for 2008, right?) and I need to get them in the oven.