Wanna come visit me or go somewhere fun?

Skybus is having some great New Year's deals. You can fly on a lot of their January and February flight for $20 each way. It's killing me that Larry has no time off for the next two months because who doesn't need to go to San Francisco or Seattle for $20?

New Years Eve

We had a really great New Years Eve. Even though Larry worked overnight, he still spent the rest of the day celebrating with us. We spent the afternoon with the Hudsons. Nikki and I went shopping while David and Larry took the kids to play at COSI. Nikki and I had quite the interesting experience and picked up some really cute clothes and The Emperor's Newest Clothes. Then we all met back up to eat at the North Market. Jeni's has some really good flavors right now so you should stop by one of their locations if you get a chance. Larry Loved his Creme Fraiche with Amarena Cherries and I enjoyed my spiceberry ice cream (I guess spiceberry is a local berry described and Appalachian nutmeg. Who knew?) Then later that night the Rice's came over for a relaxed New Year's Eve at our house. We celebrated with Mama Mimi's pizza and sparkling grape juice while we watched Bourne Ultimatum (which I also recommend). It was the perfect opportunity to pull out the wine glasses that we received as a wedding present that have been sitting in a box ever since (Who thought we needed wine glasses?)

Now I'm working on some new goals for the new year. What are your resolutions?

It's a blog eat blog world!

Lately I keep seeing my posts and ideas posted on other blogs, and while I like sharing my ideas, it makes me so sad when people post them as if they're their own and don't refer to their original source. Some people have even copied my exact text. It's happened a lot lately, which makes me wonder how many more instances are out there that I haven't seen.

For instance, remember this post on a piece of artwork that I wanted to try to make a quilt of? Well, lo and behold, one of the Pink Christmas girls did just make a fabric version of it, and she didn't mention that the idea was from me or that it was based on Isa's artwork. Not cool! I suppose it's possible that she also came across the same website, which wasn't even in English for awhile, and she also picked that particular piece out of everything on the site and she also came up with the idea to make a fabric version, and it's a mere coincidence that we share a mutual friend and are both a part of Pink Christmas, but it seems pretty unlikely, doesn't it? I almost posted a comment on the Pink Christmas blog, but then I figured nothing good would come of that, would it?

Maybe it's my background in editing, which required me to sit through many a lecture on what constitutes plagiarism, but it really bothers me when people copy me. I feel so discouraged that I haven't even gotten around to posting the rest of my homemade Christmas ideas, but I guess it's not fair to the rest of my lovely readers who would never do such a thing, is it?

PS- Can you tell that I have a headcold and am feeling a little crabby today? Sorry for the rant, but I had to complain to someone!

Pink Christmas

My Pink Christmas gift arrived a few days ago and I haven't had proper time to gush about it. First of all, it was from Jill, the Good Mail Queen, who sent it with plenty of time to arrive by Christmas, but due to some postal mixup, it just arrived a few days ago. I'm always a little sad once Christmas was over so I was glad that my gift was late so I still had something to look forward to, and boy was it worth the wait. It was a cute little suitcase full of stationary designed by Jill herself. There was all sorts of customized cards and labels and even stamps; everything that I need to send good mail to others. The perfect gift that keeps on giving!

Thank you Jill!

New Year's Eve Wishes

This year your wish for the New Year could be among thousands written on the confetti sprinkled down in Times Square to welcome the New Year. check here for more info.

Creed at Nine Months

They're a little bit late, but here are Creed's nine month pictures Check out those chubby cheeks!

I had Larry there helping me jolly Creed so we caught lots of smiles.

He's still chubby , but this has been a bit of a rough month for him so he seems to be thinning out a bit. He's had a cold, he's been teething, and his reflux is not improving so he's lost his appetite and had a few extremely crabby days. Who can blame him when we're torturing him with likes like barium swallows for upper GI scans? Poor guy!

He's also growing so quickly. The latest development is that he's been standing on his own. At first it was accidental, when he was absorbed in something that he was holding and forgot to hold himself up. Lately he's standing on purpose for longer periods.

He's also become a clapping machine! He never misses an opportunity to cheer for himself or someone else.

He STILL has not figured out sippy cups. Maybe it's his approach?

Here he is on his first wagon ride.

He was so excited and adorable! (and of course Wadsworth the duck had to come along for the ride)

Check out how long his hair has been getting. When Larry realized what a great mohawk Creed can have, he asked me why we haven't been doing this every day.This little guy makes us smile every day and we are just doing our best to enjoy him.

Signs that Creed has a cold

I'm used to having spit-up all over my shirt, but this time it's not spit-up. NICE!

Fondue anyone?

My friend Katherine invited us over to have fondue with her family. She says that growing up, her family tradition is to have fondue every Christmas Eve. It makes such a fun meal that takes a little bit longer to eat so you have a lot of time to visit. It was even more delicious than it looks here. Afterwards, we had a lot of fun watching the kids play charades. Here they are thinking hard about how to act out their clue.

Thank you Katherine for such a fun night. Larry says I need your cheese fondue recipe!

Look who is back!

Ted! (Which is what we affectionately call our Isuzu Rodeo) He still has several issues, including, but not limited to the fact that he is two different colors of white, but we are happy to be driving the rodeo again! That said, I have to mention that when Larry picked up the rental car that we used in the meantime, he walked in and told me that he thinks we need a minivan. Have you driven in a new Dodge Caravan? They are so weird! Check it out.

This remote opens and closes the back doors, a feature I'm familiar with

but it is also the key that you plug into your dashboard and turn to start the car.

The stow and go seating was perfect for taking all of our wards' toy donations in to Salvation army

but have you ever seen a minivan with sliding door windows that roll down? That one was new to me.

I forgot to take a picture of the neon green lighting that lines the ceiling of the car at night that makes everyone comment that they feel like they are in the cashcab.

Don't worry, I don't think we need a minivan for our single baby, I just had to share these weird features that I didn't even know existed.

Homemade Christmas Project #3 - Lullaby CD

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good non-cheesy lullabies? Just because a baby is going to listen to it, does it have to sound like elevator music? Come on people!


I decided to make my own CD of lullabies for Creed, and I made a copy for Audrey for Christmas. I suspect a few of you may be getting a copy from me too because I'm so happy with the songs that I found, and I figure that even if you don't have the same musical taste that I do, it's still handy to learn the words to a few lullabies because I was just singing bits and pieces to Creed and humming the rest until I made this CD and learned the words.



So without further ado, here and the songs I selected:


1. Moon River - Innocence Mission

2. Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) - Dixie Chicks

3. Count Your Blessings - Bing Crosby

4. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - Elizabeth Mitchell & Lisa Loeb

5. Dream A Little Dream of Me - The Mamas & The Papas

6. All Through The Night - Shawn Colvin

7. We’re Going To Be Friends - Jack Johnson

8. Bye-Lo - Innocence Mission

9. Sweetly Sleeps - Peter Breinholt

10. Over The Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

11. Close Your Eyes - Shawn Colvin

12. The Rainbow Connection - Sarah McLachlan

13. Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel) - Billy Joel

14. Chi-Baba Chi-Baba - Perry Como

15. Which Will - Nick Drake

16. Lullaby - Dixie Chicks

17. Slumber My Darling - Allison Krauss & Yo-Yo Ma

A few others that I thought about including that you might be interested in if you enjoy these are:

Golden Slumbers: Ben Folds or Beatles (Itunes doesn't sell Beatles songs because of a rights dispute and the Ben Folds version has a really loud part that I thought might wake a baby)

Sarah MacLachlan - Ice Cream

Sarah Maclachlan – Blackbird

Catch the Moon – Lisa Loeb & Elizabeth Mitchell

Across the universe - Rufus, Moby, Sean Lennon

Joshua Radin – Everything’ll be alright

You Can Close your eyes – Sheryl Crow (I really wanted to include this song, but Itunes doesn't sell it and I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to buy it somewhere else and import it into Itunes)

I also learned that if I was just going to buy a whole CD instead of create my own, I would probably choose Now the Day is Over by Innocence Mission or Catch the Moon by Elizabeth Mitchell and Lisa Loeb.

Enjoy!

I think I'm going to work on a good, happy Kids' music collection next. Any suggestions?