Book Club Brunch

(I stole this photo so it cannot be enbiggened.)

Saturday was our always delightful book club Christmas brunch. We traveled to Addy's lovely home in NJ where we were served delicious food in her adorably decorated living room. We have a secret santa gift exchange and my secret elf, Jill, got me a great box of knitting pattern cards. They're small so you can take them in your bag without all the bulk of a book. They're wonderful. Thank you, Jill!


Then it was time for the hotly contested book swap. We do it white elephant style. After having "Olivia" taken from me I turned into a bully and earned Dallin's (Elise's son) eternal wrath by stealing Russell's Christmas Magic. It's really cute. I wish I was a better person and felt more guilty about getting to take it home.




We wrapped things up with Jenny's traditional reading of Osbert. A tradition that may die this year as Tom will be done with dental school and they'll be moving on. I hope with the miracles of modern technology we may be able to have the reading in the future.

LCAT is still going strong and I love it. Thank you all for being so smart and wonderful. And for actually reading the books and talking about them. I just finished "Escape" and can't wait for January.

Tree Me!

Where do you want me to put this? Oh, on the tree?

Yea, see, all you gotta do is open the string and put it down on the bottom.

Mommy and dude did a pretty good job of looking cute while pretending to put up ornaments. We're all dressed up in our Christmas pajamas. Beckett the Blues Clue, Dawnell the Simpson, and Chris the Grinch.

Daddy and dude were pretty exhausted after their five minutes of decorating though, so they couldn't strike such a sweet pose.

And here is the fake blue tree in all of its glory! Love me the color contrast between blue lights and predominantly hot pink ornaments.

Random Interlude

One of our friends had a very sick daughter. Beckett loved playing with her before they moved away so we were both really sad. Since we are a couple of hundred miles away I couldn't do much to help the situation, but I decided to do what little I could to cheer some flagging spirits.

I made this little dolly. It was supposed to be a fairy, hence the green skin, but I couldn't get a wing pattern to print. (Stupid malfunctioning printer sensor.) Now I'm pretending she's a pixie instead of just looking like a girl with food poisoning.

We love you Maddy and are so glad you're feeling better!

Turkey to Tree

Hey, look, we're all happy because Thanksgiving ruled!

We had friends over from our old stomping grounds in the J.C. It made us miss seeing these friends every week at church. Still didn't make us miss Jersey City though. Mamaroneck we heart you!

We had food because it was Thanksgiving. Delicious. Dawnell cooked a pumpkin cheesecake with ginger/pecan crust (not pictured). Good stuff. Beckett enjoyed playing with his friend Hayley and pat patting the two babies who showed up.

Dawnell got all crafty and did these fancy boxes.

Coming up next post, putting up the Christmas tree!

How time flies

I suppose it must be all the growth hormones in milk or something, but we were not prepared for Beckett to grow up this fast.

I thought we'd be able to put off shaving for another 13 years or so.




I don't even know if shaving lessons will help. It looks like he's already very fond of twirling his moustache.

Flat Stanley

I'm sure most of you are a bit more knowledgeable about Mr. Stanley than I am, so it shouldn't surprise you that one of our 16.7 nieces and nephews asked Dawnell to take Flat all around New York. So if you are in Mo Mo's class then stop reading here, because she's is going to have a great set of pictures to share with her class.

However, if you can't make it to Flat Stanley day at her school, then feel free to head over to our Picasa Web Album to follow Flat Stanley from the leaves of Mamaroneck, to the trains of the Metro-North, and from the New York City Public Library to the Empire State Building, with other impressive sights in between.

p.s. - for those of you who like our three dimensional Beckett better, there are a couple of pictures of him enjoying a Times Square toy store, so head on over there to the web album and enjoy.

How's it hanging?

We went to the fancy mall in White Plains last weekend. It is way too
fancy for us, but Beckett had a lot of fun hanging from every railing
we walked by. I was scared he'd fall, but he never did. As you can
see, dude is pretty pleased with himself.

The return of the sewing machine

Last year my mother in law gave me an awesome Bernina sewing machine that she no longer needed. I used it to sew Beckett's Halloween costume last year, make some doll clothes, make a baby quilt, and various other little objects. However, I'd noticed that I kept getting a lot of knots all around the bobbin. Then I did what you're never supposed to do and sort of took it apart a little to get one giant jam out. After that it didn't quite feed as smoothly as before because I'd done something to how the feed dogs ran. But last week I found a little shop that does sewing machine repairs. I dropped it off and I just got it back today. It did need a whole new bobbin assembly thing so evidently my problems were not just that I am a completely inexperienced seamstress. The great thing was the repairman kept raving about the machine. "This is one of the best machine's Bernina ever made. It's like a Swiss watch, it will last forever. If you tried to get a comparable machine today it would cost two grand." I thought it was a really nice gift when I got it, I didn't realize it was that nice. So thank you Elaine for the great machine. As soon as I got home I put Beckett down for a nap and made him a pair of babylegs that I stole from my friend Jill's blog.

And here they are:

(Yes, I know Beckett's outfit looks ridiculous. Camoflouge and strips aren't the best combination, but we are not a modelling agency and I was not changing his clothes for this "photo shoot".)

Walking in your footsteps...

Beckett loves shoes, just like his mom.

Feeling Crafty

I have been feeling crafty, but I can't set up my sewing machine and I'm sick of knitting hats. I decided to pull out a book, Claire Garland's Dream Toys, and find a project. I first found Claire Garland with her book Knitted Babes. I asked Chris to get it for me and he thought I was kidding since it's toys, but he found it last minute hidden behind other things in a Joann's in a Christmas miracle kind of way.

So here is the horse I decided to make.


My construction skills may still need a little work, but I think it looks pretty good.



I hope Beckett will like it, but shhh, don't tell, it's for Christmas.

I hope you did too.

The Great Pumpkins

This weekend we visited the Norwalk Aquarium. I'm not sure why, but the aquarium had a huge pumpkin exhibit. Now, I'm not exactly sure how they do it, but they say all of the pumpkins are carved by hand. Except they look to me like they are just colored with a magic marker and then scraped by hand. Nothing wrong with that, and these are some awesome pumpkins, but I'm not sure if it qualifies as "carving." Is there anyone out there who knows more about how they do these types of pumpkins?



In honor of the election tomorrow I wanted to use this space to make a political commentary in pumpkin form. See, Dawnell might vote for the guy on the right. And I might vote for the guy on the left. But there's one thing we can both agree upon:

The USA is A-OK!

For all of the rest of the pictures that we took of these really awesome pumpkins, visit our Picasa Web Album of the Great Pumpkins! (click here).

Might I suggest the slide show?

P.S. Dawnell's impersonation of Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin is simply spectacular. She really gets into it, with guns a-blazing and everything. This great pic doesn't do it justice.

Halloween

A friend I've made in the neighborhood (the lady who helped me when I was locked out) stopped by and asked if Beckett and I wanted to come trick or treating with them. We decided to go and had a lovely time for a half an hour. Beckett didn't care about candy, but he enjoyed running up and down the sidewalk with a pal. Then we stopped in at our landlord's house where he got a special bag with fruit snacks and some pasta for dinner.

Here is the trick or treater waiting for our friend to come pick us up.

When oh when will they get here?

Let's go!

Trick or treat.

Candy Corny

Pre-game show: I thought this cute outfit showed off Beckett's eyes. None of the pictures turned out awesome, but this is pretty good.

Dawnell made this adorable hat for Beckett. The hat pictures didn't turn out great either. Beckett needs to do a better job of staying put for a minute or two. Or even a second or two.

And the main event: Beckett as candy corn.

Dude was not super pleased with his costume when we first put it on.

Beckett glares down at his conquered foe...

This is my favorite picture. Too cute!

Hey look, Beckett smiling in a picture at the same time as daddy! Awesome! Hey! Mommy is smiling too! Wow, daddy sucks at framing his pictures.

The After Pictures

Dawnell was so traumatized by getting locked out that she put down the camera for a day or two, so these took awhile to post. No, she's fine, we're all fine, and we're loving it here in Mamaroneck. However, we are still missing pictures of the outside.

Here is Beckett's room. Beckett loves to read, as you can tell. His room is even cooler now than it was when this picture was taken, but I won't tell you why, because I might try to take video of why this weekend.

Here is our main room, facing the front door.

And facing Beckett's room. This room is also much cooler now, as we have upgraded our audio-visual setup.

From the main room we head just to the right of the armoire and enter the kitchen. It's about as spacious as our apartment during my first year of law school, so we're pretty pleased. Dawnell just remarked over my shoulder that I am not joking.

For those of you who are trying to figure out what is in it for you, here are pictures of the basement, where we promise to allow hangers-on to mooch off of us. Here is the downstairs bedroom (air mattress not inflated, but included in your price of admission).

Downstairs sitting area (no seats yet, but whatever)...

And separate bathroom. Ooooo, now that's luxury. In all seriousness, I've yet to use the downstairs shower and need to test the quality. All this luxury can be yours if you grace us with your presence.


No pictures of our bedroom, because it was still a bit messy, but here's what Dawnell is excited about, a walk-in closet with plenty of room for all of her shoes. Err, make that half of her shoes.

And after our trip to DSW last week, make that 40% of her shoes.

Beckett pictures to come this weekend hopefully!