John Mayer was FREAKING AWESOME.  It was the best concert I’ve ever been to and we had absolutely fantastic seats thanks to Keith’s friends Amy & John.  The rest of the trip was equally as fantastic….the best birthday/christmas/birthday/christmas present ever I think!

Claire really surprised me today when she announced that she wanted to play up in her room with her new dolly that Grammy bought her at Target today.  She’s never wanted to play in her room by herself, but I told her it was ok.  In the 10 minutes she was upstairs, she came down no less than 10 times to tell me/ask me something.  And shouted a few things from the top of the stairs.  One of the things she announced is that she “cleaned her room” (I haven’t checked it out yet for validity) and that she had to go potty, to which I told her just to go.  After I heard the toilet flush, she announced she wanted to come downstairs and watch Diego with Madeline (a good thing, since I need to cook dinner).  She stood at the gate, ready to be let into the living room looking like this:

I asked for an explanation as to why she was wearing my glasses and she said “Silly Mommy, my baby needed me to see so I could feed her”

Go figure.  I guess Claire was full of surprises today.

Instead of writing an incredibly boring narrative trying to explain where the heck we’ve been in the last 2 weeks, I thought I’d share it via photos.

Madeline has a BIG drink. (don’t worry friends, it’s water)

Amanda rocked the house as Gabriella Montez in High School Musical

“Mommy, I’m doing my ‘nastics’ in here.  Is this too dangerous for Madeline?”

(well at least she asked)

Cookie visits!  We have a great time, with the exception of the worst concert ever (at least the people sitting in front of us were nice).  He taught Claire how to ride a bike and we only had a teensy bit of medical drama (everyone is fine!)

I also finished 2 knitting project which I can’t post here until a reader receives them.

We’re back with a vengeance now!

When we landed last Wednesday, Keith told me that he had a surprise for Claire. One of his parishoners wanted to do something for her and it was ready for her visit. Thursday morning we went over to his Parish — met the staff who of course mooned over Claire. Then we went to visit a few parishoners in their homes. The second house we went to was a woman named Mary. Mary’s brother Frank was a tailor by trade in the Mechanicville area most of his life. He learned the skill from his father who was a tailor in Italy. He had heard Keith talk about Claire so many times that he decided to make Claire a very special dress.

The only words I have to describe this dress are breathtakingly beautiful. It is made of a duponi silk with hand appliquéd lace on the bottom hem, sleeves and front collar. What an amazingly touching gift from someone who doesn’t know me or Claire at all — just loves his pastor so much that he wanted to do something nice for his very special Goddaughter.

Now…this man is 90+ years old. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that he never had met Claire before — only knew that she was 3 1/2 years old. It fits her like a glove. This dress was finished shortly before he became seriously ill — so this dress was literally one of the last dresses he ever made. We had her pictures taken in it today, since we didn’t want to risk her outgrowing it.

What a beautifully amazing gift to us.

…in an accessible place when I’m around.

I’ve had this *habit* of taking self portraits for years, whenever there is a camera present. My college friends can attest to this…between self portraits and pictures of my feet, I’m sure I annoyed them to no end with this.

So, even though its annoying…I do it anyway. And I’ve roped my kid into it. She now asks to take pictures “just you and me with the camera on the end of your arm like this”

Sorry Keith…don’t leave your camera on your desk…

We did get home safely last night. Claire and I had a wonderful time on our visit to NY! It was so nice to meet all the people we’ve heard copious amounts of stories about for the last 3 years. I promise it won’t be 3 years before we come back again, ok?

We just had this conversation.

C:  Mommy, where is Cookie?

M:  He’s at church.

C:  Is he singing Alleluia?

M:  Yes he probably is.

C:  Hmm.  Is he by Jesus?

M:  He’s close I’m sure.

C:  Is he on the Cross?

M: Who?

C:  Cookie.

M:  No honey, Jesus was on the cross.

C:  But he got raised from the dead?

M:  yes.

C:.  Oh.  Can we watch The Backyardigans? 

Claire and I are off on our big adventure to visit “Cookie”.  Cookie of course is Keith — Claire’s godfather.   He’s been at a parish in Mechanicville, NY for almost 3 years and Claire and i finally had the opportunity to come up for a visit.  We arrived here on Wednesday night — Claire was a trooper on the plane, even though it was incredibly past her bedtime.   She entertained everyone around her (as usual) with her “blast off” routine when the plane took off.  When we were in the Cincinnati airport between planes, we stopped at Qdoba to get something to eat.  There was a man infront of us, wearing a uniform.  Claire said to him:

C:  Hey Man, are you a policeman?

M:  No ma’am.  I’m a pilot

(her eyes widened)

C:  YOU’RE A PIRATE??? WHERE’S YOUR EYE PATCH?

M: (laughing)  I”m not a pirate ma’am I’m a PILOT.  I fly the airplanes.

C:   Oh.  (pause)  I like your silly hat.   What’s your name?

M:  My name is Ray.

C:  That’s not a very nice name. 

I think the plague of embarassing questions is upon us.  In the last 24 hours she told the pilot he didn’t have a nice name, asked Keith’s friend Mary Jean what happened to her teeth  adn told his friend Janet that she was bigger than her mommy.  (Janet is not bigger than mommy, FYI.  she replied….well…I’m older than Mommy).

We are really having a nice time.  More later…I need to help Claire color!

Well its back to work for me after a wonderful week off, and an awesome visit by Keith! We all had a really wonderful week - many many fun nights in front of the fireplace, just hanging out and having a wonderful time. The girls miss their Cookie already, and our house seemed empty this morning without our good friend. I had to remind Claire this morning that Cookie took the airplane home — even though she was there at the airport when we dropped him off.

Madeline continues to make an amazing recovery from her eye “surgery” last week. (she had a plugged tear duct from birth that constantly caused her eye to be goopy and her to be totally grouchy). She seems to be doing wonderfully — no more eye goop! and her demeanor has improved so much. Just look at this cutie — these pictures were taken the afternoon after her surgery when I was at the grocery store and Keith was playing Nanny. No swelling at all and look how clear her eye is!! Of course it hasn’t helped her sleep at all….she’s still nocturnally challenged I think that has more to do with the large molar coming in, instead of her eye bugging her. The only *side effect* we’ve seen from the surgery is that she is being very fussy about taking any medicine, which is just annoying. I’m tired of being covered in Orange flavored Motrin, thank you very much.

Off to the gym! (workout 1 of the week). And yes Kelly, I will update our Biggest Loser Million Pound Challenge page as soon as I can!! (hopefully tonight!!)

 K:  Claire, who am I?

C:  my Cookie!

K:  Yes Claire, but who am I?

C: uh uh uh Cookie.

K:  Yes Claire, but did you know that I am your Godfather?

C:  Yes.

K:  Claire, who am I?

C:  um um um, my Grandfather

K: no no Claire, say Godfather.

C:  Cookie is my Grandfather.

After about 3 days we’ve finally gotten her to say Godfather instead of Grandfather, but she still occassionally slips up.  It is so totally adorable.

….are sitting around the fire, drink in hand, with our good friend Keith.

However, the boys are talking about theological things and I’m selling yarn on Ravelry and buying more on yarn.com (Em, it doesn’t count as breaking my resolution…I sold enough to pay for it )

Just over heard…”do you know what ontological change means? hey nice fire! Thank you.“

Um, it’s 60 degrees outside.

It’s January.

HELLO…..

We’re supposed to be having snow and cold and ice.  How am I supposed to enjoy my fireplace when I don’t even need a coat to go out and get the wood.

I LOVE WINTER. Why did all my snow melt?

(Yes, my other half hates winter….and I’m sure he will comment.)

On another note, we’re having Christmas again tonight because Keith is coming into town. Claire is beside herself in excitement…its very very cute.  I think she’s going to cry when we take the tree down.

Oh and update on my New Years Resolution…here is the FINISHED hat for the Bare Sheep Yarn Company February project.  Hey I got Second Place in January…woo hoo!  Jonathan said this looks “rake-ish” on me.  I think that’s good.  Both girls like the hat a lot — Madeline loves hats so she was tickled to see me in one…then promptly stole it for her head.  THis picture she is in the middle of saying “hat” when I snapped it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COOKIE!

That used to be my motto when I had nothing better to do than go to class, drink beer at Senior Bar and be silly with my friends.  However, two kids later my motto has REALLY changed.

Madeline is 8 1/2 months old and has slept through the night maybe twice in her life.  In fact, most nights, we consider it a “good” night if she only gets up twice.  I’m so tired I can hardly stand myself.   Last night she was up every two hours, doing this insane grinding skwak, demanding Mommy.  Only Mommy. I don’t think it would be so bad if I wasn’t working full time, but geez kid, have pity on your poor Mom.

I suppose this could be blamed on a number of things….her cutting 4 teeth at once and having a cold, plus having Uncle Keith visiting adds a whole new air of excitement to our house.  I am really tipping off the cliff of total insanity at this point however.   I just don’t care what her problem is, I just want it to be fixed so I can sleep.

Ok.  Better.  It felt good to get that off my chest.

Anyway, like I mentioned, Keith is in town for his annual mid-summer visit.  When he arrived Monday, the girls and I went to the airport to pick him up.  When Claire saw him she did a running leap into his arms and gave him a huge hug.  It is so adorable to see how affectionate she is.  We are having a blast with him around — just chilling out mostly.  We don’t have much planned for the visit except a trip up to South Haven for a few days next week, and an awful lot of sharing good meals and good conversation together.