The Birthdays

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of birthdays, starting with last weekend, when Bobbin's friend Miss E! turned 5 years old.

Many more photos from the event can be seen here.

Then this past weekend there were three more parties, one of which was Bobbin's own.

First up: On Saturday morning Bobbin attended the party of a school friend turning 5 as well. The party was at Pony Paradise and featured... you guessed it... pony rides and also a bouncy house!

Check out the rest of the festivities here.

Saturday afternoon we headed over to D&B's for Zed's 3rd birthday.

Lots more pictures of her super fun party here.

And finally on Sunday Bobbin had her 4 year birthday party with all of her best friends in attendance.

The morning started off with present discovery and gift unwrapping:

and then at noon, the guests arrived and the celebration really got underway :-)

And today... I'm taking the day off work and recovering from it all.

More pictures from Bobbin's party here

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Dessert is best served with a friend

Sent from my mobile phone

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Berry Hording Part Deux

Sent from my mobile phone

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The League of Princesses holds their first Ball of 2009

Unfortunately Princess Zed left before the ball really got into full swing. Something about a pumpkin and the other shoe dropping. But Princess Bobbin and Princess E had a grand time of it, stopping several times for costume and crown changes. Because as everyone knows, you can't wear the same ensemble for more than 15 minutes at a time when you're royalty. The paparazzi like variety.

More photos of their Royal Highnesses here. It's worth mentioning that the album they're dancing to is the Partridge Family Greatest Hits.

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The Big Bash

Our friend Dave took some great photos at our New Year's Eve party that really captured the fun. Enjoy his slide show!

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My first tag! Friendship Meme

Heard about it, read some of them, hoped for one. And now Cate at 18 Years and Counting has just granted my wish and tagged ME in her first meme. And so I, like her, I feel obligated to do make sure I do it. :)

1. Have you had the same friends since childhood?

No. That would be challenging. Being an "army brat", I moved around every 2-4 years since birth through to university, and then again from university to the grown up world of full time employment. I had one or two good friends every place I lived, but always lost touch. My one consistent friendship over the years has been with Eileen, with whom I went to high school for 4 years, then university for 4 years, and then she moved to Vancouver and I moved to Seattle so we see and call each other every so often (ok, like a couple times a year :-)). When we get together it's like lots around us has changed but we are still who we are. I still know her. She still knows me. True friendship. It's been 23 years, we've known each other. That's amazing. Since starting to blog and hang out on various social networking sites I've also been able to connect with some of my very closest high school friends that I had lost touch with after graduating. It's been nice to reconnect and hear about what's been happening in their lives, and see them succeeding with their careers, dreams, families!

2. What do you value most about your friends?

That they accept me for who I am, and that they are the most tolerant, respectful, open minded people that I know. And that they each have their own passions, interest and knowledge. Some of them overlap with mine, and some are different and it's fun to learn about those things. And I value that we're able to share experiences and issues and that they're there for me to listen to me and care about me, and would never think to judge me.

3. Are your friends your sounding boards?

Yes, most definitely. I try and spread the pain grief wealth around so as not to make anyone person completely insane. And I have a therapist for that really truly icky you're-damnedno-matter-what-you-say-or-dont-say stuff (y'all should definitely thank me for that ;-). And a husband, my very best friend, for when that stuff is even too much for me to say to my therapist (and he still loves me and wants to stay married to me :-)).

4. What is your favorite activity to share with your friends?

Eating, drinking wine, watching our kids play relatively indepedantly with each other with only occasional intervention needed.

So, here are my tags.... you're it, dorks!

My sis, Sarah, at saedigh.com. She knows my good, bad, and ugly. Oh boy, does she know my ugly. And hasn't used any of it against me. I love her so much!

Jen at Jen Frankel's Zugunruhe, My best friend in 9th grade, who got me hooked on Sci Fi and Fantasy books, and David Bowie, and got me through my worst year of high school ever: the first year. I did NOT want to move that summer, and she is the reason why. I connected up with her again just this year over the internet. Gotta love the internet!

Janel, at BugginYou.org where Buggin is Lovin'. A bouquet of flowers and a shit-for-brains ex-boyfriend brought us together. Our friendship lasted many years longer than the ex-boyfriend ever did. So did the Jesus Candle and the frozen Strawberry Daquari mixes. She's also the one who first introduced me to Tim, so I owe her my gratitude there :-)

DAE at noise-to-signal for being the friend that keeps the rest of us all coming together on Friday nights and for his beautiful art - both food and photography.

and of course, my husband Tim at crappymusic, for being my very best friend in the whole entire world, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, in health, forever.

So I think all y'all that I listed have to something similar now on your blogs, if this is how it works. And spread the love and friendship even further!

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The League of Princesses receives a new Inductee

The induction ceremony began Friday evening and lasted well into the later evening.

First there was The Dressing, which also required some Pre-Dressing enticement. Promises of poofiness and twirliness like non she had ever witnessed or felt before. Her parents said it couldn't be done. But they've never met professionals like these before. Hook, line, and sinker .Within 10 minutes, they had her Pretty in Pink and demanding (well, politely requesting, but they'll work with her on that tone of voice during inductee training) to be danced with and spun.

This was followed by the actual Induction Ceremony. It's highly secret. You can tell they're keeping it that way. The question no one in history could ever answer is whether the league exists for good or evil. You can't really tell that here either, can you. But they're up to something. And Halloween is just right around the corner...

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Zoo-mazing

We went to the Zoo today. We saw Lions, Tigers, and Bears (oh BOY did we see bears!) Zebras, Gazelles, Tapirs, Elephants, Monkeys, Orangutans, Eagles, River Otters, Giraffes (we even fed them!) Elk, Mountain Goats, and a really big snake, among countless other animals. We started our adventure at 9:30am on a cool, overcast day - perfect time and weather for getting great glimpses of animals on the move, up close and personal. And Bobbin walked everywhere we went, which explains why she consumed the following throughout the day after having 6-pancakes (mini pancakes but still), 2-servings of oranges, a multi-vitamin gummi bear and 2 glasses of Watermelon juice for breakfast

- at least a dozen large strawberries
- 3 large slices of cheddar cheese
- 1 serving of watermelon
- half a baggie of cheese crackers
- 2 hotdogs (sans bun)
- 2 servings of large green seedless grapes
- half a dozen peeled baby carrots (raw)
- a serving of blueberries
- 1 and 1/2 cobs of corn
- 2 oz of "steak on a stick"
- several glasses of water

Talk about well balanced; I think we hit on all the food groups at least twice today and the only colour of the food rainbow we missed was purple.

She also had NO nap. At all. Up at 7am and didn't stop moving until 8pm. I ended up taking a nap but she opted to "play quietly in the living room with Daddy". Well, ok then.

So she's out like a light right now after having a bath, a story, and hitting the potty. Ooooh boy, I don't have to tell you that was not a pleasant aroma after all that stuff. I don't know if Bobbin did it or Tim did but I went back in a few minutes later and actually found the fan switched on!

I got my 30 minutes of exercise in on the elliptical; that's just the exercise I measured. I figure I got much more than that in actuality between the walk around the zoo, the rousing game of "EMERGENCY" Bobbin roped me into outside on her climber as we waited for dinner, and the breathless game of soccer we got into after that.

EMERGENCY was entirely of Bobbin's own making and entailed throwing Kitty off the top of her climber and yelling HELP HELP GET THE AMBULANCE CALL ONE ONE ONE" (she's still learning about 911 and doesn't always get the digits right). Then Bobbin would put her firefighter hat on (backwards; ie she'd wear it like a "baseball" hat) and slide down the slide yelling WOOOOoooooo WOOOOOooooo at the top of her lungs. Then she'd jump down from the bottom of the slide and, with hands making steering motions, would run at full speed around and around the climber and back field until she arrived at the injured party. She would scoop Kitty up and drive her back to the hospital at the top of the climber by climbing up the slide. There, she would take off her firefighter hat and become Doctor Bobbin and would get to work saving kitty's life by listening to her heart and breathing, giving her needles in her abdomen, checking her ears, and taking her temperature and blood pressure. Kitty was almost a goner there for a bit - her first temp reading on the Fisher-Price thermometer was 45, according to Doctor Bobbin. Her second one was thankfully, a much more reasonable 2 miles and Doctor Bobbin was visibly relieved to note the improvement. We're so glad Kitty finally came back to us. Alas, she'd recover only to get thrown off the top of the climber once again and have the whole scenario repeated. Sometimes the effort was a rescue attempt to get Kitty before the Dragons could breathe fire on her. Sometimes there was actually a fire and we all had to gather up at the top of the climber to escape the burning trees and destruction.

When the imagination games finally wound down, we played soccer up and down the hill, Bobbin doing most of the running as I was instructed not to try to take the ball away.

But it was all goodness. We had a great day. Zed and her parents joined us at the Zoo and Bobbin and Zed seemed to have so much fun together. Until we were in the cave in the Zoomazium and Bobbin was explaining to us that it was were Dinosaurs live; I asked without thinking, "Really? What sound do they make?" and Bobbin belted out a ROOOOAAAAARRRRRRRR that had me holding my ears in this enclosed little cavern, and that sent poor Zed into sobs of fright. Bobbin asked what happened when she saw Zed crying, and was quite concerned for her but I thought it best to just tell her that Zed was feeling tired and wanted to go home. Best not to reveal the fact to Bobbin that she has the power to scare other children with her monster scary godzilla voice. She doesn't need to have that knowledge yet.

After we got home and I napped, Uncle Rich arrived to help Tim with the wood that we finally got around to getting cut up into 2x4s from that tree that fell over 2 years ago. (We're a little slow :-), and he stayed for dinner. Then we had a rousing game of "Hungry Hungry Hippos". Bobbin explained the whole game to a patiently listening Uncle Rich, telling him which button to press when, and what you were supposed to do when the marbles were in the middle. Then Tim joined the fun, and I managed to catch a couple of pictures that I'll have to post later. She loves that game almost as much as her Elefun game from Aunt Patti and Uncle Les last year. What kid wouldn't love Elefun: a plastic elephant that blows little cloth butterflies out his plastic trunk as a fan spins in his butt. The kids run around with little butterfly nets trying to catch them. The one with the most butterflies wins, but we actually haven't gotten to the point of caring who wins. It's the act of playing that is the reward. Hungry Hungry Hippos has the same thing going on; who has the most marbles is not as much fun as all the silliness that ensues as your trying to get your hippo to make a grab for one, and pushing the buttons to release all the marbles at once!

Tomorrow it's back to work and back to school for all. Bobbin's supposed to move from "Early Preschool" to "Big Preschool". We'll see how it goes.

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Happy Birthday, Dear Zed!

We went to Zed's birthday party yesterday. She turned 2. It was quite an affair!

There was the cake and singing of "Happy Birthday",

The opening of presents,

And many fun games, including "Ring Around the Rosie", which seemed to be a personal favourite of the guest of honour's

Lots more pictures of the party here. Happy Birthday Zed! And thanks for a super fun party!

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Happy Birthday, Miss E!

Dear Miss E!

We had a GREAT day! Hope you had an awesome day turning 4! See you again soon,

More photos here. Enjoy!

Bobbin
xoxoxo

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In the mood

Random photo of Bobbin at Larry's Market

Tonight we went over to Bothell to partake of the Summer Nights in the Park concert series. Tonight they were playing Swing music. Bobbin and Miss E, whom we met at the park, took the "Swing" part very seriously.

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B and Z celebrate spring

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Let Birthday Season Begin!

Today marked the first of 3 weeks of birthday parties. First up was Miss E, celebrating the big-0-3 today. Next week will be Zed's #1, followed the week after that by Bobbin's 2nd birthday.

It's a whirlwind of birthday frenzy punctuated by a concert at Woodland Park Zoo next sunday to see... drumroll please... GREAT BIG SEA!!! Woohoo ;-)

Today's birthday season kickoff was a smash hit! There was much merriment, crafting, bubble blowing, eating, playing, and singing! And the kids had fun too :-)

At least they did until 1pm; the standard witching-hour for toddlers who still need an afternoon nap. The meltdowns were just starting as we made our exit, at precisely 1:02. Yes, I looked at the clock to determine just how precisely off-nap-schedule we were (the answer is 32 minutes :-)).

Here's a few more pictures from the day. Thanks Miss E, for a really fun time! See you next week at Zed's bash and Great Big Sea!

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The Sounds of Music

Sunday night I went to Tim's boss Charlie's 60th birthday party. It wasn't your typical birthday bash. He had rented out the Premier Club in downtown Seattle, and quite a crowd showed up! When you've spent as many years in the sound business as he has, I guess you get to know a lot of people :-). Tim mixed the sound for Charlie's band - The See Band (who were really great! And clearly were having a good time up there) and one other later in the evening. The music was great, the food was great, it was fun meeting and talking with people that Tim had worked with in the past, and I had a blast watching Tim in his element, doing his thing. He'll never tell you because he's too modest, but he's damn good at what he does.

Here are a few more pictures from the evening.

Happy Birthday Charlie! Looking forward to the 70th, 80th, 90th, and centennial party ;-)

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New Years Eve with T&H

As promised, here are the rest of our New Years photos. Y'all should also go check out the great pictures our friend Dave took as well!

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Happy Birthday Little One!

Debra and Chris's daughter celebrated her first birthday today.

The cake was big a hit :-)

So were the presents :-)

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Weekend Update

Busy weekend this weekend! Let's see... where to start... with the fun stuff, of course!

House Progress

Saturday morning we started the day by heading out to the property in the morning to check progress.

- thermostats are installed and so is the air exchange control
- all plumbing fixtures now complete and water filter hooked up functioning. We can get and drink water from our tap and our fridge now! Our fridge is even making ice cubes :-)
- garbage disposal is installed - we got a special one appropriate for septic systems
- stove and ovens are installed and working (we even turned on the gas on the stove - such a pretty sight ;-)
Much of the electrical trim is complete. Still need some switches and circuits hooked up and some fixtures installed, but that should be finished up very soon.
- grass is growing like... well... grass! Still some dry spots but it's looking really good!
- sanding and finishing the hardwood floors starts on monday
- punchlist walkthrough is tentatively scheduled for August 2nd (tentative, because we're all kinda waiting to see what Baby Girl decides to do!)

More photos here.

"Everything Must Go"
A friend of ours is moving out to the east coast at the end of summer to go back to grad school so after playing around at the new house we headed over to her place to help her with her moving sale, get her yard spruced up, get some oddball chores taken care of as she gets ready to leave, and eat yummy food :-). Me - I just supervised ;-). But Janel put Tim to work fixing lighting fixtures, playing with electricity, etc. :-)

Last Supper
After helping Juan with her moving sale/house readiness, Tim and I went out on what will probably be one of our last real "dates" before Baby Girl is born :-) One of my favourite italian restaurants - Italianissimo. We hadn't been there in a while! It was really wonderful to get out of the house and have a nice dinner in a nice restaurant. We've both been moving at about 1000 miles an hour lately between our work, childbirth classes, prepping for Baby Girl, packing up the house and prepping for our pre-emptive move, staying on top of the final details of our new house construction, me trying to get exercise whenever I can, and both of us trying to get in a decent night's sleep.

After dinner we went back out to the property to check it out in the evening light. No pictures from the evening to share, but it was pretty cool! The interior lighting looks fantastic; we can watch the sun set from our back decks, and the moon rise from our kitchen deck. The different light streaming in through the windows gives the inside and the paint colours a different look as well - a nice warm glow.

Pre-emptive move #1
Today (Sunday) was spent moving all non-essential furniture and objects from our current house to the basement of our new house. MANY thanks to all our friends who came out to help out! Our current house is quite a bit emptier now, so we can start the task of getting Baby Girl's stuff set up so she has a place to sleep, be changed, play etc. It was kinda squishy with all of our stuff in the current house.

It was a gorgeous day - probably a bit hot for moving, but the key was that it wasn't raining ;-). It eventually got up to about 85 degrees at the new place. Not a cloud in the sky. We don't have any air conditioning at the new house, and we have a TONNE of glass doors and windows that let sunlight in at all times during the day, so I wanted to see how hot it would get inside. We were quite happy to find the interior temperature at a comfy 68 when we arrived, and only 71 when we left late afternoon. The house was nice and cool the whole time we were there, and the basement even cooler. Very impressive :-)

Needless to say, we're both a little exhausted :-) And we'll be spending the next couple of weeks straighting up and organizing what's left in the current house. But at least the big part - the move "part 1" - is done with (at least for a little while ;-)). Part 2 will be moving stuff from the basement up to the main floor as the hardwood floors are finished, and then Part 3 of course will be the Main Event. Timing for both of these though are at the mercy of our builders and Baby Girl. We'll see what happens ;-)

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We interrupt our holiday blogging...

...to bring you belated pictures taken (by Gracie!) from my birthday gathering back on the 12th :-)

http://www.crappymusic.com/gracie/index.htm

Debra and Chris's daughter Ella is featured prominently in most of the photos, as you saw ;-) It was, in fact, my favourite birthday game. You know the one - The "Pass The Ella J and Try to Make Her Laugh" Game. Highly entertaining ;-)

We now return you to the regularly scheduled blogging.

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A spooky good time was had by all

Although Tim seems a little leery of the paparazzi in this shot.

Tim and I went to Sir Vincenzo's Halloween bash yesterday. Vince didn't exactly require us all to show up in costumes but did say we should all try and wear "something we wouldn't normally wear". In an 11th hour moment of inspiration late friday afternoon, brought on by the little bob-the-builder who showed up at my office door trick-or-treating, I thought we should go as "Green Builders" in keeping with the theme of our whole "building green" efforts in the construction of our home.

Anyway - here are a few more photos from the festivities. Thanks Vince, for a fun evening!

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Happy B-Day Dave!

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