Appreciate the Arts

When Ryan and I went to Paris a couple years back, I remember being proud to announce that we 'did the Louvre' in about an hour. We grabbed a map, hit the highlights and were on our way. When you're running on a time limit, you do what you can!

Looking back though, I feel like it was such a shame for us to not spend a little more time taking in the art and finding pieces that interested us instead of just crossing things off of a list. The Louvre after all is one of the most famous art museums! Who are we to down grade it's importance???

So, when making my 101 list I decided I wanted to actually walk through a museum and appreciate the art. When asked if I wanted to go to the Philadelphia Art Museum, I thought it was the perfect chance! Well, one thing led to another, the morning was rough after Jude hardly slept and when my company bowed out, I figured I too would take advantage of the rainy day and sit at home. But at that point, we were dressed, lunch was packed, and we were ready to walk out the door. So, I for in the car not sure where I was headed. Would we detour at the mall for story time? Meet Ryan for lunch? Try out the Children's Museum? Go to Philly alone? Once on 95 we were decided on the Children's Museum. However, getting off the exit to the riverfront, I passed 'The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts'. Then I saw the big 'free!' sign and decided to stop.

Aparently DCCA is ALWAYS free and has regularly changing exhibits! They also have program for young kids in a children's classroom! All of which was very interesting to me!

Jude and I browsed the 5 or so rooms of different collections. I pointed out colors, laughed at the asking price of some of the pieces and was puzzle by what some consider to be art. Some of the stuff was really neat though. One exhibit had a tape playing, where someone had take a photo of JFK and somehow moved his eyes and lips so it looked like he was talking... And had him giving a speech. That was jude's favorite. He also liked this plush wall of polyfilled colorful fabric.

I'm pretty certain my favorites were some oil paintings that had some geometric/optical illusion stuff going on and a series of digital prints. I'm sure I love to visit a museum of just photography after that one room. It's amazing what one can do with the camera.

All in all we were there about an hour before Jude decided it was time to go. I think it is something I'll keep in the back of my mind as a place to visit on other rainy days.

Jude's First Birthday Party

Well, all of our work paid off!

Jude's Birthday Party came and went and it was a great time!

We had (more than) enough food, drinks, cakes, etc.

We were going for a pretty laid back event and I'm pretty sure that was successful. Everyone showed up right around 2:00. Everyone hung out, ate and mingled for awhile and then I decided to do cake.

We had bought a cake for the guests to eat and since I wanted to make a cake for Jude, I made a special one for him.

This was the cake for the guests:

it was a Doctor Seuss theme and looked AWESOME! I loved it! I let Cannon's pretty much design it on their own and I'm so happy I did!

They put little blurbs from different books...

Jude's cake was a banana cake. I used all vegan ingredients (from a vegan cookbook) so that my dear friend Meghan could indulge in Jude's first Birthday cake. Jude loved it! I changed the recipe just a little, but it turned out well (I took some ingredients out, added some extra of another and used a different frosting than they called for).

Everyone gathered in the front yard to sing happy birthday.... so the candle barely stayed aflame.

We opted out of the big "open presents in front of everyone thing". Instead, as most people were leaving, I gave Jude his gifts and opened the cards myself. He only got a handful of toys and played with them all.

Jude's mom-mom (my mom) made him his first birthday shirt

He looked so cute in his little hat!

We had ooddles of food - and Ryan played grill master... and then turned it over to Curt. Speaking of food, I made a Strawberry layer cheesecake thing as my final 'seasonal dessert'! I got the recipe from Barbie. Of course I can't just make it as indicated, so I changed it a bit. I had it at a mom's night and personally thought it could use more strawberries and pound cake, so I got about double the pound cake and easily double the strawberries. I started with the whipped cream bottom, strawberries and pound cake, then did the whipped cream, more pound cake and the rest of the strawberries. The melted chocolate over the strawberries was oh-so-yummy. The dish was gone in minutes!

But back to the birthday... Jude didn't get strawberry cheesecake... instead he got some of the fruit salad.

All in all, it was a great day! The weather was wonderful and the friends were just as lovely.

After just about everyone cleared out, Ryan started up a fire pit and we sat around and hung out for the evening. After a long day, Jude slept like a champ.

Our Second Cinco de Mayo Together

Jude's 1st Birthday was fairly uneventful.

The night before his birthday, I set up his toy room so that he could wake up and go downstairs to play. He seemed confused about why all of his toys were moved, but seem interested in the new space.




After breakfast we had his 12 month check up. He unfortunately had to have 2 shots... which I felt terrible about! The check up went normally. Jude is right on track and doing well. He was 19lbs 15 ounces and 29.5" long. The doctor mentioned that he has noticed that Jude may have a slight heart murmur, but that there's nothing to be concerned about. He advised me that it's not uncommon in young children (and I compared it to my dog Zoey... she had one too that she was supposed to outgrow). He said it's so slight that he has no restrictions for Jude, he just thought he'd let me know in case for some reason someone else noticed it and mentioned it. He didn't want us to think he wasn't paying attention.

I got the go ahead to stop nursing and to switch to whole milk. We're still not totally ready... but at least the options there.

After our check up we had a nice relaxing lunch with Uncle Bryan and Aunt Katy and then headed home. I considered going to a park or something, but there was much to do around the house. Instead, Jude and I planted some stuff in the garden and once Ryan got home we did some painting and finishing touches on Jude's toy room (photos to follow).

The day quickly got away from us and so we decided to go out for dinner. Being Cinco De Mayo, we tried to be a little festive. We went to Applebees. Ok... that's not the festive part... Ryan got a Corona, I got a Margarita (or two...).

After hurrying home to meet up with Uncle Byran and Aunt Katy and Ryan Creed, we gave Jude his first of three birthday cakes. It was a classic funfetti cake with vanilla frosting, and Jude loved it.











The day really went by so quickly. It's still hard to believe that he's a year old!

**I can 'technically' cross off 'make jude a birthday cake' from my list with this cake... but I'd say I officially crossed it off with his birthday party cake. Either way, it's done!

Plant a Tree - It (was)Earth Day

So, a few days ago, was Earth Day.


In full spirit, I went out and bought a Peach Tree. I wanted to plant a tree (per my list o' things to do) and figured Earth Day was as good a day as any! Another stipulation was that I wanted something that would be fruitful. The last thing we needed was 'just another tree' in the front yard.

Well, that day one thing lead to another and we never planted our tree. BUT this morning, Ryan and I took advantage of the good weather and planted our peach tree. It's not much of anything yet... but I hope that it grows with us over the next however-many-years and we get tons of peaches year in and year out!

We put lotion on Jude while we were out in the yard. I'm always worried his little scalp will burn, so he got a good dose in his hair and it looked so fun:

It's Ladies Night

Last night, I went out for a mommy night. I very rarely REALLY take a significant amount of time for myself, and recently, I have been spending very little money on myself. So, when I was presented with the idea of a Spa Night, I wasn't sure if I should accept.

I tossed the idea around... and decided to go for it. I had never had a massage, so why not try it (and cross something off my list!)?

I'm soooo glad I did!

It was really a great night! After a day of painting, I literally RUSHED out the door after realizing I was an hour behind the schedule I thought I was on. I cruised through traffic, nearly collided with another driver and then got a little off coarse trying to find the house. But alas, I walked in the door to a relaxing set up. There were candles, soft music, food, and the wine had just been opened up. Perfect!

I was told to wrap up in a robe and relax. My first treatment was a pedicure, which was great. It was just what I needed to turn my hectic day onto the right path. I grabbed a glass of wine and settled in.

There were a few people ahead of me in line for massages, so after my pedicure, we played games, ate, ate some more, played a little and I ate and drank a lot more.

Then was my first massage! It was very nice! Kind of awkward at first... I didn't know rules/etiquette, but it wasn't bad. The oil she used smelled amazing, she did what I guess was an awesome job and I felt so good walking down the steps after it was over.

Afterwards, we did a little more of the game playing and a little more of the drinking before heading home. All in all, it was a great time! For sure, something I'd love to do again.

Preparing out Garden

About a week and a half ago, my brother and Katy and I started to plant our seeds indoors.


We're all excited to transfer everything outside, so have been preparing the 'garden area'. Also, some of our seeds are sprouting!!

Mommy Time

It's only appropriate that after my post about my lack of mommy time, that I took a little time for myself last night. For the past couple of weeks, I have been diligently working on a quilt. Ok, Ok, Ok, maybe not so diligently... but I have been working on it.

I finally got through piecing together the whole front, stitched on the border, stitched ont he binding and stuck the three layers (front, stuffing and back) together with pins. I'm now at the first of the two dreaded levels of making a quilt: the actual quilting!

The quilt I'm making is a queen size quilt (do you have in your mind the size of the average queen size quilt?). Ok... now, imagine a sewing machine. Imagine moving something that large in and out of a sewing machine, rolling it here, stuffing it there, twisting it like that, all while trying to make it look beautiful. Yeah - that's the part I'm at.

So, I had been invited to a quilt group a little while back and thought I'd take them up on the offer. It's a bunch of women that my mom and aunt are friends with who all get together every Monday night and just talk... I mean quilt all night long. I left Jude to Ryan and packed up my belongings and headed out. It was lovely. I got about 3/4 of the actual quilting completed, which is more than I'm imagining I would have done if I were at home. Most of the time spent was trying to figure out how exactly I wanted the quilting pattern to look and how exactly I should go about making it look that way. once I got going and got the hang of things, it was kind of a breeze.

While I was there, I also got a phone call inviting me to a movie! I love me some movies, so accepted. I saw Dear John, which was... interesting. I got home much later than I had expected (considering I was only planning on quilting) and am paying for my late night this morning... but all in all, it was a wonderful evening.

*** Stay tuned for pictures of the quilt within the next couple of weeks... I will only be posting the finished product***

Seasonal Dessert #3:

The other day I was in the mood for baking. I knew winter would be ending and I still hadn't made my winter dessert, so I decided to tackle that.

I ended up making a gingerbread molasses bunt cake.

I put it in the oven while Jude was eating breakfast and towards the end of my mixing and prepping, Jude got a little antsy. So, I threw it in the cake pan and got him out of his highchair.

Before long, the house smelled amazing! After the expected baking time, I took the pan out and took a little taste - YUM! I then got distracted and came back about an hour later to take the cake out of the pan.

Well, I forgot to put the flour int he pan to keep teh cake from sticking, and I didn't take the cake out quickly enough, so it was stuck :( I tried to ease it out, but it wouldn't come. The cake ended up in a crumbly mess on the plate.

Even though it didn't look great, it tasted yummy.

Only one more seasonal dessert to go!

Question: What desserts to you think of when you think of spring?

Ebay

Another thing off the list!

I sold my first item on ebay the other day!

I was so super excited when I got my baby food cooker from my coworkers. I took it home, and placed the fancy box among all of the other "to be used later" items for Jude.

Well, by the time food rolled around, we had pretty much decided against purees and so there was no need for the cooker any more. Of course by the time I decided there was no need for it, it was already out of the box and played with.

Recently I've been having a bit of a "get rid of shit" urge. Anymore, the thought of having things piled up around the house that we don't need frustrates me. Perhaps it's because of all the construction. I mean our house has holes in the walls and wires exposed... the last thing I need on top of that is clutter. Maybe it's my newly emerging 'minimalist' self, where I'm losing attachment to almost any 'thing'. Maybe it's my fear that I'll become that woman with 50 boxes of baby clothes/toys/gear in my basement that hasn't been touched in 10+ years.

Whatever the reason, the baby cooker (among other things) just had to go. I first tried selling it on craigs list. No Go. I did my blog sale. No Go. Knowing I've eventually have to face the beast that is ebay to cross something off my 101 list, I decided to give it a whirl.

The cooker usually retails for $150. I was hoping to get $100 + shipping. The auction ended up closing at $84 + $15 for shipping. So, $99.00 total. Not too bad.

My newly earned $99 is now sitting in my Paypal account, to be used for a future purchase, a rainy day fund, vacation spending money or whatever-else.

SNOW MAN!

Yesterday, Jude and I had (yet another) lovely day together!

He's on his new/old sleeping routine, so I got a later start than expected... but it was still great. I'll first say that by "new/old" I mean he's back on the routine he was on before his sleep hick up around thanksgiving. He goes to bed at 7:30, wakes up around 4 or 5 in the morning and either nurses or just goes to sleep in my arms (don't judge me) until about 6:30 or 7:00. Before, he was sleeping terribly through the night, but would not 'wake up' until about 9:00 in the morning. Because of this, his 11:00 nap is now his 9:00 nap... so we're all off. But anyway...

I planned to treck outside at 9:30 and play in the snow. He was asleep in my arms at 9:30 though, so we never made it out until closer to 11. By then, some of the snow was beginning to melt and so I'm glad we got out when we did. My number one priority was to build a snow man. The past snow we had this year was that light fluffy snow that is terrible for forming any kind of ball. This snow was PERFECT for a snow man.

It took us awhile to get bundled up. Without a doubt, bundling up is the worst part of the snow for me. Every time I have to do it, I think "this is just not worth it". I'll put on five layers, go outside for 20 mintues and come back in with a whole load worth of wet/dirty clothes. I so badly want to order a pair of coveralls for myself so that I don't hate it nearly as much, but I have yet to do it. Jude got a snow suit after Christmas, so getting him ready wasn't nearly as tough.





Jude didn't mind his coveralls, but hated his coat. I was glad when we finally got outside and I realized it wasn't THAT cold. I eventually let him take off the coat so he could move his hands and touch the snow.

I LOVE this one... he looks so 'regal'.

After a few minutes, we got right down to business: a snow man. I let Jude sit in the snow/area that was de-snowed by the snow man. Once I let his arms move, he was just as content as can be and watched me push this big ball of snow around the front yard. About half way through making the base I was getting tired, but kept going. I was planning on making a two part snowman, but ended up giving him the standard three balls. Because Ryan and I don't rake our leaves, our snow man ended up having 'freckles'.

starring each other down...

After we were done with the snow man, I got my tripod so I could get some pictures of Jude and I in front of our creation.






Shortly afterwards, Katy showed up and I shoveled the sidewalk/drive way for Ryan before heading out for the day.



Next year I need to get one of those snowman kits so that I don't have to give him broccoli eyes, a baby-carrot nose and a pea mouth.

Recruiting some 101 help...

1. I want to run a marathon... and a 5K and would love to be able to do it before my time is up for my 101 list (that means before NEXT September). I'm pretty confident I should be able to do it... but want some help.

If any of you are trying to get in shape, stay in shape or just get out of the house, let me know!

Starting this Spring, I'm going to set a routine of some sort that will start me on my path to a marathon-body. You may be asking why I'm waiting until then... well it's for no other reason than I know I'll be more inclined to get OUT of the house and into a park if it's warm. I'm not runner-ready like I once was, so it will most likely start out as brisk walking and work it's way up to a light-jog.

So, again, let me know if you're interested. If there's someone who wants to join, I'll try to work some set days around your schedule. My only stipulation is that it will be middle of the day/middle of the week times - as that's when I'm free most regularly. If the weather begins to warm up sooner than March or April, I'd love to get an early start on it.

2. I want to plant a veggie garden... if there's anyone who's interested in having some weekly get-togethers at my house, let me know. I have two-three pretty large flower beds that I started clearing out last year and shouldn't require too much work to get going. If you help with the labor (or just come over to encourage me to actually keep up with them), we could do some sort of co-op-type-thing where you get 1/2 of the veggies.

3. I want to make a quilt... I recently bought fabric and once it's washed I will begin the piecing it together process. If there's anyone who's interested in sewing (or any other craft) and wants to start a project of their own, I'm opening my house to you. If there's someone else crafting along side me, I'll be much more likely to work on it and not have it sit in a corner and collect dust.

4. I want to volunteer... if there's anyone who's at all interested in hooking up with me to get on board for some volunteer activities, let me know. Again, weekdays work best for me, but I'm not going to be too picky with this one...

5. I'd love to go to the Please Touch Museum... this would be a great one to do before the weather breaks as I'm always looking for things to do indoors. I'd like to get a small group together, so let me know if it's something you're interested.

These are obviously all things I could do on my own, but it'd be much more fun if anyone else wanted to tag along.

New York Trip: Part II

Original Day Two Plans:
- Wake up after sleeping in a little for breakfast and to check out of the hotel
- head over to New York again for ice skating in Central Park, tour Time Square, stop off at Ground Zero and whatever else came to mind.

Revised Day Two Plans:
- Ground Zero
- Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty

Actual Events:
So, we woke up the next morning unsure of what we was going to happen. Ryan had a rough night and I wasn't about to push it on him. He seemed to be doing alright, so we check out of the hotel and decided to grab a light breakfast. He still seemed to be doing alright and so we went on with our plans - slightly altered.

View from our hotel window... the city skyline

We decided to skip Ground Zero and so there was no real reason to go back into the city. Instead, we decided to take the ferry to Ellis Island from New Jersey. This saved us a bus ride into the city and having to figure out transportation to the bottom of the island. All in all, it worked out great.

Since our plans were slightly altered, I was checking up on ferry times from Jersey on our way there. We were about 10 minutes away and the next ferry left in roughly 15 minutes! We really tried to make it, as the next ferry wouldn't leave for another hour or so, but as we were running up to the security check with tickets in hand, they told us the ferry was pulling out.

The ticket area for Liberty State Park was in this awesome old train station. The area where trains at one point would have pulled into was very "Life After People"

an old train...

ahhh... so we are in the right spot...

I really thought the train station was cool... so with some of our free time...

Here's the boys in line for tickets... at this point we weren't aware we'd missed the ferry

The Statue of Liberty ... from the ferry.

from Ellis Island...

I think "cruises" is a bit extreme..

With our extra time, I went back to the car to feed and change Jude and we walked around Liberty State park. The time passed by pretty quickly and before we knew it, it was time to board the ferry. Time passing quickly became a theme for the day. Because we were at the mercy of the ferries, we had to keep an eye on the clock.

Jude was a trooper the whole trip...

The statue of Liberty didn't let people in past a certain time, so in order to get to Liberty Island (from Ellis Island) in a timely fashion, we needed to get off the ferry and get back on the next ferry. This left us (I believe) roughly an hour and a half on Ellis Island. Of course, we didn't get through all of the exhibits... but there's always next time. What we did see was all very interesting and really displayed nicely. I had never been and so walking through all the different rooms - which once served as examination rooms, luggage rooms and much more was all very... interesting... amazing... etc.

As with present day airports, etc, passengers coming in had to exchange currency...

samples of the graffiti walls...

Katy is checking to see if Jude and Ryan may enter...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this wall... it was a bunch of faces from one angle and a flag for another.

My girl...

The luggage room had a bunch of trunks and stuff... it was probably one fo the coolest rooms. These folk sure didn't travel light...

Like I said after Ellis Island was Liberty Island. We had a little more flexibility on Liberty Island and so upon arriving we grabbed a snack in their cafe. I am under the impression they're doing some heavy renovations and so the place was kind of a mess.

Next we headed for the Statue itself. Did I mention that you needed to go through security JUST to get on the ferry? Like airport security (minus taking off your shoes)? Well, you did. Not only that, but you needed to go through another mini security to go into the base of the statue. No bags were allowed, so I was thankful that I had just changed Jude's diaper before stowing our bag away in a locker. Also, I made the assumption that one could just go on up to the crown. Well, you can't. You need special timed passes and you need these passes MONTHS (yes, the security guard said MONTHS) in advance. He even said that at this point getting summer passes might be getting slim. CRAZY! But either way, we continued the tour.

For anyone who hasn't been, you enter through the back of the base of the statue. You go into a room which hold the original torch and then follow some steps up to the museum portion. Everywhere you went said that it's basically a one way tour. Once you pass a certain point, there's pretty much no turning back. The museum itself was pretty interesting. There were live-size replicas of certain parts of the statue, lots of pictures, facts, etc. Then you have to climb up a number of steps to get up to where her feet are (that's as far as you can go w/out the timed passes). inside was pretty cool, because you could see "up her skirt' into all the inner workings of the statue. The structural support, etc.

Yes... and the elevator was broken.

Life-size replica of her big toe.

The original torch.

The highest spot you could get to was not exactly the most desirable. There's a pretty poor view of the statue... and really... that's what we were there for.

As we were climbing down, we realized that we were minutes away from the departure of the next ferry. Even though Ryan had toughed it out through the day, he was ready to go. We made sure to get the pictures we wanted and finish everything we had been there to do and then raced back to the ferry. We made it just in time!

It was then back to the car, back to Delaware and back home. We had a busy two days and two busy days of work ahead of us. It's Tuesday already and I'm still trying to play catch up.