first date and update

First, an update on the computer problem. Marc solved it. Would you like to know how stupid it was? It turns out that when I went to crop my banner photo in Photoshop, it automatically filled in my banner dimensions (how does it know?) -- which I noticed, appreciatively. What I failed to notice was that it was set to inches instead of pixels. So when it tried to upsample my photo to 800 inches wide... it sucked up all the remaining memory on the computer. Riiiiight. I don't know if I ever would have figured that out. All is well now.

Next, a general update on the last couple of days, since I've been AWOL here.

Eva's new favorite past-time is playing in the sink. Bubbles, no bubbles, a bowl to wash, or just some rubber duckies. It's all good. I started making her wear the apron because she was getting so soaked every time.

Good mail from Patsy! Fun valentine stuff, including Dove chocolates (who can resist them?). My kids were SO curious about the flavored straws and had to try them.

We went to Petco to buy dog food. How could I have forgotten how much fun it is for kids to go to the pet store? We saw bunnies, mice, birds, snakes, fish, lizards, frogs, and guinea pigs. The funniest part was when we were looking at the fish and Eva said, "Look, Mom! It's a Convict Tang!" (It wasn't really, but did bear a striking resemblance to the Convict Tang in one of her books.)

She picked out the treats for Jack and insisted on holding them until we got home. (This is our unshoveled driveway.) She was terribly disappointed that I wouldn't let her give all of the treats to Jack upon our return.

Good mail from Lara! I had been wanting to read this book, based on Lara's recommendation. Just the day before, I went to Borders and looked for it, but they appeared to be sold out. I was so excited when it arrived in the mail the next day!

Yesterday was Creative Friday, but Jill hadn't planned on coming, since Lucas had been sick on Thursday. (If anyone has any good ideas about what would cause a child to have vomiting episodes every 4-5 days with a quick recovery time, please let me know!) Lucas was completely better, and I really needed for Creative Friday to be on, so I convinced her to come after all.
I worked on my book club circle journal, and Jill spent most of her time cutting out good mail labels for her Etsy orders.

now that's a lot of trimming...

Eva's just now getting excited about the dress-ups she got for Christmas. Whitney helped her to come up with some winning combinations.

Also, Max, Lucas and I all got haircuts. Oh how I love fresh haircuts! (I forgot to take a photo of my new look, maybe tomorrow.)

And finally, an update on the 12 Dates of Christmas. I got a little casual about my date responsibilities and didn't do very well in the advance planning department. I suddenly realized (after the Sundance Film Festival was over) that there were only a few more days in January! That left me cramming our first date in on the last day of the month, like some forgetful home teacher. Marc was wondering if I was going to drop the ball -- I won't let that happen again.

It was a pretty basic date, we went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. {An aside: our favorite pizza, Pear Gorgonzola, has been discontinued! So disappointing. We got Mango Tandoori Chicken and California Club. Both good, but Pear Gorgonzola, we miss you...} We were supposed to discuss our hopes for 2008, but we never really got around to that (in my defense, we did feel a bit rushed out of there by our server). We did, however, have a really nice conversation, completely uninterrupted by children. Since most of our dates tend to involve going to movies, and thus little conversation, I counted it as a definite success. After dinner, we started to go to Cold Stone for dessert, but on our way in, we decided it was sheer craziness to eat ice cream when it was so very freezing outside. We couldn't think of anywhere else to get dessert, so we came home and I made our favorite peanut butter brownies. Then we ate them and watched the Lost season premiere. Yep, it was a pretty good date.

{Oh! I did take our inaugural date self-portrait, the first of many, much to Marc's chagrin. I think I'd be in trouble if I posted it here, though.}