In the word's of Tay, "UN-believable!"

The most amazing thing happened to me today! I'm not going to say it was the best day of my life, but it could quite possibly be among the top 5... definitely top 10.

Today I won a $500 gift certificate to Macy's! That's right: 5-0-0! Can you believe it! I never win anything from drawings. I used to always enter those drawings at the mall where you can win a new car, or wave-runner, or whatever is on display at the time. I, of course, always entered my mom, because I was too young. As far as I know, she never won anything, despite my valiant efforts.

So, I went into Macy's a few weeks ago to replace a plate The Frog managed to break, and I almost left feeling disappointed that they didn't have them in stock. However, I wanted to make a cheesecake for that weekend so I ended up buying a spring-form pan while I was there. There was some kind of promotion going on where if you donated $5 you get a $10 gift card (useable immediately) and the chance to enter a drawing. I thought, why not?

I will point out that I painstakingly thought about how I should fold my card before sliding it into the slot, and I give full credit to my immaculate craftsmanship.

Sadly, I have no recollection of what I, in the end, decided to do to it. But clearly, it worked. Now that I know that I am capable of freebees, I feel a renewed hope in probability- the one area of math I could never really grasp.

So does this mean my chances of winning again are slimmer now?

At any rate, I won. I'm a winner. Look at me!

So now only one question remains-

what should I get?

I'm friends with a famous violinist!

One of my buddies from high school (well, really I just knew who she was in high school, but we didn't become good friends until we both went back east for college) came in town because she's on tour with Start Wars in Concert! We got to have lunch today (Linds came too) and though I brought my camera, this is the only shot I managed to take :) Good thing it's a cute one!

Quilts 2 and 3

I started working on a flannel lap quilt almost 2 years ago while visiting Jay's family. I made a lot of progress fairly quickly (considering I was in grad school at the time) but once we moved to my parents, concentrated on house shopping, bought a house, got moved in, and had a child, I hadn't been able to make time to finish it. Well, I FINALLY did!

And here's the crib quilt I made for The Frog while Jay's family was in town. (Notice a reoccurring theme? That's because Jay's mom is a machine-quilting expert.) I was trying to mimic the wall hanging in the nursery. They look really great together, if I do say so myself.

Jay's fam in town

This past weekend, Jay's family flew from MA to visit us! It was so good to see them and The Frog had a great time with his Nanny and Gampie and Cousin K. We were so busy the whole time, I forgot to whip out the camera except during the highlight of the trip- going to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving point. Tturns out, it's the largest in the world! Though I didn't get to read much information because I was following The Frog and keeping him out of trouble, it was still awesome to see all the constructed dinosaur skeletons and Jay would usually relay some of the more noteworthy facts. The Frog had a good time too- we would love to go again!

Some of the dinosaurs were dressed up for Halloween!
The Frog feeling a fossil
Jay with a not-so-woolly mammoth
The Frog, Auntie K and a Shark
The Frog uncovering fossils

While Jay and his dad were busy fixing things around the house, Pam and I worked on a quilt for The Frog and I'll post pictures as soon as I finish it.

We're so glad they could come! It's always great to see them!

The Frog 13 months!

I didn't take many pictures this past week, probably because I was trying to get the house ready for Jay's family to visit, but The Frog did manage to do at least one irresitable Kodak moment.
Some Frog behaviors I've been meaning to write down:

-Lately he loves to get some sort of rag (usually he prefers it wet) so that he can wipe things off. I guess he sees that I wipe things a lot? It's pretty funny. One time he shook out some of his milk so that he could wipe it up with a rag. Silly boy...
-He's getting 3 molars! It's strange that there doesn't seem to be any logical order like there was with his first 8 teeth... he's getting two on the bottom left and one on the top right.
-He's becoming devious.
I have a fake plant in the family room that has been a constant battle to keep The Frog from pulling the leaves off it. One day, I noticed that he would only do it when I was busy doing something (and thus, ignoring The Frog) so that I would stop what I was doing and come pay (negative) attention to him. So I decided to try an experiment: next time he picked the leaves off I would just completely ignore him. The opportunity arose when I was trying to read while sitting on the floor near where The Frog was playing. He wanted me to stop
so
he picked off a leaf.
I could see in my periphery that he was watching me, but I in no way changed my behavior.
He picked off another.
Still I ignored him.
So he walks up to me and pushes the leaves in my face while I'm reading.
Still I make no signs of interest.
He picked off several more and stuck them in his shopping card and pushed them around, but he doesn't pick them off much anymore.
Libby 1, Frog 0.

However, just goes to show you that some kids will take negative attention to being ignored all together. Very interesting.