For Miss Helen!

A long time ago, when we were all in DC (march), Miss Helen was very excited about seeing Curious George. She is all about the monkey. Well, I searched high and low and found some more Curious George fabric. It also takes me forever to make anything anymore! But at long last I have an outfit for Miss Helen! I am going to be mailing it out on Wednesday. I know the post office is open tomorrow, but it will be nuts there! Miss Helen, if you are watching, by Friday you will have a new outfit. I did make it extra short, as Miss Helen is delicate and petite!
Hope you like it! Lon thinks you will look adorable!

Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head

Memorial Day Weekend was rain rain rain. It was pouring buckets from the sky on Sunday! Lon loved the rain! He wanted to be out in the deluge! He had a great time getting soaked to his skin! He did get a bath later on!















After the rain, it was time for a snack! It is always the right time for Goldfish! I think we should get Lon some stock in Nabisco (animal crackers) and Pepridge Farms (the fish). Those fish are the very best thing ever! He takes after his mother with his love of cheese! He already loves Tillamook Cheddar. Which is, as we all know, the very best kind of cheddar! I can see a trip down to Tillamook in our future. Sometimes I can be rather clairvoyant that way.

Oh Baby!

This week we have Baby moments!

Szechaun Baby



Nehow! Mark, Lon and I went to lunch on Friday at Szechaun Chef. A wonderful Chinese place on the eastside. The wait staff was attentive, service was quick. They all thought it was wonderful that Lon could eat from a chopstick. Lon ate tofu, peas, carrots, chicken and some rice. It is nice to go to lunch with Daddy.






BEACH BABY


This morning we got up and thought that the beach is the place to be! Lon was in his jammies, with baby sweat pants, socks, a shirt and a jacket on over top. I wanted to make sure he was warm enough. It was a minus tide, so off we went to the dog beach. It is an off leash area. Everyone
seems to have the best time!
















Bullwinkle is meeting new friends. This pom's name is winky. He is two. They got along very well.



















Bullwinkle is announcing his presence to everyone. He loves the beach, hates the water. Silly doggy!


Parakeet Baby



Looking for just the right CD. Hmmm. Ah, here is a tasty one! Since my mom is a parrot head, I guess I will be a parakeet. Or a baby parrot head! I like music, alot. I
keep the music on my toys going all day long!




CHOP CHOP BABY

Lunch has now become Chop Chop. I have no idea what else to call it. Lon refuses to eat jarred baby food. So I chopped up some chicken, assorted veggies, grated cheese, fruit, and some cheese tortellini. He will eat that. Along with gold fish, those are the new best thing. He loves the fish! Almost as much as he loves Animal crackers.












Yummy!










Rocky, however, still loves jarred baby food. No, mom, I did not try to feed Lon after the cat ate
out of the jar.





Cell Phone Baby!




Lon loves his cell phone. We got him a toy phone, we can record a message for him. . Very cute. I think maybe I am talking too much on the phone, since Lon really enjoys talking on his. When it rings, he sprint crawls to answer it! oops!

A Party and the All New Tummy Cam!

First we will show some pics of Lon with his fire truck. He really loves it, he can move it around but his legs are just a little short to sit on it quiet yet.









He has so much fun in his toyland. Which was formally called our living room. I love this change! Toys everywhere!








Mark and some guys from his office like to play age of empires, but they really frown on that during office hours. On Saturday the guys came over to play. Chong, Aaron, and Vasu. Aaron brought Victoria, his daughter, Julie his wife came and so did Chong's wife Michele. The guys watched the kids as the computers were booting up.



Lon, the one in constant motion, is showing Victoria his play wall. He shared his toys very well. I was proud of him.
We had a nice cookout on the grill and we were all able to eat outside. That was nice, it felt like summer.






Unlce Vasu and Lon.


We should know by the end of the month when the wedding is going to happen! Keep your fingers crossed! We love Uncle Vasu!









I love this picture. It appears that Lon is tweeking bullwinkle's nose! But there is glass between. Bullwinkle, unfortunately, is still not over his jealousy of the baby. Bullwinkle LOVED Victoria, still loves all the neighbor kids. He is just not happy with the child that actually lives here.




Lon loves Gerber Fruit Puffs. Cherry flavor is the best. I put them out on his tray when I am getting lunch ready. They are also teenager approved, Sarah likes them too. A bonus for the bigger people is a half cup only has 25 calories!

This is the tummy cam. I was laying on the floor, Lon jumped on my tummy and was laughing so I took his picture. Thus, the tummy cam. He thought it was super funny. I could not stop laughing ! He is so cute.

Dibs, a Pomeranian and the fire truck.

My son is stubborn, such a suprise. A shocker really. He did not want to eat his baby food. No more baby food! So I fed him a lunch of grilled chicken, pasta salad, and watermelon. It was warm, so I pulled out the Dibs ice cream nuggets. Well, those were a big hit, yet another shocker. He takes after his Grandma Phis in that respect. At least he had some chicken and fruit.....







I told Mark we would work more in the garage today, and so we did. I was working, Lon was supervising. Out of the corner of my eye I see this orange thing move. I look up and there is a puppy Pomeranian. Cute little thing. I got out a bowl and gave him some water. Lon and I went for a walk to find out where the puppy lived. No luck. He looked only about 6, maybe 8 months old. I am used to bitter old nippy poms, however, this pup was sweet as could be. Wanted me to hold him, wanted to be loved. After the little walk, where I was the only one who actually walked anywhere. The pup was carried, and Lon was in the stroller. We loaded up and went to the vet, perhaps the dog was microchiped. It had clipped nails, nicely groomed, it was not a long shot, but no luck. So we went home and as I was feeding Lon lunch, I saw a lady walking down the street seemingly looking for something. I went out and yep, it was her dog. The dog's name is Trigger. I will keep a look out for Trigger this summer and now that I know where he lives, it will be easy to return him to his home.
This is the fire engine. Cousin Matt sent it to Lon for Christmas. For some unknown reason I was completely unable to put it together at Christmas. So it went into the garage. All the parts in a grocery bag. There is sat for the last few months mocking me. Tonight I brought it up from the garage and had it put together in 20 minutes. It works, the wheels turn. LON LOVES IT. I will have some pictures of him with the fire engine soon. I am so pleased I got it together!

Pilchuck Glass School

A couple weeks ago, one of my PEO sister's had an opportunity for a group of us to go up to see the Pilchuck Glass School. Lon and I jumped at the chance. Today was the day we were all scheduled to go. It was a glorious day! About 72 degrees, high scattered and broken clouds. Wonderful. Pilchuck is about an hour or so north of Seattle. Out in the boonies. It is surrounded by trees.

This is a large piece of beautiful glass, just outside under a tree. Wow.

This is a blurb from the pilchuck web site.

"Founded in 1971 by glass artist Dale Chihuly and patrons Anne Gould Hauberg and John H. Hauberg, Pilchuck Glass School has been a primary force in the evolution of glass as a means of artistic expression. By creating an environment with a singular focus on glass, access to resources, and an ever-expanding international community of artists, Pilchuck has become the largest, most comprehensive educational center in the world for artists working in glass."

This is the view from the dining hall. Fidalgo Island and Skagit Bay. How incredible. To be able to study your art, to work with world renowned artists who are there to make you look good! What a great place.

Every year around October they have an auction to raise money for the school. The dinner auction this year is on October 13, at the Westin (perhaps my mother would like to go for her birthday) Just a thought Mom. They have centerpieces they auction off. Since the tour guide told us we could take photos, I did. These are this years centerpieces. They are still working on making enough. This photo is not touched up, nor did I do anything other than click the photo. No special optics on the camera. These objects d'art are incredible. Three layers of glass, a color on the inside, a white layer and the outer color. Then they are sandblasted, and then coated with a special material that will not show any finger prints. As if I would really ever want to handle one of these pieces if I did not have to! Lon was tucked into the baby bjorn and I was standing pretty far away from the tables. No way was I going to let Lon create an accident!

These are more tables with more of the centerpieces. They have all sorts of lovely colors.

I am going to put up a ton of photos of what we saw, it was just all so fascinating.

These are pieces before and during the sandblasting process.

They were working in the *hot shop* making more center pieces. We got to watch one being blown from start to finish. HOW COOL IS THAT!?!

Yep, it is a girl who is working the glass. She has the best looking arms I have seen in a really long time.

They are putting the bottom on to the center piece. The next picture is going to be them opening the centerpiece and then breaking off the pontil.

These a little glass whimsies lined up on the outer shelves of the hot shop. I thought they were adorable. What a fun idea.

This is another piece of gorgeous glass just sitting outside.

This is the Hot Shop, the building on the left, with all the openings to let out all the intense heat. The other buildings are more workshops. The setting is so pretty.

We also were treated to lunch there. I did not want to feed Lon baby chow, one, he takes forever to eat baby chow and it is really messy. They had cold cuts out, so he had turkey, and cheddar cheese, he also had some feta (loved it), he ate some hummus, which he thought was good the first couple finger fulls, but then he was not too pleased with it. But he tried it. It might be too close of a consistency to his baby chow. For breakfast now, he flat refuses his baby chow, and will only eat a 1/4 of a waffle and yogurt. (no, not eggos, but waffles Mommy makes and puts in the freezer so they will keep till we need them)

I am really glad we got to do this tour. Thank you, Virginia! It was a wonderful day outside. Lon did not get any sunburn, my shoulders are a bit pink, and warm. It has been a long time since I had any sunburn. What a great time. I am so happy we went. Lon got to see some things I am sure he will not remember. This is what his Great-Great Grandfather did for a living. He blew glass. Edward Yetka blew all the glass windows in his house. My dad told me when he was a kid it amazed him that a person could blow a window, so he went around and measured the thickness of the glass, there was no more than a quarter inch difference in any of the windows anywhere. Edward had one son follow him into glass blowing, his name was Joe. He moved to Kansas. I found out a bit about Joe, when I just googled the Yetka name. Joe is listed as a master glass blower in the now defunct Fredonia Glass Works. How cool.

Mother's Day

It is so nice to be able to celebrate Mother's Day. How nice it was to have people wish ME happy Mother's Day! We all had a nice little breakfast, and I opened my presents. Mark got me a beautiful bracelet, and Lon got me some fun bath stuff and they both got me a card. Which I will put in my little box to treasure forever.
In the afternoon, we all worked on cleaning up the garage. I have just been tossing things in there, pulling things out, toppling other things and in general letting it just get ugly. I have all the Easter stuff still piled on top of the boxes they go into before going into the crawl space. Well, now all the stuff is IN the boxes, just not in the crawl space yet. I am working on it. I have piles of misc. stuff to go into the crawl space, stuff to go to goodwill, stuff to sell on ebay, stuff to just go away. Pile management. Lon and I are going to work on this again on Tuesday.
I pulled out the baby backpack. What a great thing. Mark really enjoyed it. He wore it around the front yard. Lon really liked it. He thought it was great fun! Even though he tried to crawl out of it, he found he was very securely strapped in.
It really was a nice day. As I made the piles in the garage, with Lon's supervision. Mark washed the cars. So I also got a nice clean car. How fun!

In one of the boxes of *too big just yet* clothes for Lon. (thank you again Auntie Karen and Big Cousin Matt) We found a tiny sun hat. I remember Matt wearing it at the beach when he was three months old. It does not fit Lon at all anymore. It is going into the box of *now too small* clothes.
Lon was having a really good time out in the fresh air. He was in is Einstein (thank you Godfather Damian) That is still a favorite toy!
Lon was either in that or being held. And he was good with both!





Lon is having fun laughing at Mommy making little piles of stuff. Lon seems to have fun where ever he goes! He laughs alot lately. It is wonderful!

We all had a fun Mother's Day.
I still am in awe that I can celebrate Mother's Day! So much fun!

The Easter Bunny's Latest Gift!

Lon got a box on the front step yesterday. I did not order anything (at least not from that catalog!) Hmm, I opened it up and it was a late present from the Easter Bunny! Back-orders, the peril of catalog shopping. As you can see, he loves the little stool and has already tried to chew on each of the letters. It is a very nice stool! He does really like it! Thank you Grandma Phis... ooops I mean Easter Bunny!