Martha is:

- thrilled that she just bought 2 tickets to see Jonny Lang

- feeling like she'll have to cull a child as she sorts through her photo book looking for the least longed-for page to remove

- super excited that cousin Kate's furniture is finally arriving

- sad that with buying the Jonny Lang tickets, she will no longer be able to afford the beautiful coat she tried on a few weeks ago

- happy to have wasted an hour reading Robin McKinley's site and blog. Her writing never fails to amuse. I also have a love/hate relationship with her need to italicize

- wanting to start about 5 different projects tonight. It's a pity there's only an hour 'til bedtime. And that's stretching it.

- internally laughing that Cafepress has a customized landing page for a design I've never sold a shirt for (and yes, I realize it's just a page populated by tags. But it's still funny!)

- pigging out on cupcakes. They're just that good.

- wasting precious time on Shelfari. Oh, for the love of books!

Monkey Monkey Underpants

Monkey Monkey Underpants
Originally uploaded by trippykel

I've been designing more logos and pictures for t-shirts again lately, for my cafepress shops. This picture is a Gilmore Girls reference, where Lorelai is talking about her stream of consciousness, and ended up with "Hockey puck, rattlesnakake, monkey monkey underpants". It was really funny at the time.

I had a movie night with the girls on Thursday, we watched Harry Potter 6 and played Scene It. It was good to have some people over again.

I'm also working on our 2009 digital photo album. I'm making it using the MyPublisher.com software again. I've made two albums with them so far, and have been really pleased with both the print quality and the software's ease of use. My mom is trying it out now too, and she's also enjoying the program. Basically you add your photos and text, and get a coffee-table quality book of all your pictures printed off and mailed to you. Hooray for photo books!

Cade is currently sick, with a runny nose, a bit of a fever, and a dry little cough. He's not feeling too bad though, which is nice. It means I still get my sleep! Cade has also discovered that he can push his stand-up toys around the house, and we had to install a child gate at the top of the stairs after I found that he'd gotten himself to the other corner of the house by pushing his piano! He's still a happy kid, and is very clever and brave - he'll figure out how to get places you didn't think he could. He will take chances on moving between his toy and the couch or TV stand, and just kind of lean forward to whichever object he can't quite reach. He falls a lot, but doesn't usually mind too much. I'm happy about that!

Tonight I'm heading off to Jess' birthday party, so hooray for that!

The headband snap

The headband snap
Originally uploaded by trippykel

It's been a long time since I've bloged. A long time. Close to a month, in fact! I'm trying to remember what's happened.

The biggest thing that happened was, of course, Christmas. We started by heading down to Edmonton to visit J's family - Cade's grandparents, aunts, uncles, and a great-uncle or two as well. It was a busy, enjoyable time. It was great to see everyone again. Grandpapa taught Cade how to play soccer - or at least kick a ball, toddle after it, and kick it again. It's his new favorite game. Cade managed to fuss enough that he also spent about half of each night sleeping with Mom and Dad, which meant that none of us got very much sleep. We got our traditional family photos taken, and are hoping to have our sets of prints by the end of January - a shot of Cade, one of our family (the three of us), and one of the whole family. It was more fun than usual this year trying to get a good photo, since we now have two babies in the mix. We also went to see Avatar, my first 3D movie since Michael Jackson in my teens. Avatar was really well done, and I had a great time watching it. Go James Cameron!

We then stopped by the Elves' for lunch and a little visit, and to show Cade off. He was introduced to the first dogs he'd ever met, and did pretty well - he wasn't scared, but did pull a bit of fur.

We still had an extra four days or so left, and were halfway to the Snips' place, so we figured that we'd drive on down and surprise them. And surprise them we did! Everyone was thrilled to have us visiting, and we managed to get two visits with the now great-grandparents in. I got a chance to buy a new swimsuit and swim some rowdy laps at the pool where I grew up swimming, and had fun trying to teach Maria elementary back. I think she's got the basics down. Now it's just the final product finesse-ing that's left to be done.

Oh, and we all got riotously sick over New Years. It turned out to be a stomach virus, so we all threw up, blew out the other end, and slept several days away. It was gloriously horrible. Thank goodness we're all recovered now!

Well, I'm off to continue working on my digital photo album for 2009 - this will be my third year making one. Great print quality, good price and good service - check out mypublisher.com. And no, this was not an endorsed advertisement. I really do love the product! Huzzah.