Bookaboo

http://bookaboo.ning.com/video/103820-bookaboo-meat-loaf

(The link goes to a 12 minute excerpt of Meatloaf reading the story to Bookaboo.)

I learned about this great reading of "The Lamb Who Came to Dinner" from a high school friend who posted it on Pinterest. Tess LOVES the story, and has watched it several times over the last few days. Tonight at dinner, she launched into this complicated retelling/acting out of the story for us. When she started it a second time, I grabbed my phone and started to record it. I missed the opening, but here's the majority of the story as told by Tess: (You may want to watch the story from the link above for reference.)



At the end, Tess asks "Mommy tell me about the bison." A couple of days ago I told her a story about how a herd of bison walked right around our car in South Dakota. She loves the story, and wants me to retell it over and over, and then she loves to retell it. We are in a big "retelling" thing right now.

Teaching her to carry her baby African style

Gingerbread Cookies (from December)

Tess helped me cut out some gingerbread cookies this year.

Ready to begin? "I want to do it, Mommy!"

 Press hard.

 Add some flour, so the dough doesn't get too sticky.

 She took great care to roll out the bit I left for her.

 Can't say we really got any more cookies out of it, though. ;)

Happiness is a "moussey" chocolate cake

Even though I swore it was too rich for a kid's birthday party, Eric and Tess insisted that I get the chocolate mousse cake. Tess couldn't have been more delighted, and she scarfed that thing down! It was almost too rich for me, but she had no trouble polishing off her piece.

(Paul is reaching over with a napkin there. Tess is single-minded in her purpose.)

Missing Photos

Between the trip to Florida, Tess's party, then moving out, moving home, and living with furniture and books piled around our ears, I haven't gotten around to downloading photos from my camera. There are a couple of really cute ones, including this shot of Tess watching her birthday cake come out.

I'll have to do some make-up posts soon. Though right now I need to put a couple hundred books back on some new shelves.

Renovation Completed!

On January 17th, we began the bathroom renovation that I spent the fall planning. We moved over to Lenny's house for nine days while our bathroom was gutted and retiled. Then we moved home once the toilet was reinstalled. We still had to wait another 6 days for our bathtub and shower area to be finished. (We hired Bathfitters, a company that installs acrylic tubs and shower bodies over the old tub that could no longer be reglazed or repainted.) Once the tub and shower were finished, we waited another 4 days for our contractor to return to finish painting and install the sink. It took three weeks in total, but we finally have a new, clean bathroom!

While we were at Len's I got a phone call from our management company. They were finally ready to fix the water damage in Tess's room from this past August. Perfect timing, right? Well, I decided that if we were living without a bathroom sink, we might as well tear Tess's room apart. I'm not sure that was the best decision, as it made the apartment almost unliveable for a week. But that week is past, and we have now put the room back together.

Most of this wall, part of another, and about a third of the ceiling had water damage. It took two days to replaster, and then another day to repaint the room. But as you can see, the ceiling and walls now look beautiful:

We repainted a light blue. I need to put the pictures back up. We're trying a new layout.

We also had these shelves sanded and treated since we had to take down all our books anyway. They look so pretty now. It's a pity to cover them with books.

And...the bathroom:

The demolition uncovered a whole in the wall for a hamper. We put in a little shelf. It's so tiny as to be almost useless, but not entirely useless.

We painted a light color. I kind of wish we'd gone with that darker paint swatch you see propped up against the wall.

The new sink. Our bathroom is so small that it's very hard to photograph.