A new week

We had a fun weekend. We managed to cook/eat more at home which is a good thing. We had our trip to DHR (Brian's haircut), rearranged Mina's room back to how it was before (she wasn't sleeping well and putting things back helped). We saw the fam on Sunday night for dinner and celebrating Colin's bday.

Mina was miserable yesterday - slept poorly the night before and woke up with a fever. She was glued to me all day and didn't want to eat. The Pedi ruled out anything requiring drugs, and she is home one more day today with Brian, already feeling better. It kills me that she seems to have the bronchial issues I had as a kid, although hers are frequent, are much, much better in severity (I slept in a croup tent quite often).

I cannot believe she will be 2 on Friday! She has all of the personality of a 2 year old, which is both fun and challenging.

Our tap class was cancelled last week, but I did make it back to ballet. Oh boy, did that short holiday break set me back. I need to get regular exercise in addition to dance class. Walking, hiking, workout videos. Whatever.

Having a boss is exciting, and she will do a good job kicking us all in the butt and getting more strategically oriented, I think.

What we've been up to, in pictures

I hate the new (well, not so new) FLICKR setup, but it is what it is.

We had a runner installed on our stairs/landing. We bought a nice thick 100% wool remnant and had enough left over to do an 'installed runner' of sorts in our hallway too. We went with Mal Elfman's on Moody Street, Waltham. Very happy with them!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/11949262606/

Nephew Colin celebrates his birthday today (my sister's middle kid) - he's 5 now. Space is at a premium in her apartment but they always love playing with Mina's toy kitchen at our house, so I made them a toy kitchen in a box. I purchased the kitchen stickers from a very neat place http://www.stickerskinz.com/. The box was from our attic, it was filled with some new and some thrifted kid kitchen stuff.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/11948851384/

We've been busy prepping for Mina's bday party. It is small (close family and family-like friends). I've had fun putting together favors for the kids: bags with art supplies (Mina is a budding artist), most of which I bought for super cheap with the post-back to school sale at Target. Brian found a Batman ice-cube tray, and decided he wanted to make chocolates. I made some very simple capes for the kids out of felt and stick-on velcro. No sewing required.
Cape bag: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/11948389325/
Favor box: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/11948819564/
Cape pattern: http://www.momsrising.org/blog/how-to-make-a-superhero-cape-by-lara-from-howdoesshe/
Chocolates: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/11948795424/

I miss sewing/knitting and that general kind of creative thing, but have no energy for that at the end of the day. My 'free time' is often dance classes twice a week. I'm missing doing creative stuff. Also missing more regular exercise. I need to get this back into my life again! It is silly how much fun I've had with just simple party prep stuff.