Tea Party Time! ...in no way associated with ridiculous GOP movement :P

Phew!
Last few days have either been busy or tiring...or both.

Sunday was spent preparing for my little Tea party on Monday. Or rather, most of the day was 'wasted' away doing god-knows-what-else and then the evening and early hours were frittered away in baking and sandwich preparation.

And for some reason, my usual OK luck with baking seemed to depart, leaving behind flattened, holey cupcakes and unfluffy sponge cake. I think in the end, they both worked out and were quite yummy - the boy and I have been munching on the leftovers :o)

So here are some of the results of moi staying up til 2 am on Sunday...

Whole Wheat bread with Basil and Garlic Flavored Goat Cheese and thinly sliced Ham - These disappeared completely :o)

Flat and holey chocolate cupcakes baked from scratch...frosting, not so much ;o)

Traditional British Sponge...which wasn't so spongy. And with apple preserves filling instead of raspberry,
'cause all my jams decided to die on me, i.e. had expired :o(

And my lovely Cranberry-Orange Scones!
Which for some reason i always make extra small. I never seem to think the batter will yield a lot.
I'll have to remember that next time.

The baby mostly behaved on Sunday, allowing me the freedom to make these goodies. But then again, I started so late, that she was almost down for the evening by that time. Her Papa was kind enough to bathe F. and give her her last bottle of the day. Then again, he's usually the one who bathes her and gives her last bottle, so no biggie there.

Monday morning was spent running around attempting to get the apartment in a less than shambolic state so that two small children and an adult woman would not run away screaming upon entering the place. I think I managed it OK, with a few things swept under the metaphorical rug ;o)

Little sidenote: my mother apparently used to literally do this when she was a teenager, and lived with her sister in some rented rooms - would sweep the dirt under their real rugs :D

Baby was pretty agreeable during that hurried (and sleep-deprived) morning and was the model of mellowness once our Tea party guests arrived... Which means that then ppl won't believe me when I say she's part-pterodactyl :P

I think as usual, she was simply stunned by looking at other children, even if they're older than her. The same happens when I take her for her monthly doctor visits. She'll just stare and stare in wonder that there are other creatures smaller than Mama and Papa and Vóvó and Vôvô (that's grandma and grandpa in Portuguese) in the world.

Once she can actually sit up on her own, I'll see if I can wrestle up some baby playdates, so she can get used to other kiddies.

Food and fun was had at our little tea party - though not a lot of tea.
Note to self: have lemonade on hand instead and call it tea ;o)

And prezzies were exchanged.
I have the bad habit of hoarding gifts waaaay past their due date. Exhibit A: gave my friend her Christmas gift this Monday (sheepish grin).
Sometimes I forget to give someone their gift, sometimes it's delayed because I decided to make something (most common reason). It's definitely something I have to work on. Then again, isn't it fun to get a birthday gift out of the blue, i.e. 3 months after your actual birthday?

Surprise!

No?
Er, my bad (second sheepish grin).

Speaking of gifts, this here is something I've been working on for a while. My little friend's birthday was in May, so yeah, a little while ;o)

Little Treasure Box. E. likes butterflies so i thought she might like this.
I only noticed after i photographed it that some of the butterflies end up looking 3D. Pleased about that.

And this is one of the drawers. Seeing as it's meant to keep treasures,
i thought I'd line each one individually with different color felt for an extra little pop.

I could've still worked on it a bit more, but I felt if I didn't give it to E. this week, that it'd end up being here until her next birthday ;o)

I'll catch up with the rest of the week so far, in the next post.

Zzzzzzz (or how i finally got some rest)

So, the boy's employer was nice enough to allow him to work from home a couple of times a month. Soon it'll be down to only once a month (how will i cope?) and then after a little while it'll stop altogether (cue sounds of crying), but at least for the rest of the month, I get to have him stay home - usually on Fridays - which allows me to mostly, well, sleep :o)

Now, that's not the reason we originally requested this arrangement. Originally we thought this would be very helpful so that I could go to doctor's appointments and such without having to drag the baby with me. Particularly since my dentist is in Manhattan (in the Chrysler building no less - such cool views as you're getting your skull drilled into) and the thought of dragging F. with me is not such a welcome thing. Besides, who'd watch the baby while I was getting my teeth bored into?

Anywho, that was the original reason for having this set up and we have on occasion done just that. I needed to go to the doctor, and so the boy would watch F. while i went off to do whatever needed to be done. But mostly, it's become Mama-in-Training's resting day. When I take a whole lot of sleep deprivation and try to catch up on all of it on a bi-monthly Friday. F.'s Papa will take over and watch her as I sleep until noonish and then try to rejoin the ranks of the conscious (OK, semi-conscious) human race.

And so it came to be this past Friday. Aaaaaah! That was nice :o)
I believe F. mostly behaved, although i do remember hearing some grumblings. But they were minor ones. At some point during the day i was even able to go outside and check out my other little growing things.

First rose from my newest rosebush. Unfortunately i did not capture it at its' bloomiest, but i still think it's perty :o)

Not sure what this is. It kind of just showed up in this pot. I'd planted something
else in it and then this little one started to pop up. The Big Mama (my mama)
said not to yank it out and here it is in all its' pink cuteness.

Didn't even know this particular plant produced flowers until i spotted these. Squeeee! for nature!

Stinkiest plant in the world, but the flowers are pretty.

Carrots! I'm growing carrots on my back porch! And they actually seem to be doing OK.

Second blooming of my first rosebush...which is coming along so well.
And the Big Mama didn't want me to prune it :P

And this is my sad, sad ivy. Why is it sad? Because even though it looks pretty healthy and I've had it for a while
it doesn't seem to grow beyond this. Any gardeners out there have any suggestions?

I have quite a few other planties growing out there (including the planter of death. Anything i plant in there is dug up by the resident squirrel. I love the bugger, but come'on!), but these were looking particularly happy on Friday.

After this, the day kind of flew by and by the time the Big Mama came by to pick up F. for the evening, I really didn't want the baby to go. But the Big Mama looooves having the baby over and we had somewhere to go on Saturday, so i reluctantly handed F. over.

Saturday was therefore, pretty F. free. The boy and I went to see 'War Horse' at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Btw, if there's a production of it anywhere near where you live, do go and see it. It's one of the most wonderful theater experiences I've ever had....even if the particular actor playing the human lead was atrocious.

Side note: If your character is supposed to be 14, 16, 18 in your play, maybe don't get an adult to play him. Particularly if the adult thinks that playing a 14 year old boy, means he has to speak like a 5 year old - 'Gee, golly!'

But the horses (and all the other human characters) were amazing as well as the whole production of it - lighting, sound, the whole thing. Just superb.

One thing i did notice (and keep on noticing whenever i get the chance) is how skewed the audience age for any theater production tends to be. There were basically only tourists and elderly people when we went to see it. Granted it was a matinee, but I've seen this at nightly performances as well. I know there are some discounts for younger people, but either our local youth don't know about it, or it's not enough. I know I've looked into it for me and i no longer qualify for any discounts. This doesn't however mean that I've suddenly increased my income for the year. It'd be great if there were more ways to get discounted tixs for those that maybe have outgrown the youthful prices but not the youthful income.

Oh, and this came in the mail on Friday:

How lovely is this? I loved the poem, and the little stamps and the big stamps :o)

Off to work on a multitude of projects.
What's this you say about resting on Sundays? Er...not in this household ;o)