2nd Birthday Photo Tribute

In my grand tradition of waiting at least 6 months to post about projects, I am pleased to present my little boy’s 2nd birthday photo. (His birthday was in August. Procrastinators of the world, unite! Later! Whenever we get around to it! I’ll get back to you with the details! I probably won’t!)

Awwww, such a cutie. I decided before his first birthday that I wanted to make one of these for his birthday every year, and eventually collect them all into a little album together. I like the idea of capturing not just how he looked around each birthday, but some little aspects of his personality that might otherwise be forgotten. And yes, it took me 6 months to make this one, whereas I posted his first birthday’s photo tribute last year just days after his birthday had passed. If this procrastination rate continues, I’ll be finishing up his 18th birthday photo just in time to celebrate his 50th birthday.

And speaking of procrastination, I kept meaning to take actual birthday photos around the big day. I was picturing him holding a giant bouquet of balloons, maybe a big number 2, maybe confetti or streamers falling around him as I snapped photos. I’m sure it won’t require much imagination on your part to picture me putting this off until it was so far past his birthday that it seemed flat-out laughable to plan and execute a birthday shoot. So I ended up just finding the cutest picture on my computer that was relatively near his birthday—this one was actually a photo he took himself with the camera remote and tripod in his Halloween costume, 2 months after turning 2. He looks precious, it’s close enough to his birthday that it’ll do, and there’s plenty of white space around him to add text, so I figured it was a good choice.

After fiddling with the colors/brightness in Picasa (I have no idea what I’m doing), I added the text with Picmonkey. I’m happy with how it turned out, and resolving to not put the birthday photos off for 6 months next year.

Once more, because I think it’s so cute . . .

Halloweiners

I fulfilled a long-time dream this year of proudly dressing myself and my family as the big nerds (slash big damn heroes) that we are for Halloween.

If you don’t know who we are dressed as, shame on you. A pox on your home and your herds! I’ve mentioned my love of Firefly plenty—if you haven’t watched it and the movie Serenity yet, you are missing out. It is my favorite show of all time.

I dressed as Kaylee, the mechanic and all-around sweetheart:

It was a super easy costume to pull together—I found the coveralls on ebay a month or so ago (they came to about $20, including shipping), and picked up a pink and purple top at the thrift store. Toss in some boots, natural-looking makeup, and loose wavy hair, and you’re set.

Forrest was the star of the show (literally and figuratively) as a teeny Malcolm Reynolds:

His costume would have been cooler if he would have worn the holster and gun I bought for him, but you know how 2-year olds are (in case you don’t know: uncooperative). The hardest part of his costume was finding suspenders—not many stores sell them. I finally ran into some in an adorable little children’s boutique called Sunday’s Child in Cottonwood Heights (UT). I used RIT dye (color: Wine) on a plain white button-up from the thrift store since I couldn’t imagine finding a toddler-size maroon shirt. Knee-high boots would have been amazing, too, but it turns out they don’t make those for boys. Weird.

Jeff dressed as Jayne, but wasn’t home in time for pictures. Rest assured, he is the proud owner of a pretty cunning new hat, crocheted in haste during Forrest’s nap yesterday, completed just in time for trick-or-treating.

Without a doubt, the highlight of the day was tweeting a picture of our costumes and tagging Nathan Fillion (one of my many celebrity crushes, he played Mal on the show) and Jewel Staite (Kaylee!), both of whom were 110% awesome in replying to my tweet. JUST IMAGINE THE GEEK OUT WHEN I SAW THIS:

But when I called Jeff at work in a tizzy to tell him that Nathan Fillion and I are besties now, he didn’t answer . . . so I of course kept calling, over and over in rapid succession, until he finally picked up in a panic since he thought someone must be seriously injured or seriously dead for me to call 10 times in a row.

I maintain that the subject of my call really was that urgent.

A whopping 2 people knew who we were dressed as when we went trick-or-treating through our neighborhood, and I think the rest didn’t realize we were dressed up at all. It didn’t help that Forrest’s costume was nearly identical to his standard weekly church outfit, but let me tell you something: when the very actors that you are dressed as approve of your costumes on twitter, you stop caring what your neighbors think of your ensemble.

Also, Forrest’s understanding of trick-or-treating seems to be a simple one: some exchange of candy happens when a door is opened. He never figured out who was supposed to hand over or receive the candy, and generally tried to empty his treat bucket into our neighbors’ candy bowls when they opened their doors, and even offered licks of the lollipop he was already sucking to quite a few other kids, and also dogs.

General rundown of how our trick-or-treating went:

Forrest: (knocks super softly, usually with just one finger, so it's more of a gentle tapping)

Person opens door.

Forrest: Chi-o-cheeeeee! (while trying to get past the neighbor and enter their home)

Person: Aren’t you cute! Here you go. (holds out candy bowl)

Forrest: (reaches into his own candy bucket, pulls something out, places it in their bowl.) Dank you!

Person: You can keep that one.

Forrest: Dank you?

Person: Here, you can take a candy.

Forrest: Chi-o-cheee? (Holds out lollipop for neighbor to lick.)

Me: Okay, let's go . . . thanks . . .

We’ll work on clearing up the details for next year.

Eight Deep Thoughts

1. Have you noticed the 5 or 10 or however many Silhouette giveaways happening on various craft blogs recently? I did not enter a single one, but I’ve read all the “Silhouette Winner Announced!” posts and felt disappointed when my name wasn’t listed.

2. I pretended not to hear Forrest when he woke up talking and giggling after his nap today because I really wanted to finish the crochet project I was this close to completing. He either went back to sleep or is still moping silently over being ignored, two hours later. Parenting win? Or fail? Never mind, don’t tell me.

(photo from a different nap)

3. Have you tried Kellogg’s Krave cereal? I protested the purchase of this cereal at the grocery store and now, a day later, the box is empty. Jeff had one bowl. I polished off the rest. Sad part: it wasn’t even that good. Definitely no Chocolate Chex.

4. Have you ever had that awful experience in the gym when someone gives you a strange look and for one horrifying moment you wonder if you were singing the Party Rock Anthem out loud without realizing it because, if you were, you wouldn’t have been able to hear yourself over your own headphones?

5. I watched Yo Gabba Gabba with Forrest for the first time ever today. Dude, that show is weird. But at least I finally understand this custom-order hat that I made 3 months ago:

6. One of my Christmas gifts from Jeff was a really nice, really dangerous new kitchen knife. He predicted I would injure myself with the new knife the first time I used it. But I didn’t slice my thumb open until the second use. Ha! I showed him! (And this was only 2 days after losing a copious amount of blood from my other thumb in a salad tong-related incident. Don’t ask.)

7. I dreamed the other night that I was married to Nathan Fillion. My first feeling upon waking wasn’t guilt or remorse for marrying myself off to another man, but regret that I had dream-married the slightly older, still lovable but undeniably aging Rick Castle version of Nathan Fillion rather than the young, trim, and dashing Malcolm Reynolds version.

8. Are you tired of hearing about New Year’s Resolutions? Here’s mine: eat more Chocolate Chex. Also, more Nathan Fillion dreams.

Ugliest Crochet Project Ever? Or Awesomest?

(I had tentatively scheduled a crochet along Q&A for today, but I don't think we need it--there haven't been very many questions, which I guess is great and means you feel good about this whole crochet thing! If you've been hanging on to any questions, don't be shy! And don't forget to add your pictures to the Maybe Matilda flickr group if you'd like to share your work. I've had so much fun seeing how your cowls are coming along!)

Let's see how many Firefly fans are reading this. My sister-in-law helped me out with a Father's Day gift for Jeff back in June, and requested that instead of sending a check for the money she spent, I recreate the iconic Jayne hat for her.

It's probably the ugliest thing I've ever made.

But it's definitely my favorite.

Pretty cunning, don'tcha think?


(note reads: "Girl walks down the street in that hat, people know she's not afraid of anything.")

In case you don't know what's going on, here's a clip for you. Watch. Enjoy. Develop an embarrassing crush on Captain Tightpants. Then join me in the deep, hopeless, crushing sense of despair that comes of knowing there will never be more Firefly.

(You can watch the whole series on Netflix!)