Feb. 7: Mid- Katie's Birthday Season

Well, I'm just mad. Some tiny little man has taken away all my fun. The Voss Family.

Mom and Len were here this past weekend. Mom and I got some rare shopping time, and Vic and I had a no-kids afternoon that we greatly enjoyed too. Mom made Katie a gorgeous princess dress for her birthday, complete with sparkly shoes and fun accessories (photo here). She loved prancing around and showing it off (um... to clarify: Katie pranced, my mom did not, though she would probably not turn down an opportunity if presented). A lot of Katie's birthday gifts fit into a dress-up theme: Darlene made her a bride ensemble, Appie is sending a very cool Disney princess costume trunk, her friend Eliza gave her beautiful wings, a tiara, and a magic wand, and we got her a fairy princess outfit and a chef uniform. She's also getting a 3-panel room divider with a mirror, hooks, and organizer boxes for keeping all her dress-up things in one place. Well, my plan is for it all to stay organized...

Katie's birthday party was yesterday--read all about it here. More celebrations are to come this next week. Wednesday is her actual birthday, and as if Daddy having the day off isn't special enough, she also is quite proud to get to choose where the four of us will have lunch. I'm betting/hoping it'll be "Passagetti" Factory--that's her favorite, and we think it's more than pretty okay too.

Valentine candy corn just isn't the same as the stuff at Halloween. Bleah.

We're about to make another major change in our house. Since it may not work for the long-term, we're trying to do it in a very temporary way so we can change it right back if we need to. We're thinking about moving the office to the front room downstairs and then making the upstairs room into the kids' playroom. We're so tired of the constant mess of toys up anddownstairs, and hope this will relieve some of that. To separate the two areas of the front room, we're looking at putting up a wall of bookcases. If it works and we like the arrangement, we'll probably make things more permanent and put in French doors to the office. If this move is successful you can be sure to find before-and-after photos on manullang.com.

Debi seems to have made it to Scotland in one piece. She said she's having fun, but that was before she'd tried driving. Yikes. I haven't heard much else and am anxiously awaiting more details.

Not that writing about Debi reminded me of this, but I watched "Mean Girls" last week. I think Tina Fey is hilarious, and this movie was pretty funny in parts, but it didn't have the charm of, say, "Clueless." I give it 2.5 stars out of 5.

And another movie theme that did not make me think of Debi... I watched one of last year's HBO films, "Normal," with Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange. Interesting. This guy decides, after 25 years of marriage, that he wants a sex-change operation. What makes it interesting is that his wife--after going through a predictable reaction to his announcement--actually accepts it and they continue to live together. I thought the movie said a lot about love: we find it where we find it.

I wanted to get Katie's party pictures posted, so it's just a quick update for now. I'll post the other pics and write again later this week.

J.