Playing, Catch-up

We've been a weird combination of incredibly busy and glued-to-the-sofa immobile around here for the last few weeks. We all caught that "virus that's going around" and were laid up for a week. On either end of that we've been running around, visiting, making stuff and going to cool events. I finally participated in an ATC trade posted on one of my yahoo groups. The theme was Spring, and I had spent a good deal of time making one, before finding out that I had to send out 6! So, while I was magazine mosaicing the remaining five, Lillian was keeping me company and making pipe cleaner animals and her own magazine mosaics.

my first ATC- water color and cut paper , and the mosaics before they were cut into cards Lillian's Diamond in a Mine and Plant on a Nice Day mosaics and pipe-cleaner Iguana (it may be a chameleon, not sure)

Right before Easter we went to Corduroy's 40th Birthday party at a local bookstore at Luca's behest. Luca brought his Corduroy and Lillian made it a birthday hat to wear to the party. We listened to various Corduroy books, visited with Corduroy himself (the six foot tall man in a suit variety) and had sprinkled cupcakes. Luca was beside himself with JOY!


We also have a new addition to our household (well actually six if we're lucky). No, I'm not talking about another dog, although that has crossed my mind recently... We have a little house Wren that's made her nest in our old pond filter on the shelves in our carport. The shelf is only about 3ft. off the ground (which means it's cat accessible) and it's right next to the door so we've been having to be really careful coming and going for the last week and a half. She's got 5 eggs and as far as we can tell she's been able to keep Milo at bay, but when the chicks hatch we'll have to McGyver some cat deterrent apparatus.

The nest and below where it's located. The fish filter is behind the white plastic seed bucket.

Oh, and onto the most recent news, we went to a book signing/talk with Lillian's favorite author Mo Willems, responsible for such classics as Don't let Pigeon Drive the Bus, Pigeon Eats a Hot Dog as well as My friend is Sad and Knuffle Bunny. We've been counting the days to the signing and pre-ordered his new book (whose title was undisclosed) . He was very entertaining and funny, gave a pigeon drawing lesson, a reading and answered questions. When a little kid asked why he wrote a new pigeon book he answered with a deadpan delivery "We're renovating our house". We waited in line to have the book signed (which, by the way, is titled Pigeon wants a Puppy) talked with him a minute and snapped a quick picture. I asked Lillian to scootch in a little closer to him so I could get them both in the frame, and commented "I don't think he bites" and ended up getting a pretty cute picture!

That's going to be it for now, gotta go play Scrabble with the kids before they encase themselves in scotch tape.