Saturday, September 10, 2005

Artistic License

Gabriel's painting

We did a lot of work on Chip's room today. We painted his light fixture and reinstalled it, we installed a big star light on the wall, and we installed his curtain rod and hung the curtains. P was struck with inspiration after painting the glass, and after finding some canvases downstairs, and created a painting for the room that will go above his dresser. Here is a photo of it. You might notice that the words in the clouds match the word "imagine" on his rocking chair. That's because we used the same stencil that his Grammie used.

When we finished with the curtains, G was more than ready to go to sleep, so we didn't take pictures yet. We definitely will tomorrow (today, technically). In the meantime, enjoy the painting and feel free to tell us how much you love it (ha ha!). We're more than pleased with the way it turned out!

Patrick's first birthday

In other news, today was Chip's friend Patrick's first birthday. After tutoring, we went to his new house to celebrate. He's already walking and is very much like Gabriel. He likes to open and close doors, is quick to smile, and loves to practice walking. We gave him a little baseball tee so he could practice hitting the ball. His daddy (Tom) is very eager for Patrick to learn to play. We can identify with that - we practice throwing the ball with Chip every day, and we've even started teaching him to catch, not that he gets it at all. Anyway, we got there just in time for Patrick's nap and had some cake and chatted for a while. We had a great time.

And we might as well mention the stupid game. Matt cheered ("Why don't they just run it up the middle again", "We suck; we're going to lose", "Michigan sucks", etc.), Patty fell asleep, and after a frustrating game, a great nap, and a thorough kitchen cleaning (M cleans when he's angry, incidentally, the most useful information P learned when we met), we decided to adopt a second team. It had to be one that is good, one that will not play Michigan and will not have an impact on our season, and one that has a UM connection. We chose LSU, which has a former Michigan assistant coach and can potentially beat lots of SEC teams that we do not like, especially Tennessee, Florida, and the Tide, not to mention UGA, whose fans are rabid. Anyway, we were very happy with our choice when they beat Arizona State in one of the best games we've seen in a long time.