Crafty Goodness

My friend Caroline is going to have a booth at the Artiquerque Crafters craft fair in March. I went with her to Hobby Lobby to pick up some craft supplies. She's making fridge magnets and hair thingies for adults. While I was there, I got totally sucked in looking at all the neat stuff!

After much oooing and ahhhhing, Caroline talked me into manning the booth together. Now I'm making TONS of kids stuff to sell. I've made a bunch of flowery clips and headbands, and made three tutu's this afternoon! I think I might make some pretty wands, too. I'm ordering some more crocheted headbands to attach the big flowers to, and I think I might make some clippies that match the tutus I made. There might be feathers involved.

If you guys have any other suggestions for pretty things I could make, let me know!

Maya's Playhouse

Maya got a new car seat. Which means she got a new big box to play in. She likes to take her baby and her bottle in there and lay down whilst playing with the flap on the inside. It's pretty cute.

Here she is playing peek-a-boo with her PJ's. 'Scuse her messy face.

New Kitchen Fixture

I'm playing a little catch up. Last weekend we installed a new lighting fixture in the kitchen. What we thought would be a 20 minute fix turned into a two-day endeavor, though!

The little electrical box thingamajig (I can't remember the name of it...leave me alone!) was totally ancient, and we couldn't find anything that would replace it without tearing up the drywall on the ceiling so we could put in a new bracket. Sooooo, that's what we ended up doing.

While the extra work sucked, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Our old light was an ugly fluorescent box. Yuck! Here's our new, lovely light.

HA!

The Ministry of Silly Walkers

Maya is officially its newest member! When she walked in her little walker she always leaned forward, bent her knees, and walked on tiptoe. Now that she's started trying to walk on her own, her technique is a little silly. Needless to say, the walker is now up for sale at Other Mothers!

Happy MLK Day!

MLK's last speech before being assassinated. Auto-tuned for your listening pleasure.

Maya playing Peek-a-Boo

Kids Museum in Pictures and Video

This is Why Pete LOVES his Employer:

Pete just sent me an e-mail saying how much he loves working for ITT. They just sent this out to all their employees, and are offering to match any contributions that employees wish to make to help out in Haiti. Here's what the e-mail said:


Since we heard the news about the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck the country of Haiti on Tuesday, ITT people across the company have been mobilizing to determine what help we can provide in this devastating situation.

No ITT employees were affected, but we expect that some of you may have relatives or friends that live in the region and that some of our business partners may have also suffered losses. Given that there is no way to reach people that are in the Port-au-Prince area at this time, if you have family members there or if you know of any of our business partners who may need assistance, please send those names immediately to Scott Crum, our Senior VP of Human Resources (scott.crum@itt.com). Scott and his team will work to make sure we provide any help that we can.

I also want to let you know what ITT is doing to help with the larger issues. Under our ITT Watermark program, we have set aside funds to deploy in emergency situations around the globe along with our non-profit partner, Mercy Corps. We have already wired $100,000 to them and they are using our contribution to deploy Mercy Corps experts to assess the immediate situation and to begin to provide relief.

If you would like to make a contribution under ITT Watermark to be used specifically to help in Haiti, please click on this link https://donate.mercycorps.org/watermark.htm. Under this program, we normally provide a matching gift for your contributions to our non-profit partners. Because of the scope of the crisis, for the next 60 days, we are going to double match the contributions you make to Mercy Corps, up to U.S. $5000 for a maximum of U.S. $10,000. The contributions will be rapidly released to provide aid where it is needed quickly.

Our Emergency Response team is also determining what ITT equipment (pumps, night vision goggles, portable communications systems) can be sent to Haiti to help with the huge issues that will likely be ongoing for the foreseeable future. In addition, we would like to offer any expertise we have on the large infrastructure and repair issues that the country will now be facing. If any of you have specific skills that you think could be helpful to our emergency response team, please send an email to Bjorn von Euler, our Director of Corporate Philanthropy (bjorn.voneuler@itt.com) who is working to coordinate ITT’s overall response.

ITT people are always quick to mobilize when there is a crisis and I know this extremely tragic situation in Haiti will be another opportunity for us to demonstrate how we care. It is hard to imagine exactly what the people of Haiti are enduring. We are going to do our best to try to alleviate some of the suffering and provide help where our particular expertise – in products, services or skills – can do the most good. We will keep you posted on our efforts.

Maya's First Potrait

...and, believe it or not, my mom didn't do it! This really cool sketch artist from California known online as BayaniArtist saw the video of Maya crying in her swing. He decided to do a sketch of her, and used a photo that Terry took as the model. This is the result:


He titled it "do I look like I got the blues?"

The same artist also did a sketch of my grandfather from a picture he saw on my mom's facebook page. It is much more polished, and is also AMAZING.

This one's for Katie....

GOULET!

First Trip to the Aquarium!

We took Maya to the aquarium for the very first time this morning. I don't think she's ever actually seen fish before. Not even in the pet store. I usually focus my efforts at the dog and cat areas of Petsmart, with the occasional visit to the birds and rodents just for fun. But never to the fish department. Well, the moment we walked up to the first tank she got very excited and started squealing with joy!

Swing me or I'll cry!

I was swinging Maya, and stopped for a moment to take out my camera. She was not happy about the fun ending!

Happy New Year! (last week)

I have been meaning to post earlier, but just haven't had the time. All my babies are asleep, though, so I figure I better do it quick before someone wakes up!

We had a fun New Year's Eve. Pete and I went over to our friend Kevin and Dorota's house where we played Super Mario Brothers on their Wii, and I got to play with their baby boy, Patryk. He is so tiny compared to Maya! I can't believe Maya was that tiny just six months ago. Maya had fun playing with his toys, too! Peanut was also glad to play with their two doggies.

I've made a bunch of resolutions, but who knows if I'll keep to them. I'm terribly undisciplined. I'll be gung-ho for a week or two, and then flake out once the novelty wears off. Some of my resolutions include paying down a chunk of our debt (danged student loans!); making doctor, optometrist, and dentist appointments I've been too lazy to make; finish landscaping the back yard; get Pete a more reliable car (or get me a mini-van to fit all the kiddies and let Pete have my car); eat better; do more outside activities like hiking the Bosque and visiting places of interest in NM; and last, but certainly not least, getting pregnant with and having baby #2 by November. A boy, of course!

I realize that most of my other resolutions are going to make that first one of paying down debt hard, but I've decided that if we get a tax return this year (and we should) it will all do towards debt. That totally makes me sad. Tax return time is when I get to splurge, but alas, not this year!

I hear babies crying.....be right back!

......

OK. It's later in the afternoon, and I've already completed one of my New Year's resolutions! I just bought a minivan. CHECK! It's a '99, but it only has 87,000 miles on it. The owners went to Europe for 5 years. They drained all the fluids and just stored it in their garage the whole time. The guy who owned it is a mechanic and has a shop in town. He kept crazy meticulous records. So, I now officially have a seven-passenger soccer mom-mobile. Yikes! I told myself I would never get a mini-van, but SUV's only seat five.



Let's see...where was I now. Let's talk about Maya's new tricks! While she still refuses to even try walking, Maya now will pull herself up on the couch. She puts her leg up and as long as I use my hand as a little shelf for her butt she can do the rest! Also, today the other baby I watch, Sophia, was crying because she fell down and bumped her little head. Maya came over to us and gave her a hug and kiss, and started patting her head. It was so cute! My ten-month-old feels empathy. Mama's so proud!

As for our resolution to eat better, we decided to follow the Alton Brown non-diet diet. No calorie counting involved. We are still going to stuff our faces, but instead of stuffing them with cookies we will be choosing healthy items from the four food groups. We totally stocked up on fruit, cheese, and a variety of dips like hummus, guacamole and salsa to snack on. Here's what the diet consists of:

Eat Daily:
Fruits
Whole grains
Leafy greens
Nuts (1 oz a day)
Carrots
Green tea

Eat at least 3 times a week:
Oily fish
Yogurt
Broccoli
Sweet potatoes
Avocado

Eat only once a week:
Red meat
Pasta
Dessert
Alcohol

Never eat:
Fast food
Soda
Processed meals
Canned soup (because of salt content among other things)
“Diet” anything

At first glance this diet seems difficult, but once I started writing out ideas for meals, you really can eat practically anything. So long as it's not garbage, that is! Clearly, Pete will not be eating fatty fish three times a week since he hates the stuff, so we'll be eating a lot of tuna melts. We are also going to eat out twice per week. Once for breakfast and once for dinner.

That's the update. Tune in next week for more exciting adventures in The Fabulous Life & Times of the Ristig Family!