Happy Birthday Ben!

Pizza and a ping pong legend.

On Friday night, Ben and I were able to go out and decided to check out a pizza place in D.C. called Comet Ping Pong. When we arrived, it was obvious that something out of the ordinary was happening in the back of the restaurant where they keep ping pong tables for people to play on. A match was being taped and people were gathered around watching. The focus seemed to be on this interesting old man named Marty. We knew he must be someone important, but it wasn't until we got home and did some internet research that we discovered we had been in the presence of a ping pong legend.

It turns out that Marty Reisman is a 78 year old champion table tennis player. He was the 1958 and 1960 U.S. Men’s Singles Champion and the 1997 U.S. Hardbat Champion. I think the best description of this guy would be the title of his autobiography, The Money Player, The confessions of America's Greatest Table Tennis Player and Hustler.

We're not sure how he ended up in D.C. that night at this ping pong pizza place, but it was fate.

He performed his signature trick (which he has performed on Letterman), hitting a cigarette spot-on and breaking it in half:




Marty instructs the crowd.

The brief passing of Fall.

My favorite tree in our yard. Unfortunately, these beautiful leaves are now filling 30 garbage bags sitting at our curb.


A few weeks ago it was in the 70s and we were wearing flip flops and enjoying the leaves.








Meeting Ben at the zoo for lunch.



We quickly went from flip flops to coats. Sad. (Amelia calls this her meatball hat.)

Elsa celebrates 6 months of living in her sister's shadow...

...and luckily, she doesn't seem to mind. Elsa turned 6 months old and continues to be a sweet, happy, easygoing baby. Amelia likes, nay, demands, a lot of attention but Elsa just loves to sit back and watch her sister's every move and she is very generous with her smiles and giggles.

Amelia tends to get more camera time, mostly because she's always in the middle of the action, and Elsa tends to look like this:


But when she's not zoned out in the stroller, she can usually be found doing this:


She is also attempting to figure out the ins and outs of eating. (Most of what goes in comes right back out.)


In celebration of her 6 month birthday, Elsa experienced her first ride on the metro. We ventured downtown for the reopening of the Museum of American History which has been closed for a few years for renovations. We also checked out the new(er) Ocean exhibit at the Natural History museum which was fantastic.


Elsa loves being out on adventures and looking at everything around her. Except for getting out to eat one time, she remained exactly like this in her stroller for the entire 5 hours that we were gone, which also included a nice long nap. That might have been attributed to the fact that she couldn't move in her snow suit.

The fine line between creativity and insanity.

Whenever I enter a room in our house, there is a pile of stuff courtesy of Amelia and her active imagination. According to Amelia, these are not just any old piles. And they certainly cannot be cleaned up. A few of her masterpieces:


Apparently, this was a parade.


A picnic. Sometimes it's hard to find a place to sit in our house.


Bedtime for the animals.


A fashion show. She is very methodical in her placement of items. Upon closer examination, you'll notice that camel is resting on an Amelia-made bed, crafted with envelopes, and tucked in nicely with a dryer sheet.


I have no idea what was going on here. But I like it.


Conducting school. I believe it was snack time.


She pulled this drawer out and carefully filled it with an array of items.


A castle.


Even Amelia admitted this was just a pile of stuff.


While I was busy feeding Elsa one day, Amelia managed to empty all of the drawers in Elsa's room and her own room and pile them up. This happened in only a matter of minutes.

It is no small task to keep our house clean.

Cozy.

Amelia somehow managed to squeeze herself into this fabric cube and was pretending it was a tent. I took the garbage out and returned just a few minutes later and found her sleeping soundly.

Plan B?

My blog has always intended to serve two purposes. The first is to keep family and friends who are far away updated with our lives. The second is to periodically convert my blog into a printed book and use that as our family photo album. I already have over 30 photo albums and space is becoming an issue. The blog book is the perfect solution. However, Blurb, the company that converts blogs into lovely books, no longer supports Blogger. Does anyone know of another place that will do the blog-to-book conversion?

Sew crazy.

Sewing machines come with a certain intimidation factor. I have to admit that for nearly a year, I sewed everything with purple thread because I was afraid to change the bobbin or thread my machine, fearing that it would never work again if I touched anything. In the past, my sewing machine would only come out of the closet when my mom was in town. So during her latest visit a few weeks ago, I was prepared with a few patterns and lots of material. I had an apron pattern that had been sitting on the shelf for months, staring me down with its pretentious "anyone can make this" attitude. I knew I could attempt it with the assistance of my mom. She gave me lots of tips and explained the basics of following a pattern. After she left, I was an expert at threading my machine, winding a bobbin, changing a bobbin, and now realize that it's actually quite easy. Of course, I am also an expert at picking out incorrect stitches.


It's reversible!


A friend gave me an easy skirt pattern and I tackled this project by myself and discovered that sewing can even be a little rewarding, and addictive. I've made 5 skirts so far, which is good since Amelia refuses to wear pants. She models a few...




When I break out my sewing machine and crafting supplies, I go crazy. Partly because I have nowhere to set up shop permanently so the dining room turns into a crazy mess and I want to get as much done while everything is out. So in addition to the sewing, I experimented with some custom freezer paper stencils. My brother and his wife made us fantastic shirts last year using this method and I wanted to try it out for myself. I went a little crazy with this as well, attempting to spruce up any fabric in sight.

The result:






I couldn't resist combining the two...I stenciled some plain fabric and then made a skirt with it.

Sew crazy.

Sewing machines come with a certain intimidation factor. I have to admit that for nearly a year, I sewed everything with purple thread because I was afraid to change the bobbin or thread my machine, fearing that it would never work again if I touched anything. In the past, my sewing machine would only come out of the closet when my mom was in town. So during her latest visit a few weeks ago, I was prepared with a few patterns and lots of material. I had an apron pattern that had been sitting on the shelf for months, staring me down with its pretentious "anyone can make this" attitude. I knew I could attempt it with the assistance of my mom. She gave me lots of tips and explained the basics of following a pattern. After she left, I was an expert at threading my machine, winding a bobbin, changing a bobbin, and now realize that it's actually quite easy. Of course, I am also an expert at picking out incorrect stitches.


It's reversible!


A friend gave me an easy skirt pattern and I tackled this project by myself and discovered that sewing can even be a little rewarding, and addictive. I've made 5 skirts so far, which is good since Amelia refuses to wear pants. She models a few...




When I break out my sewing machine and crafting supplies, I go crazy. Partly because I have nowhere to set up shop permanently so the dining room turns into a crazy mess and I want to get as much done while everything is out. So in addition to the sewing, I experimented with some custom freezer paper stencils. My brother and his wife made us fantastic shirts last year using this method and I wanted to try it out for myself. I went a little crazy with this as well, attempting to spruce up any fabric in sight.

The result:






I couldn't resist combining the two...I stenciled some plain fabric and then made a skirt with it.

On Voting.

It seems hard to pass up a chance to blog about the election. Excuse me, the historic election.

I voted. Unlike my sister, I had no problems at the polls. I walked right in. No line. It almost went too quickly. I was hoping for at least a few minutes to stand around and take it all in. Share the excitement with fellow voters. At least have a minute to dig my wallet out and find my I.D. It was just me and several smiling poll workers, eager to show me the way in case I didn't see the hundreds of arrows neatly placed throughout the elementary school gymnasium. Even our ballot was short. Before I knew it, I had my sticker and I was walking home, trying to re-explain the voting process to Amelia who continued to flip flop between candidates throughout the day. She finally joined with Ben and I and got excited about Obama this morning as we watched the news, although she was concerned about the logistics of Obama moving into Bush's house and Bush not being by Dad's office anymore.

It was exciting to vote in Virginia, although I must admit that I fell asleep before Virginia officially turned blue and various speeches were made.

An evening stroll.

Last night we took a stroll along the George Washington Parkway and enjoyed the fall colors and the always challenging vita course.