Alden is Fluish

Alden got sick around the 20th and was sick through the 29th. It started with a cough and then he got really floppy. He was out of daycare that week and we took him to the doc on the 22. After a quick test they told us he had the A type flu. That lasted for a couple more days, but he wasn't getting much better, so we took him back and they said he had an ear infection...

After ten days of us all getting pretty cranky the pox left our house and we are getting back to picking our clothes up of the floor and doing dishes and other non-sickie activities.

Alden Turns Three!

Alden is three years old! Ask him and he'll emphatically tell you so too, with 3 little fingers extended. He is now just over three feet tall, and weighs about 30 lbs. He'd been looking forward to his birthday for a week, and getting so excited when boxes in the mail arrived addressed to him. We threw him a party on the 17th because it was MLK day and a lot of folks had the day off. On that morning, he woke to this awesome train set (from Uncle Aaron and Aunt Liz) already assembled on the living room floor. After playing with it for most of the morning, he was whisked away by Ilana's Dad for a Reny's/grocery store adventure so we could get the house ready for the party.

We'd been getting pretty excited too and made plans for his first themed birthday party. Alden really likes frogs and asked for a froggy birthday. We decorated our dining room to look like a pond and put his frog cake in the center.Every day for weeks before the party, Ilana would ask Alden what kind of cake he wanted. The frog theme predominated, although close to the actual event a giraffe was mentioned. As for cake flavor, his requests were for vanilla about 70% of the time and chocolate 30% of the time. The frog-shaped cake was a design by Ilana and ultimately was a yellow cake with hedge-betting chocolate cupcakes for eyes. (This saved us as Alden ultimately went with chocolate when it came time to cut the cake). The frosting was a fondant with green tea (matcha) for coloring. All was made lovingly from scratch with no artificial colors or ingredients. Making a "natural" fondant icing was tough. This frosting takes on the consistency of play-doh if made correctly and is rolled out and draped over the cake rather than spread. All the fondant recipes Ilana originally found called either for boiling sugar in water for an eternity or for vile ingredients like marshmallows and Crisco. The no-cook recipe we ultimately used was mostly powdered sugar, with a little sugar syrup, butter, vanilla and green tea. It was a little too sweet for my tastes, but the kids dug it. Two other families celebrated with us - Evelyn and her family, Sophia and her family. Karen and Ilana's Dad also joined the fun. Alden was thrilled to host Sophia at his house. They hugged and hugged so hard that they fell onto the ground laughing.

Sophia was really excited to play with Alden's toys and to run around the house. She basically took Alden's hand and lead him all around, upstairs and downstairs, inventing new games along the way. She kind of monopolized him, but Alden didn't seem to mind.Playing with Leggos was one of the favorite birthday games. That and chasing each other around the house screaming. Ilana labored for weeks trying to find just the right party game and thought she'd found the perfect one - an olfactory game with paper flower cut outs and lots of different natural extracts. Alden is really big into smelling spices, lotions and soaps. We do a sort of smell safari at the kitchen table, where we pull down jars of spices for Alden to compare, and he'll do this for hours. The birthday game was a big bust. Alden and Sophia just wanted to keep doing their thing and Evvie was a little too shy to play the game with me, so we abandoned it at the table.Alden got some great gifts this year, including puzzles, toy dinos (he is showing us how they go "roar", much to Sophia's delight), books, arts and crafts, giant fuzzy pipecleaners (so cool!) wooden robots, a table and chair set that's just his size, and a annual membership to the Portland Children's Museum. Hooray!All in all it was a successful birthday party, and hopefully one that will be remembered with fondness for many years to come

On the 18th, we sent him to school with cupcakes, and they sent the kids home early because of snow. This is the 4th year in a row that it's snowed on Alden's actual birthday!

Capricorn Ball Redux

Capricorn Ball 2011 was a little different than in previous years. A friend of the CB hosts has late stage cancer and his wife is one of the artists who frequently makes goat effigies for this party. She suggested a paper lantern salute to bring good fortune to her ailing husband, which was a very nice addition. Karen made the effigy this year, which was burned afterward.
Fifty Chinese paper lanterns were lit at dusk (video below). It was a bit chaotic because the lighting effort wasn't coordinated and it took about 5-10 minutes for the candle to heat enough air to lift a given lantern. The final effect was less a mass launch than a steady trickle of rising lanterns - they looked like new stars appearing one by one in an ever darkening dusky sky. It was magical and beautiful to watch.

The arrhythmic, quasi-tribal and uberwhite drumming that normally accompanies the bonfire was absent this year. Instead a young fella with an iPhone and a couple of large speakers made weird musical "soundscapes". His app allowed him to make different noises depending on whether his fingers brushed, tapped or made circles on the screen. This resulted in lots of atonal, extraterrestrial bleeping and digital whooshing noises. We could only stand a few minutes of it, but it went on for the whole lantern launch and burn. To spare you the same pain, I've muted the sound on the video.

Once all the lanterns were launched, Gust (the party host) lit the bonfire and the straw goat burnt up quickly.

The fire was followed by a potluck and live music by the Zulu Leprechauns, who have been the party band for years. Alden loved the band and was all over them while they were setting up and doing their sound check. However it was a bit too loud for him when they started playing and we had to scoot away to an adjacent room to dance.All the Capricorns attending the 2011 party are pictured above. It was Ilana's Dad's birthday, and since the Ball is all about celebrating Capricorns, we invited him to the party. I think he had a good time. We had black forest cake and ice cream for him back at home later that night.

More Holidays - Birthday and New Year

Joseph Sandy and Geoffrey came to town the day after Christmas to celebrate the holidays and my birthday. We did a second round of gift exchanging and hanging out.

I coordinated getting a garage door opener for Karen and the Gilg boys spent the next two days installing the thing. It took more time than I thought it would, but it was pretty straight forward and we did not make any big mistakes or come across any insurmountable obstacles in the process.

My birthday was quite nice. One very amazing present was a carpet that Karen and Larry got for me. I was excited to finally have a carpet in the dining room but Alden was over the moon about it. He jumped around and rolled and danced and told everybody else to jump around as well. He did a fantastic job making that carpet feel welcome in our house and showing Karen and Larry they had made a good choice.

Another fantastic gift was the promise of future support for my beekeeping endeavor. I plan to keep a hive of bees this spring, but right now I am fairly ignorant about what I am getting myself into. Geoffrey got me two swell books and once I know what's what I'll let folks know what I need. The birthday celebration was a small affair with immediate family and a few close friends. Of course, the food was amazing and there were two cakes. Folks also went a bit silly getting exotic beers, which were a very nice addition.
Alden was told about my birthday a few weeks too early and was more eager for it to come that I think I was. When it finally arrived he was crazy-excited. A very nice thing to see.
I did not get pictures of New Years, but it was one of the best ones I had in awhile. Geoffrey was still in town so he came over, we invited our friends Darrell and Kenny and played poker till 2010 was behind us. Most of us agreed 2010 was lousy for the most part and are looking forward to an awesome 2011.

Holidays

A look back at a few of this years holiday doings.
Both Ilana and I had Yankee Swap gift gatherings at work. Mine was especially awkward because there were only eight people (small office) with six participating in the gift swap and only five wrapped their gifts... The point of the swap being to either go with a surprise wrapped gift or take someone's gift you can see.

Ilana's swap was much better, about 50 participants at a nice restaurant with a good spread. The swapping was good fun, even though Ilana was a little put out at getting a tree ornament. It was soon swapped away though and after a swap or two more we ended up with a copy of The Lobster Coast, a book we have both been meaning to read. We also learned that the author, Colin Woodard is on the Board of Directors at Bigelow so Ilana can get it signed if she wants.

Ilana gets a new map of Maine, essential for us non GPS types, but alas it was soon taken from her.

Alden was at daycare finishing his nap for the start of the party, towards end they called us and he got to celebrate with us. He'd been to the restaurant a week earlier with Ilana and developed a crush on one of the serving staff. He kept looking for her, upstairs, downstairs, kitchen, bathroom... but it was not her shift.

We spent actual Christmas at Karen's house, exchanging gifts in the morning and then inviting a few people over for early supper.

Karen's New Cat

Meet Zoe. She's a 10 month old stray we helped Karen pick out from an animal shelter. She is beautiful, playful, super friendly and good with kids. What more could you ask for from a kitty?

Alden Sledding on Christmas eve

December 24th was a lovely day. I spent the morning replacing a ballast for the Artdogs Studios and then my pal Darrell came over and we (Darrell, Alden and me) went sledding in the back yard. Alden calls it "sliding", which I think is quite appropriate.
This was the first time Alden had gone down in the sled by himself. We went down together a few times, but mostly it was a solo venture, with either Darrell or me at the bottom to catch Alden.
The sled run was pretty great for a three year old. A long but very shallow incline, which is good because Alden could not hold on to the sled with his gloves on. The only major hazard was our neighbors deck (at the end of the run). It was just the right height for Alden to take a header if he got up enough speed and we didn't stop him.
Alden sometimes closed his eyes on the sled and sometimes turned his head around to watch me after I pushed him down the hill. When he did this I would yell to him to turn around and look forward, which never seemed to work. Alden crashed twice, but took both spills very well. He was only upset until I brushed the snow off his face... maybe 15 seconds. I was very proud of him.

Hanukkah

Where is my winter insulation?

I got the east end of the house buttoned up and ready for blown in insulation. The contractor told me that he would try and get to me before the end of the year, but I have my doubts.

Besides running new electrical to outlets and putting fiberglass insulation in the ceiling and interior walls I covered the inside of the exterior walls with half inch polly-iso boards. The boards are usually used for exterior applications, but I think it will serve as a nice extra thermal barrier how I am using it.
The upstairs room got 2 inch polly-iso boards for extra insulation value. Between the polly-iso and the exterior wall is an air void that will be filled with blown in insulation... someday.

Thanksgiving

We had a quiet celebration at our house this year. My Dad and Kerstin's Mom joined us for some tuna steaks, stuffed artichokes, cranberry relish and a bunch of dishes featuring our garden vegetables (squash, potatoes and kale that was still growing up until Thanksgiving day).
We made a sweet meat squash polenta which came out really well.After the initial toast, Alden wanted nothing to do with the Thanksgiving meal. He refused to try any of the dishes and we had to heat up a precooked chicken sausage for him. He spent most of Thanksgiving tearing apart our couch cushions.My Dad spent the weekend up here and helped Kerstin insulate the unfinished part of the house, including the soon-to-be guest bedroom. We had our first snow the day after Thanksgiving and Alden and I made snow footprints in the backyard. I'll let Kerstin tell you all about the insulation in another post.