Baby-moon

Matt and I had a wonderful weekend in Stowe before Christmas. It was so nice to get away from the the city for a little r&r before baby arrives.

Highlights of our time included a community Messiah Sing at the local church on Friday night, a candy-cane making demonstration (see the next post for more on that), and lots of sleeping. The beautiful scenery started even before we left Boston- I took the picture below just 10 minutes from our house.




The great white north (seen through our windshield).

Our room at the B&B had a fireplace and tub with whirlpool jets. We spent a lot of time just hanging out and napping!

Stowe is quite picturesque- there were icicles everywhere.

Here we are in the living room at the inn- we spent a delightful few hours reading by the fire there on Sunday afternoon before heading home.

A picture of baby and me. ;)

And on the way home, I was able to fulfill my dream of going to the Ben & Jerry's factory in Waterbury (having gone to school not far from there and hearing about it often over the years). Admittedly it was a bit anticlimactic as they don't actually make the ice cream on weekends, but the B&J museum was interesting and the cones were great. I enjoyed the sign below- "Free Cones for All Mothers on Mother's Day" and especially the last item, "Expecting mothers get two"!

Commuter Glee

So I was commuting to work yesterday morning as usual, with a grumpy horde of fellow city-dwellers. When I get off an orange line train, people are often running down the hallway to catch it (not sure why the desperation- maybe the orange line doesn't run as often as other lines?). It gets pretty crowded in the dingy corrider, and the people trying to get on the train are like salmon swimming (often unsuccessfully) upstream against the strong current of exiting passengers.

This particular morning, I saw a young Asian woman running to catch the train, weaving between the rush of people in the other direction. She was going at a half-run, and pushing a small stroller with a little boy in it- he must have been 2 1/2 or 3. As they were careening down the hallway, she looked worried and determined, but he had the biggest smile on his face, clearly loving the high speed race.

It made me smile, and I heard two other people behind me commenting on it as well. He was getting to have all this fun while he and his mom were doing something very serious (catching the train), though when you think about it in that light maybe it wasn't really that serious, and maybe she could have let herself have fun too.

It reminds me of the scene from the end of the movie Parenthood where Steve Martin is freaking out because his 3 year old is ruining a school play. The camera starts moving so it looks like all the people in the audience are on a roller coaster, and you see his wife just laughing and enjoying the ride, while he is still pretty stressed out. He finally looks around and somehow is able to let go and enjoy the wild, unpredictable ride too. May all of us stress balls (and I'm speaking mostly to myself here) be able to do the same.

Beloved quilts and trees and snow

Our good friend Pascha put on a Gala celebration/fundraiser for the Beloved Quilts project last Sunday evening. For the past year or so she's spearheaded a project to make 100 quilts for homeless people, each with the word "Beloved" on it. I think it's such a beautiful and powerful idea. I've been able to participate in a few of the "sew-ins" this year, which have been really fun and rewarding. As a side bonus it's been a great refresher in sewing and an introduction to quilt making. Below is one of the quilts I worked on (I put together the center square, and then later others added the borders and finished it).

It was fun to see everyone dressed up. Here is Pascha at the gala, describing how she was inspired to create this project. You can check out her website to find out about other cool stuff she does (http://www.paschagriffiths.com/).

And now we are pleased to present our quite wide and welcoming Christmas tree! It might not look as large in the picture, but it seriously fills up at least half of our dining room. We've been scrambling to find additional ornaments, since it's so big! I love real Christmas trees.

Here's our front hallway mantel with decorations- Matt's mom gave us the PEACE ornaments. She also gave us an elegant silver wreath hanger for our front door, with our last name on it. We've hung an evergreen wreath on it, and it fills the entryway with a beautiful smell.

Snow! We got our first big storm of the winter on Thursday night. Not sure exactly how many inches, but I think at least 6-8. It was quite lovely and powdery, though apparently caused much driving havoc around the city. This is from the next morning.

Baby shower

My friend Rebecca hosted a small shower for me last Sunday- it was so fun to be together with friends and to celebrate our baby! We played a few games- word unscrambling and "guess with a ribbon how big Elizabeth's tummy is", and had a time of prayer as well. The gifts were very sweet and generous, and many of them were quite cuddly!

Here are Louise and Rebecca.



Rebecca is one of the most talented decorators and gracious hosts I know- here's a bit of her workmanship. She made delicious food, including mini quiches, fruit salad, artichoke dip and a lemon cake with whipped cream (pictured here).

Susan, me, Mary and Allison.

Laura came all the way down from New Hampshire with little 6-week old Naomi!

Amanda and Louise, holding a blanket that my aunt Lee and cousin Veronica made for us (Lee also came down from New Hampshire!).

Super small group surprise

Last night our small group had a surprise "baby blessing" night for us. It was so fun and encouraging. People brought some special snacks (including pumpkin mousse, snickerdoodles, sparkling cider, etc), and we had an extended time of prayer for Matt and me and baby. They also got us the cutest Winnie the Pooh musical mobile, pictured below (it plays the Winnie the Pooh song), a Winnie the Pooh teething blanket, and a really generous gift certificate to Burlington Coat Factory. I love how our baby is being born into such a caring, supportive community. The time really lifted my spirits, especially after a long day.

(PS- I might get tired of alliterative titles eventually, but still having fun with them!)

Invisible, insidious, inescapable ice

So it was quite a walk down our street this morning. While I clutched our side rail on the way down the stairs (not taking any chances these days), the woman next door almost fell down her steps, exclaiming "Lord!" and then "I'm going back to get my boots". Every surface outside was covered with a layer of smooth, invisible ice. All of us on the street were reduced to slowly shuffling along, like chain gang convicts. Where the sidewalk slanted a bit, I would see someone helplessly sliding down toward the street, at the mercy of the incline. I finally started walking in the middle of the street, which was safer, even with the cars speeding along. Just at the end I was foiled, though, as I came across an icy patch at the side of the street and fell down (just a slight fall to one knee). Oh well- ice 1, Elizabeth 3/4 (for making it that far).

Stay posted for pictures of my baby shower and our Christmas tree, which I've nicknamed "The tree that ate Manhattan"...

P.S.- any more ideas for "I" adjectives to describe this ice experience?

Sneak Preview of our Babe

As promised, below is a picture of our special little one. I've rotated it so you can see baby looking directly at you. We think baby looks very sweet and content in this picture.

The picture is of the baby's whole face, and appearances to the contrary, our baby doesn't actually have a thick head of hair yet (as far as we know)- the black stuff above the baby's face is just amniotic fluid. :)

In other news, we had our first real snow of the season Sunday night. It was an inch or so, and put me very much in the winter/Christmas mood. We have two advent calendars we're opening- an artsy one from Bob Slate and then a chocolate one our friend Susan got us (yum!). We're reading the Divine Hours vesper services for advent. And hopefully we'll get a tree this coming weekend. It's a fun time of year.