Buttercup likes to sing.

Thanks for sticking around, even though I’m spotty with posting. All 50 of you. Unless that’s just you, Mom. But thanks even if it is just you, Mom.

I stink at snail mail.

But this year, I got really into stamping and cardmaking. Add that to the scrapbooking, and it turns out that I LOVE papercrafting. So much.

Around the 2nd week in December, I decided to do it. Just do it, SarahK. And I did. I took really crappy pictures of all the cards I made, and I’ll post them later. I made about 80 cards in 2 weeks.

I had my cards ready, Christmas letter typed, and address labels printed on December 21. Whatever, by that point, I’d been working through every naptime and from the time baby went to bed until after midnight to just get the silly things done. So they were going out, and I didn’t care if I mailed them on December 26. They were going out. Frank was on board with this, too. He knew I’d been working hard.

So I mailed them. And two days later, I got a stack of them returned to me. “Non-machinable.” Since an actual human had to actually touch them, I had to add 20 cents postage to each of them. I cried. I texted Frank and told him I might have a breakdown (DRAMA ALERT!). I was also out of budgeted money for sending cards, so I wasn’t sure where that two dollars was going to come from. Of course, as soon as Frank got my texts, he texted back. “They have to go out. You worked so hard on them. I’ll pay for the extra postage out of my allowance. Whatever it takes.” He’s a sweetie pie.

I only got about 10 of the cards back, so I had no idea what happened with the rest of them. I took the returned ones to the post office and saw a person and got them in the mail. Nevermind that an actual person had to touch them the first time to tell me they were non-machinable and then an actual person had to drive them all the way to my house and touch them again, and oh, I could go on, but we’d just end up in a place where I’m ranting about the government’s inability to run anything efficiently, and why do I want them running my retirement account and health insurance again? So I won’t go on.

I got more back a day or two later. This time, I went to the post office and used the little automated postage thing to buy the extra postage, and oh yeah, I got a little passive aggressive and paid with my debit card but had the machine run it as credit. You know, so they had to pay the credit card fee. Small, petty victories and all.

Oh, I also found out that while most of the cards made it to their destinations safely, at least one that wasn’t returned to me arrived postage due. Hi, Caltechgirl, Merry Christmas, here’s your card that you have to pay for. I hope she put the 20 cents in her mailbox in pennies.

Had I not spent two weeks cranking out cards and felt an enormous sense of relief over their completion only to have my calm diminished (ha, you thought I was going to say shattered because of the drama factor), I might try the same thing again this year. Popping them out all at once and all. But I decided to actually get started early this year. Like this week.

I’ve made three cards already, and I joined the Christmas Cards Challenge over at Splitcoaststampers to keep me accountable. My goal is 10 per month.

Here is my 3rd card:

Baby, it's cold outside

I did this for Sketch Challenge #368 at Splitcoast and added the twine for Technique Lovers Challenge #360.

Recipe:
Card base: Bazzill Basics (card size is 4.25 x 5.5)
Cardstock: White (some value cardstock from Jo-Ann), light green (The Paper Studio)
Patterned paper: Holiday Dots (The Paper Studio)
Stamps: The snowman is Studio G, the snowflake is one of my favorites, from Winter Snowmen by Stampabilities
Inks: Stazon jet black (snowman), Stampin’ Up! lucky limeade (sponging around edges), Versamark (for embossing the snowflakes)
Markers: Tombow brush pens (N15, 847, 925)
Embossing folder: Victoria (Cuttlebug)
Embossing powder: ZING! red (glitter finish)
Twine: Martha Stewart baker’s twine
Rhinestones: Studio G
Christmas tree punch: Fiskars
Cuts: Sentiment tags cut w/ Cricut using SCAL & 09 KutUps font

But I’m telling you, it’s a revelation of a sandwich.

Tomato
Fresh basil
Goat cheese
Honey
Fresh-baked french bread (made with coconut oil, which makes an amazing flavor difference)
Sriracha, as needed

You try it and tell me it wasn’t blogworthy.

So yesterday he was about to leave to go back to work after lunch, and I told him I’d see him later.

“Okay, Babe.”

That got my attention. My gut reaction was to immediately make fun of him. “Babe?” I smiled a little incredulously.

“Yeah. Babe.” He could barely keep from smiling himself, but he tried to play it cool and serious, like, “Hey, Babe, I’m the man. I am masculine and aloof, and I now call you ‘Babe’.”

Not that he’s ever had any problems with low testosterone levels or anything like that — he’s definitely the man of the house. All kinds of masculine up in here. But still. He was over-aloofing things, and it was soooo cute. Possibly sexy. Definitely sexy.

“Okay… If you say so.”

Tonight I was laughing about it atwith him, and he told me where this Babe phenomenon came from.

It turns out that Devon on Chuck calls Ellie “Babe”, and that’s why I have gained a new nickname.

I have a feeling he thinks I’m going to start calling him Captain Awesome.

I can’t think of a better way to start my day.

Last night, Buttercup was at her grandparents’ house playing with her cousin for a few hours while I put Frank to work cleaning bathrooms and I took on the living room. Frank went to pick her up while I vacuumed, and when he got her home, she was sleeping. She still doesn’t weigh enough for her convertible car seat, so Frank just brought her inside in her infant seat and put her in her room. I went in to transfer her to her crib, and when I picked her up out of the seat, she lifted her head, looked at my face, threw her arms around my neck, squeezed tightly, and said, “Awwwww.” I about died. She’s been awwing recently, because any time she hugs a person or a stuffed animal, I aww, and she picked up on it. After that, she stuck her face in my cleavage to signal that she wanted to nurse.

I nursed her and changed her diaper and put on her jam-jams, and then Frank came in so we could both say goodnight. When we put her in her crib, we usually sing Laurie Berkner’s “Moon Moon Moon” before leaving the room. So last night, I laid her down, and before either of us could start, she sang, “Moo moo moo. Moo moo moo. Moo moo moo.” And she was still singing it after we finished and left the room. “Moo moo moo. Moo moo moo.”

She’s squeezable.

1 cup corn syrup (I use light, as if that makes it all better)
1 cup sugar
1 t. flour (I use GF all-purpose flour)
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
2 T. butter or margarine (I use vegan “margarine”, but I’ve used any number of buttery things)
1 cup pecans (whole or chopped, I usually use halves)
1 9-inch unbaked pie crust

What you do:

Preheat to 350. Beat eggs just a little. Add sugar & flour. Add corn syrup, vanilla, and buttery stuff. Add pecans, stir really well (I use a fork). Bake on bottom rack for 45-50 minutes. Keep checking your crust throughout, though, and if it starts to burn, put foil over the crust for the remainder of baking. It’s done when it’s nice and brown on top, and you can lightly push on the top with a fork, and it bounces a little but isn’t obviously still liquid underneath. I know you love my scientific instructions.

So. It’s been an insane week, and whew, are we glad he took the week off from his day job.

Radio. Well, he was on the Jay Thomas show Tuesday, Central Wisconsin Morning News Wednesday. Today he’s on with Michael Medved, scheduled for an entire hour from 2-3 MST. Saturday he’ll be on with Bruce Lefavi, his uncle who has a syndicated radio show. Then he has more interviews next week and the week after. Crazy.

Of course, we have no idea what it all means. We have no idea if top 100 on Amazon means we’ve sold 100 copies or thousands. Or millions. Kidding, kidding. But seriously, we are completely clueless on how this translates to book sales. It doesn’t matter. I’m just so proud of him. He’s worked so hard for so many years, writing IMAO day after day, cranking out column after column… And then this summer his writing career cranked up in a big way.

So if you haven’t bought his book, I hear it’s hilarious. No, wait, I know it is. I’ve read it and am currently reading it again.

Combine that with last night’s idiocy at Penn State (I’m speaking of the students rioting over the firing of someone who covered up child rape, NOT the firing), and it could all make a mom a little cranky.

But I’m not.

Because my little munchkin has been entertaining me.

When she woke up from her morning nap, I drilled her on her animal sounds (that sounds a little harsh, but all I did was say, “Buttercup, what does a cow say?” etc.). She got an A+ on cow, kitty, doggie, duck, horsey, sheep, and monkey (“Ah! Ah! Ah!”).

We snuggled on the couch, me wiping her relentless nose over and over, her trying to eat toilet paper and feed me peanut butter crackers (“cack-caws”, if you ask her). Occasionally she would lay her head down on my chest for a few minutes. It’s sad but very, very sweet when my baby is sick.

Then, out of the blue, while smearing peanut butter all over her face with one hand, she raised the other arm straight in the air and said, “Daaaaaaaaahhhhh!” I raised both of my arms. “Touchdown!” She raised her one again. “Dah-daaaah!” Later, she raised them both. “Dah-daaaaah!” She kills me.

She chased various balls around the living room, all the while exclaiming, “Baw! Baw! Baw!” She stopped by to put a couple of puzzle pieces in their places (correctly), and continued her chase. “Baw! Baw!”

Then she got distracted and sat down with a book (“Boo!”) in her lap. A few minutes later, she sounded like she was whining, and I looked down to see what was up. She wasn’t whining, she was pretending to read the book.

She grabbed her stuffed lemur out of my arms, hugged him, and said, “Awwww.” This cracked me up. Because she does the hugging thing, yes, but I’m usually the one who says, “Aww, that’s so sweet.” She went ahead and awwwed for me.

And now she’s napping again, but only on and off. Now and then she wakes up and practices singing or says, “Rowie!” Then drifts off again.

She’s the most wonderful little thing.