02-02-2020

Sunday:  Sick again all day with a stomach bug--which has HAD me since the middle of the night Friday, necessitating the canceling of ALL my plans for Saturday and Sunday with KT and Emma. I am beginning to feel better now, and I am experiencing "cabin fever," a rare occurrence for me, a forever homebody kind of person.

So I thought I would show you the card I made for Brendan. His 8th birthday is tomorrow! Our very own Paco the Pig is the STAR of the card. Below is the front of the card. Paco is Hispanic, so he resists saying "hello" like regular people and always and forever persists in saying "Ola!" I took many pictures of him in various poses, but these are the ones I liked best for the card. Yes, yes ... I know this is silly--but grandma's GET TO BE SILLY.

 The inside pictures come from Brendan himself! Yes! He was on my computer PhotoBooth last week with Paco of ALL pigs! He made a little roller coaster video with Paco squeeling his head off ...

 Brendan is VERY into making "pop-up" cards and since he has shown me HOW to make them, I decided to make one for him!

 It's hard to see from these pictures, but as I made the card, I printed out a duplicate of the above picture, cut Paco's outline out and then made a little folding piece of paper to extend the cut-out of Paco over on top of the entire picture of he and Brendan. I think it turned out pretty cute.

 This is what Paco said to Brendan INSIDE the card (above).

 I put a picture of ME and PACO on the back, and YES I DID put make-up on and comb my hair so that I wouldn't look like a scary old granny ... I thought Paco's smile was very handsome in this picture (ha!).

 BLUE is Brendan's favorite color. I didn't have any card stock that was TRULY the blue that he likes, but hopefully this will be OK. Can you see how Paco kind of pops out?

 It might seem strange to (normal) people, but I really had a LOT of fun making this little card. I think I should make more!

 Brendan picked out his gift from my LEGO catalog a few weeks ago. It's a set that comes with two lights and, in theory, you can make little LEGO models and then make shadow pictures on your wall with the shining lights. I still had leftover money in Brendan's birthday budget, so I visited Aunt Candy's Toy Store (Rockford) on Friday (even though I was sick) and looked for almost two hours for some little extra something to go with his main gift. There is so much cool stuff in that toy store. I could never work there--I would go broke!

For a long time, I was thinking I would get him the KLUTZ set that has cool pieces to animate your LEGO models ... but that gift would need a LOT of help from Dylan and Kelly, plus if any of the parts got lost, the entire gift would be a waste. And THEN I picked up a very cool book on stuff to make outside, like thermometers and microscopes and planters and bird-feeders, etc., but all of those projects looked pretty intense (and Brendan is super intense already)--and again, all of them would require a lot of assistance ... and Brendan would want to do EVERY SINGLE one of them. While I was in that "science" section of the toy store, I spied the nice bracelet that is affixed to the blue bow on top of the packages. It was only $2.99! It's an outdoor band that has a built-in whistle to blow if you ever get lost in the woods! I should have picked up one for ME (getting lost seems to be a habit with me). Anyway, notice that the band is BLUE. The totally blue package is a game, kind of a brain-teaser puzzle thing, that Brendan can play ALONE without any assistance whatsoever. It's very nice and I am glad that I decided on that particular gift. 

PS  Today's date is 02-02-2020, a palindrome. They say (!) we haven't had a true palindrome date for the last 900 years or so ... 01-01-1010 would have been the last time!