Aurora Borealis

Mr. Tldz and I spent a good chunk of the day volunteering at the archbishop’s Mass for couples in the archdiocese who are celebrating their 50th or 60th wedding anniversary this year.  It was really a neat thing!  We were glad to have the opportunity to be there, and the volunteering was hardly tough duty – handing out programs, directing couples to the photographer, and answering inquiries about the location of the restrooms.

This is the third year the archdiocese has done this, and I hope it will be a lasting tradition.  There needs to be more postiive and ecnouraging things about marriage.  During the Mass, there was a group renewal of vows for the Jubilarian couples (though Mr. Tldz and I participated, too – seemed appropriate just a month before our second anniversary).

The reception was really crowded, so we just grabbed glasses of sweet tea and cut out.  (It would have been neat to be able to converse at length with some of the couples.)  We headed to the local independent pizza place we like and enjoyed a late, child-free lunch.

We’re already looking forward to volunteering again next year.  After all, at our wedding Fr. Fred told us to celebrate our marriage in the church community, and this seems like one good way to do that.

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It’s a big day for Agent Murphy – he got his first pair of shoes!  The classic baby whites, size 4.  He already has the toes nicely scuffed up from crawling around the house.  When we first put them on him in the shoe store and tried to get him to stand up to check out the sizing, he didn’t want to stand.  I’m sure it felt funny.  But he played around for a while (The shoe sizer thing was immensly fascinating, not to mention the shoe box.), and then got around to the business of standing up again.

I went to my friend E.’s house yesterday.  He has a playroom with lots of toys.  And he has his own cabinet in the kitchen!  I don’t have a cabinet in the kitchen.  But this morning I got a can of tomatoes off the open shelf in the kitchen.  It was fun to roll it around the floor.  Here’s E. and me from yesterday.

We were supposed to meet up with some of the folks from the pro-life commitee after they got finished with this afternoon’s annual Life Chain down at the cathedral.  But the benediction service following Life Chain must have been very brief because they were done much earlier than expected and weren’t interested in waiting until the pizza place opened at 5:00.  So just the family went.  Agent Murphy struggled to take an afternoon nap, but he still managed to be mostly happy at the restaurant.  (A kid’s birthday party – 8 kids and 8 adults – came in right after us, so even if he’d decided to be cranky and loud, it wouldn’t have mattered.)  Good food, and we’re glad to see this neighborhood pizzeria is doing good business, and we were very excited to see an ice cream shop is “coming soon” across the street.

In other news, all the letters from Agent Murphy’s name puzzle bench are currently accounted for.  It’s good he has his whole name back!

Well, sort of.  We had leftover pumpkin soup on the menu for lunch today, and we planned to make RW’s pumpkin pancakes with some of the extra canned pumpkin.  So we had them together as pumpkin brunch.  The pancakes were quite yummy, though my flipping technique needs some work.

Meanwhile, Agent Murphy has gotten up from his morning nap all grumpy.  Hopefully he’ll do better with his afternoon nap because we’re going out for pizza tonight.

Agent Murphy has a puzzle bench with his name on it that his Uncle G. and Aunt M. gave him.  Each letter is a separate, differently colored piece that comes out.  He loves it.  He takes the letters out and carries them around the house with him.  (He’s also gotten pretty good at knocking two letters against each other.  Banging things is good.)  We’ve been pretty successful at rounding up all the letters every night.  But the first letter of his name has been missing for over a week.  Today, Mr. Tldz found it.  Now two other letters are missing, but they’ve been seen in the last day or two, so they should turn up soon.

This is a cause for celebration because it means they won’t be bumping the classic country show we like off of the radio tonight.  What a lovely weekend.  Can’t wait ’til college football season is over.

I’ve been very busy.  Saturday last week I figured out how to stand up on my own, and get down.   So I’ve had to to do lots of practicing.  I’m getting lots better at getting down.  I like standing up under the dining room table.  It’s glass, so I can look up at Mommy and Daddy.  But I’m almost too tall to fit under there.  I have to be careful not to hit my head.  It’s been a very busy week.