It's a Boy!

Mason Louis was born on May 14, 2008 (a day early!) at 2:36 pm. He weighed 8 lbs, 2 oz and measured 21 inches long.



Welcome to the world, baby boy!

Copyright Law - Important to Anyone Who Posts Pictures on the Internet

This is pretty disturbing, and I urge everyone who reads this to click on the links in this post.

There is a new copyright bill going up for becoming law that will basically give rights to anyone to use any image posted on the internet as free domain. There is a very informational blog post about that here on Claudine Hellmuth's blog. There are links in this post to help you generate letters to congress. It's very easy and you can just send a "form letter" or there are options to change and edit what is there.

Tim Holz also linked to this post on his blog here.

I think the whole blogging world should be aware of this - really the whole world in general. Anyone who posts any type of image on the internet, be it family photos or artwork or scrapbook pages or any sort of doodle.

I went to the link to write the letters to my congress representatives and it really was very easy. Please take a minute to check this out and protect yourself and your artwork / family photos.

~Corinne

What rain?

Have you ever wished for a rainy day?  I was really looking forward to two rainy days (today and tomorrow).  When I woke up this morning it looked like I had gotten my wish... but the more time passed the more the sky cleared.  This is the current view out of the back windows in the dining room.


Not exactly the 70% chance of rain the weather forecast called for. Tomorrow is supposed to be thunderstorms and 1-2 inches of rain. Hmmmmm, we'll see!

I know it's weird to wish for a rainy day, but I have a bunch to do around the house and don't really want to go out anywhere. A rainy day is a perfect excuse for that! I do have a couple errands to run outside the house today, so I'm not exactly complaining that it isn't raining, but now I feel a bit guilty for wanting to stay in all day. Let's hope that tomorrow and Saturday really are the rainy days I'm promised by the weather forecast and I get the chance to not feel guilty about holing up in the basement and sewing / crafting!

Baby's Room Finished!

Okay so maybe not 100% finished, but definitely 98%!  I do still need something on the windows, probably temporary mini blinds until I can make something.  And the small bits of furniture I mentioned last night.  The glider / rocker needs to be brought in also.  But, really, the room is definitely move-in ready.  All the necessities are there and put away.  Now we just need a little someone to occupy the room!  Here are room pics, moving around the room from right to left.

And a couple detail shots of the crib.

And what is a blog post without cat pictures?  As always, Jett was waiting outside the door of the baby's room while I was taking pictures.  Definitely waiting for his chance to sneak into the room, rather than waiting for me to come out.

And Dragon was hanging out by the laundry.  Pretty normal positions for these two!

Now that the room is finished it opens up time for my next few projects.  First up - a couple ideas for these new fabrics I picked up yesterday.  

Rotten Camera

Something very weird happened with my camera today.  I took a bunch of pictures of the baby's room and when I came down to upload them to the computer they had disappeared from the memory card.  Luckily the room pictures are easy to retake, but there were also two really cute pictures of Jett that I won't get again.  Oh well.  I have a feeling it had something to do with the battery since it was on its way out and needed recharging.  So, unfortunately I won't be able to do the update I wanted tonight - I don't want to take night time pictures of the room this time.  It looks a lot better and closer to the real colors when the room is in daylight - thanks mainly to the huge window.  So it will have to wait until tomorrow.

The good news is the room is as done as it can be for now.  We do need a couple small extra pieces of furniture like a bookcase and a small table of some sort.  And E still has to put the toy box together.  But as of right now the room is definitely ready to be occupied.  It's just a waiting game at this point!  

Big Brown

Anyone who knows us fairly well knows that E is a huge horse racing fan.  When we found out that the baby was due mid-May, the one concern was that it would come on the first Saturday of May (if it came early).  The first Saturday of May is fairly sacred around here.  So sacred, in fact, that two years ago when we were in Idaho for a wedding on the first Saturday of May, we had to find the local track and spent time there the night before the wedding,  the morning of,  and the evening after - thankfully to cash in winning bets.

The good news is the baby held off as we had hoped.  The bad news is neither of us picked the winner of the Kentucky Derby.  But with E's Derby record and my miniscule racing record, that really wasn't much of a surprise.  Here he is, though, Big Brown.

(Photo courtesy of The New York Times, online.)

We're pretty impressed with this guy and just waiting to hear the talk of a Triple Crown contender.  Of course they talk every year... but this could be it.  And depending on how he does in two weeks at the Preakness (a day that is a bit less sacred around here - let's just say that if I end up in the hospital on Preakness Day, I don't think E will leave me there for an hour to run to Borgata, lol).  It's also looking like if he does win the Preakness, we'll be figuring out some way to get to Belmont.  Originally we were looking at skipping it this year, for obvious reasons (it's on June 7)... but for the chance to witness a Triple Crown win I think we'll figure something out.  

Unfortunately the day ended with tragedy, the one female horse in the race had to be put down at the end of it.  Eight Belles finished second, a very impressive feat considering females are usually relegated to their own race the day before.  But immediately after she broke both front ankles and had to be euthanized.  It was terribly sad.  It's still incredible to me that there is absolutely nothing that can be done in a situation like that.  But horse physiology dictates a horse must stand, they can't lie down for long periods of time, and need to bear weight on all four legs fairly evenly.  Even one lame leg can cause too much stress and eventually hoof diseases and other medical problems in the other legs.  It is unfortunately more humane to put a horse to sleep than to force it to endure the pain, especially of two broken ankles.

Anyone up for a trip to California?

(image courtesy of the Wikipedia entry linked below)

Out of curiosity I did a little search for the word "tatsu."  Check this out - Wikipedia has an article on a roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain called Tatsu.  It looks awesome.  If only I could get E onto a roller coaster again!  How far is Valencia, CA from LA?  We were supposed to be heading to CA this fall for the Breeder's Cup, but I don't think it's happening now for a whole host of reasons.  And even if we were still going I doubt a trip to SFMM would be in the cards, especially with a five month old!

Side note - has SF Magic Mountain always been a Six Flags park?  Or do the locals know it as "Magic Mountain" like we call "Six Flags Great Adventure" just "Great Adventure" in my (old) neck of the woods?

Open Spaces

It seems two somebodies are enjoying the open space of the living room once again!

After all our hard work on Wednesday, the living room is cleared and pretty much back to normal!  Everything has been moved to its proper place and I'm working on getting everything opened and set up.  I spent a lot of time yesterday sorting baby clothes, towels, sheets and blankets, getting them all washed and put away all the clothes.  I think we're pretty well set on clothes for now!  I couldn't cram very much more into the dresser, at least in the way of onsies and sleepers.  Today I have a bunch of housework to finish up.  I'm hoping by the end of the day today to be able to take pictures of the baby's room completely set up!