We get a ton of toy catalogs in the mail and Emma likes to look through them and point out the things she likes. For the past couple months, I've been taking note and planning to try to recreate the things that she likes - specifically this and this. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago she came across this Star Performance Theater and now it's all she talks about. Whenever anyone, even a complete stranger, brings up Christmas, she goes on and on about the stage and the microphone that she will be getting. It seems like most of her sentences anymore start with, "When I get my stage..." I do not think this stage sounds like a good present at all, nor do I want it taking up valuable limited space in my house. Still, I can see her opening all her handmade gifts, then tossing them aside and going, "Where's the stage?", which I will definitely not appreciate. In order to avoid that scenario, and also because she really really has her heart set on the darn thing, this morning I begrudgingly ordered her both the stage and the microphone. The silver lining, however, is that now I can give her the other stuff for her birthday and I will have two additional months in which to make it.
Another Christmas present that might not work out so well is a Bumbo Seat that I purchased for Allie. I have always thought they looked cool, but the short time for which they could be used was probably not worth the price. I was excited to find a good deal on one at a resale shop and rushed home to have Allie try it out. I figured she would probably have forgotten about it by Christmas and therefore I was not worried about spoiling the surprise. She hated it. She sat there long enough for me to take this one picture, then she wanted out, immediately. Hopefully she'll like it a little more in a few weeks when I try to stuff her in there again.Over the weekend we purchased some wine to bring to a party and decided to buy some for ourselves as well. We used to have wine at home much more often but have gotten out of the habit (which might have something to do with the fact that I have spent much of the last two years being pregnant). After we agreed that we'd both like to start having wine with dinner more often, I decided to perform a little experiment. Steve picked a $22 bottle of cabernet, and then I noticed the World Market brand of the same kind of wine, which was only $4.99. I decided to get both and do a little taste test to see if we could tell the difference. Steve was certain that we would, because we've both heard that it's hard to get good red wine for cheap. When we got home, we immediately conducted the experiment. The verdict? The more expensive wine looked a little darker in the glass, but there was absolutely no difference in the taste. Either that, or we know absolutely nothing about wine and probably deserve to be drinking the cheapo stuff anyway. Isn't that interesting?