Maggiepaws

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Surly Duff

I've wanted to make this costume for years now, and we finally had a good reason. My office has a Halloween costume party every year, and we were invited to a party at a co-workers house last night.
Surly Duff is a Simpsons character, one of the 7 Duff beers at Duff Gardens. He is the only one with a speaking role: "Surly only looks out for one guy- Surly."

I won't bore you with details of the construction, but it took a couple of weeks and involved a 3D computer model and a 36" HP plotter printer. It's felt supported with foam rubber, and the label is made of felt. Sarah did a fantastic job of sewing all of the parts together, especially the cap. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Happy Halloween!

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Mary and Jason's Wedding


Click picture to enlarge...

Try #1: The one without video for us to follow.

Try #2: The one with video for us to follow.

Mary and Jason's Wedding

Yesterday two of our good friends got married. We were so excited. This wedding has been much anticipated over the last several months. I was a bridesmaid (the one on the far left), and my mom was the minister. They got married at the beautiful Shove Chapel on the Colorado College campus. It is a wonderful old gothic chapel, and I can't imagine a more amazing place for a wedding. It was kind of dark in there so our pictures came out a little dark and grainy. Mary and Jason hired a photographer that has a lot of experience taking pictures in there so I am sure their pictures will turn out a LOT better than ours!

After the wedding, we headed over to the reception at the City Hall in Manitou Springs. My friend Mary is a huge Napoleon Dynamite fan, and had some elements of the movie worked into the reception. The tables were all named for different characters. They had the Kip table, the LaFawnduh table, the Deb table, etc. And, the biggest surprise of all, all of the bridesmaids along with Mary learned the Napoleon dance and performed it for everyone. Mary originally wanted it to be her and Jason's first dance, but Jason quickly vetoed that idea (we don't blame him!!). All us the girls did have a great time learning the dance together, and were nervous but excited to perform it! We had arranged for Chris to have my laptop there with the video so we could have something to help us stay on track since that dance is VERY hard! When we went to do it my computer, of course, malfunctioned at the critical moment so we had to do it from memory!! As you can see, it was a little rough, but we got through it. Later in the evening, he had my laptop back up and running again, so we did the dance one more time to redeem ourselves. That round of it went a lot better! Enjoy the video clips. We had a lot of fun, and the guests loved it.

Mary and Jason, congratulations to both of you. We couldn't be more happy for you. Thanks for including us in your special day.

Update on Sophie


It has been a few weeks since we got our little Sophie and she is just doing great. She has fit right in with our household, and we love her so much already. We finally taught her how to play. She loves smaller toys like fake mice, etc. She plays by herself quite a bit, and with us as well. She loves to chase her toys when we throw them too. She has a big appetite and considering how skinny she was when we first got her, we have allowed her to eat as much as she likes. As a result, she is filling out beautifully and her coat is looking much better! We take her back to the vet next weekend for another round of vaccinations, and I am eager to see how much she weighs. She just looks so much better. She is slowly starting to see that Maggie is not out to get her. They have touched noses a few times, and Chris even just grabbed me to show me that they were both relaxing in front of our large living room window together watching the world go by. That is so great! We still do have moments though, when Maggie is somewhere that Sophie doesn't expect, so her ears go back and she starts hissing at Maggs, but I think we are doing a good job of trying to dispell those moments as quickly as possible. We are so glad that we got her. It is great to have a cat again. And this one is so nice. Whenever friends or family come over, she is not shy to jump right into their laps and start snuggling. We feel really blessed to have her.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Welcome Sophie!


Hello everybody! It has been a while since we last had news to share. We have had a busy summer, and all is well with us here. I want to introduce you to the newest member of our family, Sophie! It has been a little over a year since we lost Rosie, and it has taken us some time to get to the place where we were ready for our next cat. We had been starting to talk about it this summer. Cats are just such nice companions and we miss having that small but mighty presence in our house! My brother happened to be out at a Petco the other day looking for something for his dog, when he saw a sweet little calico cat in their adoption center. My family has a special place in our hearts for calicos having grown up with one who is just about the nicest cat you would ever meet. This calico that he saw had a very sweet personality, beautiful markings and was in need of a good home after giving birth to a litter of 5 kittens! Her kittens had already been adopted, and Sophie was left needing a good home. Chris, Maggo and I went down there yesterday to check her out. I took one look at her and just knew she would be perfect for us! We bought her, took her straight to the vet to have her checked out, and then brought her home. She came from the Humane Society ultimately, and as some of you may know, many of their animals can come with bugs of some variety or another. She checked out completely clean. Her poor little body needs some feeding up after having babies. She only weighs 6 pounds! That is easy enough to fix. And, her teeth need a cleaning very badly, which we will do once she gets all of her vaccinations caught up. She is SUCH a great kitty! She loves to follow me around in whichever room of the house I am working in. If I stand still for any length of time, she rubs up against my legs. She loves EVERYBODY. Anyone she meets is a new best friend. The one exception is Maggie. She is really not so sure about having a dog for a sister, which is funny because Maggie is very used to cats, and doesn't pursue her at all. She could really care less. That will just take some time. Sophie is young enough and sweet enough, she will eventually learn how cool it is for her to have her very own dog! She doesn't know how to play yet. We show her toys, and she is interested, but doesn't quite know what to do with them. That will take some work. She is just such a love, all she wants to do is snuggle which is just fine by us! Because she is so mellow, I think we will have no problems keeping her as an indoor cat. We are on the brink of winter anyways, so I think we will revisit the indoor/outdoor issue when the weather warms up again in the spring. She is pretty needy, so I don't think she would venture far if we let her out. We will see. We are just so excited to have her a part of our family. When I thought of my life as an adult when I was growing up, I always pictured having both a cat and a dog, and it feels great to have that back again.

I hope everything is going well with each of you. Drop us a line when you get a chance! Happy fall!