First things first - can I tell you how relieved I am to be free from this "6 words" thing? Whew! It's amazing how, when you're restricted from talking for a while, you just want to burst forth with everything you can think of. Case in point: Often over dinner Hilary and I talk about things that need a fair amount of explanation - important happenings at work, complicated plans for the week - whatever - stuff that needs more than 3 sentences. Often we don't let Elena talk much because, either we need to get out some important stuff or because she's not finishing her dinner and we tell her to keep eating and she'll get to talk more when she's done. But, after multiple polite "excuse me, excuse me!" interruptions - getting increasingly more frequent, we'll sometimes think she has something urgent or important that she needs to say right then: "Yes Elena, you can speak now. What's so urgent?" "Once upon a time, there was a princess in a castle . . . . " And she bursts forth with a tale of ogres, giants, magic, and all sorts of things . . . when we'd been expecting that she was going to ask for a napkin, or to refill her juice or something. And these moments are always the most entertaining. Oh, and if you remember last week, she complained that her picture was "boring" because there was no crown. I fixed the problem, Princess :). Best deal on a backdrop: the cat had attacked my white linen, so I went out to bed, bath, and beyond and found a set of white cotton King size sheets for $37. The top sheet is 9' by 8' - can't beat that for a cheap perfectly white backdrop . . then just hit it with a bright strobe (or 2).

a cheap antique store find. I think I'm going to put pink cupcakes in the corner. I can't decide though if I want to do the same thing on each napkin, or do something different.