Friday Randoms

Maybe I should start calling this "Every OTHER Friday Randoms".  sheesh. . .  

On to the interesting stuff:

1-Kevin and Vanessa welcomed their sweet little baby Olive into the world last Wednesday!  Finally, the much anticipated wee girl made her appearance several days late and after torturing her mother with many hours of pushing.  . . And was she not worth the wait?  LOOK AT HER!  (hopefully they don't mind me putting her face on my blog. . .)  

Nolan has already staked his claim on her, which I think is understandable. . .though I think he may have a fight on his hands.  I hear she already has many suitors.

2-  Because of dear little Olive's arrival, and the drawn out nature of it, Kevin, of course, decided to be at his wife's side in the hospital while she delivered, rather than singing with the broadway stars at the Hale on Wednesday night.  Which meant. . .  Ben got to go on as File that night!  AND, to add to the excitement, Nick, Cort & I were at the show!  It was a very last minute decision on Kevin's part, to say the least.  Ben was working on lines and running scenes with Audra all day, but the final decision was only made 10 minutes before curtain!  And I have to tell you. . . Kevin is GOOD in this part.  Ben was nervous in a COMPLETELY understandable way.  Big shoes to fill doesn't even begin to cover it. . .

But Ben was AMAZING.  Just wonderful.  & the thing I appreciated about it most was that he didn't try to mimic Kevin.  He put his own spin on it, and it worked out beautifully.  Will & Audra were beyond gracious and the rest of the cast showered him with well deserved compliments when it was done. . .  

What a great night.

 (If you want to read another account of this show, this one is pretty awesome,

from the fabulous Marvin Payne.)

A picture exists of us with Will & Audra after the show, but I need to get it from the resident photographer (Korianne), so I will have to add it later.

3-  To follow up that joy, I headed off to CA last Friday morning to hang with the girls from my mommy board for a crafty weekend.  We did the same thing last year, in St. Louis, 

but this year we picked a really cool crafting house in Southern California (Temecula, which is basically the middle of nowhere) to host the retreat.  And it was DIVINE.  So much relaxing and chatting and SO much productivity!  

I managed to finish 25 taggie blankets in one weekend!  Some of them already have babies to go to, as you can see by the initials. . .  I can't wait to see what we follow it up with next year, because this year was AWESOME. 

4- We celebrated Trish-mas this week on Trish's birthday, by visiting the cemetary and going to PF Changs.  I can't believe it has been a year already. . .  And we still miss her. . .  of course.