Some Scenes From The Weekend...

The weekend was filled with all sorts of crazy goodness -- cool, sunny spring-like days, leprechaun traps, sleep-overs, baby cuddling, camel rides, hidden lagoons.

It was a bit magical even.

But now we're back into the grind of the week, and it's not off to the best of starts... (think nasty head-colds and laundry threatening to take over the house). Boo for Monday.

I think Tuesday will be better. I can feel it.

Making Me (Really) Happy... (in no particular order)

The giant bag of grapefruits I bought at the Whole Foods for $6.99... resulting in the luxury of getting to enjoy a (crazy sweet/delicious) grapefruit every. single. day. for the past week and a half. Good stuff.

The two lovely, thoughtful, smart "magazines" that arrived in my mailbox this week: the 3191 Winter Quarterly and the new Anthology.

Man I love print...

Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt. Addicted. It's a bad scene.

image via this tumblr (which, I have to say, sports a pretty hilarious name)

The fact that both girlies told us excitedly over dinner last night that it was Theodor Gisel's birthday today...That they knew that fact and they knew that Dr. Seuss' real name was Theodor Gisel made Bryan and me immensely happy to say the least...

The salad bowl that Bryan's mom bought me for Christmas (that glass number above). I use it all the time, and I have to say it is a perfect salad bowl...it's just the right size for a big salad, and it's wide so all the good bits (like the cheese and the nuts) don't all sink to the bottom.

The musical stylings of Cake (the girlies are obsessed...they especially love the horns and the clever lyrics). But specifically the musical stylings of Cake playing on our iPad in the kitchen.

Music in the kitchen is a total game changer.

The fact that my sister Jennifer and her sweet baby Josie are flying in tonight from California for a visit. This one is making me happiest at all, so I suppose there was a bit of an order to this after all.


What's making you happy today?

Scenes from The Weekend A Day Late (aka Millie's Party)

I have to say, Millie's festive little soiree was a pretty great way to spend the first day of 2011.

And, surprisingly, it was a pretty mellow enterprise considering the slew of sugar-fueled littles running amok... We tried to corral things with a few structured games like pin the tail on the uni-donkey (a donkey with a taped on unicorn horn, of course), clothes-pin drop and musical squares (think musical chairs with less potential for injuries).

Then there was the pinata... What it is about watching a bunch of four-year-olds trying to bust open a pinata that's so funny? Oh and it's possible (but I'm not saying for sure) that the pinata may have died at my completely overzealous hand.

Pinata smashing = major satisfaction. Just sayin.

As for the rainbow cake, all told, it turned out ok. It tasted good, and it was pretty, but man that sucker was TALL... So tall that a single slice wouldn't fit on a dessert plate, and I needed vats of frosting to hold it all together. It was pretty insane.

Let's just say we're seriously detoxing from all that sugar.

Hope you guys had a fantastic weekend! So happy to be back in the swing of things.

A Sneak Peek...

Here's the thing...my number one, numero uno, most tippity top of the list goal for 2011 is to be more laid back, more chill, a little, well...(for lack of a better term) lazier.

And guess what, I think it's working, as it's 8:00 p.m. and I only just now realized today is Monday.

Yikes.

But after almost two full weeks, it's back to work and school and the normal routine tomorrow, so I'll just pretend it's Monday (i.e. I'll do a belated "Scenes from the Weekend" post), cool?

See more chill already...I'm feeling good about 2011 I tell ya.

Four...

Today is Millie is four.

Four.

Which blows me away for any number of reasons, but mostly because she has always been wholly and unequivocally my baby, and all of the sudden, she only wants to play with the "big girls", she's fiercely independent, and she's taller and leaner -- the little dimples on her hands seem to have disappeared...

Overnight she's a kid, and it makes me a bit melancholy.



It's an honor to watch the person she's becoming though -- this fierce, determined, salty, spunky little creature who also manages to be incredibly sensitive and loving and funny.

I am, suffice to say, beyond smitten with her. She melts me. Every. Single. Day.

Since I started this blog just a few months after Millie was born, I've also had the privilege of sharing all of her birthdays with you (one, two, three). Thank you for coming along on this ride with us...You guys make it infinitely lovelier.


And just for fun, here's some of the inspiration for Millie's big celebration this Saturday... After a bit of consulting with the interwebs and lots of amazing advice from you guys (thank you!), I'm feeling a bit more confident about that rainbow cake. Photos of the end result will ensue!


Unicorn by Andy Warhol...

felt garland via Erin Dollar...

rainbow cake (+ excellent instructions) via one charming party...

unicorn pinata via party city...

Scenes from The Weekend...

It was a full, fun, festive fall weekend...

Sorry I couldn't resist a little Monday morning alliteration. My brain is mushy from too much activity (and too many reeses peanut butter cups).

Let's see...we did a little high school football game tailgating on Friday, helped host a grown-up costume bash on Saturday (where I went as sort of an Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction/Vampire hybrid...don't ask), made some comically bad pumpkin muffins, attended a fun birthday party for two of Audrey's buddies on Saturday where the girlies dressed as matching cowgirls and went to a neighborhood Halloween block party complete with apple bobbing.

Whew.

And then of course there was trick-or-treating, which was a decidedly different enterprise this year. On the upside, Millie was really into it. Her mild fear of the scary decorations was totally overshadowed by the whole candy thing...that kid is mad for sugar. It's nuts.

On the downside, Audrey has decided she's a total big kid and quickly fell in with her buddies (otherwise known as a gang of crazy seven-year-olds), and they insisted on running from house to house, amassing as much sugar as humanly possible in their little plastic pumpkin head totes. It was mayhem, Tasmanian devil-esque...I couldn't keep up. So Bryan went with the crazed big kids, and Millie and I followed (way) behind...slooowly making our way through the neighborhood.

Times they are a changin.

Hope your weekend was fantastic.

the good witch and violet in a rare moment of calm...

A Few Random Bits...

image via smaller...

After spotting Bunnyears.tv over on Smaller, I immediately piled into the big bed with the girlies and let them take turns picking a groovy vintage cartoon from say, France (of course) or the Czech Republic for us to watch. It's pretty genius stuff... so much more subtle and simple than the current line-up of animated TV.

We're obsessed.

And speaking of Smaller (and Christine), Little Bean is hosting a party next Friday, November 5th for Jaime Morrison Curtis' new book, Prudent Advice, which looks like a perfect gift for all your Mama friends.

Jaime will be there signing copies + there will be plenty of sweets, bubbly and some fun giveaways.

You know the drill...if you're in town, plan on stopping by. Little Bean parties are always a blast!

image via d magazine...

Finally, check out what's going on over at D Magazine's excellent arts blog, Front Row:

"Join FrontRow As We Take Up the National Novel Writing Month Challenge"

Consider this your chance to churn out the great American novel complete with a built-in support group.

Channeling Talia...

I think about the "formula" (if there even is one) for raising curious, creative, interesting kids pretty much non-stop.

Obviously there's a huge “nature” component to who we ultimately become, but I try to supplement it with an awfully hefty dose of nurture, while at the same time bracing myself for the fact that despite all my efforts to the contrary, it's altogether possible that one of the girlies might decide to become a CPA. (Not that there's anything wrong in theory with CPAs...we need them...they're important…)

My "nurture" strategy includes lots of classes for the girls (ballet and art and French) and lots of experiences (museums and theater and live music) and as much travel as we can afford, but what I often overlook is the formative impact on them of what I’m doing/how I spend my free time.

I heard Terry Gross's Fresh Air interview with Jason Schwartzman while I was driving to lunch last week and was totally struck by how he describes the environment that his mother (the actress Talia Shire) created in their home, specifically this:

"But, at a young age, what I really did witness, because she never forced it upon us, but I witnessed how movies and music can be nutritional, I guess, to a person. I would come home from school; she would always be downstairs with an old movie on. Every room in our house had a different book open, face down. There would be music on in one room, even though she wouldn't be in it, and she would kind of just go from room to room and pick up and read and go and listen and go downstairs and watch. She needs that. It's still the same way. If you go to my house, the same house I grew up in, she's there with movies on, music playing and books everywhere. And so I witnessed how important these things can be to you."

After hearing Schwartzman recount that specific memory, I had to pull over so I could jot a little note to myself… Here’s what it said:

the type of mother I want to be...”walk the walk"

Schwartzman doesn't mention a mother that signed him up for a back-to-back roster of classes, helming an endless carpool circuit from one enriching creative activity to another. Rather what seemed to have (at least partially) formed him as a creative being is what he "witnessed" his mother doing (or rather living) -- her love of cinema and books and music…her passions.

This is hugely important don’t you think? This "walking the walk", this showing your kids that you value art or literature or theater or creative pursuits, not because you get them to participate, but because you do them yourself.

I have to admit it feels selfish when I do things simply because I love to do them. If I have a few moments of free time (rarely), I feel guilty (especially as a working mother, but I know my SAHM friends struggle with this as well)…like I need to be doing flash cards with Millie or drawing with Audrey or taking them on a nature walk, or you know…making them into "super-kids".

But I don’t think it has to be that complicated. My girls mimic me and Bryan incessantly. If we're reading, they read. If I'm cooking, they want to cook, if Bryan pulls out his guitar, they want to play instruments. It's incredible (and scary) how much our actions influence what they want to spend their time doing...and I know this phenomenon might not last, that we have a sort of finite period to imprint our habits and pastimes onto their little forming psyches.

So I’m going to try and channel Talia a little bit more. We’ll see how it goes.

While We Were Away...

this is what the girlies were up to...

Needless to say, they had quite the rockin' weekend.

They spent one night with lovely cousin Erin and boyfriend Ben and the next night with our dearest friends Julie and Tim. We are lucky to have such an amazing support system...

Things I Learned From My Seven-Year-Old

Audrey bogarting the photobooth at the bat mitzvah we attended last weekend... a party where she knew not a single sole and yet proclaimed it the best. night. ever.


I am not what you would consider a shy or, well... reserved person. I typically have no fear when it comes to chatting it up with strangers, even if it means I might end up embarrassing myself (or more realistically, my loved ones).

Such past moments of boldness include attempting to give my daughter to Jessica Simpson in Barneys (in my defense, I didn't actually realize it was Jessica Simpson when I made said offer, or I would've thought twice) and striking up a conversation with Kelly Wearstler in the ladies room at Craft. (Ok, I may have followed her into the ladies room, but can you blame me?)

Most recently, I spotted a gentleman who helped found the company where I worked for many years. The company was huge (over 100,00 employees), so I'd never met the man before, but I greatly respect him, as he's contributed hugely to our community, including being instrumental in the creation of our fantastic symphony center. So of course I had to go up to him and say hello (or as Bryan might say, I had to go up and "bother him"). In and of itself, not so gutsy I suppose, but then there was the fact that this lovely gentlemen was deep in conversation with Ross Perot... a conversation I interrupted...to say hi...

See fearless. (Ok, ok, or annoying.)

I'm not altogether sure where this chutzpa comes from, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's probably one part genetics (I have an awfully bold mother) and one part being the perpetual new kid -- attending three elementary schools, two junior highs and two high schools tends to make you a little fearless I think.

So it's throwing me that lately I am experiencing what can only be described as a complete crisis of confidence. I have fear in situations that normally wouldn't phase me, I'm shy (well shy for me) when I normally would be bold. It's disconcerting.

I have a couple of theories as to why this is happening, but I won't bore you with them here. No, what I really wanted to tell you is how I'm overcoming the crisis, or more specifically "who" is pulling me through it.

Yep you guessed it (my post titles always give me away don't they?), it's Audrey. My super fearless, sweet, wise little A.

Here's how things went down. A couple of weeks ago she was hanging out with me while I was getting ready to go to a party where I would know nobody...and I was going alone...and I was mildly intimidated by the place and the reason for the party. I confided in Audrey that I was really nervous and didn't want to go... She listened all intently and seriously and then busted out with this little nugget of wisdom:

"you know mommy, i was super nervous when i tried out for the nutcracker, but then i was sitting next to this other little girl in the try out and i leaned over and asked her a question, and then she asked me a question, and then i asked her another question, and then she asked me a question...and then i wasn't nervous anymore. so you should do that."

To which I replied, "brilliant", what kind of questions should I ask?"

Long pause.

And then: "jeez mommy, i can't tell you everything to do. you need to decide what to talk about yourself."

And then she rolled her eyes and went to play with Millie.

She's good that one.

A Winner (And Some Thanks...)

accordion thank you card by the lovely Jenn

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the lovely comments on Audrey's birthday post. She read every single one and was grinning from ear-to-ear the entire time. I think you pretty much made her week.

And congrats Trina! You won the sweet anchor shirt from Modern Frills.

Scenes from The Weekend Part II -- Audrey's French Fête

So (given the contents of my recent article) I’m going to say this in a whisper.

I *might* be completely on-board with the non at-home birthday party too.

There, I said it…we can move on now so I don’t feel like the world’s biggest hypocrite. Deal?

In all seriousness, I loved throwing this party. Loved. It. It was the perfect easing into, well letting go a bit… After six consecutive (highly planned) at-home fetes, it was nice to go “off-campus” so to speak. And given that it was the day after the Little Bean party, the timing for a new approach couldn’t have been better.

Here’s how things went down on the big day. Fifteen or so of Audrey's girlfriends to joined us at f.is for frank to make their very own pewter charms and beaded bracelets. We cranked up some French tunes, and the utterly fantastic Shannah and Casey showed the girlies all their jewelry making equipment and walked them through the process of making charms. Then each guest donned their artist’s beret and carved their masterpiece out of a little slab of clay.

Afterward we noshed on some simple vanilla cake, lemon macaroons and French lemonade (+ some bubbly for the mamas of course).

Finally they all lined up for some group snaps and voilà, we were done.

It was the easiest party I’ve ever thrown, and Audrey had a blast, which is really the most important part, non?


The Details:

• Location -- f. is for frank
• Berets -- Village Hat Shop
• “Bonjour” Bunting -- Common Threads (custom order)
• Tablecloth/Fabric -- IKEA
• Postcards -- Yellow Owl Workshop
• Striped Straws -- Fort and Field
• Book -- This is Paris (gift from our friend Annie)
• Cake, Macaroons, Lemonade, Bubbly – Central Market