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I dusted off the old sewing machine on Friday. It's been a long, long time since I've sewn anything and there's a baby on the way (not mine) so I had to get cracking. I've never sewn triangles before but I decided to go for it. I've always avoided them because it's just all that many more lines you have to try to line up and it just seemed like a headache I wasn't emotionally stable or ready for. I stick to squares & stripes because they are so forgiving and easy. But, the quilting gods were with me and for the most part, they lined up okay.  I called Sarah from the fabric store on Friday (her shower was on Saturday) asking what colors she would like for a quilt. Pastels? Primary colors? Blues? Any colors you don't like? How do you feel about orange? Can you do orange? I love orange for boys. She said she could do orange and that she liked blues, too. Navy blue? Light blue? What kind of blue? I went with this one. I walked around putting fabric in & out of the cart, trying to find ones that, in my opinion, went together in a not-together kind of way, if you follow. I knew that I wanted a lot of white and maybe another solid color and the brown, well, the brown kind of came out of no where but I liked it so much with the orange & blue. I ended up binding it with white, which I've never done before but loved. It felt so summery and beachy and I'm not gonna lie- it made me want to go sailing. Ha! It's been really stressful and hectic here. We are in the middle of a trial that has been a bit of a nightmare. One last court date (hopefully) on the 23rd and crossing our fingers this thing will be over.  Finally.And Charlie, our sweet little Charlie. We've known for a while that something hasn't been quite right with this little whippersnapper. A speech therapist has confirmed that he is severely delayed in his speech (no surprise – at almost 2 1/2 he is only saying 2 words). He failed his hearing test shortly after which also was no surprise. We know he can hear, but don't know to what extent. There is a long wait to see the audiologist who will hopefully be able to shed more light. A developmental therapist was also brought in to rule anything else out. For the most part he is where he should be (cognitive, etc.,.) but tested at a 6 month old for his sensory/relational. This puts up some red flags for possible Asperger/Autism. We are going to do occupational and speech therapy weekly to see how he responds. In August, he will meet with a psychologist who will be able to give a proper diagnosis. I am relieved to finally have some direction and am anxious for the therapy to start.  Go, Charlie!Some turkey hacked into our bank account again this week. This is about the 5th time in 2 years. I don't know where they are getting our card info from. It's always been on Chris' card but this week it was mine. We cancel and change cards every time so who knows. I picked up the mail from our box yesterday and was greeted with several birthday cards and when I flipped them over to open them, I realized they had already been opened and the cash had been removed from the cards. Seriously??? Who does that??  Why is the universe against me having any cash?

It's all been a bit exhausting. I'm going away this week. By myself, sans birthday cash. I've never done that before. It's going to be good. I need it. 

Will be back in this space soon. 

Thanks for the concerned e-mails 🙂

p.s. On an unrelated side note, I cannot get enough of Long Island Medium. Chris says, "She's so orange" and I just say, "Isn't it fantastic- it goes with the hair & the nails." Seriously. Love. That. Show. And. Her. 

We went for it- we dyed the noodles rainbow colors and took them to the get-together Saturday night.  These shorter, wider noodles were easier for the kids to thread (we just used yarn) and so they made up pretty quickly. Also, completely inspired by Pinterest, we made our own little version of the rainbow & pot of gold using mini rainbow twizzlers (that we found in with the Easter candy).
 And now, well, I just want to sew something. I haven't sewn anything in a really long time. I'm really missing it. I'm thinking maybe a baby quilt.  We shall see…

Are you gearing up for St. Patty's Day? I went into Henry's 1st grade class today to do a project. I dyed noodles and we made necklaces with a big shamrock on them. I've never dyed noodles before but it was super easy and the kids seemed to get a kick out of it. 
All you need to do is add about 1/2 C of rubbing alcohol (Isopropyl 70%) and food coloring to the bottom of a gallon ziploc bag. Add the noodles and then shake to evenly coat. I used about 10 drops of food coloring. You can lay them on paper towels to let them dry for an hour or so. I was in a hurry so I put them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 7-8 minutes and that did the trick. I don't have any pic's of the finished shamrock necklaces but I think we'll make some more noodles for a party we are going to tomorrow and the kids can assemble them there. I'm thinking that rainbow colored noodles might be fun, too. I've got an Irish stew on the menu and a pistachio cake! Wish me luck!

I took Henry & Kate to the nursery on Saturday to pick up a few small plants for the hanging planters on our patio. The flowers back there always get neglected (as does our little yard) over the winter months but we can feel Spring right around the corner so it's time. I didn't actually buy any of those ranunculus, but they are gorgeous aren't they? The new additions are the yellow pansies and purple & red flowers (I have no idea what they are called). Those white  flowers somehow seemed to survive not being watered for a really long time so lucky for me I didn't have to completely replace everything. The guy at the nursery convinced me that I could grow bougainvillea (YEAH!) even though I don't have "full sun". It's one of my all time favorite plants and I've wanted to grow it for so long. He told me to keep it in it's pot, un-tie the branches from the stake and guide them around the existing wall of branches & leaves. I would LOVE  it if the bougainvillea completely took over the back wall, so we'll see.  Yep, that's exactly what I want, a whole wall of that 🙂

I was so stressed out last week and you should know I am not a person that gets stressed out. Big time stress. By the time Friday rolled around and Charlie had taken a sharpie to his entire body (not a big deal) and then to the Anthropologie tablecloth Chris bought me for Christmas a year + ago (huge deal) I decided to throw them both in the car, get drive-thru for lunch and put a movie on. I needed to find a happy place. Chris was on day 3 of being out of town, which is not a big deal- it just meant that getting to that happy place was going to take a little more effort.So we drove up the PCH and took lots of deep breaths. It's so beautiful up there. I love getting out of the city. Our drive was about 2 1/2 hours long, which was good. I felt much better. We pulled off at this point, just for a few minutes to take in the view. I had to rush back in order to pick up Henry from school on time. Chris is home now & we took a family drive up here again today after school. It was really cold & windy but  the children didn't care (plus we stopped at one of my favorite thrift shops up in Oxnard). Here's to less stressful days ahead and long drives on the beach (and maybe lunch one of these days at Neptune's Net!)

xo

If you follow my pinterest stream at all, you'd see I've been pinning some lemon recipes. When friends invited us over for desert yesterday, I thought it would be the perfect time to give try one out. I went for the "Lemon Melting Moments".  I've never made a cookie like this before, it has no eggs & 1/2 C cornstarch (who knew?) Once I made the batter, it looked like there was only enough to make about 4 cookies. If you roll them into small enough balls (a bit bigger than a cherry) you can get about 26 cookies. Plus, once you press them down with a fork, they get bigger. These cookies are similar to a shortbread cookie, they are light and flaky and melt in your mouth (hence the name). The original recipe has you make these into a sandwich cookie but it was too much cookie for me (I never thought those words would come out of  my mouth). It was too thick, so in the end, I piped the frosting on top and sprinkled with some additional lemon zest. I'm not super crazy about shortbread but having it paired with the lemon frosting made them a lot better. 

Enjoy! 

xo

Emily tells me that Instagram is the "lazy man's blogging" (and I kind of have to agree!)  Since my photo's there are private, I think at the end of each week, I'll share some of them with you here (I'm leaving out the one of Kate vacuuming naked in heels). Here's to a wonderful week!

xo

There was a time, long, long ago when I used to make birthday cakes for friends. It started when we lived in Boston and I would make little mini-cakes using these great pans I'd bought at Dean & Deluca in NYC. Back then most of us were new in our marriages with just a child or two, if any. The little cakes were a good size for a couple or small family to share. I wish I could say that I still bake a cake when friends birthdays roll around, but I don't. I wish I did because I really do love doing it. Maybe now it's the 3 kids and different responsibilities that keep me from doing it, that keep me from having the time. But every once in a while, the stars align and Elaine volunteers to bring Henry home from school and I have just enough time to get a cake in the oven and frosted (thanks again to Elaine who sends Henry in with the cocoa I needed to finish the frosting.)  Kate & I baked and frosted a cake for Sarah while Charlie napped. Kate insisted on sprinkling the sprinkles and did so very generously because one can never have too many sprinkles.
I love this fuzzy photo of all the children gathered around the cake and the birthday Mama in the background taking the picture :) Happy Birthday, Sarah! Thank you for letting us share it with you!

XO

 

Beantown. It was just as good as I'd hoped it would be. I didn't do anything super-amazing, I just drove around and went to some of the places I used to go. I hit some thrift shops (and scored a great pea coat because..um..I forgot to bring one and any socks….) I went to Michael's to get bugs for Henry's Valentines, drove past our old apartment and some of my favorite spots. We went to Mike's Pastry (I have no idea where those photo's went), the North End, Beacon Hill, The Public Garden, Harvard Square. Chris & I went to our favorite movie theatre for a date night and movie (The Artist, again!) It was strange being there without children because we didn't have children for most of the 6 yrs we lived there. Henry was only about 8 weeks old when we moved and so it was easy to remember going on dates to our favorite local theatre (go, Fenway!) We both loved the overcast Saturday that was a little drizzly with snow flurries because we remembered how those lazy, cozy Saturdays used to be and I don't know it's just so great and wonderful there. It just feels different in the best way humanly possible (we were just missing the children). We miss you, Brookline!

AND I/we were SO HAPPY that Emily & Mick drove into Boston for a little overnight getaway. We ate in Harvard Square and proceeded to give them the lamest tour of Boston which went something like this, "We went to that theatre on Valentines Day and saw Casablanca, that place has really good mongolian bbq, Mikes Pastry has *the best* cannoli, that's our old apartment…" A Friday night dinner & Saturday shopping was such fun. We miss you both so much. See you in a few months!

AND a giant thank you to my Mother who came and stayed with the kids (first time ever!) I know she was probably counting down the hours until we got home. I told her not to tell me if the weekend was a disaster and she didn't so it will remain a mystery :) 

AND thank you to our gracious Boston hosts: Felicity & Nathaniel. We loved being in your home (and I already miss Asher!) see you soon, hopefully!

xoxo

 

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