2012: A Banner Year

I'm tossing around a new idea to replace the oft-touted, rarely kept new year's resolution. It would take a global approach to the new year instead of the myopic tendency we have to focus on making changes in the first few months and then tiring of the effort at all for the remainder of the year. Instead of making a number of grand proclamations about what we will do different or better or more fabulous, Ben and I have decided we will give 2012 a theme name and then make all our decisions big and small with this theme in mind. I suggested we might call 2012, The Year of Champagne--then every time we have to make any decisions we would drink a bottle of bubbly and let the booze be our guide. Ben thought maybe that wouldn't be exactly true to the spirit of our new idea especially since it has so much potential for disaster in the first year of this new campaign. Instead, he suggested 2012: The Year of Fun. And I heartily agree! Now we will have 365 days of opportunities to ask ourselves if given the choice between laundry and a day at the park--which would be more fun? And I handily support any new year's theme that will give me not only carte blanche to choose the fun things but which would mean I fail if I do not!

Of course, some days there are bound to be choices between two equally un-fun things, grocery shopping and dusting, for example but having to choose the fun one just might make me see even my chores as opportunities to have fun. Mary Poppins and her spoon full of sugar will be my inspiration on those days. There's no reason something mundane can't be transformed into something exciting and fun.

All-in-all I can't think of a better way to approach another new year than to be conscious of all our decisions, both inconsequential and impactful, to create more moments of pure, unadulterated fun. Let's live the next year as we hope our kids will--blissful, free and having FUN!

Of christmas cards and the digital age

Christmas cards are sort of my thing--anything paper related actually. Ever since we had kids I like to send a great-looking card whereas before, I just bought whatever I liked from card store and had far fewer cards to send. I actually wrote my cards out by hand to each and every person! Insert audible gasp here.

Now, I settle for a pre-printed one with a photo but we send about 75 cards out so it can get expensive. I'm trying to be good about getting a photo done early so I can take advantage of the sales that they all offer around Thanksgiving and of course, as a bonus that would mean I can get my cards out earlier too.

I guess you could say I'm not a fan of those envelope-sized glossy photo cards.
Way back before the digital age made the printed word cheap and instantaneous, some might say effortless and thoughtless too, people put their Christmas cards in a shoebox to save. People had things to say to each other and took the time to write those sentiments on a card during the holidays. I have to think those cards were saved as much for the power of their written words as for the effort it took to send the card at all. Whole shoe boxes were dedicated to saving those cards, as anyone with an elderly relative can attest! Then, we stopped writing them in favor of store-bought printed cards with their factory generated sayings, quotes, and artwork saving us the time and energy of writing them ourselves. Now, even those seem to have almost disappeared in favor of the ubiquitous glossy photo card printed on 9.5x4.5 paper so one can just slip them in the envelopes already on-hand in the office; practically eliminating entirely any thought or effort on our part.

But, I have to wonder what exactly we accomplish by sending those flimsy, notoriously difficult to display, pieces of photo paper that will fade to oblivion in less than a year. Certainly, cost is a factor. They can be cheaper than a store bought card to send and everyone loves a good photo.

But, If you want cheap you can just print the 4x6 photos and pop them in the mail with a post-it note to say Merry Christmas. There's always a 100 cards for 1 cent each deal going on online. And if post-its aren't your thing, buy the frame-type cards. It would be like sending a mini-Christmas gift or a card that keeps on giving. I know I would keep a photo I received like that but those long skinny cards I just never know what to do with. They don't stand on their own, they don't fit in a frame or photo album pocket and they're not printed to last without fading for any length of time. But I guess if you send those kind you don't expect any of that. It's a disposable card.

If it were acceptable many folks would probably skip the step of sending a card at all and just attach a photo to an email and write, "Merry Christmas!" in the subject line and hit send to 400 of their closest friends and family. To be fair, an email is probably already pretty close to being an acceptable mode of delivery for a Christmas card. A friend of mine did that last Christmas.

But, I reserve the right to stand up for tradition and quietly send out our cards--already a step-down from years past when we sent folded cards with a hand-written note--on real paper just in case someone out there still has a shoebox with which they like to collect their Christmas cards. And I like to think that we'll be around and our messages of joy and happiness in this season will last far longer having been saved by a few of the traditionalists in some little shoebox somewhere.

Wishing everyone a beautiful holiday season and mailboxes full of enduring, heartfelt messages of joy and love.

Winter Bucket List

A friend gave me the idea of doing a bucket list for all the things we can't wait to do with the girls this winter and I am loving it! Gi and I took some time this afternoon to dream up our list and it included everything from our time-honored tradition of making cookies and decorating them together to ice skating, something we have yet to try for the first time.

19 winter activities later we have our official winter 2011 bucket list! Gi decided she would make an ornament for herself and Noa, number 4 on our list, and by the end of the afternoon we were able to cross off our first item! Now we'll have a constant reminder to seize every day this winter and not miss any chances for some good old-fashioned merrymaking. Personally, I'm really looking forward to number 6 on our list, call someone and sing them a Christmas carol. We may have to do that one a few times for all our family!

Running Sin City

T-minus 3.5 days. "I'm leaving on a jet plane..." off to sin city to run my first half marathon (Rock N Roll Las Vegas) and doing it means leaving my little ones and the hubby for two days and nights. (Boo! I am pretty teary about that.) I have never been in better shape but I got hit by a chest cold last week and am still recovering. My runs lately have made me feel like I'm dragging my legs through the mud while battling a case of asthma. Instead of hearing my footfalls in sync with my deep, calm breaths they land to a nice rhythm of cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze. Oh well, I'm sure the desert night air will do me recuperative wonders.

Maybe lady luck will come out and show some support for me too. Or at least she could smile down on the $100 I'll be laying out on black at the roulette table. It would be great if I could come home having earned back all my costs of going there. That is one great thing about a trip to Vegas, there is always the potential that no matter how crazy a time you have there, your trip costs can be covered by a genius night at the tables thereby invalidating your desire to complain about anything.

It should still be a pretty good trip even if I don't cross the finish line under my goal time of 2 hours 20 minutes. I just have to keep remembering that finishing is a great accomplishment in itself and to stop to drink in the lights and sounds and music along the way. This is the ultimate way to run sin city after all: rock music, the strip closed to traffic at NIGHT and a post-race party at the Palazzo. Okay, I'm feeling better about this already. Now let's shake a tail feather at those little 13.1 miles!

Preschool ideas I love

Gi has brought home some very cool preschool craft projects that I wish I had thought of myself. I had the chance to work in the class when they did these contact paper "windows" for Halloween and today I was also there when they made them for fall. All the kids really seemed to enjoy the process from start to finish. And, as a parent I enjoyed that they got to work artistically and also were challenged to use scissors, fine motor skills working with tape and hole punchers. Hey, don't underestimate how difficult it is to put a long piece of tape straight across an edge of paper and fold it around to the other side! But these kids did great and were so proud of their creations that I just had to share the idea.

To create them, just cut out a rectangle shape of clear contact paper, remove the backing, let the kids fill one side (not putting anything big over the middle of the paper where you will fold it) with objects (anything work, don't limit to flat, one-sided objects), fold it down the middle and tape up the sides. Punch two holes at the top and tie a length of yarn to hang.

These "windows" would be perfect projects at the beginning of every new season, using their interior contents to talk about all the things that make the season unique. For example, today we made fall windows and inside we put autumn colored foil leaves, turkey stickers, real maple leaves found on our leaf walks, branches, twigs, moss etc.

Happy crafting!

Noa's Party

We did it! The cupcakes turned out beautiful and super yummy, the decorations were the sweetest touches and the rest of the food (BBQ pulled pork sliders with homemade coleslaw and crockpot beans) were great too. Thanks to all the family for coming and enjoying a beautiful afternoon with us as we celebrated Noa's first birthday!

Buzzzzzz!!!!

Noa is ONE year old!

Okay, so I'm three days late in announcing that. We decided to have the party the weekend after her birthday to make it easier on all my family's schedules (but don't forget that we won't be postponing her party next year please!) and so Gi could go to her buddy's birthday party which would have been on the same day. Anyway, even with the extended deadline I have had a super hard time committing to a theme and getting things planned for the party. It's also tougher the second time around having a standard in place for what a child's first birthday party should look like. With Gi we invited everyone under the sun, did a slideshow set to music and decked the house in pink and green. This time around, we only invited family and four days before the party I have finally decided it will be a bee theme. I tested the cupcakes last weekend and they are cute as pie and de-lish! The cupcakes are honey with yellow meringue buttercream frosting and marzipan bumblebees on top. Of course the theme was generated from a tasty snack idea. It all starts with the food folks!

But I've been secretly wringing my hands about how to decorate for the party, stuck as I am in a rural town far from chain party supply stores and short on time for do-it-yourself decorations. Then, inspiration hit! I have a 3 year old! And she likes to do CRAFTS. Insert devilish grin here. Today, Gi and I whipped up four of the cutest, simplest paper plate bumble bees complete with wax paper wings (using cut-outs of her footprints) and googly eyes of her choosing. She painted all the plates yellow then she added black stripes, glued on the eyes, painted noses and smiles and stood patiently while I traced her foot and cut them out of wax paper which she finally glued on top the plates as wings. As luck would have it, I have four windows in the kitchen that need decorating so I will be hanging these at varying heights around in the windows and voila! We have keepsake decor to brighten up the kitchen around the birthday cupcake table!

Painted popcorn!

I will confess, what follows here is a stolen idea--and aren't those the best kind?--taken from my new favorite obsession www.pinterest.com. If you've never checked out that website you simply must, especially if you love to collect recipes, ideas for home improvement projects, or crafts. It's basically like twitter except with graphics. Useful and fun!

So, I ran across a "pin" from one of my mom friends on there about painting popcorn (and marshmallows) using milk and food coloring (click here to see the original post). It sounded fun and I was hungry so it was a shoe-in for today's afternoon craft time with Gi while Noa was sleeping. I used sweetened condensed milk and neon food coloring gels for a home-made take on that tutti-frutti colored popcorn I loved so much as a kid at any amusement park.  Next time I may experiment with finding that tutti-frutti flavor by adding some fun extracts to the condensed milk. I'm thinking coconut and strawberry might just do the trick! Oh, and since I said that, why not make popcorn balls of this for trick-or-treaters this year! Yay! Now, I'm thinkin'--and see how it pays to steal an idea every once in awhile? ;)

Update: I couldn't wait to try the extract idea so after posting this I ran back to the kitchen and added orange extract to the orange coloring, raspberry to the purple and coconut to the green. In a word? AWESOME! So if you choose to try this at home, please I urge you, do not stop at painting your popcorn beautiful colors, add some flavorings and your kiddos will go gagga for it! Okay, you may also need to make a double batch so they have some leftover after you eat it all! Not that it happened like that at our house or anything.

Fall is almost here!

Since we have the first day of fall this week, Gi and I decided to do some art in honor of the changing seasons. The fact that I've had this eco-friendly paint stashed in my art cabinet for over a year without a worthy project to test it on, was just the inspiration I needed to break out of our morning routine and usher in some creativity.

Glob paint was sitting on a shelf in a local sustainability store and it called my name.  Now, I've tried making my own paint formulas with spices and veggies I've had on hand and they've done pretty well especially for finger paints when you know your little one's hands are going to go straight from paint cup to mouth. But, the copious amounts of spices and veggies needed to create the colors made it almost as expensive to produce my own as it would be to buy such natural-based paints. Glob isn't cheap but the great thing about it is that you mix the paints from dry powder so you can decide how much of each color you need at any one time. The result is a product that the kids can help make from scratch (measuring the water and dry pigment) and have lots left over for future projects.

Okay enough product advertising and on with the actual art! It was pretty easy, novice stuff this morning. I just cut a long strip of easel paper, drew the outline of a tree on it, cut up additional sheets to add to the width and drew branches. Then, we taped it to the wall and I continued cutting out leaf shapes until Gi got antsy and whined to start painting.  So, I now have quantified her attention span in terms of paper leaves: 12 to be exact. She got to paint her leaves with her new veggie colors (beet red was her favorite) and then Noa joined us and shocked us both by grabbing a paintbrush and doing the same! I thought for sure she would just do a little finger painting but I underestimated the power of big sister role modeling. Of course she would want to do it exactly the way Gi did!

Then, we had fun with the tape roller and Gi got to stick all her leaves on our fall tree! I can't wait to add more branches and leaves and watch the tree grow. I think I will leave the tree up on the wall and as we get farther into fall we'll have fun moving the leaves off the branches, letting them "fall" to the ground and eventually make a leaf pile at the base of the tree. When the branches are bare we'll get to talk about winter and that's the beauty of a home school lesson on the changing seasons, you start with a simple idea and can transform it, evolve it into an ongoing lesson theme! I can already imagine using this tree to talk about leaf structures, tree species etc. We're going to have so much fun this fall! 
So, how will you usher in the new season?

Noa is 11 months old!

I can hardly believe I am already putting together plans for Noa's 1st birthday! She is just growing up so fast. Tonight she finally let go of our hands and tried her best to walk between us and though she didn't quite take her first steps, I know the day will come soon enough and oh what an adventure life will be then!

She is already quite a spunky kid, spitting out new words almost every week and using her baby sign language quite proficiently now. She signs bird, hello, goodnight, fan, fish and all done. She tries very hard to keep up with her big sister and loves a good game of hide and seek and chase. She's also fascinated with trying to put her clothes on and washing her hands. If the water is running, she does everything herself, grabs the soap, lathers, rinses, tries to turn the water off and reaches for the towel! It's crazy.

Up next on Noa's plate is music class! We start tomorrow and I'm super excited to see her reaction. I know she will love the class because we spend so much of our days dancing and making music together. She loves all our shakers and drums and Gianna's little piano. And let's not forget how much she loves to shake her bum! Check out the video to see a great example of her latin blood shining through...(as well as Gi picking out presents for Santa to bring her, already!)

Noa dancing!

Summer Fun!

I was looking through the 1,776 photos that have accumulated on my iphone and decided it was time to unearth the best of them from this summer and get them uploaded. So here are a few shots of what we've been up to recently, from our single trellised vine on the property to the county fair and lazy days around the river. Summer's not over though! We are looking forward to Noa's baptism next weekend, two camping trips to Lake Tahoe and Buck's Lake in September and at least one trip to SF and the zoo.

Noa is 10 months old! (video too!)

The summer is almost over though you wouldn't know it by how my tomatoes are doing or the fact that our blackberries are still green. I'm hoping for an indian summer just so I can keep gathering my slow-to-mature tomatoes, strawberries and green beans. But, with the close of summer also comes some pretty fun times: the county fair, preschool, music class and for me, a tan.

Noa is another month older and on her quest to reach all her developmental milestones on time, she began cruising around the furniture, pulling up and walking while holding on to just about everything in sight. And while she had been saying Mama and Papa for quite some time I was over the moon with excitement when she blurted out hello and allo and raised my telephone to her ear to talk with me. She's also grabbing Gi's shoes and her own shoes and trying to put them on her feet. It's just so darn cute to watch everything clicking into place for her and I have to remind myself that she is certainly absorbing everything we do and say like a sponge though she has been keeping her thoughts to herself for so long. It's always a shock when she makes an advance because it is usually not just one new milestone but two or three on the same day and with no warning!

A little list of Noa's accomplishments:

-stands up (since 9 months)
-walks while holding onto furniture or with my hands
-waves bye-bye by opening and closing her hand
-waves hello by throwing both arms in the air and flapping them up and down with palms open
-says uh-oh, hello, allo, mama and papa
-pretends to talk on the phone
-tries to put on her shoes and takes off her shirts by herself
-can throw a temper tantrum in the blink of an eye if you take something away that she wants
-loves to bang on a drum, shake a maraca and strum a guitar
-drinks from a straw


Here's a video of her yesterday talking with us on the phone:

Farewell to July

Summer is almost over! Gi's preschool starts again in August and pretty soon we will find ourselves back in the daily routine of school, music class, gym class, repeat so I wanted to get at least a little update on here about what the last month has been like for us.

We celebrated 5 years of marriage this month and spent about two weeks celebrating. We saw an India Arie concert for free and took a couple date nights out for dinner as well as a weekend at the Resort at Squaw Creek with the kids. There we enjoyed hot tubbing, rollerskating, visiting high camp and a simply DE-lish meal at the PlumpJack, where Diego the bartender from Argentina served me up a concoction of Gin and gin and more gin and some juices and liqueurs that I can't recall but which left me tingly and happy and perfectly primed for the 5 star meal that followed. I'm officially over my reluctance to embrace Squaw for fear of being relegated as one of "those" pretentious types. The resort and the restaurant there were nothing short of amazing and totally deserved of the hype. Sadly or happily, we had so much fun I only have photos of Gi on a pony ride and Noa and Gi in the pool. For once I did not document the experience as I was immersed in the enjoyment of it!

On the home front we finally decided to finish our basement which was framed but not insulated or finished when we first bought the house. We are horrible contractor shoppers so we interviewed someone who came highly recommended to us and when the price was what we were thinking of spending we okayed the job on the spot. Our plans for an extension and bathroom got nixed due to budget but we ended up with a 224 sq. ft space with 12ft ceilings, a wide door to access the rest of the under-house and a new storage platform that now features the wood shelves that were tacked onto the walls of the original room. The contractor put in a glulam beam to support the weight of the master bedroom floor and took out the two 2x4 posts that were taking up center space in the room. That leaves us with a bright, airy, totally insulated and drywalled guest room/exercise room/craft room. All that is left is to paint, mount the ceiling fan, find some mini spotlights, buy window shades and get a friend to do the tile work for cash. Botta bing! We're in business for the holidays and all the family we'll have staying with us.

Here are some pics of the finished room and storage under the house:

Blueberries!

Today the kids and I met up with our friends at the blueberry patch. This is the first I've heard of a u-pick blueberry patch in the area, even after being here for 3 summers now. It goes to show how long it really does take to settle into a neighborhood!

The weather has been super warm lately but today was only forecast to be in the 80's so we chanced it and headed out early. Sunscreen on the kids, hats in place, let the sweat fest commence! We were greeted by Gloria, a sun-battered and very knowledgeable woman. She led us by the hand to the closest blueberry bush and demonstrated clean picking technique (use two hands and leave the bucket on the ground), how to gently move the branches so as not to break them, what colors were considered ripe for each variety we would encounter and so on. Armed with this knowledge and knowing full well the kids would go ahead and commit fruit picking sins right and left immediately, we gamely headed into row 10.

Turns out the first thing you really must do when visiting a blueberry patch and trying to pick berries before the midday sun drives you out of there is find the nearest port-a-potty for your three-year-old. Then, having dispensed of such mundane tasks, you should trek back to your row of berry heaven, put the baby on the ground and proceed to rip off as many blueberries as you can, paying no attention to Gloria's ideas of color ripeness or the delicate plants themselves as you race to fill the bucket before the baby fills her stomach with soft, damp dirt. If she only manages a few handfuls, dust her chubby fingers off and relocate her to another patch of ground. This time, place a few obstacles in her path to keep her on the grass and then resume your berry "picking". Now you are just blindly slapping your palms at anything larger than the size of a pencil eraser, hoping to fill your bucket with at least these smaller specimens because you can grab handfuls of them at a time. Now look over and see your baby hasn't moved.

Congratulate yourself on that minor miracle until you notice the green grass hanging out of her mouth and the two fists more on their way in. Put the baby back in your Ergo carrier and sweat out another 20 minutes with this wiggling 20lb. mass trying to stick her hands in your bucket, in your mouth, in the bushes, in your toddler's mouth, in your toddler's hair, down your shirt, and the air in general. Wave to someone you know who just arrived to pick berries (it's a small town and this happens CONSTANTLY), gesticulate madly about how hot it is, how yummy the fruit is (and consequently how little you have managed to put in your bucket having been waylaid by your mouth) and negotiate with your toddler to have her bend over and get the car keys that have now slipped from your pocket to the ground for the 10th time in 10 minutes. Make it to the car wrangling all your tired, sweaty, thirsty progeny, yourself and your pittance of blueberries. Now go to your friend's house to decompress and gorge on the fruit of your labors. The kids fall asleep way past their usual nap time but when they wake up Papa is already home from work, early on a Friday. Hand the kids off to him and plead heat stroke or insanity or both. Mission Accomplished! Now I am going to go put some blueberries on my ice cream and go to bed.  Who knows what's in store for the weekend after a day like today!

Formaldehyde finally listed on FDA list of carcinogens

We've suspected for a long time and it's the primary reason why I wanted to go with organic bedding for Noa's crib set (see my older post here) and now the FDA finally makes it official that all those sheets labeled "wrinkle-free" really are bad for your health--and more so the plywood used to build that new house you may be living in like we are and some hair styling products. Since I can change my sheets and hairspray but I cannot remodel my house from the ground up, I choose to focus on those products. Formaldehyde is what they treat fabric with so it doesn't wrinkle easily. It's why organic cotton sheets look so unkempt when they come out of the dryer no matter how fast you remove them and put them on your bed. But, that's a small price to pay for a better night's sleep, in my opinion, and I'm both happy that the FDA has finally admitted so much and sad that the chemical industry in this country has managed to delay the report for 4 years.

Click here for the article from the New York Times if you wish to read it.

She made a liar out of me...

One day after posting about Noa's apparent lack of motivation to crawl, what did she go and do? Yup. She crawled. Well, it's an army-style crawl where she pushes off on her feet and slithers her belly forward by pulling herself along with her arms. She's getting better and better each day too. Today, she also managed to sit herself up from a laying down position. Craziness how it just happens suddenly like that. *sniff sniff, my baby is getting so big!

She speaks!

But she can't crawl yet. At 8 months old, Noa is getting really fun and lively. She weighs about 18lbs and is about 28 inches long, still a bean pole and in the 90%ile for height.

Her new favorite accomplishments are saying, "Mama" and "Hi". I think she's also practicing Papa and Miko but those are a little ways off still. She does every maneuver in the gymnastic floor exercise book but has yet to put her arms and legs together in a concerted effort for forward locomotion. She has come very close to bouncing her legs over her head and tumbling into a summersault and consequently I have suffered extreme emotional distress worrying about her accidentally breaking her neck just trying to learn how to crawl. While her gross motor skills are taking their sweet time, her fine motor skills are ahead of the curve. She already has a great pincer grasp and now looks for the tiniest specks of debris on the carpet and beelines it to her mouth. This is decidedly NOT my favorite of her new found skills! She also loves to clap, bang two objects together--while we "make music" in the tupperware drawer--and passes toys from one hand to the other marveling the whole time at her cute little hands and can now drink from a cup (with much drooling, chugging and sputtering of course).

She continues to be a magnificent eater, never once turning down a food offered to her though she definitely makes known her preferences namely, mangoes, bananas, peas, strawberries, blueberries and yogurt. It's difficult not to make comparisons with Gi at the same age but suffice to say she was not eating much more than a couple spoonfuls of any of those foods. Noa makes dinner time so much fun by trying everything we give her. Last night, she even happily munched on artichoke leaves while I prepared her rice cereal, milk, fruit combo.

In other news, we are finally getting a break from all the dreary rain and freezing temps that have lasted for the past 8 months. Summer may indeed be on its way and boy am I ready with cute sundresses for the girls and outings planned to the river! Sadly, our two cherry trees don't seem to have enjoyed the longest winter on record and we may have to dig them up and replant them this year. I'm also excited to report that we have a few vines blooming--even if they are in an absolutely wild and unkempt state. We just haven't had the time or good weather to get out there and tend them. That's next on our "to do" list for sure!

Here's the latest video I've uploaded of her rolling around and looking cute.