the plaid dress

Kindergarten through third grade. 

I don't know if any of you read a few months ago about Dale Irby, the teacher who wore the same outfit for school photos for FORTY YEARS, but when I heard about it it made me laugh. Because for the last four years we have been doing the same thing to our sweet Stella, with no objections from her. She has been rocking this plaid flannel dress to school picture day every year, and if it doesn't fit next year we're turning it into a headband or scarf, so that it always makes an appearance. 

Poor Stella. I think they make her keep her mouth closed for the photos because if you have kids at this age, you know what it looks like when all those teeth start moving. She's our beautiful girl, though. ❤

for our girl

Stella turns eight tomorrow. Unbelievable. She is an amazing young lady, even if she takes after her parents a little too much. I love, love, love her, of course, and want to give her everything.

Stella thinks nothing is going on for her birthday. She thinks we're just going to a pumpkin patch tomorrow to celebrate, just the four of us. What she doesn't know is that I'm picking her up after school with seven of her friends, who also don't know anything, and we're coming home for a quick and sweet surprise birthday party! My mother did this for me when I was around her age and it is something I never forgot. She had me come down to the garage to help get the groceries, but instead of groceries it was a car full of my friends! I hope Stella feels the same way about this surprise!

I am throwing things together quick and dirty. I bought five of the posters above from our local shipping store. One is on the front door, three more are hung inside and the last one I just decided to turn into a "pin-the-candle-on-the-cake" game. My glue gun should just never get unplugged, it's always good for something. I've got another crazy game and some snacks, then we'll order a pizza or two. I was thinking of letting them go crazy and order the world's most disgusting pizza, but we'll see what they say. Then a special cake idea (using my donut pans, of course) that I need to get back to right now, and then our house turns back into a pumpkin at 8:00 tonight.

I will say, it was interesting and a little hard selecting which friends should come to Stella's party, since she had no say in the guest list. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and there are many more little ladies (Stella is just not into boys right now!) that I would've loved to invite, but I'm already walking down the Panhandle with eight eight-year-olds today. Any more than that would just be crazy. It's hard to figure out. Stella never seems to care what group she is involved with, save for one friend that hurt her badly a few years ago, so I sort of forgot that other girls might not feel the same way. I was going to go strolling onto the pick up yard at school with a bunch of balloons until one of the other mothers politely suggested I might be a little more discreet. Took a minute to sink in, but she was right. This is delicate stuff!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and please come back next Monday because I just finished a super great project I can't wait to share with you. It's beautiful here right now, I hope it is where you are, too! xoxo

my vbac birth story

Little Ollie, our little man.

I've been wanting to tell this story of how Oliver was born for a long time. It was an amazing time for me, and also I think there's some good information here for other women who might be considering VBAC, which stands for vaginal birth after Caesarean section in case you didn't know. Oliver turned four the other day and there is little chance I will have any more birth stories to tell in this lifetime, so here goes it. It's a long one, so click on "read more" below to read more.

a tequila drink for fall

Sunday night Stella and I did something she's always wanted to do. We played Iron Chef with real food in our real kitchen. There were knives and peelers and boiling liquids involved. The secret ingredient was hot pepper, and we used only what we had in the kitchen already. I baked Anaheim peppers stuffed with hamburger and manchego wrapped in turkey bacon, and made a soup with dashi, leftover brown rice and bok choy, served with a splash of Sriracha. Stella made a crazy concoction consisting of potatoes she chopped herself cooked with chiles, orange marmalade, chicken broth, cream and Sriracha, served on toast and topped with cheese. Sounds terrible, but David and I ate ours with gusto, it was good! She also served a kale salad with olives and a balsamic vinaigrette thick with mixed dried herbs. 

Where she really scored was the drink, though. We've enjoyed several of these since they were first created Sunday night. Stella calls it The Apple Crisp. I think seeing David drink all that sangrita with tequila made an impression on her.

...............

The Apple Crisp

One part tequila

One part cold spiced apple cider

A shot glass with a salted rim

Prepare and sip.

...............

So easy even a kid could make one. It's actually close to one of these, but simpler.

By the way, I left the one in the photo in the freezer all day and enjoyed my delightfully slushy drink with roasted root veggies, arugula and fried eggs tonight at dinner. Civilized!

this is halloween

Halloween 2012

(above photos by my friend Randy W.)

Halloween was great this year. We have really gotten our money's worth out of all of our costumes (see past years here, my favorite is Oliver as The Strongest Baby in the World). Stella wore her Dorothy of Oz costume for the third time. Our sweet friend Jeanette made the costume for Stella when she was three, and she has only skipped one year out of four (to be Supergirl). Oliver's Elmo (or as he insisted all night long, Dragon Elmo) costume finally paid for itself, making it's fourth appearance between the two kids. I donned Fridawear for one more night. I am hanging up that costume, that act and everything to do with it for a few years. I'm tired of the pins in my head and the unibrow. We trick-or-treated with Stella's school, and then in the evening with David, who once again looked better than all three of us combined. We called him Diego Rivera and it worked.

Stella and I had some fun with her hair. The kids are basically acersecomics, Oliver having never had a hair cut in his three years, and Stella only once, a quick trim, if you don't count the lock that was maddeningly cut by her friend years ago in a moment of inattention. We straightened her curly nest of hair and then set it in rollers to get great Dorothy ringlets while they watched The Great Pumpkin.

I may have begun to master some daytime photography, but the nighttime is a whole 'nother ballgame. Regardless, these two are so precious. Stella looked perfect, and people were lifting Dragon Elmo off the ground to hug him like a puppet, he was so adorable. I don't know if I can bring myself to part with these costumes now. I am sure are kids who would really love them, so I probably will next year. 

I hope your Halloween was lots of fun. Today was a conscious day of mainlining candy for me. I did it up, Tiffanie-style. I have had so much really helpful feedback on this post, so many things that make so much sense and have affected me a lot. Not enough to stop this one last Halloween candy feeding frenzy (I'm only human), but things I must implement right away. Onward and upward!

Have a great weekend, and thank you for reading!

class clown

Oliver came to Stella's classroom birthday party a few weeks ago. He was so well behaved and fit right in among the second graders. They all ate the birthday treats we baked, and then it was time for show and tell, or "Share", as Stella's teacher calls it. And then shit got really funny. REALLY funny. He was hamming it up big time while Stella was "sharing" him, and then when he turned and threw a big stuffed elephant up onto the podium after Stella was finished, all the kids lost it. They were laughing so hard at this strange long haired baby, who said with a total straight face, "This is an elephant. He has a tail. I'm outta here!", and then marched away. I was crying I was laughing so hard. I'm laughing to myself right here, alone in the middle of the night just looking at these photos. He did it again after another of Stella's classmates finished her share. This guy LOVES to get a laugh, he is such a clown. 

Have a great weekend!

party plan

Saturday was Stella's birthday party. Seven years old, wow. Eight second grade girls and zero drama, that's called a success. Finger sandwiches and snacks and tea (and punch) were the thing. Oliver and David left for the afternoon, so I got to spend the whole party just focusing on this crazy seven year old energy. One minute they're all shouting "Mitt Romney no! Mitt Romney no!", the next minute they're all pretending they work at McDonald's. True story! 

Here are five little things I did to make the day special. I think Stella will probably remember parts of this party forever, with her being seven now and some pretty funny things happening at her party.

I baked a big dome cake in a metal bowl, frosted it in light pink, and then Oliver and Stella and I decorated it in four dozen mochi. Cake with the ice cream built in. Pretty clever, I have to say.

I took the cake out of the freezer a half hour before serving, but you should never do that. Mochi melts faster than you would think. I would definitely keep it in the freezer right up until you're lighting the candles, if you ever make this yourself.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Drawing on our experiences at Lovejoy's Tea Room and the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, Stella and I decided on finger sandwiches and snacks. I made smoked salmon cream cheese with cucumbers, egg salad, and cream cheese and jam sandwiches. We had some other little goodies scattered around the table, but the bowl that got the most action was the saltwater taffy. We went through two entire bags of it over four hours. Maybe that explains the thorough thrashing they gave our yard and eventually Stella's bedroom. Little girls are so wild.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

All eight girls got a crack at the punch making. Mimi crushed the ice really well, others poured in the club soda, ginger ale and cherry juice, and Abigail added the raspberries. They were all SO into making this, but about an hour later all anyone wanted to drink was water. I had brewed two different pots of tea, but of course no one actually drank that either!

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

I pulled the best party activity ever out of my a** the morning of the party. I'm so proud of it. These ladies are at the perfect age for just going crazy with something like this. I call it YARD BOMB, and you can read about it here.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

We got SO much mileage out of this giant pair of undies! My grandfather bought these for me at his favorite flea market years ago. We had enough costumes to go around when it was time for the dress-up-dance-party-talent-show portion of the party, but one special lady (who is an amazing dancer, by the way) sported the biggest underwear in the world, again burning this party into Stella's memory for the rest of her life. 

We had so much fun! Seven year old girls are crazy and for the most part uninhibited, and also surprisingly destructive! Good times! :)

yard bomb

Yard Bomb

Ingredients: 
One platter assorted crepe paper streamers
One bowl multicolored chalk
Eight seven-year-old girls
One yard

Instructions:
Say "go". Cover ears. Watch girls go crazy. If neighbor needs to get to grocery store, let her drive on through!

I pulled this game out of thin air the morning of Stella's birthday party this weekend. Thank goodness I'm a piñata maker and happen to have rolls and rolls of streamers. I was so relieved they were into it. Actually, THEY LOVED IT! These photos are so out of focus because the girls didn't stop moving for over an hour. I loved the teamwork when they decided to make a web for our neighbor to crash through with her car. So fun!