easter eggs

yesterday was so fun. miles didn't have to work. that was nice. i ran around town buying shoes for the boys that were not converse. we have a limited shoe collection for the boys around here. unlike dahlia who i am pretty sure has more shoes than me.

miles' mom came to visit. after school we painted eggs with the kids. they were so excited. we had many viewings of charlie brown's it's the easter beagle before this event. dahlia and mason went over the ways we should not cook the eggs. no frying, using the waffle iron, baking them in the oven, trying to toast them, or boiling cracked eggs. no egg soup!

miles had a great idea of how to use the dye with a paintbrush and paint directly onto the egg. the eggs looked so cool. while this technique is very interesting, the paint became sticky and came off on our fingers after it had dried. we unfortunately had to wash the eggs and the dramatic effect was lost. it was still lots of fun and we got some photos of the eggs before we had to wash them.

hello 2014

i am so excited to start 2014. 2013 was a really tough year for us and i am ready to start a new one. we had a mini party with christina, jen, ray and all their kids. our usual crowd. they all came over around six and we served cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. the kids were so excited to see their cousins and dress up with silly hats.

for dinner we made chicken with a mustard tarragon sauce, autumn rice, green beans, and a salad with pecans, avacado, tomatoes, and gorgonzola. everything was delicious. christina brought a bunt cake for dessert. i even managed to stay up past midnight this year. yay.

today jen and i spent the whole morning doing a puzzle while christina took dahlia and zena to the american girl store. i made my traditional veggie chili with some black eyed peas thrown in for good luck. we watched tons of movies and lounged around. a very relaxing way to start the new year.

happy christmas

i was so very behind schedule this year. it was as if i forgot how to host christmas. i still had to iron table runners after the kids opened their presents. this was a whole new level of procrastination. still, everything got done before the guests arrived and we had a great day.

the kids were so excited when they woke us up in the morning. connor ran out to the tree to find a shiny red electric guitar. a real guitar. not a toy one. he is probably too young for a real guitar but he is so happy. dahlia got a baby alive doll and an american girl doll bed. mason was thrilled to open his nerf gun and magna tiles.

my housekeeper gave the kids this enormous reindeer pinata for christmas. it was so big, as tall as dahlia. all the kids ran outside and had a blast breaking it open today. it was filled with tons of candy.

when we were done with the pinata and gifts, we served a delicious dinner. we made our usual beef tenderloin, salmon, au gratin potatoes, and green beans. my mother made our favorite blintzes for dessert. jen, ray, bodhi, and kira all stayed the night. it was a beautiful christmas.

christmas eve

today was a whirlwind of activity. i love christmas. i took the kids to church in the afternoon in orange county. this has been our new tradition and i love it. most of my family meets us there and it is sweet to have us together. the service was very nice but not as spectacular as it has been in the past. a little understated this year. the kids got a little bored.

miles stayed home to finish all our christmas baking for his family gifts. i picked him up after church and we went to a party at his cousin's house. this party is always mellow and their house is so beautifully decorated. they served a traditional turkey dinner and then they all sang the twelve days of christmas. it was very funny and i was so happy i did not get assigned a solo.

now we are home and i have so much to do before tomorrow. i don't know why i always wait until the last possible moment to finish things. the kids are so excited that they could barely fall asleep. they really do make the holidays more fun for me.

thanksgiving

today was thanksgiving and this year we celebrated together at my sister's house. i was happy to have the year off after the two kid parties. i don't know how i did it last year.

miles and i made our traditional cranberry sauce and mushroom gravy. i also made an artichoke dip and whiskey sours for the grown ups. we were running late this morning with all the cooking. for some reason we didn't make anything last night. we were too busy finishing up the shopping and cleaning. miles went and picked up his mom from the train station and i had to get the guest room ready.

we were a little late to christina's house but it was fine. she had all the tables decorated so pretty and a large chalkboard where we could all write what we were thankful for. i thought it was so sweet that dahlia wrote "mom and dad."

dinner was delicious and the kids looked so cute sitting at their own table. my sisters were going to go shopping after dessert but i chose to just go home. we have a long drive and i am not really interested in shopping on black friday. i will just do my shopping online in my pajamas.

happy halloween

trick-or-treat. what a fun night we had! we took the kids out trick-or-treating here around our own neighborhood. we have never done that before. it was so fun. miles even got to join in the fun. we usually go to orange county to trick-or-treat and miles works so he misses out. this year we didn't want to stay out too late so we decided to try going around our own neighborhood. it was so sweet to have our little family all together for the holiday.

we were going to walk the whole way but we ended up getting the car and parking it at the bottom of the hill. this came about after walking down the hill and having dahlia already complain about her shoes. we knew we did not want to carry all the kids up the hill once we were done and exhausted so miles went and got the car. this proved to be a marvelous idea because we were all super tired once we made it back there.

dahlia dressed up as jasmine from aladdin, connor was spiderman, and mason was commander cody. they loved walking around the neighborhood and it was fun to run into people we knew from school. our neighborhood has lots of hills with houses full of stairs to the front door so there was quite a lot of walking in between each house. that was fine with me. the kids got plenty of treats. it also meant that the kids got tired really quick. they were happy to go home after only an hour of trick-or-treating. they wanted to sort and sample the sweets. poor connor was actually falling asleep on the way to the car. i love that we are starting to make our own traditions together. it is so nice for the whole family to enjoy these moments.

happy halloween. there is still time for miles and i to watch a scary movie.

cloudy beach day

today was labor day so we made plans to hang out with jen, ray, christina, and all the kids. we traditionally have a camping weekend at our house complete with granola and tie dye t-shirts, but it has been crazy hot and just miserable here so we canceled that.

we decided to go to jen and ray's house instead and all go to the beach. it was a bit cloudy and overcast but a million times nicer than sweating at my house. the kids started out by flying kites. this activity is very fun but can never hold their attention for more than five minutes. luckily there was an ocean to jump and play in. they all spent hours playing in the water.

connor and kira were so funny walking on all fours pretending to be crabs. dahlia, mason, bodhi, and zena all loved jumping in the surf. they stayed in the water until their lips were turning blue. christina and jen finally convinced them to come back to our towels and help build a giant sand boat. this was very funny. they were jumping in the "boat" and pretending to drive it.

we cleaned up after the beach at jen and ray's house before cooking a delicious barbecue chicken dinner with corn on the cob. school starts tomorrow for connor so we didn't stay too late. it was a great labor day.

4th of july

poor 4th of july this year was overshadowed by the fact that we are leaving on vacation in three days. there were no fancy decorations or desserts decorated with red, white, and blue this year. we did get together though. we went to jen and ray's house. we usually do a sleepover but we skipped that and just drove to their house early in the morning. i already have too much packing to do to even think about a sleepover.

we usually walk to the beach with all our gear and strollers but this year jen and ray had the excellent idea of dropping the cars off early in the morning with all our beach gear in the trunk and then later we could all walk to the beach without all the stuff. the best part of the plan is when it is time to leave the beach and all the kids are tired we could just drive back to jen and ray's house.

the plan pretty much worked except for two things. 1) jen and christina forgot to put their beach gear in the trunk before dropping the car off and 2) the drive back to the house after our beach day was insane with all the holiday traffic. i still think it was better than walking back carrying a kid and big beach bag though. the kids loved the beach. we had fun playing in the waves and they were all excited to have uncle ray take them "deep" in the ocean. miles and i always stay in the shallow part. back by the towels the kids and their aunties built this big sand castle. it was pretty cool.

we had a yummy taco dinner and then the kids did poppers outside on the sidewalk. we didn't go to see fireworks. that was a bummer. it was late and miles and i were really tired. dahlia wanted to see fireworks this year though so miles drove them to the top of our block and they got to see some from there. it was a fun holiday and nice to spend the day together.

fathers day

we had a great fathers day this year. we went to my sister christina's house. it was so fun. the men grilled burgers outside and the girls got to prepare food and chat inside.

miles was disappointed to find out we were having burgers for dinner. he was hoping for a steak. i should really cook some meat for him once in a while but i just don't know how. poor guy. anyway we had a nice dinner and i baked a homemade carrot cake for dessert. it is my dad's favorite and it was his birthday yesterday.

dahlia insisted on making cards for all her uncles even if they were not fathers. she wanted to show them how much they are loved. so sweet. i didn't make barbecue sauce this year because i don't want to be that predictable but i did buy some gifts for the dads instead. books and movies. my favorite things.

happy fathers day to all you dads out there.

mothers day

i had a really nice mothers day this year. we did something different. we left the family at home and just my mom and sisters got together. we went to the movies. we saw oz the great and powerful at the three dollar movie theater by my mom's house. i thought the movie was great. it has been a really long time since i have been in a movie theater and i was so excited to go. i didn't feel guilty at all leaving the kids behind with miles.

after the movie we had dinner at the yard house. yes, dinner and a movie! it is not a fancy place but the food is good and it has a nice atmosphere. they gave all the mom's a choice of a free dessert so we had a sample of each.

my kids are at an age now where they can make things for me. i love it. mason made me a sweet card with heart on it labeled with all his favorite things about me. they included playdates at the park, reading to him, and giving him healthy snacks. so sweet. dahlia made me a paper flower and gave me a plant that she decorated at the mommy and me day. connor gave me a big kiss and told me happy mothers day. i am so loved.

as for my mom, i found this pretty vintage apron and tea towel at sur la table. it was super cute. i also packaged little madeleine tea cakes with a custom tag for my mom and sisters. it was simple but sweet. happy mothers day!

easter sunday

we had a great easter this year. the kids were so excited. friday we went to my sister's house to paint eggs and have a sleepover. this was lots of fun but the kids stayed up way too late. it was almost midnight before they fell asleep. we had five dozen eggs to paint.

easter morning was super busy. mason, dahlia, and connor woke up super early to check their easter baskets that were left by the kitchen door. sure enough they were filled with lots of treats. they all said they got exactly what they wanted. how did the bunny know? we didn't have much time to play before we had to rush off to church. we always go to my mother's church on easter sunday and it takes an hour to get there. much like last year we were five minutes late. after church they had an egg hunt for the kids where each kid finds four eggs with a particular number on it and turns them in for a bag of candy. the bag of candy was huge. really too much if you ask me. a small piece of candy would be just fine. the whole day seemed to be one big sugar rush. candy, candy, candy!

after the egg hunt we went back to my sister's house for brunch and our own egg hunt. christina did not go crazy this year with the eggs. we had 94 eggs to hide. much less than last year's 175 eggs. zena was the big winner having collected 26 eggs. brunch was good. christina made breakfast pizza's that were yummy and my mom made a delicious cobb salad. around four we left to go home and spent the evening playing clue and building connor's lego set. it was so nice to have a holiday and actually spend some fun time as a family.

coloring eggs

the kids could not wait any longer so we decided to color some eggs today. we didn't get too fancy this year. i think it is best to keep it simple with the little ones. maybe if miles was helping we could have tried some new techniques. we did sprinkle a little glitter on them. it was fun. we colored about 2 dozen eggs and the kids promptly ate six of them when we were done. i don't think it is going to take us long to eat them. we plan on coloring more next week.

happy valentines

today is valentines. since it is our gym class day we got to spend the day with jen and her kids. ray took the day off work so he could come to. they are such a sweet family. always doing things together. they were nice and cooked dinner at my house while i waited for mason's class to finish.

we had yummy lemon shrimp dinner and chocolate cake for dessert. i bought a traditional heart shaped box of chocolates from see's for miles and the kids. i also got another one for jen and ray's family. i have never bought one before. i loved the retro idea of it. such a classic. dahlia picked out some pretty red tulips for her daddy. so sweet. the kids and i had homemade cards for everyone as is our tradition.

we had such a nice evening. too bad tomorrow is school. it would be nice to sleep in.

merry christmas

this christmas was a blur. i am sick. i somehow got a terrible cold. i ended up missing church and miles' family christmas party on christmas eve. after five glorious hours of sleep i got up on christmas morning feeling much better.

the kids woke us up at nine am and were so excited. santa brought connor a tricycle, dahlia a baby changing table, and mason a tie fighter lego set. we opened up some more gifts and got to spend a little time playing together before it was time to go to christina's house.

christmas at christina's was very relaxed this year. she served italian food. we left for a bit to stop by our friend rebecca's house. it was nice to say hi to friends on christmas.

the kids had fun playing with their cousins all day and enjoying their new toys. miles spent most of the time building lego sets with mason and connor. i didn't take very many pictures. i didn't even get one of dahlia in her pretty christmas dress. ugh. despite my disappointment at being sick for christmas i had a nice holiday and am happy to finally be able to rest.

christmas party

after the busy day with two dance recitals i was sure the kids would want to go straight home and relax but no. we had been invited to an annual christmas party that is a favorite of theirs and they did not want to miss it.

miles decided to stay home with connor because it was so late and the party is an hour drive from our house. i took mason and dahlia with me. with the long drive i was sure they would fall asleep on the way but they surprised me and stayed awake the whole time chatting with each other. once we got there i was glad i went. it really is a fun party. there is always lots of food and a band playing music.

the kids love to play in the pretend fifties style soda shop and saloon. there is lots of fake food that they find fascinating to look at. their cousins were there so they had a blast running around and laughing. i had a great time. of course they fell fast asleep on the way home.