Our City: The Botanical Gardens

The botanical gardens is one of our favorite places to visit.

The children's garden is amazing!

 

Just last week we were bundled up (well, I was at least) sharing some chips and salsa on the kitchen floor and this week it felt too hot do anything.   Today,  our a.c. is on, the girls have friends over and all of the ceiling the fans are on high-bliss I tell you.  The rest of our day includes a stop by the organic market around the corner to pick up our CSA share, then dinner and dessert at our friends' house with some date night swap planning on the side. I think tomorrow will include some Texmex and more a.c.  How are you beating the heat?

a little bit of our Easter

     

It was a beautiful weekend.

And the rest of the pictures are on my ipod, which is sitting in a bag of rice, hopefully recovering from it's recent plunge into water...oh my.

Lincoln and the Art Museum

Today I had this charming companion join me for a visit to the art museum. It was our first time to go with out the rest of our gang. Just the two of us and it was so very sweet.  I could have spent hours there, but Lincoln isn't quite ready for hours of wondering through the museum, so we made it a short visit. He did great and we only made the alarm go off once for stepping over the "do not cross" lines on the floor-overall a success for a two and a half year old!  We focused on the Impressionist wing and the Modern Art floor.

Lincoln's favorite memory from our outing-the construction cranes outside the museum-huge!
My favorite memory from our outing-Lincoln posing like the Titan statue in the entry hall of the museum-adorable I tell you!

Friday

It's almost time to flip to April! This morning, as we were walking out the door for school, Emma and Stella were dreaming up some secret April Fools pranks.  I don't know if they will actually follow through with the plans they were making, but it's fun that they are thinking about it.

This weekend I plan to finalize everything for Easter. I found some vintage dresses for the girls at a thrift store, and hope they fit.  Next on the list is finding shoes.  Lincoln will be included in the planning too-I'm just not sure what I want him to wear.  

Jeremy and I also have a date night tonight and it's perfect weather for eating outside. Brisket tacos are what I'm craving!  

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Thrift Finds!

Last Thursday, Jeremy told me I could have the whole day to myself! He watched the kids and I got to run around the city. I stopped at few thrift stores and found some treasures. I always look in the children's book section, I'm pretty picky about what books I bring home and have learned my lesson to make sure there are no missing pages.  I learned that lesson the hard way.  Ahem.

I plan on using the floral curtain for a spring project and that pyrex loaf pan had my dreaming of baking a some of my mom's banana bread.  How have we gone this long without owning a copy of Where the Wild Things Are?  Our family loves the classic Winnie the Pooh stories-so much humor for us old folks to enjoy and Lincoln loves the little size of these books.

Our spring break is over and Jeremy's break is just beginning. We never made it to the botanical gardens, but we did end our week off from school with a picnic at Tower Grove Park, complete with friends, fried chicken and coleslaw. I'm wishing there were leftovers for today!

Happy Valentine's Day

Today Lincoln and I are trying to get into a festive spirit and I hope that making some sugar cookies will help with that goal.  It's good to spend some time today with my family exchanging cards and small gifts and I look forward to a date night with Jeremy this coming weekend.  I think Lincoln needs another cookie cause I hear him crying in the other room.  

Happy Valentine's Day!

xo

Saturday + Sunday

Evidence that the kids were here: cars, drawings and origami

Evidence of yummy white chili: red pot hand washed by Jeremy

Evidence of the Super Bowl: Lincoln waiting for all the yummy snacky food

Evidence of Sunday afternoon routines: girls on the macs playing PBS kids

We have a busy week ahead. It includes a trip to the symphony (me and Emma), a promotional video filming at our apartment (which means I need to clean clean clean) and whole lot of other to-do's as well.  Hopefully, I can grab a cup of coffee and spend some time catching up on my favorite blogs too.  

What are your plans for the week?

-Diane

Stella's Unicorn Party

Way back in September, Stella turned 5, we waited to celebrate with a friend party until after we moved into our current apartment.  The new place was mostly settled and the birthday girl was happy to invite her friends into her new home.

The party was right after school on the day that I nannied away from home, so everything had to be set up the night before and the morning of the party. It was a little bit crazy that day, but I like to think it added to the excitement.

Stella is a girl who knows what she wants and she had some very specific requests and plans for the party.

-go on a hunt for something, unicorn-ish, like our last party

-snap a group photo of her and her friends: both smiling and silly photos

-play a game

-serve cupcakes in a jar with pink frosting

-include colored pictures (made by her) for all of her guests in the favors

-display her hand drawn unicorns as decorations on the day of the party

For the hunt, I made little Unicorn hair clips for all the girls, inspired by these.

The girls played "Pin the Horn on the Unicorn" (or "Pin the Corn on the Uni" as Jeremy liked to call it. "Shouldn't it be called a Unihorn?  I mean, that thing on its head isn't a corn, right? Pretty sure it's a horn" he says.).  I painted the unicorn and then cut horns out of felt.

It was simple. I wish I had snapped a photo of the table, but I'll blame that on the party being right after school and my being away from home before hand. That photo wasn't one of the birthday girl's requests anyways. ;)

We keep our parties pretty simple and try to pull off something memorable and special for the kids while keeping things under a very small budget, Jeremy is in school after all, so our whole life is under a very small budget.  Sometimes having such a small budget can be frustrating, but other times it stretches my creativity and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

One more thing:  the banner in the first photo above has become a part of all the parties we throw. That project and the finished bag I shared in my post yesterday are projects from this sewing e-course. The bag and the banner along with this are some of my favorite things I've sewed and I can't wait to start my next project, a sewing machine cover, maybe I can start that one this afternoon.

If you need me, I'll be in the studio,
Diane 

Saturday + Sunday

1. icy wintery weather 2. birthday celebrating 3. in the kitchen

4. he got up there all by himself 5. quilts for keeping cozy 6. studio time

7. starting projects 8. finishing projects