One more Moore

I'm committing

and I don't usually like to do that (what can I say, I like my freedom!) but I'm committing to finally finishing the quilt this weekend. And by weekend, I mean Tuesday. Enjoy your long weekend! Don't mind me, I'll just be quilting.

XO

Candy Airplanes

When you are in first grade and it's your birthday, you get to bring in a little treat for the class. The only stipulation- it can't be homemade (boo!) it has to be store-bought which I protested all the way up until this morning. We made these little airplanes to hand out but in the end I caved and stopped at Winchells this morning for 26 glazed donuts. But we gave these out, too. Anyway, I did a tutorial for these about 5 years ago but thought I would re-post since are they are really easy & fun to make.

Click here for the tutorial.

XO

Turning 7

Wow. It's true- I really have a 7 year old on my hands now. Last night I told Henry & Kate the story of when Henry was born. Their eyes were glued to me, waiting for each & every detail. I told them about how I went a week past my due date and decided to be induced. How when the time came, they had no rooms at Brigham & Women's hospital for us. How we became so hungry just waiting for a room to open that we decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch and how the call came, when we were nearly done eating, that a room had finally opened up for us. It was a Friday and I remember each detail so clearly.  We talked about how we watched a Red Sox game while we waited for him to come out. How he was the most beautiful thing we had ever laid eyes on and how we were over the moon for him.  I'm looking at those fingers of his and remembering each one of those birthdays. Him turning 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and now 7. Henry is really tall for his age and I'm noticing how his body is changing. He just got glasses that he doesn't need to wear all the time but that are supposed to help with long distances. I keep debating on cutting his hair- it's getting so long now. He wants to leave it long. Henry is loving 1st grade. He loves Math and is a good and kind friend to all. He spends alot of time drawing and making his own books.  He loves cheesecake and decided to have it for his birthday (I am only now making the connection of him loving it and us eating at the Cheesecake Factory the day he was born :)We are going back to Boston this Summer and I can't wait to share with him all the places we love. We'll show him the hospital, the apartment we brought him home to, Fenway Park and the Make Way for Ducklings ducks at the Public Garden.

Happy 7th Birthday my sweet Henry. XO

The festivities

It's official she's 4. She wanted to go to Disneyland in her Rapunzel dress & new Jesse boots from Grandma. It works. You can wear cowboy boots & princess dresses when you are 4.  For a brief time, a 'mini-wheelchair was high on her birthday list but luckily she didn't seem too disappointed when we didn't deliver. Now she wants a dog (never going to happen) that she wants to call "Salty Sanchez". Also, she wants me to call her Margot now, so we got that going on. And for the record, there was a hiccup with the paperwork and we never got around to resubmitting it, so legally & technically she's Margot...so... yeah. 

Tuesday was our 14th wedding anniversary and Chris bought me those beautiful flowers. What a guy! 14 years already??  We had gone out the previous weekend where I had the most delicious meat & cheese board from the Westside Tavern. I'm still dreaming about it. 

Unrelated, I went to a screening last week of "Snow White & The Huntsman" and it was so good. I can't wait to see it again. Definitely should check it out. 

I think I'm going to start a quilt tomorrow.

Maybe. 

Happy Mothers Day!

I got the largest Mother's Day card ever from Henry this year. It was so sweet. It's been busy and hectic but I think I've finally turned a corner and am ready to be back in this space. We have a lot of change coming in the next few months and we are taking one day at a time. We have a fun week ahead with a birthday and an anniversary. Can't wait to share. 

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mamas out there! 

XO

My trip via Instagram

I went though approx. 4 tanks of gas in about 6 days, but oh, it was so great. I drove though Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut & New York. Cooking class was awesome. Day out with Emily was fantastic. We popped into the sweetest little New England town & did a little shopping. I do confess that I bought ribbon from that very ribbon tower. Emily and Ivy- my dates for the day. Then it was back to Boston for the day (I have nary a photo). It was mostly all of us driving by our old aparments and hitting some fun local hot spots. Friday we drove down to NYC. Got in line for some tickets for a show & headed down to SoHo. I had to take a picture of the Flatiron building for the children. We have a massive black & white aerial shot of it above our couch (they were not amused.)My friend told me about this place called "Eataly" which is directly across from the Flatiron building. I don't even have words to describe. Just go. That's all I can say. Here are Roz & I enjoying some ricotta & almond gelato. That's Roz on the left, me on the right.  It was life changing. Oh and Gavin Rossdale shops there too. We saw him (so funny!)After shopping (and eating) it was time to hit the town with me & Jennie going to Mary Poppins. I can't remember now where the other gals went.... BUT Mary Poppins was great. I want to bring my children there someday. The view from our hotel in Times Square. See that yellow billboard with the red writing? That's the show they went to. I can't belive I can't remember what it is (or read it for that matter!) After that I met up with an old girlfriend (Hi, Trish!) and we caught up until nearly 2 a.m. Satuday we split up at the MET. Love that place. It was a beautiful New York day.  We popped in to Jennies favorite cookie joint , and went to my all time favorite NYC store, Dean & Deluca. Also life changing. Seriously. Ridiculious. Off to the ferry for a quick ride to Staten Island.And the views. Amazing. Then we drove home and crashed. And by crashed I mean we stayed up really late playing cards. I got killed. Darn those jokers! 50 blasted points a piece! Then a quick jont through Concord and a stop in the North End for lunch & pastries at Mikes. It was rainy outside but perfect inside with our delcious antipasto platter  & warm pasta.I came home really late last night. Re-entry has been tough. We had to be in court this am at 8:30 (we were late) then we went for a quick family lunch and now I'm packing to leave again tomorrow with the children for a week. I haven't even unpacked my Boston stuff. A quick wash & I'll repack it all again. 

Trip was wonderful & amazing. I'm so grateful for the chance to get away. Chris sent me a text on Sunday telling me that Kate said, "I can't even remember what Mommy looks like anymore". Glad to know I'm leaving life-long impressions on my children.

Off to unpacking & repacking.

xo

The trip

I took the red eye out on Monday night and landed here in Boston on Tuesday a.m. Eyes red and going on about 3 hours of sleep, I rented my car and headed straight up to Vermont for a cooking class. I'd been on the waiting list for a couple of weeks and the night before I flew out I received notice that a spot had opened up for the Bread 101 class and I was in (yeah!)The class was up at King Arthur Flour in Norwich and was so great. You know that I have always had problems with bread so I had big expectations for learning the tricks of the trade. The instructor was amazing and demonstrated how to make each type of bread and then we got to make it on our own. I was feeling so confident (and I'm not going to lie, I wanted to be the best student in the class) until the instructor came over and said she thought I might have added a little too much flour. Noooo!! But she assured me that all hope was not lost, it was nothing that a little kneading couldn't fix (and she was totally right). I learned the proper way to measure flour, which kind of yeast to buy, the correct way to knead dough, how to tell when to stop kneading the dough, and best of all, I got lots of great bread recipes. I made scones for the first time ever and I couldn't believe that I actually had 4 loaves of bread at the end of the day (I forgot the braid loaf at King Arthur).I headed straight to Em's house for some birthday celebrating (such fun) and now I'm in Boston with the girls having wonderful time staying up until 4 a.m. playing cards. Yawn.

See you soon!

XO

Well, hello there...

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. 

Rainbows

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...

Green

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!

The Nursery

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 :)

Driving

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

Lemon Melting Moments

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

This week on Instagram

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

Birthday Cakes

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