Happy (Spring?!) Weekend!

It's the weekend! We are so ready for spring around here. This winter has been cold and long. Lately we've been trying to stay outside all afternoon to combat the cabin fever we've been suffering from basically since Hurricane Sandy in October. :/  It's so fun now that Evie's old enough to ride her scooter and we don't have to take a stroller down the subway stairs. It feels like the city is our oyster. My little scooter gang is coming to get you this spring, NYC!

(This photo cracked me up when I found it on my phone (Gracie's becoming quite the little sneaky photographer). Do your kids climb inside your jacket when they get cold? I secretly love the extra snuggles (and warmth!), but now I'm thinking it must look a little weird to passersby? ha!)

Linus and I have been going out for runs together along the Promenade and I'm remembering how much I love this place. I was talking to another woman in my church about how sometimes we just want to move somewhere easier and cheaper to live. She gave me some wise words: Never make any decisions about moving away from the city in the winter, or your emotions will get the best of you. :)

Well, I think spring must be just around the corner because all the fancy brownstones in the Heights are putting out cut flower arrangements in their window boxes. Talk about luxury right? There's some major wiggle room in your budget if you can afford weekly flowers for your neighbor's sidewalk viewing pleasure.

Have a lovely weekend friends! If you're celebrating Easter, I hope it's a great one for you and your family. xo

Claire's St Patrick's Day Birthday Party

Claire's birthday was last weekend. I can't believe she is already six years old. She was born in Boston in the middle of a snow storm, two minutes before midnight, which I was thrilled about because I didn't want her to have a March 17th birthday. I mean, who wants to have a St. Patricks Day themed birthday every year? Apparently this girl:

In our family we don't do friends parties for every birthday and for Claire's birthday this year we decided just to have a celebration at home and invite over our cousins that live in Westchester. I've talked about my sweet friend Jenna here before. She has absolutely cornered the market on cuteness - her clothes, her kids, her blog, are all amazing. And girlfriend can throw a mean party! Between Jenna's skills and Claire's enthusiasm about a St. Patricks Day party, I knew I wanted to do something fun for the decorating, while hopefully not breaking the bank.

The Dollar Tree, Michaels and Party City came through for me. All of these stores have dollar or less sections that carry pretty cute stuff. You just have to hunt a bit, and then get creative. Streamers are two-for-a-buck at the dollar store, and buying eight rolls was an easy and cheap way to make a rainbow wall for our photos.

It was Claire's idea to make the chandelier look like a cloud that the rainbow was coming out of. We picked up a couple of these accordion garlands at Party city for $2 each. We added the green garland, satin bows and dangling clovers for good measure.

I love that my girls came up with most of these ideas and that they executed a lot of it by themselves. Nothing makes me more proud than seeing their little creative brains at work.

Since we are from Arizona originally, we hold true to the idea that a party's not a party without a piñata. I showed Claire the Pot O' Gold DIY piñata that Jordan posted a week or two ago and Claire said we just had to have it.

This was my first piñata and I was surprised at how easy they are to make! And pretty fun actually. It took me and Claire about two hours in all to cut out the cardboard and glue the fringed tissue paper. We watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People while we were at it, to get us into the spirit of the thing. :)

The pinata activity at the party worked out perfectly this time, which as any mother will probably know, doesn't happen very often. 

This time every child got two full turns at the bat and then Claire, the birthday girl, was the lucky one to bust it open. 

Chocolate coins and gold nuggets were everywhere! I think the candy scramble is so hilarious to watch now, but I remember being so stressed out as a kid as soon as that candy fell out. Must. get. all. the. candies!!

The kids used their party favor baskets to collect the piñata spoils.

Claire and I found the tiny little baskets at Michaels for 99 cents each and just chose the ones with the most green on them.

Claire embellished the baskets by herself with a little ribbon and some monogram placards made from stickers and cardstock.

There was plenty of room in the baskets for more candy and other little trinkets we picked up in the dollar section.

We also gave these little leprechaun clover pots as favors. Aren't they so cute? My local flower bodega guy was selling them.

We picked up the clover when we were buying some forsythia branches and a bunch or two of daffodils.  (you know it's spring when the flowers start to get cheap again!) :)

I think the rainbow backdrop was my favorite part of the party though.  It made for some fun shots of the kids.

I have two instant-print cameras (both are really pretty inexpensive), the wide format is here and the small, credit card size is here. I'm finding it's such a chore to get my digital images printed out these days that these cameras are such a treat to have on hand. Especially when we have visitors over. And seriously, who doesn't love the magic of watching your image appear in a matter of seconds?

We let the kids pick out their favorites to take home with them, and then once the party was over, the rest of the photos were moved to the coffee table, where I'm sure we'll enjoy them for a couple weeks.

All in all, we had a busy but a great weekend. Claire told me in her sleepiest voice last night as she was drifting off, that no one in the world has ever had a better mom or a better party than the one she had this weekend. Which of course made me feel like a super hero. I'd go to the dollar store every weekend for the rest of my kids' lives if it meant hearing lines like that. :)

Linus and Evelyn Report

Best.

Friends.

Forever.

(Seriously, these two make my days filled with so much joy. Completely worth the low productivity levels until Evie's in pre-school this fall.)

Hope your weekend is filled with as much cuteness as mine. xo

New Dog, New Pillows

Meet Linus. He came to live with our family over Christmas and we've quickly fallen in love with him.

His brother, Wooly, lived with a really nice guy in our last building. We were always so impressed with Wooly and how he interacted with our girls. We reached out to the woman that once owned Wooly and more than a year later, right before Christmas, she emailed us asking if we had a home for Wooly's brother whom she no longer had space for.

He's two years old, but his soul is much older. His eyes are soft and kind, and he's as gentle as can be - a giant teddy bear, really. Did I mention we are in love with him? We are. Evie cried and cried when we dropped him off at the boarders before our trip to Arizona. And the reunion we had with him today was just unbelievably sweet. I think Linus likes being in our family too.

Before we met him for the first time, we were going through books to find the perfect name for a French standard poodle (Hugo and Sebastian were in the running), just in case. His former owner introduced us to him as Linus, and Michael and I both threw our hands up in the air. Linus! Isn't that just the perfect name for him? Such a sweetie.

PS Those are my new silk pillows in the background here. Only $20 from West Elm! They are so lovely in person. I think the bits of apricot in the pattern are pretty on my green sofa.

Also, thank you again for your support with the Homies. I hate to ask for your vote, but it means a lot to me and for the traffic of this little blog if I can make it into the next round. Thanks so, SO much! xo

Rock Walks and Remembering Grandpa

When I was a kid and long before my parents built their house in this windy little valley filled with cottonwood trees, back when my great-grandparents owned this piece of land, we'd walk out into what felt like the wild, down to the little creek. We'd climb up the sandstone banks and collect pretty rocks and raw, bright turquoise clay to grind and use for art projects. It was a magical way to spend a lot of my childhood summers and practically every Thanksgiving (which is decidedly a DeWitt holiday).

Now when we come to visit my parents, I get to relive some of that magic when I take my kids out for walks to that same creek. They love to search for rocks and shells, to pet the horses that live nearby, to skip stones on the water (though this time the creek was frozen and Heather was brave enough to venture out onto the ice!)

Claire said to me yesterday, "Mom, we don't do things like this in the city and that's why I love Grammy's house." And I felt a little guilty. But also grateful we could come home for this bonus visit - a bittersweet time for all of us who loved Grandpa DeWitt so much.

He was a bit of a toughie, but mostly a softie. A war hero, a perfectionist, an amazing violinist, a great hugger, a teacher and advisor. He had a twinkle in his eye that just wouldn't quit and an incredible gift for making every person he knew feel like they were his favorite (I totally was though). Also, he was pretty much the strongest old guy around. He could arm wrestle a twenty year-old with what seemed like ease back when he was 70. And even at 90, his strong body was determined to hold on longer than his heart wanted to. It makes me endlessly happy to think of him now reunited with my grandma, his life-long sweetie.

He loved this sweet little town called Snowflake, and all its windy, quirky beauty. He loved his family most though, and all of us have a hole in our hearts the size of a cottonwood tree.

Love and miss you Grandpa.

Artglass Paperweights

My Grandma Johnson collected these pretty glass paperweights and I've always loved them too, so I pick up pieces here and there at flea markets and on travels. Ebay and Etsy have some beautiful options.

Grandma immigrated to the US from Sweden in 1918, when she was just 19 years old. Here's a photo of her at home, which was a cottage on an estate called Parkstugen where her father was the gardener. This was taken not long before they sailed for NYC. See one of the artglass balls here?

Right after we moved to the city last year, my parents were visiting and we made a trip out to Ellis Island. We were able to look up Grandma and her parents on their ship's register record. It was a really cool experience to walk around the island and imagine what she must have been feeling and thinking there as a 19 year old girl.

There's a funny story I love that once Grandma and her family had been given clearance to leave Ellis Island and go to Manhattan, the first thing Grandma wanted to do was eat some fruit. It had been a long boat ride and she was ready for fresh produce. Grandma went to a fruit stand and bought an "American apple" and took a big bite only to be surprised by the bitter flavor, and she spit it out. Later she discovered that she had tasted her very first tomato that day! (crazy to think they didn't have tomatoes in all parts of Sweden way back when!)

I love filling my home with things that remind me of places and people I really love. Do you have any special things you collect to remember family by?