Happy Halloween!

Turquoise Postcards

I am love love loving these new postcards that just came in! Its a serious Turquoise fiesta.

My favorite color, in a series of 5 paintings that I've been working on for the past month. This set of postcards is now available in my shop here, and I'm excited to share more about these new paintings soon. 

The bottom three, with the lotus and the butterfly, are part of my new Winged Blessings series, and the other two are part of a series that I am working on about Journeys.

I think that they all fit together so nicely!

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm about our Disney trip, it was such a great time with our kids and my in-laws, perfect for family reunions. The one big thing that I have learned after going for three years now is to pace your self and take days off to just sit by the pool. Disney can be exhausting, probably because it is so much fun!

The Happiest Place on Earth

OK, I have a little secret to confess. Last week we popped away for a mini-break down to Florida.

Where two princesses and a pirate conquered the "happiest place on earth", aka Disney World, oh yes. As you can imagine, there was a lot of this...

and a lot of that....

As the kids get bigger this has become our annual trip with Frank's family, and Jasper and Carys love being there with their cousins so much! With enough mystery and suspense thrown in, it is hard to resist the magic of moments like this...

Where my boy really does feel like he is embarking on a jungle expedition, and moments like this...

Where the shear excitement of feeling like she is driving a car makes my girl giddy! For Frank and I, having enough moments like this...

and hanging out here...

Helps to keep us sane as we spend the days navigating the theme parks.

 But, I think that I can finally admit that I like going to Disney, there I said it. I have given up the embarrassment, the cringing at being made happy by something so blatantly commercial, and given over to the joy of watching my kids be swept away by the experience.

Disney is one place where it is hard to avoid being right there "in the moment", and that, I can truly appreciate!

Now, I'm off to jump back in to life at home, and get ready for fast approaching Halloween which is celebrated in a big way here in our part of Brooklyn. Our neighborhood does a parade, lots of trick-or-treating (we get about 300 kids at our house), and decorations every where. Things are looking mighty autumnal here!

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge

Looking back on summertime there were so many ways that we celebrated our city this year, and walking across the Brooklyn Bridge is one of my favorites. I've talked about the Brooklyn Bridge here before, and really it is probably my favorite NYC landmarks. Walking the entire length of the bridge on the pedestrian walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan is a trip that I have made many times, including during my first week after moving to New York in 1996.

Being out there is head clearing and inspiring.

It is a breathtaking way to view the city, and when you are out there in the middle of the bridge you feel suspended in the air and wind, sort of like a combination of flying and being out at sea with the views and harbor all around you. 

This time, after walking across the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn, we went down bellow the bridge to Grimaldi's Pizzeria, one of New York's oldest Pizza places. Usually there is a long line outside to get in as you can see in this picture, but the pizza really is worth the wait. They make it in a coal oven and it is melt in your mouth good. Quite a treat.

The coolest flashcards

Since Jasper started Kindergarten he can't contain his excitement about letters and learning to read, so I bought these flashcards that we use to do letter drills at home. Well, really I was sort of looking for an excuse to get these flash cards, just look at the amazing illustrations by Charley Harper...

The kids love the animals that go with each letter, and the fact that when you flip the cards over there is an animal floor puzzle on the back...

 With a whole menagerie of Mr. Harper's amazing animals!

More Sewing!

With all of the birthday celebrating going on here this past weekend Nana was visiting again...and the sewing machine made it's way onto the table, and lovely lovely things took shape! 

 We finished this amazing Obi Sash, from another pattern in Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching. I really loved the multi-colored bright Marimekko fabric that I had bought here years ago, and had been waiting for just the right project to come along to let the fabric shine. As a sash, the fabric makes the perfect colorful accent for so many of my outfits! I love it.

Amazingly, Nana also whipped up this turquoise tunic dress, modeled on one of my favorite tunic dresses from American Apparel, using a linen repurposed from another dress that I rarely wore. Another perfect repurposing.

I am loving these new style options, adding a little zing to my closet. I've got a feeling they'll be on heavy rotation.

Happy Monday!

Celebrating 6

A simple dinner with friends at our favorite pizza restaurant,

and yes my boy wanted cupcakes that looked like apples (interesting request I know), so....

I did my best. They were not nearly as involved as the cake that I made for his birthday last year! Carys and I had fun whipping these up,

For the leaves we cut out pieces from a green fruit roll up, and for the stems I wanted to use tootsie rolls but could not find any, so I settled for twizzler's cut into small pieces.

I really enjoy making my kids fun cakes for their birthdays, clearly Jasper is on to me with this "apple cupcake" challenge  request!

The highlight of my day on his birthday was taking a book into his Kindergarten classroom and reading it to his class. After great deliberation Jasper chose The Little Engine That Could which was one of my childhood favorites, and the whole class of 24 kids listened with wrapped attention as I read the story. I love the "I think I can" part, reading it with great drama to a group of 5-6 year olds was fantastic!!

I hope that you are having a lovely weekend.

xo

Six

Taken in England this August, on the coast of Cornwall.

Jasper, today you turn six. This is the first year that the days of the week are again in line the way that they were the week that you were born, so last night, at 11pm on a Thursday I was remembering the moment that my labor started with a rush of water and you began your journey out into the world. You were born at 9:04am on a bright October Friday morning, the moment I saw you I knew with hard certainty that I was meeting one of the greatest loves of my life, this knowledge stunned me for the first weeks of your life. It made me fearful of even the slightest things happening to hurt you.

Six years into my journey as your mama I can look back on those days surrounding your birth with a perspective that I thought would take longer years to come to. I have relaxed, monumentally relaxed, into a role that I feel I was born to play....I have known you for a long time my boy because you see, you and I are so alike that in so many of your workings I feel that I am seeing my self. My own thoughts, reactions, feelings, played out in your child's mind. Knowing your heart so well as I do makes me less fearful for you, helps me to loosen my grip. You are wise, you are curious, sensitive and good hearted. Life opens up to your friendly boisterous nature and you seize it, already I feel that you eat life whole, drink it in and roll around in it! Following your lead I am more able to enjoy and appreciate the details that make life shine.

 Mothering you has helped me to know my own self more fully than in all of the 31 years that I lived before knowing you. This past year held so many milestones for you, including the beginning of your first year of school. Your dad and I have watched with wonder as you embraced it all with an excitement that we had only hoped for, your fearlessness of the "new" as you forge ahead teaches us to live with more boldness, more intention.

Thank you for choosing us beautiful boy. 

Happy Birthday, with more love than I can put words to, Mama

Sending wishes from my studio

I'm dreaming my way through many turquoise paintings over here, for two weeks I've been working on them and loving it. When I looked at my studio table the other day, I saw this windowed hallway in the Anthropologie catalogue laying beneath one of my paintings, it completely transported me.

Wishing you inspiring, vivid, exciting dreams, and the courage to make them real!

Weekend Sewing

My mother, more commonly known as Nana around here, arrived this weekend to spend a little "girl time" with Carys and I. Frank and Jasper went camping up in the mountains, so we spread out here at home...leaving Nana's sewing machine set up on our kitchen table for the whole weekend we went to work, with fabrics strewn about and patterns being cut on the floor.

Nana loves to sew, and is always throwing around ideas of things that she can make for the kids. I help her with designing patterns and with fabric and color choices, we make a good team. The big project that we finished over the weekend was this gorgeous Kimono for Carys. The fabric is from an apron that I got years ago at Ikea, because I loved the fabric, I think that we put it to the perfect re-purposing.

Once Carys put on the finished Kimono it inspired lots of dancing, one dance involved waving a tissue, I imagine that could be because she saw me blowing my nose all weekend as I have been under the weather.

To make Carys's Kimono we modified a pattern for a baby kimono that we found in Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching. This book is full of fun projects that can be done in a weekend or less, my mom and I already have a few more projects from the book in the works...including an amazing Obi belt for me.

Also on my sewing agenda, I am making another flip doll, this time as a Christmas gift for my baby niece. You will, of course, be the first to see how it turns out!