Lara says "Thank You"

Lara drew all the letters, the happy whale face, and the little flower. I helped a little bit by assembling her writing and drawings into a card shape. This was a great two-birds-with-one-stone: she really got a kick out of seeing how the card came out, and I got to send out really cute handmade thank-you cards for all the birthday loot and plunder!

The Birthday Book

Another birthday, another birthday book... I present "Lara's Grand Birthday Adventure."



On a sunny day, Lara was walking through the forest when she heard the burbling sounds of running water.

“What a nice, cool stream!” she said, “I think I’ll fill up my cup so I can have something to drink later.”



In a little while, she saw a large, dark cave and came closer to take a good look.

A small dragon hopped out of the cave, coughed, and opened his mouth. Suddenly, a huge stream of fire and smoke poured out around Lara. A little scared, she jumped back behind a tree and watched the dragon cough out some more smoke.

She realized that he didn’t seem very angry, and she had an idea.



“Would you like something to drink? You are coughing a lot, and I have a cup full of cool water,” Lara asked.

“Oh, thank you! My throat was so very sore!” he said with a hoarse voice. “Thank you for not being afraid of me. I really can’t help breathing fire!”

“I’m just glad you’re feeling better,” Lara answered.

“I wish I had something to give you in return.” The dragon thought for a minute, then reached back and
plucked something off of his tail. “Here,” he said, “take one of my scales. It’s not much, but it is extra shiny
since I cleaned it just this morning.”

The red dragon scale was warm and reflected the sun. Lara smiled, waved good-bye, and walked on.



Soon, she reached a dock that stretched into the ocean. Floating in the waves was a ship with a black pirate sail. On its deck Lara saw a boy who looked quite sad.

“What’s wrong?” Lara asked. “You seem very sad for a pirate.”

“If only I were a real pirate,” the boy sighed. “I think I have everything I need to be one – a ship, a sharp sword, this red bandanna. But the other pirates just laugh at me.” The boy waved his sword at her. “You better not laugh at me too!” He yelled angrily.

Lara looked carefully, and noticed that he really was missing a piece of pirate gear.



“Hey, I have an idea,” Lara said, breaking the dragon scale in half. “Let me climb aboard and help you.”

She tied a string to edges of the scale and put it on the boy’s face as a particularly fearsome eye patch. “Now you really look like a scary pirate!”

The boy looked at his reflection in the water and smiled happily. “Thank you so much for your help! I don’t know what to give you in return. How about a ride on my boat – and this sword?”

The sword’s sharp edge gleamed and the handle was just the right size for Lara’s hand.



In a little while, Lara heard scared cries coming from the water. Sword in hand, she smiled, waved good-bye to the pirate, and dove into the deep ocean. The cries got louder and louder, and finally she saw a mermaid struggling against a dense patch of seaweed.

“Please help me! I was trying to harvest these plants for a mermaid salad, but instead got stuck!” The mermaid pulled her arms again with no avail. “If only there were some better way to pick seaweed,” she sighed.

Holding her breath, Lara swam as fast as she could toward the mermaid, knowing just what she should do.



Swinging the sword from side to side, Lara chopped up the dense plants. “Oh, how wonderful!” The mermaid exclaimed, “These tiny seaweed pieces are perfect for my salad. You’ve saved me a lot of work!”

“Here, you should take this sword,” Lara said. “That way, you won’t get stuck the next time you feel like eating some greens!” The mermaid laughed. “Wait till the other merfolk hear about you! But I should give you something in return – how about this pearl?”

The pearl was smooth and pale in the greenish water. Hugging it to her chest, Lara smiled, waved good-bye, and swam away.



Swimming to the surface, Lara saw an island with a tall palm tree. Lara pushed her giant pearl onto the sandy beach and noticed a fairy hovering in the air above a large bubbling cauldron.

Lara watched the pot send up wisps of smoke and pink sparks. The fairy’s wings beat very fast, and she frowned in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” Lara asked.

“Oh, this whole thing is ruined,” the fairy sniffled. “I was trying to make a magic potion, but I forgot the
most important ingredient. I just need to add something from the ocean floor!”

Lara picked up her pearl, smiled, and gently lowered it into the cauldron.



The brew began to froth and sizzle as streams of swirling rainbow sparkles shot high up into the air.

“What is it doing?” Lara asked the fairy.

“You made the potion, so the magic will be for you!” the fairy answered.




And the next thing Lara saw was an enormous chocolate vanilla birthday cake with four candles, and all the new friends that she had made on her adventure.

“Happy Birrrrthday!” roared the dragon.

“Aye, make a wish!” yelled the pirate.

“Oh, and don’t forget to blow out the candles!” sang out the mermaid.

“I hope you like pink icing,” whispered the fairy.

Lara laughed. Pink icing was her favorite.

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It was so much fun to make it! We came up with the story together, then Misha drew the illustrations, I scanned them in and colored them, and wrote out the text. Then we published it through Lulu press (and if you feel like getting yourself a copy, they are available at the forty-two roads storefront).

Lara amusingly loves it and can't quite decide which pronoun is right to use when referring to the heroine ("the pirate said to her... to me... to Lara!"). She also had two great editorial comments: 1) "No, my favorite is white icing, not pink," and 2) "Hey, I don't see the pirate's reflection in the picture in the book!" Ah, that's my literary critic daughter...

And now she is 4

Lara turned 4 on Saturday and we had a blowout in her honor. Here she is in the first of the day's three outfits, most revolving around this fairy dress that was thematically repurposed to fit with the party's theme: Princesses and Pirates.



I assembled four random images found through Google into this invitation graphic...



...which I also blew up to be a face-in-the-hole photo op thing. Gus and Lara demonstrate the awesomeness:



Pirate hats and princess crowns for one and all!



Jakey reminisces about pirate days gone by:



The balloons started as decorations on the wall, but were quickly cannibalized into a super fun stampede-cum-dance:



Juliet rocks all the available the accessories:



Here, the gaggle of children fresh from the balloon madness are calmed by the pull-string pinata. I love that they were raising their hands for turns! I filled the pinata with gold- and silver-foiled candy, some pieces of eight, and bejeweled rings.... a theme that was pretty much only picked up on by my friend Sheri (and thus was worth it!).



I also used the invitation images to decorate the cupcakes (by printing out the pictures and gluing them onto toothpicks). Lara was totally overwhelmed when everyone was singing "Happy Birthday" - look at this face:



And here, a cupcake closeup:



Ah, what a totally wonderful, exhausting, somewhat dreamlike day! I still can't quite believe we have a four year-old... but I know that every day she is a exhilarating, baffling, joyful, awe-inspiring, maddening, terribly beloved creature. Happy Birthday, little girl!

Plum Crisp

Easy to make, yummy, and looks great - what more could you ask for in a dessert? I just caught on to this whole crisp idea this winter - I never actually realized that the topping is not a dough before (was I maybe confusing this with a crumble?). I made an apple crisp a few weeks ago, after our apple-picking trip to the farm; and today I made this one with plums. I used a combination of a few of Martha Stewart's crisp recipes to arrive at this:

Ingredients:

- 5-6 medium plums, pitted and sliced into eighths or even tenths
- 3/4 cup flour + 1 tablespoon flour
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/2 rolled oats
- 8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)

- preheat oven to 375, and grease a casserole dish
- mix together 1 cup flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and oats
- cut butter into little pieces and add to dry ingredient mixture; stir until clumpy
- mix together plums, white sugar, and 1 tablespoon flour
- put plum mixture into the greased casserole dish and spread into an even layer
- pour butter mixture on top of plums and spread evenly
- bake for 35-45 minutes, until the top is browned and crisp, and the plum juice is bubbling
- let cool for 20 minutes before eating

Shiver Me Timbers!

Ok, so I finally really understand why the Dread Pirate Roberts relied mostly on the word-of-mouth of his reputation to do most of the advance work of plundering and pillaging. In all the many iterations of that identity, there had to have been at least a few guys who didn't quite have the, um, facial qualifications, to do the job appropriately - so they needed to have the pre-instilled fear to compensate. After all, without worrying about the whole "leaves no prisoners alive" thing, exactly how scared would you be if looked in your spyglass to see that what was coming after you was this:



Seriously.

More Halloween Decor

I set this all up a few days ago, and when Lara came home she said, "Oh, you made it spooky and scary in here, Mommy!" "It's not too scary, just mostly spooky, right?" "No, it's a little bit scary."

Which was great to hear, since I was working on straddling that line where Halloween-appropriate meets too-frightening-for-a-four-year-old. What do you think?



A "dripping" tablecloth, a skull with a clacking jaw, and a picture of a ghoulish tree with an owl and a skeleton swinging on a swing.



Some more black "dripping" coming from the top of the door. I'm glad I didn't make that part red. Black dripping = spooky. Red dripping = too scary even for me.

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Thanks so much to Apartment Therapy Ohdeedoh, The Crafty Crow, and Labbe for all the creepy garland love! Commenter Monkey's Mama was right, it comes from Paper Crave's clip art.

Halloween Parade

Yes, it's that time of year again - the annual candy-solicitation adventure through the neighborhood office park!



Lara's costume is my slightly dark-fairy take on Tinkerbell...



...which I think is rather fitting for a girl who is mostly magically good, but every now and again reveals a magically - shall we just say "bad"? - side.



Jakey came in full pirate regalia and practiced his "Arrgh!" so much that he ended up napping through most the parade. I may have grabbed a few pieces of candy on his behalf.



Ahem. They have since mysteriously disappeared.

Central Park in the Rain

I had never walked through the park in the autumn rain before.



It was just gorgeous.



Why is it that leaves and branches look somehow sharper and more defined when they are wet? Is it the glistening sheen? Is the gray of the sky a better contrast?



Maybe it's the feeling of newness that rain caries with it.

Birthday Brunch

We had a lovely multi-birthday brunch over the weekend chez Nancy.



Most of the crowd made it into this photo. See how everyone is watching Lara do something? That's pretty much what the whole morning was about - she was over the moon to be the star of the show! Really funny.



Jakey got his fair share of love as well, of course.



So lovely to see everyone all together in the same place! I loved it.

On Daddy's Shoulders

I love the light in this picture. And, you know, the cuteness helps too.

Lara Draws

Halloween Garland

I have been trying to make more of an effort to have seasonal changes in the house, to change the daily objects of our gaze in keeping with what is happening outside. The temptation is to call it decorating, but I don't want to use that word because the small changes I am talking about come not so much from a desire to celebrate any particular holidays (although that's there, of course), but from a more deep-seated need for a connection to the passage of time. Barring the opening and closing of windows, our apartment stays the same through the seasons. Summer brings with it only air conditioning. Winter does not frost our windows, and however copious the snowfall, it never blows in when we open the door. Flowers can be had year-round, and even though the box of vegetables from the farmer tends to be full of mostly tubers by the middle of winter, the grocery store fills in. And yet, time should be marked. Occasions should be noted and celebrated. Days should not flow one into another without pause, alteration, memorable incident. So this is one small thing to help with that. It is autumn. We have pumpkins - real, painted, kid-made, (perhaps even carved, if I can remember to buy a small carving set). Yesterday I found some bright red fallen leaves to spread on the dinner table like a runner. And now we have a Halloween garland hanging over the kitchen island.



Three blown-up clip art images, some poster board, yarn, and tape. Makes me feel the fall.

Pumpkins

Can you guess which two Lara made?

Jakey Baby

Jakey is five months old today! And he continues being his happy, grinning little self. He smiles very easily, into the face of pretty much every person we come across (to the delight of countless strangers on the street), but laughter is harder to come by. He has a kind of a half-cough half-chortle that is his giggling noise - usually, it's easiest to get him to crack up with tickles, but he sometimes also thinks it's funny when I sing silly songs with his name in them (is it possible he recognizes it already?) or slowly move my face close to his with my eyes wide open. Babies have the best sense of humor, don't they? He loves being talked to and stares with rapt attention to anyone talking.

Let's see... any demerits? Well, he's not nearly the sleeper Lara was at his age, preferring little catnaps throughout the day, and waking up every few hours at night - in a good mood, but still wide awake and ready to party. Every week or so I try to toss him in the air to see if he likes it, but so far it just scares him.

Yay, tiny baby Jakey!

Jammies

We went from a few glorious fall weeks of 60 degree weather to 40 and raining overnight. Over a cold, cold night that made Lara wake up and moan "I'm cold, I'm so cold, Daddy!" from her room (which for some reason is much colder than the rest of our apartment). I know - I felt awful.



So I made her two pairs of new jammy pants out of a fleece baby blanket that I took apart into its two layers. I used this tutorial, which is spot-on, and the whole thing took about an hour - and that's including the time spent dealing with Jakey every five minutes. The next night she didn't wake up at all and in the morning I asked her if she slept well - "Yes, it was warm in my new toasty pants," said she.

I made myself a pair the next day out of a couple of Jakey's flannel receiving blankets!

Birthday Flowers

It was my birthday a couple of days ago...



...and my day was filled with love and flowers (thanks, Nancy and Peter, for the gorgeous roses bouquet!).

Lara's Eye View, part 2

Lara has really taken to the camera - and honestly, since a digital camera can take a million pictures at a time it's really conducive to being used by a kid, especially since you can instantly see the photo you took on the view screen rather than having to wait to get a roll of film developed (which I imagine would really dissociate the picture-taking process from its results for a four year-old). Back in the days of film, I can't imagine being allowed to waste 17 rolls on just clicking the button, but this way - hey, click away. And she did - and took some really fantastic pictures of us!

Lara's John Hancock

What, you can't see it? Here is a disambiguation:



I guess we should work on putting the letters to each other...

Swirl

I took this during a brief respite in the farm activities. It was just such a glorious day.

Anyone know what kind of tree has curly leaves like this? It was quite large and shady, if that helps.

Apple Picking

Last Sunday was perfect for going to nearby Terhune Orchards farm for the all the fall festivities (and we even managed to fit some apple-picking in!). It's a wonderful place, as good as Linvilla - so everyone, go there!



Lara ate her first caramel apple, which was mildly unorthodox since it was also covered in M&M's... but she didn't seem to mind. Speaking of eating amazing food for the first time, Misha and I tried the farm's kettle corn. Where has this stuff been all my life? We devoured a giant bag of it, and I was tempted to drive out there again today to buy some more.

Lara ga-zumped out of this stump like the Lorax.



We went with Sam, Inna, Mikey, and Benji - and I believe I am correct when I say perfect day enjoyed by all.



I wanted to crop Sam and Benji out of this picture and caption it, "Look how big Jakey has gotten!" but then decided our family would freak out a little bit.

Getting the actual apples involved some heroics...



...or at least more height than most of us could attain.

A New Little Kitchen

A feisty red number from MnC for a lucky little boy she knows:

File Under "Learning Process"

So the other day, I had the brilliant idea that I should try to bake my first set of oatmeal raisin cookies... and... how shall I put this? In Russian, there is a really great expression - pervyi blin komom - which roughly translates to "the first pancake will come out crumpled."



Turns out that is pretty much true in this case! Did you know that cookie dough should be put in tiny pieces on the cookie sheet? Because I, for one, did not realize that each dough dollop would expand as much as it did. What I ended up with is basically, a bunch of sweet scones. Still, I have to say that they don't taste all that bad! I actually ate one for lunch today with a cup of tea - and just one of these "cookies" was enough for quite a filling lunch. Don't think of it as eating a giant misshapen oatmeal cookie - think of it as a bowl of sweet oatmeal with raisins!

More sisterly love

Sometimes Jakey gets fussy in the car, and since I can't really do anything for him without letting go of the wheel, my bad-parent solution tends to be to just ignore him if we're almost home. Lara's good-sister solution, on the other hand, is to start talking to him in a voice so soft and full of tenderness that I can't believe it's coming from a four year-old (almost!) child. "It's ok, Jakey, don't cry. Here, do you want your butterfly? I'll give you your butterfly toy. Shhh, it's ok. We're almost there, and then we'll go home and Mommy will feed you, and then you'll be happy."

Horse Stance!

Lara started karate. It's just about the cutest thing I think I've ever seen.

Lara the Good Fairy

Ever since I made Jakey's pirate outfit, Lara has been clamouring for the wings and magic wand that will complete her fairy costume (the main part of which will be this green dress). This will be the surprise that awaits her when she gets home:



I used this excellent set of instructions for the wings, and the magic wand I just winged from a cardboard tube, a piece of the same tights I used for the wings, some pink felt, and a bit of stuffing to puff out the star.