Fun with Michael

"Wead it, wead the book daddy. Wead 'Tail of a zong', wead 'Guff goin by' pweeze.'" Lara refers to books by her favorite lines from them (this is Dr. Seuss's "Oh the Thinks You Can Think").



My dad is visiting for a few days. Lara hadn't seen him since last summer, but when he walked in and I asked her "Do you know who that is?", she said, "Michael" in a tone that implied "Duh, Mom." We've been going with first names for all the various grandparents since otherwise it is entirely too confusing.

My dad pretty much just follows her around video camera in hand. She doesn't even ask to play with it... I think she thinks that's just how his arm is.



"Wanna go on the fing pweeze! Mommy fing me! Michael fing me pweeze!"

More Mother's Day

Another family doodle embroidery pillow for my mom-in-law, Nancy. We love you! Happy Mother's Day - you're the best ever.

New Portrait

Mindy's husband and daughter:



A moment at the beach captured forever.

Apartment Overhaul, part III

Ah, we've come to the final round of our apartment chronicles. I made Lara an art desk:



From IKEA: Vika Amon table top, Vika Oleby table legs, Index curtain rod hangers, Mala drawing paper roll, brushes, paints. From the hardware store: wooden dowel, cut down to size with a handsaw.



Turns out what you need to get a kid interested in art is to actually have a place to make said art. Shocking.

Riding Around

We took Lara out on her tricycle a few days ago. She loves it, but as yet just a passenger. When you push this trike along the pavement, the pedals sometimes engage by themselves, and every time that happens we get so thrilled thinking that Lara is doing the pedaling... but, not so much. She doesn't really separate pushing her feet from pushing with the whole side of her body, so most of her attempts to pedal result in a sharp turn to the left. Look how serious she is though - she pretty much looked this concentrated the whole time we were out.



She's become quite the stuntman in general recently. The other day she climbed out of her crib in a particularly vociferous effort to avoid napping. We had the quintessential low crash and then sobbing. No injuries, thank goodness, and so far no repeat escape attempt. We are both totally shocked that she did it in the first place! After all, this is a child who's still pretty wary of the bouncy bridge on the jungle gym.



A few funny new Lara-isms: she has started to imitate her friend Marcus and say, "Oh, man! Come on!" when something is awry. Also, recently, when you ask her a question, she says, "um..." and pauses before answering. "What did you do in school today?" "Um... I go on the fings [swings]. I go faster faster higher!"

Here is Lara practicing being gentle with the flowers. "Just one fi'ger! Just one fi'ger! Like the shark museum." (At the aquarium, you can touch jellyfish and other creepy things but only with one finger. Those poor animals. One finger from a thousand kids still makes for a lot of poking.)



My cute family.

Fever

100.1°F
Originally uploaded by denn

Except mine says 100.7. Waaah.

Apartment Overhaul, part II

Ta-da! My office chair has officially been beautified. I totally love it. The whole process of reupholstering took about two hours, and was pretty straightforward. I used a very heavy canvas fabric from the As-Is IKEA bin (it was originally meant to be a curtain), so I think it will stand some level of wear fairly well. To figure out what to do, I just googled "how to reupholster office chair" and checked out some of the many tutorials out there. I did hit my finger with my hammer by accident (for the first time in my life!) and, let me tell you - ouch.

Apartment Overhaul, part I

I don't know if you've ever had a moment like this, but I looked around our apartment about a week ago and suddenly hated everything. Just wanted to throw everything out and start all over... which of course will never happen for various economic and ecological reasons. But at least some changes were in order. So:

1. good-bye to the horrid old plastic/aluminum folding chairs we were using as dining chairs (thanks, Freecycle!), and hello to these new lovelies in black from IKEA.

2. Similarly, good-bye to the giant unwieldy pink high chair of doom, and hello this small vintag-y one, also from IKEA.

3. Also, good-bye to this fairly useless and apparently unwelcoming plastic table (I say unwelcoming because Lara never ever wanted to use it for anything!), and hello to a more adult IKEA model which I have since modified in a pretty cool way. More on that in a later post.

At the same time that I ran wild in the IKEA warehouse, I also decided to try to reupholster a few things. I found a bunch of cool fabric in the IKEA As-Is department, and have transformed Lara's outgrown ride-on toy. It was one of those faux-velvet plush snail ones (see picture inset), and when I cut off the fabric, I discovered that it had pretty cool-looking guts:



With some inspiration from this ride-on toy, I made this:



Looks pretty cool if I do say so myself. This was a pretty finicky project, I have to admit - because of the way that the seat and rocking bottom are attached, I basically had to hand-sew the fabric directly onto the thing.

More redoings coming up!

Mother's Day #2

My mom just got her present in the mail today, so I can post it!



A lumbar-support pillow for my mom, complete with an embroidered doodle of our family. Here is a closeup:



I made both the pillowcase and the actual pillow. The pillowcase has a simple envelope back for taking off and cleaning, and is made from some brown linen pants, a piece of dark blue fabric left over from my quilt, and Freecycled blue shiny fabric (looks like satin, but clearly polyester) and off-white muslin. I did the embroidery with three-thread embroidery floss (basically, splitting the ones you buy in half) for greater clarity on the small details. There must be a better way to do it than what I did, but I basically sketched a doodle, scanned it into Photoshop, sized it appropriately, printed it out, pinned the printout to the fabric, and embroidered through both the muslin and the paper. Because of all the needle holes, the paper ends up perforated enough to just tear away. I thought of doing it on freezer paper and ironing that onto the muslin, but you can't print on freezer paper, so that would have involved several extra steps on the other end. Hmmm... How do you guys transfer digital images for embroidering?

Dinner from the Farm

Grilled asparagus, marinated baked salmon, tossed salad. All these veggies are from yesterday's farm box - yay for new tomatoes!

The asparagus came out wonderfully - and so simple to make. I just tossed it with some coarse salt, and then grilled it on our George Forman for ten minutes or so, until it was soft to a poke from a wooden spoon. It comes out really wonderful because the salt makes it "sweat" and it dries out a little, and at the same time the sugar in it caramelizes.

The salmon was marinated in my new favorite "stuff from the door of the fridge" marinade that I have so far also used to marinade another batch of asparagus and chicken, each of which has turned out great. The marinade consists of minced garlic, salt, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, mustard, and soy sauce. I actually reused the one left over from the asparagus to marinate this salmon, which sat in the fridge absorbing the sauce for two days. Delish.

First of the Mother's Day gifties

Still in keeping with the Handmade Pledge, I've been busily making Mother's Day gifts for all the various moms and grandmoms out there. This one should get to Baba Lena today or tomorrow, since it's meant to be a combined Mother's Day and Birthday present, so I decided to post it a little early.



An apron featuring applique pieces of Lara's old baby clothes. Made with fabric left over from the quilt, fully lined, and with interfacing between the front and back to give it a little sturdiness. I really like how it came out.

Puddle Jumping Haikus

Staying in the house
Is never a good option
Even rain beckons



Small jumps get bigger
Water droplets are dancing
Oh, no, my wet pants



Rustic rusted poles
Leaning on wet scaffolding
Macro button art

Sharp-Looking Kitchen

Another great little kitchen, this one from Melissa:



I love the black edging on the backsplash - it really gives it a tailored look.

Sam and Inna and Mikey and Benji

A chilly but delightful morning with Sam and Inna and their Mikey and Benji. I think Lara got a kick out of being the older one who can do things they can't. Here, she demonstrates "throwing the ball" by holding on to the ball, running with it, and then just handing it to whomever asked her to throw. We're still working out the whole "playing catch" concept. Mostly she seems to think that throwing is an inefficient way of doing a hand-off. And let's face it - the way she throws? It is.



These two are total cuties.



This picture is completely emblematic of our morning. Mikey was instantly smitten with Lara and spent our visit crawling around after her and doing his best to communicate. Lara patiently tolerated his affections. At one point, we heard cries of distress from the playroom, and Misha discovered Mikey attempting to pull himself up by holding onto Lara's hair, while totally confused, she was leaning backwards and yelling for help.



Chicks, man. Maybe pummeling them with toys is the answer.

Fashion Show Thursday

Some new duds for Lara from MiniBoden. Now I don't work for them or anything, but I really have to say that their kids clothes are totally phenomenal. Excellent quality, actually designed with children in mind (i.e. no tarty street-walker getups for the prepubescent set. Ahem, are you listening, Bloomingdale's?). Anyhoo, Lara has the best grandmoms ever. Here is a sampling of the summer goodies...

Super-cool applique pants from Marina (thanks, Mommy!):



Mom, did you know that they are crazily adjustable? She's going to wearing these babies till college!

Perfect polka dot dress from Nancy (thanks, Mommy-in-law!):



And I couldn't resist showing you my cute outfit today. This shirt with this skirt.



Could I be any more awkward trying to photograph myself? I have no idea what to do with my hands/head/eyes/etc. when taking my own picture. I think Tyra would probably yell at me.

More Stencilies

Kari's son with an umbrella. These umbrella ones come out great!



I do have to say that in real life the green is quite a bit more muted... couldn't make the camera cooperate. Speaking of which, does anyone out there by any chance happen to know how artists make prints out of their original paintings? Is that something a print shop can do - including taking the initial photo of the original painting?

In any case, Christina's baby girl. Those tiny fists crack me up.

Sunday Morning

A few minutes on the playground early in the morning yesterday. We had it to ourselves for quite a while, and found some left-behind chalk.



What would it be like if Lara were twins? Two smiley smirky babies... whew. Well, at least the pictures would be cute cute cute.

Happy Passover!

We had a lovely Passover weekend, matzo balls aplenty.

I made Lara a dress for the occasion out of this ridiculously cute fabric that I had been hoarding until reasonably sure I wouldn't screw up.







The fabric is Heather Ross's "Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries," which is now all gone! I used Vegbee's wonderful tutorial on shirring. All her guides are faboo - and check out her stuff on Craftster and Etsy. Totally great clothes.

Mr. Forty-two Roads behind the camera

Some really gorgeous shots of a really gorgeous day. I always love Misha's eye.

Skirts are fun to make

So I made another one. I can't seem to keep up with the weather for Lara - nothing for it but to just keep making small clothes.

I just found the Alabama Chanin store and am hugely inspired (and really wishing I had $120 to spend on tshirts!). I'll definitely go check out their new book of projects. In the meantime - a quick reverse embroidery to accent a little play skirt:



Refashioned from a few different tshirts, and some embroidery floss. The lettuce edging on the hem is done by pulling just the very edge of the jersey apart with two fingers every half-inch or so.

Here is a detailed shot of the embroidery itself:

Mmmm....good.

Last night's dinner. Rice, beans, and guacamole - delicious Trader Joe's things. Eggplant tomato caviar - scrumptious and handmade. And this chicken? I rocked this chicken's world.



When it comes to lunch and dinner food combinations, the policy around here has pretty much always been along the lines of "what's in the fridge and tastes good?" Don't get me wrong - I love watching the Top Chef judges mull over whether the slightly acid quality of the sauce overwhelms the sweetness of the potatoes, whether those flavors enhance the protein selection, and whether all of that combines poorly with the choice of garnish. But those very composed meals feel very traditional and fifties to me.

When I am being self-complimentary, I call my style "tapas" - you know, a little of this, a little of that, things that taste good in and of themselves, but don't necessarily need to be resolved with one another. I guess a more realistic description is Joey eating Rachel's accidental trifle/shepherd's pie combo - "What's not to like? Custard? Good. Jam? Good. Meat? Goooooood." Wow, people, that's a blast from the referential past. Seriously, remember "Friends"? That was a good show.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the eggplant and chicken recipes since they are easy and good - and, you know, the delicate acidity of one enhances but subtly downplays the exuberant umami of the other.

Eggplant Caviar:

- Bake a large eggplant whole, unpeeled, at 375 degrees for approximately 90 minutes.
- Wait for it to cool, peel, and finely mince the eggplant meat.
- Grate enough tomatoes into the eggplant for mixture to assume the color in the photograph - or add more to taste.
- Grate one medium white onion into mixture.
- Press one clove of garlic into mixture.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Optionally, add two-three tablespoons of olive oil (that's what my grandmother does, but I like it without the oil also).
- Let sit in the fridge for at least a couple of hours - best overnight.

You can eat it plain, like salad, or do what Misha does: multi-grain toast, a layer of goat cheese, topped with the caviar.

Chicken Whose World I Rocked:

The chicken is even more fun, because it just involves staring at the inside of your fridge door and rediscovering all the condiments that you no longer knew you had. At least that's what I did to come up with the following marinade:

- Soy sauce
- Juice of a fresh lemon
- Mustard
- Olive oil
- Balsamic salad dressing

Mix together "some" of each, or add in other things you think might go (maybe ketchup? maybe BBQ sauce? maybe Worcestershire sauce? maybe honey? or for the very daring, maybe Vegemite/Marmite?), let the chopped up chicken parts sit in the marinade overnight. Bake at 350 degrees, for 45 minutes, basting every 15. (Or, if you're like me, instead of basting, you will just take tongs and swish each chicken part around in the jus at the bottom of the pan and close the oven door again.)

Oh, and cyndyava asked about stock for my kitchen sink soup. I don't make stock ahead of time - vegetable stock is basically mirepoix (diced carrots, onion, and celery), boiled in water with spices and potentially other things. As long as you have those on hand, and put them in the soup water first and let them boil for a while before you add other things, you're ok for stock.

Why it takes fifty minutes to walk five blocks

Lara stops at every single stoop on the way.



Also every cement paving brick.



Also every crack between those bricks.



Every flower bed. Every window.

And then she laughs and runs in the other direction.

In the Pipeline

I feel like whenever I take a few days break from the blog I fall out of the habit of taking pictures of the day. The last few days have been almost summertime here, and every single day I forgot to grab the camera as we headed outside. Lara's main delight about the warm weather is the mud. "I wanna play my mud!" she yells, as she lets handfulls of newly deposited fertilizer run between her fingers. "I wanna play my mud!" she protests, when Misha and I object to her tasting it or shoving it into her ears. But she is not all nature goddess - as soon as she stands up, it's "Ah, ah! Wipe my hands pweeze!"

Meanwhile, I've been toiling in my workshop (I wish - more like crouching in a corner of the bedroom), hard at work to make some more cardboard playthings. I've been so extremely gratified at how much people are loving the Little Kitchen. Next up? Some doll furniture. I think I've worked up the bed to my satisfaction:



Now for the chair.

Spring & Answers

Lovely first bits of spring on my desk.



I've been a bit lax in answering all the questions you guys have asked in the comments section, even though I have been greedily using all the advice you have given. Thank you so much for all of things you write, answers as well as questions! It's not that I mind answering, it's just that I'm lazy... so I thought I'd make a post to gather them all up.

- tiff and emsres wondered how I made this denim skirt for Lara. The skirt was easy to make because although it looks like it features godets, they are actually faux. I made the front and back of the skirt the same way: four hemmed pieces of denim, each about 4"x10", sewn together at angles with each other. Then, another piece of semicircular fabric is sewn behind. This gives the illusion of godets!



- Terri asked about patterns for these flowy tops. Terry, I'm so sorry, I don't think I could do a pattern for these! My sewing style (ahem, read: blind stabbings in the dark) generally just involve massive amounts of try-on and error rather than premeditated pattern. The tops are basically combinations of rectangles - and what you see in the pics is pretty much what you get. I don't sew well enough to have any sewing secrets :)

- The Alpha Team asked where I got the felt for Lara's name book. Amazingly enough, the felt was from a thing of off-cuts that you can buy by the bag at JoAnn's or Michael's craft stores. I think mostly this fact just highlights my cheapskate quality, especially when I see people in blogland using the super-fancy wool felt. Eh, the acrylic looks nice too!

- and finally, about this monster veggie skull thing: I have on final authority (Misha's grandmother) that this is celeriac (aka celery root). She sends along this recipe (can you tell she's a serious cook?):

3-3/12 lbs celeriac (about two of them)
1 lb baking potatoes
1 celery bunch with leaves
6-7 shallots or half of large vidalia or other sweet onion or 2 leeks
1 1/2 tsp dried thyme or 5-6 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tsp salt
60 oz. chicken stock
2 packets of star porcini mushrooms
3/4 cup water

- dice veggies
- put 1/4 cup butter or canola oil in large soup pot and heat
- stir in diced vegetables, thyme and salt
- cover and cook, stirring from time to time, for 10-15 minutes, but do not let
veggies brown
- add chicken stock
- dilute porcini in water in the microwave
- add porcini to stock, butter, and veggie mixture
- cook for 40-45 minutes until all veggies tender, then puree mixture
- add salt to taste
- serve as is, with dollop of sour cream, or yogurt, or with a sprinkle of chopped fresh parsley

The scarf and the kitchen sink

Lara's new thing is stuffing my scarf into my mouth as I carry her. My new thing is tickling her while she's doing it.



Incidentally, this scarf is another "runs in the family" item - knitted by Misha's aunt Amy and the only one I ever wear.

Unrelatedly, the "kitchen sink" soup this week came out really yummy. This one is half farmer box, half Trader Joe's: it has carrots, onions, celery, bok choi, white beans, yellow and red peppers, potatoes, and fresh and dried parsley (fresh for the beginning to make the stock, dried later in the cooking). Am I the only one who eats all soups with a dollop of sour cream? I think I need to pass that one on to Lara, along with eating jam from those little containers in restaurants with a spoon.