bits of my weekend vol. 80.

it was a lovely weekend for the boy and me.

we got our christmas tree, and despite a leaky tree stand that almost had us in a panic, it turned out pretty great.

the boy wore his new (garage sale) turtleneck and the sparkly red scarf granny made for a tree-climbing expedition.

also, as usual, we went to the library.

the boy is into scary stories right now.

hopefully it's just a phase.

good buddy winston came along, and the boys took over the library's kids room with the hopes of staging a puppet show for me.

it pretty much turned into a wrestling/laughing/puppet-fight instead.

luckily they don't enforce the noise policy in the kids area.

winston went straight to work on his letter to Santa.

my boy's love affair with santa is over ... but that's a story for another day. i'll tell you more later this week.

happy almost christmas!

bits of my weekend vol. 78.

it was the last best saturday.

lovely fall weather gave way to wintery-ness on sunday.

and so saturday was a rollerblading-biking day at a beautiful park near nashville.

this morning we bundled up in coats and scarves.

winter is here now.

christmas is coming.

how was your weekend?

is it cold where you live?

bits of my weekend vol. 76: nyc part five.

photo courtesy of entertaining eats

saturday night was our last huzzah.

twinnie and i had already traveled from midtown to harlem and back again, and now it was time to make our way south to brooklyn to meet up with some cool people at roberta's pizza in bushwick.

the joint came highly recommended.

but as we rode past abandoned warehouses and scary looking bodegas, i sincerely believed the cabbie was driving us off somewhere to kill us.

and then ... we arrived.

it took us two hours to get a table, but it was worth it. while we waited, we sipped on hot cider in an outdoor tent heated by a wood fire pit.

i got to meet marcus, a gender studies graduate student, casey, a published author and world traveler, her husband steven, an illustrator, deborah, the head of applied brilliance (a ted-like conference) and her smart and clever son Max (a brooklyn resident).

all from different walks of life, but we talked like we'd known each other for years. such fun.

and the pizza lived up to the hype, and made the scary drive worth it.

here's to new friends!

and here's to going home and reliving the memories!

bits of my weekend vol. 76: nyc part three.

saturday was a day of food and film, taxis and trains and pure inspiration. where do i begin?

brunch at the red rooster in harlem was a revelation.

i met up with twinnie and her cousin by marriage, tracey kemble.

tracey oversees the foundation for red rooster's chef, marcus samuelsson, as well as being a tv and film producer in nyc.

she is kind, generous, loving and simply glows. what a lovely, lovely woman.

and the food, the food!

we had a feast!

rooster scrambled eggs with tomatoes and mozzarella ...

cinnamon raisin french toast - unbelievably moist and sweet - with nutella whip and fresh berries ...

the lenox smorgasbord, with gravlox, smoked trout and country ham ...

... and biscuits with red-eye gravy.

marcus' twist on traditional soul food is simply inspired.

photo courtesy marcussamuelsson.com

here's marcus.

we weren't able to see him because he was in miami over the weekend.

but we can always catch him on the next iron chef on food network.

photo courtesy marcussamuelsson.com

here's the rooster's fantastic manager, peter. what a gem. he took great care of us.

we talked for more than two hours over amazing food and fantastic coffee.

i never wanted to leave.

but the day held many more adventures and so we got on the subway and headed back to midtown. the rest will have to wait until tomorrow, my lovelies.

xoxo

Bits of my weekend vol. 75.

our good buddy winston's neighbor jack was having a birthday party, and his mom let us come over early to test the bouncy thing.

it was a space theme. so while the kids bounced, winston's mom and i helped with hanging the decorations.


jack's mom had space stations set up everywhere and the kids had little rocket packs they got to take home.

so adorable.

wish i'd gotten more pictures.

after that, winston and the boy went on a picnic and played at the park.

did you know macdo's has pumpkin pie right now? well they do. and it's pretty yummy.

here's winston's precious little sis lilly. i just want to just dress her up in bows and ruffles and sparkles and giant tutus and fairy wings.

she would hate that very much.

but an auntie can dream.

we came back later to jack's party to bring him his gift. it's hard to tell, but the yard was magical at dusk.

the boy bounced a little more.

and then we headed for home.

how was your weekend?

bits of my weekend vol. 74

hello, my lovelies. i am back from the dead. funny how a sinus infection can just about kill a whole week if not more.

and speaking of death and killing, let's dispense with halloween. my least favorite holiday. and let me tell you why.

last year

a perfectly adorable child ... (far left)...

this year

turns into this.

it would be super duper great if we could just go back to this moment.

and relive it every halloween.

ok?

great. glad we could talk that through.

moving on. over the weekend i dragged myself to a giant garage sale, at which i got approximately a million new shirts, dresses, toys and puzzles for exactly $19.

i'm now addicted to thrifting. i mean, it's official.

digging through other people's crap is fun.

here's one of the fun games we got.

we also got chutes and ladders. it didn't come with a spinner, so we decided dice would work. but we didn't have one.

so we made one out of playdoh.

cuz that's how we roll.

we also got this most awesome book.

you didn't think i'd skip the most awesome vintage book table, did you?

i love it that they use terms like "chum" and "jalopy."

it does slow down the reading aloud part, though, explaining to the boy what chums and jalopies are.

but just think of the vocabulary he's building.

the boy did some climbing and monkey-barring after the sale.

and some old fashioned stick tossing.

i gotta say he's pretty awesome.

Bits of my weekend vol. 72.

the boy's self portrait. doesn't he look grown up?

we did tons of biking this weekend. i mean tons.

there were crashes and spills, laughter and tears.

in short, we're exhausted.

it was a glorious ride to starbucks, and then the greenway, a lovely biking path in the midst of the city.

there were adorable bridges ... (adorned by a beautiful boy)

romantic train tracks ...

and some totally rocking graffiti art.

oh, and we saw a snake. and a turtle.

it was quite a day.

it was a journey, really. an adventure of epic proportions.

the only drawback? it was a long ride back home, which was mostly up hill, by the way.

but worth every sore quad muscle, skinned knee and sunburnt nose.

how was your weekend?