My husband is amazing

Several years ago around Thanksgiving time I was heavily pregnant with Isabella (due mid-December). Obviously, considering my condition, we weren't going to travel, so we decided to have Thanksgiving at our house and John offered to do all the cooking so that I could relax. Unsurprisingly, the meal he cooked was fantastic. He decided then and there that he would start a tradition of always cooking the whole Thanksgiving meal himself. Who am I to complain!

This year, we were joined by many members of John's family - Mary, Pat, Marjie, Granny, Gramps, and Uncle Tom. Everyone happily gorged him/herself on the fantastic meal that John produced.

The dinner consisted of -

• A 20lb turkey
• Gravy
• Stuffing
• Green salad with feta and candied pecans
• Mashed potatoes with black truffle oil
• Sweet potato pie with candied pecan topping
• Cranberry sauce made with fresh (not frozen) cranberries
• Fresh green beans sauteed with almond slivers and lemon zest
• Boiled onions in cheese sauce with truffle salt (a tradition in his family)
• Pumpkin pie made from freshly baked pumpkin (no canned pumpkin in this house) with homemade crust and freshly whipped cream
• 3 different kinds of appropriately paired white wines (a pre-dinner wine, during dinner wine, and then desert wine)

John - um, I'm keeping you until the end of this life, maybe for a few more lives after that too.

My adorable kids

My life is filled with cuteness! Here are a few snapshots.

John cuddling his 2 little girls -

Isabella decided to put a frog on her head, a snake around her neck, and then exclaimed "It's Halloween and here is my costume. Can I have some candy?"

Isabella cuddling Melanie -

This is Isabella teaching Melanie how to swat at the hanging plastic birds/fish on the bar above her chair. Isabella got VERY excited when I plugged the bar in and sat there for a long time saying things like "See Melanie - you just hit the bird and then it plays a song!"

Melanie sucking her thumb in her sleep. Yes believe it or not - sometimes when she stirs she soothes herself back to sleep without needing me. Amazing!

Life is so, so sweet.

My incredibly difficult day

Here is how my day went today -

5:30am - wake up, eat, shower, pump milk

6:30-8am - taught a private yoga lesson to a sweet and dedicated yoga student.

8:15-9:15am - took my own yoga practice

9:15-9:30am - dropped Isabella off at pre-school

9:30-10:30am - nursed Melanie, cooed at her, made funny faces, got drooled on, changed diapers

10:30am- 12:30pm - nursed Melanie to sleep in bed, cuddled, drifted off to sleep with her

12:45 - picked Isabella up

1-2pm - made paneer (Indian cheese) with Isabella while Melanie watched. Isabella LOVES making cheese, loves eating it even more.

2-3pm - nursed Melanie, played with her while Isabella watched, participated, and interjected in various ways - "Melanie, you want to hold this rattle?" and "Oh Melanie, you are such a cutie pie!" At one point, both kids were in my lap cuddling me and Isabella said "All the girls of the family are here!!"

3-4pm - took a bath with Isabella while Melanie swatted at the hanging plastic birds/fish in her Fisher Price musical chair. Bath time included foot scrubs and a bubble bar from Lush. The bubble bar was filled with gold dust/glitter, so the whole bath got sparkly. Isabella was delighted to say the least. All in all, some very girly time.

4-5pm - put Melanie down for a nap, proceeded to get some 1:1 time with Isabella. Play time included book reading, airplane-ing (think - me on my back with Isabella balanced up in the air on my feet), and tickling

5-7:30pm - Melanie continued to nap while Isabella and I cooked dinner together. Isabella is now quite skilled at garlic peeling and pepper grinding. In addition, she took some of the cauliflower I was using, put it in one of her toy cooking pots, put the pot in the microwave of her toy kitchen, and turned the microwave on. She requested some towels to take the pot out of the oven so that she didn't burn herself, and also asked for a trivet so that she could put her play pot of food on the table. SO cute!!!

7:30-9:30pm - Heath, Austin (Heath's sweetie) and Michael came over for dinner. Much relaxation and gluttony resulted.

I love my life!!!!!

Juliet - I can hear your uterus weeping softly.

43lbs down...

I am now 43 pounds less than the day I gave birth to Melanie 3.5 months ago. Just 5 more to go and I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight. Yay for hard work paying off...

Love, sewing, and halloween

Per my previous post, I sewed Isabella's Halloween costume this year. The process went something like this -

October 2 - John mentions that Isabella wants to be a fairy this year and that he thinks Melanie would make a really cute caterpillar. I agree to sew both costumes.

October 15 - John says "How are those costumes coming?" I say "Um... I'm thinking about them." to which he replies "Maybe we should buy a costume for Melanie so that you can focus on Isabella's costume." To which I reply "Sold!"

October 17 - I go shopping for a pattern and material for Isabella's costume.

October 23 - I decide I can't procrastinate any more (with just 8 days to go) and begin sewing after the kids go to bed. I realize that this is the first thing I've sewn in almost 5 years. I try to move quickly and proceed to make several mistakes. I am reminded that a master seamstress I am not. I stay up until 1am and get barely anything done. I find myself regretting the whole project.

October 24 - more sewing

October 25 - Mary (John's mom) stops by to answer some questions and give me some tips (she is a very experienced seamstress). She proceeds to laugh at me, good naturedly. Mary - "You didn't hand baste, did you?" me - "um, yes." her - "I need to teach you how to use your sewing machine!"

October 26, 27 - hours and hours of sewing until the costume is just about done. I find myself saying "I'm never doing this again... this is just too much work."

October 28, 29 - I do nothing and procrastinate the last few details as I pat myself on the back for being near the finish line

October 30 - "Oh crap! I still have some finishing touches to make." I stay up until 1am again.

October 31 - The finish line.

Here is Isabella in her fairy costume with her friend Kaina, the butterfly. Note - I made the vest, the skirt, and modified the wings so that the elastic band matched her outfit, but did not make the wings themselves.

Rear view -

I have to admit that halfway through this sewing project I found myself saying "What was I thinking taking such a thing on? I don't have time for this!!!" At the end of the process, however, I was definitely glad to have done it. I guess, as I'm fond of saying, It's all about love. My teacher often talks about all the ways we can put love, light into others. He says that if you cook food with love then the food is much healthier for the person who eats it. I'm sure costumes are the same way. On a conscious level, Isabella didn't really appreciate the costume more because of all the work I put into it... at her age she couldn't really grasp such a thing. On an energetic level, however, she can receive all of the love put into the garment. So much love went into that costume... while sewing it I found myself thinking of her, imagining her twirling around in the skirt, imagining what her smile would look like. Every stitch tucked in a little more love. I know that on some level all of that love flowed into her as soon as she donned the costume, and I was able to sit back and enjoy watching her dance around in the symbol of my love. I must admit that I'm already excited to sew her costume again next year. I guess that's what parenthood is all about - wearing yourself out, losing sleep, doing things for your kids that they won't really appreciate, and loving every minute of it.


As for the rest of Halloween, here is a pic of John as Thing 1 (from Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat) with Melanie the butterfly -

And some more pics of our sweet sleeping butterfly Melanie.

I dressed up in a costume as well, but we didn't get any pics. I was a late 1990's candy raver. Think Larame's phat cords, powder blue Sketcher platform sneakers, glitter, candy necklaces, a sparkly belt, pig tails, and lots of bracelets with cheap colorful beads.


Yay for Halloween!!!