Thursday, my parents flew from Boston to Chicago. On different airlines, arriving at very different times. My mom stayed with us Thursday night, while my dad stayed in a hotel. Weird, given they’re still married, still live together and are still on speaking terms. My dad stayed in Chicago less than 24 hours for a conference, while my mom spread out her stay until Sunday to see all her grand-babies.

Friday evening, Sweets, Gavin and I grabbed dinner with a high school bestie, also visiting from Boston. Funny enough, our parents live across the street from each other. And my parents adore her. But, since they see her in Boston, there was no dire need to see her in Chicago. Trust me, though, my parents are likable people.  =)

Saturday, my mom joined us at Gavin’s soccer class. This was also the first time Sweets got to participate in class. Like last week, Gavin refused to complete one of the first activities, thereby exhausting Sweets (who did it for him). Other than that, it was a fun class and Sweets is glad we signed up. Once again, Gavin was exhausted by the end (so were we!).

We went to REI to go shopping without spending money (where’s the fun in that?!). We’re shopping for bike trailers, so we can go cycling with Gavin this summer. Gavin was immediately drawn to the bike helmets (no surprise, since he plays with Sweets’ at home all the time) and kid bikes (too bad his feet can’t reach the pedals). Did you know you can easily drop a grand on bike carriers? We’ve picked a model we like (hint: it doesn’t cost $1,000) and we’re waiting to buy it until next weekend when our 20% off coupon activates.

That afternoon, while Gavin was napping, Sweets and I decided to catch a quick nap. Assuming, Sweets would nap like he normally does (less than 30 minutes), I didn’t set an alarm. Bad move. Gavin woke us up over 2 hours after we fell asleep and, more importantly, 10 minutes before family and friends were supposed to begin arriving at our place for dinner.

Good thing they’re not a super prompt bunch. We managed to shower and clean up before anyone arrived. After dinner, we left Gavin and his cousins with a sitter, while the adults went to see a great rendition of Rent (so says the girl who doesn’t really like musicals)!

Sunday, Gavin slept until 9am (score!), allowing plenty of time for Sweets and me to clean the kitchen from our house full of guests the previous night. We met my mom, nieces and their mamas at my aunt’s house for brunch. It was a downright beautiful day, so we spent a bunch of time outside blowing bubbles, playing hide-n-seek and exploring the greenery. It was a fun chance to take out my camera for some official May photos.

After brunch, my mom came with us to Gavin’s music class, where he was essentially a non-participant until the teacher pulled out blocks for building (while singing London Bridge) and Gavin was the first kid to knock down the tower.

Our last stop of the day was Sweets’ parents house. We had a mid-afternoon cookout with them and lots more playing and exploring outside. I sort of checked out here and hung out inside by myself. I was utterly exhausted from coordinating and participating in all the weekend events. From there, we dropped off my mom at the airport, returned to the city and tried to get ready for the week ahead.

And that’s all she said. I leave you with a link (because I’m also posting today on Lisa’s Expandng blog) and a piece of Gavin from Monday morning, when I realized his new (to us) track suit fits well enough to wear to daycare.

Sunday, we headed out to the suburbs to spend Easter with Sweets’ family. It was a gorgeous day – the sun was shining and it was in the 60s. Chilly in the shade, perfect in the sun. I was determined to take photos on this day and wound up with some great ones of Gavin. I’ll let the photos do the talking for our Easter.

It’s been a bear of a week and it’s only Tuesday. My oh my. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend – and I hope to catch up with your blogs at some point in the coming days!

]]> http://somispeaks.com/2012/04/10/easter/feed/ 9 http://somispeaks.com/2012/01/05/nye-2/ http://somispeaks.com/2012/01/05/nye-2/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:59:55 +0000 SoMi's Nilsa http://somispeaks.com/?p=5380 New Year’s Eve feels like forever and a day ago. We’ve all gotten over our hangovers and moved on from the holidays with some normalcy in our lives. But, I’m pretty sure if I blog about NYE within a week of the date, then it’s still cool, right?

My parents paid us a visit from Boston over the NYE weekend. Conveniently, we had a wedding to attend, so my parents got to babysit Gavin. We had a low key NYE (though, for the first time in years, we actually stayed up until midnight). And, even though my dad and I were fighting colds (his worse than mine), we didn’t let that stop us from visiting with friends and family.

Really, I should just let some of my favorite photos do the talking.

For Gavin’s birthday party, we provided crayons for the older kids.
Lately, Gavin’s daycare has sent home some of his crayon art.
So, we gave Gavin the chance to draw at home.
He loves it so much that he throws a fit when it’s time to clean up.

We recently purchased an umbrella stroller for some upcoming travel.
As is par for the course at this age, Gavin loved climbing through the box
(and could care less about the stroller itself).
The box remains in our living room, even though the stroller has been put away.

My parents spoiled Gavin rotten.
He suckered my mom into pushing him up and down the hallway in his wagon!

 Sweets’ parents visited, too.
Gavin got grandparental attention x4.
He was wiped out – and that was before dinner!

My parents gave Gavin a table and chairs for the holidays.
One of his favorite activities is to climb in and out of the chairs.
Even if it means he sometimes falls on his head!

My dad’s imaginary friend is the tickle bug.
Poor Gavin is learning what it means to be friendly with both!

 With all grandparents in tow, we headed out to eat.
My maid of honor and her boyfriend also joined us.
There was an awesome bluegrass band that accompanied a great menu!
Gavin loved listening to the music and put up with my camera.

 After we cleared our house of guests, Sweets sat down with Gavin to read.
Apparently, Gavin started on Sweets’ lap,
but scooted until they were seated side by side.
I’m pretty sure Gavin is signing his version of “more,” which has now come
to also mean “I want.”

 Gavin loves drinking water from a (plastic) glass.
(Should it just be called a plastic, then?)
Even when we assist him, there are plenty of H2O failures!

 When I took this photo, I thought “future soccer star!”
Doesn’t it look like Gavin is focused on and running towards a ball?
In reality, he’s just clumsily walking towards me on the couch.

We wind down our days by giving Gavin a bath, one of his favorite things to do!
He gets incredibly squirmy and goofy as Sweets runs the bathwater.
Gavin even smiles for the camera, naked body and all!

So, there you have a lot of our long weekend, through a toddler’s eyes. Did I mention you might get sick of seeing photos of Gavin? Yeah, that starts right about now!

Happy 2012!

After seeing this recipe, I requested to make cinnamon rolls for our family gatherings. It started on Friday night with a trip to the grocery store to pick up some much needed staples. It was absolute madness at the store (guess I’m not the only last-minute shopper), so I grabbed a balloon to bribe Gavin into good behavior. It worked – and has provided for endless moments of excitement at home. Though, later in the weekend when we went back to the grocery store, he was excitedly reaching for another balloon – I’ve created a monster!

I’ve got to admit, I don’t usually make such complicated recipes. It’s not that this recipe was hard to follow (in fact, instructions that include comments like, the more butter oozing out the sides the better, well, those are instructions I can get behind!). But, there were a lot of steps and a lot of waiting between the steps (let the dough rise, let the dough cool, etc.). I wound up making the dough on Friday night and actually putting together the rolls on Saturday morning (which meant, I was the only one up at 5am to ensure we got out of the house on time).

Saturday was a long day for us. We went to Sweets’ parents house in the morning (they live about 45 minutes away) for a family get-together, gift exchange, brunch. We also committed to going to church and another gathering with family friends that evening … so, we wound up staying in the suburbs for the day. It was fun, but exhausting, especially since I was fighting with the ickies. Nevertheless, Gavin had fun with his cousins and playing with toys circa 1980 when Sweets was a kid (and yes, Gavin is rocking out in an Addidas track suit!).

Sunday, I woke up feeling like hell. I was up coughing for much of the night, my head hurt and I just felt rundown from the previous day. Sweets wasn’t feeling all that great, either. So, we cancelled brunch with my family, which really bummed me out as it was the only time over the weekend we devoted to spending time with my side of the family. Sunday afternoon/evening, we were expected at another family gathering in the suburbs. I bailed, but Sweets took Gavin and seemed to have a good time.

Monday was a day of rest for our family. We went grocery shopping. Organized gifts. And planted our butts on the couch for much of the day. It would’ve been glorious if it wasn’t for all of us feeling sick. Sigh.

Speaking of gifts … Sweets got me a sweet new lens for my camera. It’s one I’ve been thinking about getting for months now (probably more like over a year). It’s a fixed distance lens (no zoom), so it means I have to get up and move around if I don’t like how the photo is framed. It’s supposed to be one of the best portrait lenses, so I was excited to play with it. There is definitely a learning curve with this lens and I have only just started playing with it. But, so far, I love that you can focus crisply on your subject and blur pretty much everything behind (even if it’s only a foot behind your subject).

I love how Gavin is standing less than a foot in front of our entertainment center and yet, it’s totally blurred out. There’s no question what I (as the photographer) want you (as the viewer) looking at … my cute son, of course!

Life isn’t always rosey around here. Gavin definitely has his moments. I love the lighting in this photo … and also that his face is in focus, but his body is blurred.

And finally, a photo where I don’t want you focusing on the face. Rather, I want you to see this light-up snowman that Gavin is playing with … I love how his hands are in focus, but his face is blurred away.

Anyway, needless to say, this sick girl has had fun playing with her new toy. Hope y’all had a wonderful holiday celebration. And to those who don’t have to work this week … I’m oh so jealous!!! =)

Huh?

Well, since my house is a mix of Judaism and Christianity, I get to make statements like that. But, it does raise the question of how multi-faith homes address the holidays. Sweets and I started the conversation before we got married. How religious are we? What do the holidays mean to us? How do we want to celebrate (or not) the holidays when/if we have kids? It was a great exercise for us to go through, because I imagine it can be very difficult for families that don’t land on the same page.

Thankfully, Sweets and I have always been on the same page. The holidays are meant to be shared with loved ones. Pre-children, we really didn’t decorate our home. We might have lit Chanukah candles, mostly because I have a menorah and candles and it was convenient. But, we never bought a tree or decorated, because that would take effort and, well, we were never all that organized.

Now that we have Gavin, we have re-ignited the conversation about what we want the holidays to encompass in our home. A lot of it has to do with favorite traditions from our own childhood. We are still minimalists when it comes to decorations, but we will likely add to it as Gavin grows and expresses interests in different parts of our cultures.

I have some photos to share, but there are a couple traditions that I can’t exactly share through photos. Not yet, at least.

Though we likely won’t do it this year, in future years, we will make potato latkes (pancakes) to celebrate the eight days of Chanukah.

The next tradition is sort of a stereotypical joke about Jews and Christmas, which is that Jews go out to eat Chinese food on December 25 each year. And while we’ll never go out to eat on Christmas night, we are going to start the tradition of getting Chinese food at some point over the Christmas holiday.

One of Sweets’ favorite movies is A Christmas Story. I hadn’t ever seen it until last year (?). And then I fell asleep while we were watching it. Sweets is very disappointed in me. So, this year, I bought the DVD and we will watch it at Christmas time every year from here on out!

Speaking of movies, another tradition we’ll start when Gavin gets a bit older is actually on New Year’s Day. Starting at some point when I was a teenager, my family started doing marathon movie days. We’d go to see 2-3 movies at the theater, broken up by a meal out together. It was always a fun, yet surprisingly relaxing day. I mentioned continuing this tradition when Gavin is a bit older (i.e., old enough to go see movies in a theater) and Sweets expressed extreme excitement.

Now, onto the (crappy) photos. We got a table-top tree this year, since we don’t have much room for a full sized tree (unlike the woman at the salon I overheard who got a 9-foot tall tree that was 9-feet wide, too!). Sweets’ parents gave him a bunch of ornaments that were from his childhood, mostly ones he made or friends made for him. We picked some of our favorites for the tree. To weave in some Judiasm, we got a blue star tree-topper. OK, so it’s really turquoise and not even close to a Star of David, but whatever. It will do for this year! We also put up lights around our front windows, though it’s hard to see in this photo.

We don’t have many ornaments, though (so this small tree was actually perfect). We discussed not wanting to just buy boxes of generic ornaments. We want to organically grow our collection. So, when we were in Galena a few weeks ago, we started a tradition of buying one ornament a year. This handmade ornament hails from Seattle and we sort of fell in love with the warmth of the colored glass.

When we got married, family friends gifted us holiday stockings. For some reason, I seemed to recall where they got the stockings. So, a few weeks ago, I checked to see if they still carry them. And, they do! So, now Gavin has his very own matching stocking. What I love about these stockings is they’re festive without being overly primary colors festive. =)

As I mentioned before, we light the candles in the menorah for the eight nights of Chanukah. I actually have two menorahs. My favorite menorah is in the background in the picture below … it’s aqua in color and just beautiful. Unfortunately, the “cups” where the candles sit are far too shallow, so I’m always nervous about the candles falling out. Lucky me, I have an old-school, not-my-style menorah with deep cups, so we use that for the actual candles. Between the menorahs sits our advent block calendar. I bought it through Etsy and love it. It’s the right amount of festiveness for our house.

Last month, I saw a blog post about wrapping presents for the holidays. I saw some presents wrapped in plain brown paper with the initial of the recipient cut out of festive paper and just loved the concept. Simple, clean, festive. So, I proceeded to wrap our presents the same way this year. Kids got some extra cut-outs on their presents. It was actually a lot more work than normal wrapping presents with a bow … but, I like how they turned out. We also had labels printed, so I placed a label on each present, so the recipient knows who gave them the gift.

And, finally, as I mentioned before, we sent holiday cards this year. In October, we worked with a local photographer to take some family photos. We picked some favorites and I went off in search of a card that suited us. I’m pretty sure I found it – we were really pleased with the results. (I apologize for the coloring, which is slightly off – the scanning didn’t go as well as it could have).

Happy Holidays, blog friends!