the haystack needle

sprinkle for "the noodle"

Last Thursday, Juniper and I headed out on our longest journey yet. We took a cross-country flight to Sacramento, where we met up with four of the most amazing women in my life. My college girlfriends and I have a tradition of meeting up for a reunion in a different spot every year (see previous reunions here and here). Since we all live in different places, and life has gotten even crazier with babies in the picture, I love how we've collectively made the intention to find time for these reunions. This year, we wanted to be sure to see each other before Baby Z, or "the noodle" arrives sometime around late February. My friend Trisha is expecting, and I'm so happy I was able to see her and that beautiful belly. Juniper was a rockstar traveler. I was so nervous flying solo with her on a cross-country flight (and a red-eye home!), but she was the best traveling partner. I think she loves all the lights in the airport and a plane is a perfect place for her favorite activity — staring contests with strangers.

Every morning we got to eat breakfast with this view from outside Trisha's door — beautiful, right?! I wish I'd taken more photos of Trisha's home because it's such a gem, and everything was designed with an eye for sustainability. 

We threw Trisha a little sprinkle to welcome the noodle and give her some love. The theme was tea and scones. Erin made an amazing batch of scones (and it was her first time baking scones!) and she even whipped up some homemade lemon butter. I was in charge of favors and decided on these Juniper Ridge soaps. The packaging felt so in tune with Trisha's laid-back style, and I love how the scents are indigenous to California. Plus 10 percent of the profits from the soaps actually goes back to helping the mountains of California. (You can pick up the soaps here.) Since Juniper is the first baby of the group, I thought it felt so perfect — a little luck from the first baby to give to the second. Terah picked up teacups, saucers, and dessert plates from a Salvation Army. Together with a sheet as a tablecloth, the table had just the right balance of sweet and unfussy. We also gave Trisha a copy of the classic, Oh the Places You'll Go, and we all wrote notes on the inside cover about why we think Trisha is going to be one amazing mama. (The idea for this started with my sprinkle.)

Terah's recipe for the yummy scones..

And just for fun...

Juniper and I had a picnic by our JetBlue gate in JFK before heading off to California.

Before we surprised Trisha for her sprinkle, Erin and Juniper and I had an impromptu dance party. So much fun. 

ps. I promise the babywearing post will go up next week! Keep finding more to add :)

Have a great weekend!

first birthday party

 

We spent Saturday hanging out in Fort Greene Park with Juniper at our first one-year-old birthday party. Our friends Sue-Anne and Doug organized a kings + queens themed celebration for their son Elliott (the birthday king who didn't want to wear his adorable handmade crown for most of the day!). I was blown away by all of the special handmade party touches. Sue-Anne really put on her crafting cap for the big day. She hand sewed felt crowns and created amazing surprise balls as favors for each of the kiddos.

Everyone pitched in with the party setup. We contributed chairs and colorful picnic blankets that they patchworked over a canvas dropcloth for seating. Newspaper pompoms and gold metallic pompoms were hung between trees with a string of colorful balloons floating overhead. Sue-Anne even made party flags for the cupcakes using Japanese tape. 

Elliott loved his smash cake. I'd never heard of the concept, but we all watched (and photographed) the birthday boy as he took the concept literally, diving into that cake (with fists, feet, and all!) like nobody's business. It was hilarious! (Update: Here's the video of Elliott tearing into his smash cake. Priceless.)

We couldn't have asked for a better start to the long weekend. Juniper was full of smiles all day. The party food was delicious. Doug pulled out all the stops and made homemade barbecue with a bunch of yummy side salads. It was so awesome to be outside all day with Dan and Juniper and friends. I didn't even mind so much when I got home with even more mosquito bites than I had the day before (mosquitoes seem to hunt me down!). 

 

Inside Juniper's surprise ball we found a knitted owl rattle, monkey finger puppet, a wooden clutch toy, and her very first friendship bracelet. Sue-Anne made each of the kids a friendship bracelet. Juni loved watching us unwrap the tissue paper of her surprise ball. It was such a neat idea. Sue-Anne, you are such a super mama and we love your little guy. I can already see that I'll be the mama who gets a little weepy when Juni turns one. It goes so fast!

All photos by me using Instagram. FUN gilded blocks shown in first photo from our Cabin 7 collection of vintage gilded letter blocks.

birthday dinner party

Thanks for all the birthday love — this definitely went down as one of my favorite birthdays. Saturday evening, we had an intimate, little dinner party at our place. My friend Doug had offered to cook my birthday dinner, which was seriously the most amazing gift (standing for long periods of time hurts the feet at this point!). What I didn't realize was I was in store for some six-course food extravaganza — all using fresh local ingredients he'd picked up at the farmer's market. I ate a little of everything and it was all so delicious. And, since I didn't have to deal with the cooking, I had fun dressing up the table. I also hung a fabric garland, using two stepladders to tie ends, so I didn't have to tack it to the wall. 

I threw my favorite Marimekko tablecloth on the table (the big orange and pink blooms just feel festive) and picked up pink peonies and pink and orange ranunculus from Graceful Gardens. I also grabbed a bunch of mini succulents and cacti from the shop to fill this vintage cake pan I'd found at the last Brimfield market trip — instant centerpiece. 

I pulled out my favorite drink markers, Clinqs, so we could keep track of our glasses. I was the rainbow glass for the night. Little Elliott even got a special Clinqs for his bottle. 

There's the master chef, Doug. And Sue-Anne holding Elliott (their 8-month-old partied late into the night with us! Such a sweetie, and he's the most chill, easygoing baby.) 

Oh and there's me and my birthday bump. I scored that embroidered dress from my favorite antique shop in Maine (for $8!). 

Sue-Anne made a flourless chocolate cake (topped with cocoa nibs from Mast Brothers Chocolate!!). So rich and delicious. She used a David Lebovitz recipe. I also indulged in macarons from Cookie Road and rainbow cookies (one of those random favorite things I've always loved) that my friend Yolanda brought over. It was such a sweet night. 

surprise sprinkle

Hey everyone! I'm back from a (chilly) few days in Cape Cod and Connecticut that was filled with good food and lots of quality time with four of my favorite people in the world. The house where we lucked into staying in Cape Cod was literally right on the beach with an amazing view of the ocean. Such a nice break from the city. 

Sunday evening, I went shopping for some groceries we needed for dinner and walked into the house where I was greeted with a surprise sprinkle (my friends called it a sprinkle rather than a baby shower, since it was a small, lighthearted gathering.) The smell of homemade cupcakes was the first thing I noticed! I was so blown away by the surprise. My friend Erin had literally mapped my style out on the table with a gingham tablecloth (love gingham anything!), and of course, the cupcakes. Erin scored this rainbow assortment of mini rubber tubs when she was in Japan (literally two weeks before the disaster), which she filled with little treats as favors. They remind me of my Tubtrugs. 

The gifts were all so sweet and fun to open — baby lotions and balms, adorable baby clothes, a cool illustrated book, our first swaddling blanket, and my friend Liz commissioned her Nana to make a baby afghan (which I am so excited about!). But I have to say, my favorite takeaway from the sprinkle was this jar of notes. LIz's friend came up with the idea, and I think it's the sweetest concept. My friends all wrote notes to our baby about things they love about his/her mom. I'm allowed to read the notes before our kiddo makes it to reading age, and I'm really looking forward to opening up the notes with Dan and reading their words. I was thinking I may even frame a note for the nursery. Thank you Erin, Trisha, Liz, and Terah for sprinkling me with so much love!

 

70th birthday party

Last week, Dan and I scooted up to Maine for a long weekend to celebrate his dad's 70th birthday. It's a party that's been in the works for almost a year. More than 150 people showed up to the Knights of Columbus, where it was held (Dan has a huge family!). We hired a band, and there was a small crew of family that made the dinner, which was a spaghetti feed (featuring 5 enormous crocks of the family's homemade spaghetti sauce, homemade meatballs and sausage, and more spaghetti than you can imagine.)

I was in charge of desserts and enlisted Two Fat Cats Bakery in Portland (they made our wedding cupcakes and whoopie pies for the rehearsal dinner lobster bake.) For this big party, I ordered whoopie pie cakes, blueberry and apple pies, along with two sheet cakes (one lemon custard and one homemade chocolate with vanilla frosting.) The desserts were amazing. (The lemon cake might have been my favorite.) I wanted to do something special for the cake decorations. I asked the bakery to decorate the lemon cake with a party garland and a happy birthday message. For the chocolate cake, I had this idea to do a map cake — a map of important places in my father-in-law's life. It turned out so pretty. We picked out 5 places to highlight in Maine: Grand Isle (his birthplace), Bath (where he worked at the BIW shipyard), Lewiston (we picked his 57 Ford car as the image), Litchfield (where he has a wood lot and hunts), and his dad's beloved camp in Monmouth. 

It was a memorable night. And it was so fun to work together with Dan's family on the party planning. Also, his family knows has to dance — like really dance. Dan's dad and his uncles and aunts and cousins can polka, jitterbug, you name it. I was impressed. 

ps. The fabric bunting below I picked up from this Etsy shop. The garland was made up of red plaids and gingham fabric and made the stage feel more party festive. 

ochre shop dinner party

I feel badly posting on this without any good photos — but it was too good not to share. (I actually did bring my camera and got so caught up in the night that it never came out.) Last night, I was thrilled to attend a dinner party (after hours) at one of my favorite home shops, Ochre, down in SoHo. It was a dream setting and the lovely ladies at Susan Becher pulled together an intimate gathering of a handful of design bloggers. There was wine, there was a delicious medley of farm fresh salads, there was cardamom biscotti and figs, there was gold flatware at our place settings. It was truly the best way to get to know one another and get to talk to Andrew, who owns Ochre along with his wife Harriett, and is the creative genius behind Canvas. He shared stories of his three young kids (all under the age of 3) and his amazing home on Shelter Island (in his charming British accent.) It was the best time. And it was such a beautiful space to have a dinner party. I was so excited to meet several big names in the blog world including Francesca of Remodelista (a site that I couldn't live without), Aaron of Apartment Therapy (who's inspired me to look into getting a bike), and the lovely Mieke of MyDeco (who shares my love of Maine.) Thanks to Andrew and Susan at Ochre and Emily and Lela at Susan Becher for including me in on such a lovely evening!

I prefer a small dinner party to a big cocktail party any day. How about you?

(photo taken with my iPhone at the last Ochre party during Fashion Week)

strawberry plants + general store

While passing through wine country (after stopping off at the Fritz winery for a tasting and a tour), my friends and I found ourselves at a gourmet general store for lunch. I was happy to find deviled eggs (with balsamic and olive oil mixed in) and a yummy roasted beets salad on the menu. We ate outside at picnic tables, where I spotted strawberry plants set out on the table as centerpieces. I love that idea — so organic and pretty for a party or a wedding, too.