Artsy

My 6 year old is going through the drawing phase, and I love the art she makes. Her favorite subject is princess, but she also makes portraits, as demonstrated below by the picture she drew of our au pair.

Winter Foods

I'm sure that most everyone craves different foods during the cold and hot seasons. One of my winter craves is lasagna, a good chili is the other. Lasagna takes some effort to make, although it's not very difficult, and hard to mess up.. I mean with cheese, sauce, meat and pasta, not too many things can go wrong, so it's kind of guaranteed to be tasty. It's the kind of cooking though, that has to be done on a Sunday, not on a busy week night. My hubby and I like to cook together, and we made two kinds of lasagnas last Sunday, one with white sauce, and the other with red sauce. Out secret is three different cheeses (mozzarella, cheddar and ricotta) to make the lasagna feel very decadent and filling. We were supposed to save one of the lasagnas for our traditional Super Bowl party this Sunday, but guess what happened...

Juno - The Blizzard of 2015

Ok, so thankfully the big snowstorm that was supposed to be THE snowmageddon didn't happen. What did happen was that it snowed, enough to make the roads very slippery and requiring shoveling the driveway (shoveling, by the way, is amazing full body exercise). Basically it was a normal winter day, if you live in Canada or Finland. New Yorkers are over cautious after experiencing the horror of the hurricane Sandy a bit more than two years ago, and thus the roads closed for anything other than emergency vehicles, and public transportation (including the subway) was closed. The Long Island Rail Road closed too, as did all schools and most businesses. Unfortunately I am well set up to log into work from home, and had no excuse to not work, even though the NYC office was closed. I did  work for most of the day, and I cheated only a little bit in the afternoon when I took a walk in the winter wonderland to beat the cabin fever. It was pure powdery snow everywhere, beautiful snow drifts and icicles. I have two snow lovers in the family: my middle daughter and Coco the dog, who both really enjoy playing in the snow. The forecast says it will be cold for the rest of the week, so this snow will stick around for a while.

The Urge to Knit

My 12-year old has tried knitting a few times, but she properly learned to knit last year. The other day a sudden urge to knit came over and she almost turned the house upside down looking for yarns to knit with. She eventually settled on using two yarns together. It's coming out really pretty, don't you think? 

Keeping Warm

I remember those winters in my teenage years when it was not cool to wear a hat, scarf or anything that might keep you warm. I'm sure that I lost some important braincells by freezing my head for vanity. Maybe I was over-sensitized to cold those years, because now I can't stand to be cold in my head at all - I get an immediate headache! Thank God the world moved on and it's now cool to wear hats, beanies, scarves, anything to keep your head warm. This was my weekend outfit with the usual layers for keeping warm. 

BTW - I'm not sure when posting my outfits whether I should list what brands I'm wearing. This blog is really more of a diary, and less a style blog, and I certainly don't consider myself as some kind of a style/fashion maven, although I enjoy fashion. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind listing the items/brands, if you're interested... So a question for you dear readers: should I list them or not?

Crepes for Brunch

I used to be a big breakfast person, and loved to go out for breakfast. But with three kids in tow leaving anywhere (especially on a weekend morning) is definitely more of an effort, so these days breakfast is out and brunch is in.

Yesterday was a national Holiday, and we celebrated this extra day off by brunching  at Creperie Fresco at Williston Park. A great little place if you happen to be in Long Island. They've got two locations, the other in Long Beach.

We girls had sweet crepes (nutella and banana; belgian chocolate; the hedgehog which had chocolate, coconut, almonds; and dulce de leche with strawberries), and hubby had a savory crepe with spinach and goat cheese, all super yummy, and very reasonably priced. We are definitely going to this place again!

2015 has gotten off to a very busy and a bit weird start. First we almost lost Coco, and then, after just finishing renovations in out basement, we had a water leak again...! So more renovations to come...this time mostly on the outside of the house, and hopefully we will resolve this issue for good.

Roller coaster

The holidays are over, work schedules are getting crazy, and we had a very big scare with Coco who visited death's door. Thankfully she survived and seems to be making a full recovery. I was on an emotional roller coaster, stressed out, sad, scared, hopeful, happy, drained. In addition, the winter arrived and New York has frozen over. So no photos from this week apart a sad Instagram shot of my dirty black keyboard at work, which perfectly symbolized my mood at the time. I am ending the week in good spirits though. Life is full of unexpected challenges, and this was another reminder to cherish your loved ones (including the furry friends) and enjoy every day and its small moments with awareness and gratitude. 

The Nutcracker at the NYCB

It was the perfect way to close out the Christmas season and a beautiful way to start the new year. I took the whole family to see the Nutcracker ballet at the New York City Ballet in the Lincoln Center. The weather was horrendous, sleeting and raining, but it didn't bother us. The ballet was gorgeous, and even the little ones sat through it nicely. This was my second time seeing the Nutcracker at the NYCB, and it was as perfect as I remembered. Afterwards we all went to the Upper East Side to Tony's restaurant for some Italian food, which was excellent. Tony's is great for seating larger groups which can be hard to find in New York City. They also serve family style meals which is nice when eating out with kids. We were so stuffed that we skipped dessert at the restaurant and came home to eat some ice cream and leftover brownies...yum... All in all, a happy day, and a good memory.

I was wearing this slightly sparkly top from Anthropologie, with a pleated bottom and side details, with my Hue silver patterned tights and the Target over-the-knee boots. 

Fortune-telling

Our New Year's tradition is to predict the fortune of the next year by melting little tin horse shoes and then looking at the shadow they cast and figuring out what the shadow represents. I've never heard anyone other than Finnish people doing this.. My kids want to tell their fortunes every year, so we did. Quite a few of us got dragons, waves and sea monsters as in the picture below. Not sure what that means. The little one, whose tin broke into three pieces got very clear shapes: an eagle, a necklace, and a ballerina.

Summa Summarum

Somebody posted a question in Facebook asking folks to describe their whole year of 2014 in one word. It was surprisingly difficult to come up with just one word. In the end, I had two word contenders, stable and happy. Pick either one and it would be right. Looking back, it was a very good year, only minor challenges and set backs, and even those I was able to manage without getting too crazy... My daughters were happy and healthy, growing like weeds, and kept me laughing and busy, and most importantly, I had fabulous au pairs. My husband's business thrived, my job was fairly stable and not too stressful, I had a couple of nice business trips, and I was mostly healthy, and even the health issues I had were quite minor compared to the year before. Some highlights of the year were having my mom here at the start of the year, a trip to Florida in February, a great Manhattan day with my dear old friend A in March, a relaxed Easter break with lovely M visiting us, then again Florida in April, being on a health kick in the spring and feeling great,  hosting fun barbecue parties in early summer, going to Finland and cruising to Stockholm in late July, enjoying boating in August, and LI beaches in September and spending quality time with lovely J, having fun during the October birthday marathon, and then enjoying the Holiday season and having my mom here to enjoy it with us. Even the water damage in our basement and the resulting renovation went fairly smoothly and painlessly. All in all, a great year, with nothing very big happening, but lots of lovely moments and being able to appreciate them, feel gratitude, contentment and happiness.

Here's a little photo diary of the 2014 Holiday Season.

Holiday dinner at sister-in-law's amazing house. Had to admire her closet.. This is just a small part of it!

Hanging up Christmas lights.

Meanwhile, the young ones raked leaves. 

Our Advent Calendar, made by the au pair and kids. 

Hosted the traditional cookie baking and decorating get-together

Ended up with looooots of gingerbread cookies. 

Spent Christmas Eve home with loved ones, eating and chillaxing. 

I guess we had lots of people on Santa's nice list, given the amount of presents. 

Ice-skating fun to burn off some calories 

 

The basement renovation got done right before New Year. The guys were still working there on New Year's eve.. And I went shopping for area rugs.

Celebrating New Year with mom (and a few friends!)

Wearing my favorite t-shirt which says Happy is the new Black

Started off 2015 with some basketball practice.

Watch out! This one will be a great basketball player. 

Too small to shoot hoops.

Wishing that year 2015 brings as much happiness as 2014! Looking forward to it, and excited to live my best life, stay in the moment, count my blessings every day, and hopefully spread some good vibes and love around me.