Category: <span>Moments</span>
December is always busy with get-togethers, shopping, and just trying to stay on top of the daily. We had a brief overnight in DC Friday to Saturday to attend Evan’s holiday party. I hadn’t been able to attend the previous two years and was very much looking forward to getting together with some old friends and, frankly, getting a night off. The celebration was lovely and well worth the three and a half hour drive there.
In addition to wining and dining in the DC area, we also hosted my nephew for a sleepover and were all sad to see him head home. He’s thirteen now—young enough to play and bond with little cousins and yet is old enough to have great conversation with Evan and me.
Saturday night at our house almost always involves a leisurely homemade meal. On the occasion of Alex’s sleepover I made crispy chicken tenders, butternut squash fettuccine alfredo, and steamed green beans. We spent the time together crafting, playing legos, building forts, and just being silly. The kids (all three of them watched) My Neighbor Totoro for the first time. What a splendid time together.
This flawless and pretty much effortless weekend has been a long time in the making. Relationships, even those of cousins, have to be cultivated and involve not just the cousins but everyone around them. It isn’t always easy to make time, to host at home when the kids are little and you’re tired, but in the end it is so, so worth. Just see for yourself.
Our friends came for brunch on Sunday and brought an amazing rendition of snickerdoodle pie. Baking cinnamon-infused cookie dough into crispy pie crust really is a no brainer. I saved the recipe and shall have to learn how to make it very, very well by practicing often. Brunch was a simple affair and, in addition to the snickerdoodle pie, included buttermilk pancakes, turkey meatballs that the girls have dubbed amazeballs, and vanilla-bean cheesecake (all homemade). The kids played together and the adults conversed and tried to keep up with the continuous pancake, juice, and meatball requests.
That was Sunday which we kept in line with the long weekend’s theme keeping things low-key and focusing on spending time with Sophia and Eliza. Saturday we took the girls out for chocolate croissants and coffee steamed milks, saw the Comcast Center’s Holiday Spectacular, made sour cherry hand-pies, and made a super comforting roast chicken dinner.
Friday, for a real treat, we took the girls to the Please Touch Museum for a morning of play and discovery. We were there shortly after the museum opened and the girls didn’t skip a beat heading downstairs to the grocery store and hospital exhibits. 
Before Friday, there was Thanksgiving which we spent with my family in Wilmington, Delaware having contributed a home-made cranberry pie with a streusel topping. The pie featured a home-made crust of which I am very proud of having gone as far as to blind bake it.
I had plenty of little fingers to help me measure out all the ingredients, stir the cranberries in the pot, and decorate the top with streusel.
Thanksgiving was just as we liked it — fairly small, warm, and delicious. It was a real treat to just kick back and relax.
In the end, even after all the other pictures featuring mouthwatering pies and glossy berries, this one (see above) is my favorite. It was taken using my phone and isn’t particularly well-framed but it conveys the very essence what our daily life is about — developing and nurturing a bond between Sophia and Eliza. Here is Sophia helping Eliza zip up her coat. She did this without us prompting simply because she wanted to help and to be the big sister. This Thanksgiving break was epic.
The Camden aquarium has, for the last two weeks, featured a mermaids exhibit. There were mermaids swimming in the shark tank, mermaids available for a meet-and-greet, and much, much more. The girls were so excited to see the mermaids and tour the aquarium. The hippos were an unexpected hit with Sophia and Eliza. The girls were awed by the hippos’ size and overwhelmed by their pungent environment.
Eliza hasn’t been to an aquariMEN (as she calls it) and Sophia last visited a few years back so we were definitely due for a visit. Rounding the weekend for Sophia and Eliza was quality time with their Grammie and Pop while we cooked, cleaned, hung a bit of our art, and generally hung out. What a weekend!
Fall colors are so vibrant this time of year. We took a leisurely ride to Northern New Jersey (Summit area) to visit our good friends on Saturday. We’d never been up in that area and were impressed for how beautiful and serene it was being so close to New York City.
Our friends had just recently moved to a new house and were celebrating with friends and family. Maybe I should not admit this, but we have known each other for well over a decade and have stayed in touch all these years despite children and many moves on both our part and theirs. I am pretty certain that, with this move, we are all settled now and I am looking forward to hosting and visiting more often.
… and what kind of a Monday post would this be if we didn’t post Eliza the Firewoman?!
Halloween is a holiday I have come to enjoy and embrace having started to partake in all the festivities after moving here from the USSR at the age of 11. I was not so enthralled with Halloween as a tween and then a teenager having been too old to find and see the magic of it all.
The very magic that I didn’t have a chance to embrace as a child, I am helping my kids embrace as a parent. This is also the first year that we were able to all join in on the trick-or-treating and everyone enjoyed the experience. It helped that, despite living in the city, we picked the most beautiful neighborhood and street to visit. The residents on Delancey street in Society Hill really go out of their way to decorate their homes and get involved with the trick-or-treaters. Many residents dress up and sit out on their front steps to hand out candy and engage the kids in conversation. I will never tire of saying that I am charmed by Philadelphia, Society Hill, and Old City, especially. Old, cobbled streets, quiet and stately homes the facades of which have changed little since they were first built in the 17th and 18th centuries. These homes are that much more charming decked out in full Halloween glory.
The girls enjoyed more than one celebration having been invited to a friend’s halloween party over the weekend complete with a scary story under a blanket and decorated treats. Until next year when we can get creative with new costumes and maybe make my nephew’s suggestion, that I wear a kangaroo costume and have Eliza be a pouch baby, come true.