Happy Hearts Day

I love the shape of a heart. It's totally corny, but seeing hearts always makes me smile.  For Valentine's Day, I collected snapshots of hearts, purposeful and accidental.

First, Dova and I found this yummy looking candy hearts box from Russell Stover.  I just want to take a bite out of it!

From Google Doodle, more candy hearts!  If you click on them, you get little stories produced by This American Life (check out their Valentine's sampler as well).  What a wonderful surprise treat!

From Sudbury Farms, this heart wreath made from recycled newsprint.  Beautiful!

From Bejeweled Blitz, the Heart Stone gem and this all-time high score I got with Dova!  First place this week, baby!

Finally, from My Singing Monsters, my collection of monsters have all been arranged in a heart shape.  For Valentine's Day, the Air Island is already heart-themed!  I was ecstatic to add the Schmoochle to the collection.

All the monsters on the other islands followed suit:

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Just in Time Holidays

If there's one thing that I'm always on time for, it's the holiday season. Usually, the gifts are purchased well before Thanksgiving, the OCD gift list is dotted and crossed, and the decorations go up on Thanksgiving weekend.  This year I am woefully behind. Our holiday portrait was not even taken until one week before Christmas!

But in keeping with just in time (JIT) production, we've managed to pull it together before the holidays (minus the gift list).  Without further ado, here is Dova's annual holiday video greeting.



"We wish you a Happy New Year! < giggle, giggle, giggle />"
"And... I will be playing, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."
(I'm not sure what is worse, her giggling or my HTML/XML interpretation of her giggling)

Adam started in a new music school this year and played on a concert grand piano for the first time. He performed the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker in his recital with flair.



Soon enough, all will be quiet through the house and the children will be nestled in their beds. Dova takes her nestling very seriously!



Happy Holidays everyone!

Double Rainbow Thanksgiving

Instead of the usual stories of turkeys, stuffing and pie (mmm four berry pie), our Thanksgiving was filled double rainbows.  We had a tiny gathering of 5 including my mother.  But she brought along her iPad, a device that my kids had never laid eyes upon in person.  And with that came our first double rainbow.

I may have a slight addiction to Bejeweled as evidenced by Jewel Mania in 2006, then denial by using big scientific words like Stochasticity in July 2009 and finally admitting the need for intervention in Novemeber 2009.  Nowadays, I have pretty much overcome the addiction, only imbibing the jewels on occasion.  I had never reached the 500,000 mark in Bejeweled Blitz and just shook off the high scores over 1 million points as crazy people who don't have anything better to do with their time or harvest the Phoenix Prism gem by luck. When we played Bejeweled on my mom's iPad, it was ridiculous to use the full screen mode because the jewels were so big that you couldn't keep track of the entire board.  But then we realized that all three of us (my mom, Adam and me) could play on the same board at the same time, and we saw the potential for really high scores.  On our second game together, we managed this incredible score over 700,000 points without any special gems!

OMG, Grandma, Adam and I jumped for joy, whooped and hollered and were completely besides ourselves. On her very first day of playing Bejeweled Blitz, my mom got a 500k star and beat my all time high score!!   We finally unlocked a secret of outrageously high scores.  Now I just need to get my hands on my own iPad.

Later that weekend, Adam mentioned the phrase, "OMG, it's a double rainbow!"  I asked him how he knew about double rainbows, did he see the video?  Nope, he never heard of the video, he knew it from the Pocket God game.



In that case, I insisted that he see the original video.



When I first saw this video, I thought it was just a goofball that was totally high.  But when Adam saw it, he started laughing and could not stop.  He literally rolled off my bed laughing.  He laughed so hard that he couldn't catch his breath and his eyes teared up.  He laughter was so contagious that everyone around started to laugh despite themselves.  He kept repeating lines from the video, "It's starting to look like a triple rainbow", "What does it mean?", "Double rainbow all the way across the sky!", "It's so intense!" and  simply, "Whoa!!!  OMG OMG!"  Then we sang along to the Spongebob version of the Double Rainbow Song.



The double rainbow video was easily the funniest thing Adam had ever seen in his life.  I'm not sure whether it was set up by knowing the Pocket God version first and finally learning why those silly people were so gaga over double rainbows.  Either way, I'm glad it made his day.

Hope your holiday was filled with double rainbows!

My Sharona Holiday Greetings

Every year, our family goes through the ritual of creating a photo holiday greeting card.  The goal is to capture all of us in one photograph, no photo montages allowed for this family. It is a combination of masochism (these sessions are never pain-free), frugality (we've never spent money for a professional photographer), and creative outlet (at least I think it's creative).

This year I used my new car as a prop.  This seemingly innocent endeavor required carefully positioning the car in front of the garage and using a ladder with a gorillapod.  Here's the setup:



Adam is a well known photo bomber, as evidenced from previous family portraits. Naturally, there are tons of outtakes, but this year, I noticed something interesting. While flipping between photographs on the computer, it looked like we were all dancing.  Especially between the "sit up straight" and "get closer" shots.  So much so, that the song My Sharona popped into my head while editing the photographs.

After the mad dash of the holiday season, I finally put together a video montage of our photo session.  Enjoy!

O Christmas Tree

Adam's first Christmas at 7 weeks old in 2000.

Last month, I met a woman who said that she bought a Christmas tree for her 2-year-old daughter's room. At the time, I thought it was a bit excessive to have a Christmas tree in a child's room (much like having a TV in their room).  But by the next day, I thought it was a fantastic idea that my kids would love. I carted the kids off to Target and told Doug that we were on a quest for small pre-lit Christmas trees. He was expecting tiny table top trees, but we all fell in love with these 4' trees.


Dova especially loves her tree because it is the same height she is.

Dova has a special affinity for Christmas lights because it was her first word. At eleven months, as I was carrying her under the icicle lights and she pointed at them and said, "Light!". She had to wait a full 365 days for her first Christmas because she was born on December 26, 2003 and 2004 was a leap year.


Dova loves to put ornaments on her tree.


Adam and his tree.

The kids wondered whether Santa would put presents under their trees as well, but he only put presents under the main tree.  Dova was so excited about Christmas this year that she woke up at 2am on Christmas morning, woke her brother up as well, and went downstairs and brought all her presents up to her room and starting opening them.  Bad kitty!

The best part of the Christmas trees in their rooms is using it as a night light. The kids fall asleep looking at the pretty lights, dreaming of Christmas. Nevermind that they already have Christmas lights permanently installed on their ceilings. It's still magic.

Check out ArtsBoston for Christmas vacation week

If you're facing a week with the kids now that Christmas is over and didn't make plans, check out ArtsBoston for half price tickets to arts and cultural events.  The 7th annual Mayor's Holiday Special still has many venues through the beginning of January.



One event that caught my eye was the Sing-Along Sound of Music at the Regent Theater in Arlington, MA.  With our family's recent obsession with the Sound of Music, I thought this would be a perfect place to see how Adam's high notes stack up with the best of them.  The description of the event was downright hysterical.

Have you ever been to a film musical and had the uncontrollable urge to burst into song? Yes!

Do you muse over the endless tailoring opportunities for chintz curtains?  Um no...

Have you always wondered what it would be like to wear a wimple?  Gah!

Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music is your chance to test your vocal range with several hundred other assorted nuns, Von Trapp family members and Julie Andrews look-a-likes.

The evening begins with a live show in which your host will lead you through a vocal warm-up, judge the fancy dress competition and award the prizes. Costumes are not compulsory but they are highly recommended and you will be amazed at the inventiveness on display. The host will then show you how to use your free goody bag throughout the film and suggest some appropriate heckles and accompanying actions (such as hissing the countess, barking at Rolf and, of course, cheering for Julie).

Then, you sit back and watch the original 1965 movie in glorious Technicolor™ with the lyrics for all the songs on the screen, so you won’t miss a chance to sing your hearts out. The audience takes over as the star of the show from this point and almost anything can happen – the first rule of Sing-a-long-a is THERE ARE NO RULES!

When I read this description to Doug, he called it the "Rocky Horror of Sound of Music, bring your own rice".  You can be sure that this would be a mom and kids only event for this family.

I immediately thought that I could dress Dova up in braids as Marta since they are the same age, although she likes Liesl the best. Adam would have to grow some blond hair to be Kurt or Friedrich, and I'd have to fashion some chintz liederhosen for him, although he hates dressing up in costume. Anyway you slice it, I would make a terrible Asian Julie Andrews. But we'd all have fun belting out those high notes.



If you're not into interactive arts, there's always the timeless classic of Boston Ballet's Nutcracker. For school vacation week, there are kids activities and special performances. Earlier this month, we took the kids to see the José Mateo Ballet Theatre production of the Nutcracker at the Brandeis University Spingold Theater with half price tickets courtesy of ArtsBoston. With free parking and more affordable prices, I thought this would be a better introduction to ballet for the kids than a longer drive into Boston with traffic and parking to contend with.

For the week prior to the ballet, I immersed the kids in Tchaikovsky's music from the ballet, so they knew all the numbers from around the world. Adam was dead set against enjoying the ballet, but once it started, he was completely mesmerized at the edge of his seat. Dova was in her element, except for a tantrum over her dress, or lack of one.  Doug said that it was the best performance of the The Nutcracker that he's ever seen.  It was more intimate, unpretentious and you could really enjoy the purity of the performance.  Of course I very quietly captured these scenes from the ballet.


Exchanging presents


Waltz of the Snowflakes


Spanish Dance


Arabian Dance


Mother Ginger and her children


Waltz of the Flowers






Pas de Deux

After you dig yourself out of the upcoming blizzard, I hope you can make it out to a cultural event through ArtsBoston!

Note: This is in no way a compensated post. ArtsBoston is simply a fantastic organization that everyone in the Boston area should know about.

Happy Piano Holidays

Last month, I was emailing with a friend and told them that I was taking violin/fiddle lessons along with the kids. They replied, "I'm jealous that you can manage to get your kids to do an activity with you."

Well, with my overbearing Suzuki parenting method, they have no choice. So I replied, "The piano/violin is not without much coercion on my part (i.e. lots of screaming and crying at times). But sometimes it is all worth it."



Dova is a natural performer and wanted to provide the intro herself.  "Hello everyone. Tonight we're playing the song Silent Night.  I will be playing an octave higher.  And glad you have a good Christmas.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!"  She's even charming when asking to start over.  Not camera shy at all, this one.



Adam, with one more year of piano playing under his belt, whips off the Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker.  Adam is opposite from Dova when it comes to performing, I have to pull teeth to get him to speak on camera.  And he is super hard on himself, despite the fine performance.

Hope these videos bring a smile to your face as they do to mine.  Happy Holidays everyone!

The Magical Season of Winter

This post originally appeared on BlogHer in November 2009.

Can you believe how beautiful the winter sky can be even with an iPhone?

When I tell people that my favorite season is winter, they think I’m crazy.  Most people think of short days, cold weather, hectic holiday shopping, and endless snow.  Of course I also mind these inconveniences, but I still relish the coming season.

Perhaps it is because I was born in January in the middle of a blizzard in North Dakota.  Perhaps it is because my kids were born in November and December.  There are a million reasons, but the heart of my love for winter is that life can finally slow down, so you can stop to appreciate the love inside your home and the beauty outside.

In the summer, especially in New England, there is an expectation to make the most of the good weather.  There’s no excuse just to laze around indoors.  You have to travel while the kids are out of school.  If you’re not traveling, you need to make the most out of every non-rainy day by doing something outside.  Never mind that it’s hot and sticky, you must take the kids to the playground, or on a hike, or to a lake, beach, water park or amusement park!

Sure we also go skiing in the winter, but it is prohibitively expensive to do on a regular basis.  After the holiday season, our calendars are finally free of non-stop activities.  And finally, I have time to do things around the house that have been piling up around me.  One of my favorite things to do is go through all the photographs from the previous year (i.e. obsessively tag them in Flickr) and choose which ones to print.  If I’m ambitious, I even make a photo book.  Sewing and knitting projects are finally completed.  And those books and magazines piling up?  They are finally read in peace instead of in bits and pieces during sports practices.  It finally becomes okay to be a homebody for a change.



Winter isn’t dark, look around at all the beautifully lit houses around the holidays.  Candles in the windowsills look ever so peaceful.  White lights are always classy, colored lights are festive.  Add some snow and it becomes a picture-perfect postcard.  Last year, my daughter caught her finger in a door late one evening and we packed her up to bring to the emergency room because she was screaming in so much pain.  In the car, we kept telling her to look at the lights.  After a few minutes, she was quiet and mesmerized.  At that point, I turned to my husband and said, “Let’s just drive around and look at the lights, I think she’s fine.”  We drove for a half an hour through the fancy sections of town as she ooh’ed and ahh’ed at the beautiful decorations.  We brought her home, tucked her in bed and she was just fine.  Magic, I tell you.

Here’s another piece of beauty that I experienced this weekend.  I was driving home from shopping with my son at 4:30pm and it was already starting to become dark.  It had rained heavily the day before and was overcast for most of the day, so the weekend was pretty much a wash out.  But as we looked at the darkening sky, we saw clouds streaking the sky in long lines as if painted by a paintbrush.  As we pulled off the highway onto country roads, we saw fog forming in the trees.  The setting sun beamed hazily through the fog and turned the sky brilliant colors, first orange and then purple.  As the sun set, the trees were enveloped in a soft purple haze, the furthest ones barely visible.  We had great music playing and I kept exclaiming to my son, “Look at the trees, isn’t it amazing?”  He truly seemed to appreciate the beauty we were experiencing, that can only happen during the colder parts of the year.



Winter is not cold, it is the warmest season, just ask author Lauren Stringer.  There is nothing cozier than sitting by a fire while it is snowing outside.  And what warms better than hot chocolate or spiced apple cider?  In the winter, our cats are finally allowed to sit in our laps and sleep on our beds, we have tick problems in every other season.  It is so warm!

Winter Is the Warmest Season: Lauren Stringer

Hopefully, my love of winter has rubbed off a bit.  Happy winter solstice and enjoy it while it lasts!

Happy Chanukah - The Dreidel Game

This post was originally published on BlogHer in December 2009.

When it’s time to take out the Christmas decorations, our kids love digging out our dreidel collection to play with.  Dreidels and Christmas?  In our multi-cultural household, it is perfectly natural and normal.



In our family, we don't officially practice any organized religion, but we do take the traditions that we were brought up with and incorporate them into family traditions. In December, we decorate our house for Christmas, set out cookies for Santa, light candles in a menorah for Chanukah and eat potato latkes.  And we sing The Dreidel song and play the dreidel game. 

Everyone has seen the four-sided top, but what do those Hebrew symbols mean?  Here’s a crash course.

Each side of the driedel has a Hebrew letter – nun, gimel, hey or shin – on it.  The letters stand for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham, which means “A Great Miracle Happened There”.

The dreidel game is typically played with gelt, which are foil-wrapped chocolate coins.  You can also use pennies, M&Ms or any other treat.  To start, the gelt is split evenly amongst the players and each player puts one into a center pile.

After spinning the dreidel, the letter facing up determines what happens:

• If Nun (נ) is facing up, you take nothing.
• If Gimel (ג) is facing up, you take the whole pile.
• If Hey (ה) is facing up, you take half the pile.
• If Shin (ש) is facing up, you put one piece into the pile.

If the pile is empty, or has only one piece, each player puts one piece into the pile before the next spin.  You play until one player wins everything.

In case you think this is just a kid’s game, there is Major League Dreidel, where competitors compete for the longest spin.  This year’s event is on December 9, 2010.

And while you’re playing, don’t forget to sing the dreidel song:

I have a little dreidel.
I made it out of clay.
And when it's dry and ready
Then dreidel I shall play.

Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel
I made it out of clay
And when it's dry and ready
Then dreidel I shall play.

If you really want to go overboard, you can get this diamond-studded dreidel for $1800.
 
From Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Geneology Blog.

If not, now you'll know how to play the dreidel game if you are given one from a Jewish friend.  Hope you get Gimel!  Happy Chanukah!

Happy Blue Moon

Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 300 mm
ISO Speed 200

A blue moon refers to the third full moon in a season with four full moons.

Recent popular usage defines a blue moon as the second full moon in a calendar month, but that can happen more than once a year, and not every two to three years like this blue moon on November 21, 2010.  The next blue moon will occur on August 21, 2013.

What a beautiful sight it was rising over our house!



Being outside on this chilly evening allowed me to photograph our Halloween lights before they are exchanged for holiday lights next week.



Here's what they look like from the inside.



Watch out for the ghosts...



...and the eyeballs!

Cat, Cauldron and Jack-O-Lanterns

This year, Dova chose to be a black cat for Halloween. Which thankfully meant choosing a black outfit that she could reuse as everyday clothes instead of buying a costume or *heaven forbid* making another costume.  I had to talk her into the boots at first, but now they are her favorite accessory to wear with her skinny black jeans.  Way to fashionable for a six-year-old...





This year, I fell ill before carving my yearly jack-o-lantern (see 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006), but we did attend the ultimate Halloween party, with count them, SEVEN, jack-o-lanterns. With that many expertly carved jack-o-lanterns from one family, no one can call me an overacheiver.






But the highlight of this party is the ghost chili, cooked in a cauldron hanging over a fire pit.  I first experienced this awesome cauldron chili last year, but this year, I actually went home in the middle of the party so I could retrieve my camera.  It is a most awesome experience, with the warmth of the crackling fire, and the aroma of the smoke and chili.







Mmm, delicious.  Hope you all had a great Halloween!