Wordless Wednesday

Photo of squash, waiting to be delivered from our
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
Two Small Farms
photo by Andy

Halloween jewels

fun project to do with your kids at Halloween that does not involve candy

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Bridesmaid dresses: Potential fashion disasters!

I love Daily Candy, the weekday update of everything that is interesting and new. My husband even knows about it!

In any case, this week has been all about wedding stuff, which I would normally ignore, as we are approaching our 10th(!) wedding anniversary. However, something caught my eye this morning:


DRESS
The Maids
What: TwoBirds dresses come in one size (fits 0-16) and can be worn ten different ways to flatter all figures, so you’ll have pretty maids all in a row.
Why: Kill two (or ten) birds with one stone.
Where: Online at twobirdsbridesmaid.com

Oh my goodness, this might be the best thing since sliced bread. One dress, one size that would work for any of my bridesmaids? Looking back on my wedding, there are many things that I loved, but some I would change, and bridesmaid's dresses would be one of them. Naturally, to reinforce this feeling I have a picture hanging in the hallway of the all the wedding guests, so I am constantly reminded about that mistake! I let one bridesmaid talk me into dresses for the other 3, and frankly, I don't think that was the best idea. Then, the bridesmaid that talked me into the dress decided that she was not going to wear the dress, somewhat at the last minute! Great. In any case, I digress. The point of this post is to highlight TwoBirds, and their dress concept which is great. One of my bridesmaids could have worn the Caroline style and another the Marissa and all would have been happy. And since you can wrap any number of different ways, it would probably have been a dress they could wear again and again. Not like the crappy one I ended up with. Bitter? No. I will get over it. Maybe in 10 years.

Wordless Wednesday

Hamburger and Hotdog cupcakes from my son's 7th birthday party
July 2007

Wordless Wednesday

Bikes in Shanghai, China, May 2004

Environmental Awareness, One Water Bottle at a Time

In honor of Blog Action Day, I thought I would write about single serving drink containers. Last week, Jennifer over at Tree Hugging Family posted about using refillable soap dispensers. In my comment to the post, I also suggested that we avoid using single serving drink containers and buy in bulk. At our house we have purchased CamelBak plastic bottles and use them daily in backpacks for water. In their reusable lunch boxes from Laptop Lunches, the kids also have smaller bottles that we use for chocolate milk. When bring snack to soccer games, we try to remember to bring large containers of juice with cups to recyclable cups to pour into and avoid the juice boxes altogether.

Fortunately, recycling has been part of our lives since before the kids were born, and after seeing the movie Arctic Tale, the importance is much easier to explain, especially when Queen Latifah showed us how our choices will help their new favorite animal friends Seela, the walrus pup, and Nanu, the polar bear cub.

Get Boo'd

On Tuesday, we were Boo'd, sometime early in the morning by a very clever person. This is one of my favorite Halloween/October traditions - in the dark of night, or early morning hours, you go around to three houses in your neighborhood and leave them a bag of treats and a cute little note. All anonymous, and very fun.

Melissa Summers at AlphaMom put together a great piece on how she super-craftily decorated their bags, with additional links to more ideas.

Last year, I took this tradition to work, with some moderate success. This year, I suggested to my Dad that he Boo his friends at his retirement place. The whole thing is fun and in our family, makes Halloween last longer than a day.

I saw Al Gore today

Al Gore, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, was in Palo Alto this morning. Thanks to a tip-off from a friend-of-a-friend, I was able to stand around with lots of press folks waiting for his arrival to the Alliance for Climate Protection, which incidentally, will receive 100 percent of the proceeds of the award. I snapped this picture of Al getting out of his care (a Mercedes E320 CID). I think I might have suffered a little elbow to the side, but it was worth it.

While hanging out waiting for Al, I had a chance to see a fellow mom I knew, talk with a nice lady about her big white dog, and talk with an employee of the Peninsula Open Space Trust about their recent acquisition. Way more exciting than an hour in the office!

Wordless Wednesday: Red Barn

Red Barn in Iowa, April 2007

Re-Tivo'd for the Season

We finally have our Tivo set for the new season of shows. Here is our Season Pass Manager line up:

1. Burn Notice
2. Desperate Housewives
3. House
4. My Name is Earl
5. The Office
6. Grey's Anatomy
7. Ugly Betty
8. Entourage
9. Psych
10. The Closer
11. How I Met Your Mother
12. Project Runway
13. The Unit
14. Nip/Tuck
15. Monk
16. 30 Rock
17. Big Love
18. King of the Hill
19. Heros
20. MI-5
21. Chuck
22. Private Practice
23. Back to You
24. Dirty Sexy Money
25. Pushing Daisies
26. Gossip Girl
27. Brothers & Sisters
28. Bionic Woman
29. Big Shots
30. Dirt
31. Reno 911!
32. Criminal Minds
33. CSI
34. Bones
35. Law & Order: CI
36. Law & Order: SVU
37. Cold Case

Wow, we watch a lot of television. The husband thinks some will drop off the list after we check out the pilots.

What's on your TIVO?

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Pulling my kids out of school to travel: Would you?

True confession time - when my son was first born, I made several vows:

• I will not allow my kids to use pacifiers.
• I will not allow my kids to leave the house with runny noses.
• I will not pull my kids out of school to travel.
  

and on, and on. Well, as it turns out, my husband does not feel the same way, and slowly, I am beginning to see the benefits of missing school to travel with our family. The Wall Street Journal Online posted an interesting piece about pulling your kids out of school to travel. I was especially intrigued with the comments about additional work for the teachers and some state's decisions to limit the amount of absences from school. And while I certainly would not advocate pulling them out all the time, I think we have done ok with our trips so far. Also, I think the decision is up to us, based on what we know about our children, how they are doing in school, and what the pros/cons will be for missing school. For example, we decided to leave a day early for our winter holiday trip in December. My son pointed out that he missed an all important, in-class viewing of "Polar Express". In January, we plan to pull both kids out of school for a trip to visit my great aunt, who will be turning 93. And in March, we will leave for spring break 2 days early, which will allow us to see the Louvre, the London Bridge and take the Eurostar through the Chunnel. So far, I am not worried about my kids in class educational experiences, as I think the experiences we will have together as a family, traveling to new places, will be education in itself.

What do you think? Would you take your kids out of school to travel? Why or why not?

Cross-posted at Kango

Wordless Wednesday: Hello, can you hear me now?