My Big Girls and How I Wish They Would Stop

Recently I've been ruminating on the passage of time. Mostly because my tiny, chubby baby Lucia just had her first birthday last week. I'm still pretty much in denial. I just don't how it could've happened. I mean, hell, I feel like I was just pregnant yesterday. The other reason is that Callie seems to be aging at an alarming rate. Especially when I look at this picture.

I mean, look at that face! Look at that sassy girl! Where is my baby? She gets so annoyed when I call her my baby too. She always retorts "I'm not a baby mama. I'm a big girl! Lucia is a baby." And she is completely correct. She is a big girl. She is potty trained now (for the most part). She is communicating and repeating new words and ideas at such a fast pace it is mind boggling. Yesterday I sneezed and she said "Bless -- Gesundheit Mama." I'm pretty sure I got whiplash when I tried to look and see who said that from the backseat. Last week she walked into the living room and told Bill "This is real. This is the present." Is she some sort of pint sized existential philosopher? We are in serious trouble with my little wild child turned thinker. She has recently started taking gymnastics classes, which she loves and I find great joy in watching her experiment with new things. She is fearless, which we always knew. But she is so strong and determined with these new physical feats. She has also recently become obsessed with the idea of taking dance classes. So we start soon! 

We recently went to the Monterey Aquarium 

and she has now found new things to like and talk about. It used to just be the animals or exhibits that we would talk about but she loves the otters, the octopus ("We saw it breathing." I couldn't tell you how long we stayed at that tank watching the octopus' lungs fill up with air) but especially the sharks. 

Lucia, since her ear tubes surgery is becoming a non stop talker. Well, she kind of always has been, but to hear her "talk" is amazing. Whatever she is saying, she is very serious about it and wants to convey something very important to us! She is already far more verbal than Callie was at her age. Callie was much more mobile and physical. They are so different from each other but they are finding places in common to enjoy. It is such a beautiful thing. Sisters. 

Of course there are fights and hair pulling and scratching and pushing but there are moments of pure bliss and love. Sometimes I laugh when I think about how scared I was when I was pregnant with Lucia; that I was inflicting this person on Callie and how unfair it would be to our relationship. But it is the opposite. Our hearts just get bigger and bigger. Callie is so proud of Lucia and how good she is getting at walking. She likes to walk slowly alongside of her. 

I find myself wishing my girls would just slow down for a while. I am really enjoying their personalities and vitality and excitement. It makes me so thankful that I have been able to be a stay at home mom with them. I haven't missed a thing with my girls and it is so special. Seeing Lucia take her first steps last week was amazing and to see Callie get just as excited as I was created a gorgeous moment that I will treasure forever. I know they are going to grow up and stop calling me mama and hanging on my every word and hug. And I'm sure I will lament the growth of my babies, as I am already starting to, but that just means there are new adventures around the corner! That is the curse of the mother I suppose. That they grow up just when you start enjoying them! 

Look at my big girl! 

Valentine's Day 2013

This is an incredibly belated post and hopefully I didn't forget too much!

I got awfully excited about Valentine's Day this year. It felt like the first year that Callie was really going to "get it" ! And boy did she ! Some of my favorite memories are of waking up on Valentine's Day, walking to my spot at the table and seeing heart shaped pancakes and a heart shaped box filled with goodies. It seems like such a small thing but it was an amazing feeling. I'm not even sure if my mom knew what those little holiday moments meant to me, but I'm pretty sure she does now! That feeling is what I want for my daughters. To know that I put forth the effort to start their day with something special. Anyway, here is what I did this year.


I had been scouring pinterest for weeks planning events, games, food, etc for Callie until I dumbly realized she would be at school that day. So that left food for the most part. When she woke up I wished her an enthusiastic valentine's day (even though the night before had been pretty gnarly with multiple wake ups by both girls). Her smile was worth it:) Before she got up I had cut strawberries into heart shapes (not terribly hard given their original shape, and even easier with a fondant cutter) and made pancakes into hearts as well. I use this pancake mold from norpro. Word to the wise, even though it says it is nonstick, spray that sucker with pam anyway. This whole pancake is kind of a big deal for me. I can cook a great many things, even some pretty complicated things but pancakes had always foiled me. In fact, I pretty much avoided making them until Callie came along loving the damn things. So I have gotten a lot better! So, thanks kid! Plus, I have learned that Lucia freaking loves pancakes too! So I'm doomed to a life of saturday mornings glued to the griddle. There are worse things right?

I also made Callie a strawberry smoothie. Very easy, a pint of strawberries, a cup of yogurt (I used greek nonfat), 1 tablespoon of honey and half a banana. It did turn out a bit thick so I might add some juice next time. I put it in a special valentine's cup I found at safeway of all places.

Then it was time to take Callie to school, but first I attempted to get a picture of the girls together. It proved quite difficult as Lucia has been under the weather and wanted mama. Getting her to sit or stand next to Callie was definitely a challenge!
Then Callie was off to school with her valentine goodies. The teachers had requested healthy snacks or small toys like stickers or pencils, that sort of thing. We opted for popcorn, stickers and bubbles. They assembled everyone's goodies into special bags with the names on it with hearts.
I spent the rest of the day prepping for our dinner. I also picked up Callie early from school and we went for a nice hike at Rancho.

The plan for dinner was tomato bread soup with heart shaped grilled cheese. My heart shaped cookie cutter got quite a workout!

And some bubbly for mama:) 

I also experimented (successfully) with an eggless mousse. I wanted eggless so that Lucia could have some too.  Although she ended up filling up on grilled cheese so I guess I could have done a more traditional mousse, but oh well!
But it came out beautifully! Here is my recipe


Strawberry Mascarpone Ricotta Mousse
1 cup whipping cream
8 ounces mascarpone
16 oz ricotta cheese
1 pint strawberries
zest of 1 meyer lemon
Whip your cream in your mixer until stiff peaks form. Put aside in another bowl. Mix ricotta, mascarpone, 1/2 cup sugar and lemon zest. Throw your strawberries in your blender and make a puree. Add to ricotta mixture. Then fold in your whipped cream. Put in your serving dish of choice. I used some martini glasses for us. Refrigerate for several hours.

See? Easy! And so good. It was like strawberry cheesecake in a bowl!

I topped them with puff pastry hearts. Again, easy. Thaw some frozen puff pastry dough for an hour. Get out that heart cookie cutter again! Callie loved helping with this one. A friend sent me this recipe and thank god she did, because I was planning on something much more complicated! Actually my original idea was to put the strawberry mousse in between the layers of puff pastry  hearts but the mousse recipe made so much it seemed silly! In retrospect, I might just do a bunch of hearts and put the mousse in there.

I also printed out some pdf pages for Callie to color while I got everything ready. This one with elephants and the eiffel tower was fun but of course, Dora won the big prize with Callie:)

Lucia's Rainbow Party

My big birthday girl

We just finished up Lucia's birthday party last week. I still can't believe she is a year old! But that's another story.

Callie getting a squeeze in!

I decided to do a rainbow/st. patrick's day theme since her birthday was so close to St. Patrick's Day. We held the party the day before St. Paddys. I scoured that oh so dangerous place, pinterest, for months for ideas.

First, the food! I found a ton of ideas online for sugary treats but I wanted at least a few healthier options. About an hour into the party we also had tacos from our favorite taqueria. They went fast of course!

We had popcorn in a black kettle for our pot of gold

And a rainbow of fruit with fruit dip (marshmallow cream and cream cheese)
This tray got demolished multiple times by the kids so I'm glad I took a picture before the party really started! We also did a tray of veggies with colorful bell peppers, tomatoes, celery and carrots. 

Also had a rainbow plate that I found on sale at Pier 1 where I put a collection of dried fruit (lots of nice colors!). I found a rainbow of licorice from Sprouts, and jelly beans from Costco. We had pita chips and hummus. And of course a rainbow feather boa for decor!

I found some solid colored melamine bowls at Costco that were perfect! 

Then of course there were the cupcakes!

Callie trying so hard to be good! 

I'm ready mama! Cupcake me!

Callie showing us how big girls eat cupcakes: just eat the frosting! 

The top of the cupcake was covered in gorgeous glitter! They were amazing!  Seriously, if you need cakes, cupcakes or donuts check out Kathleen DeManti's  FB page. She did our wedding cake too! She creates the most beautiful goodies!!




The Outfits:)
I found Lucia's tutu and onesie on etsy in a shop called Chic Somethings. The tutu was nice and full. The onesie came with another tutu that we bought for the invitation picture from a shop called TickleMyTutu. She makes incredible tutu sets. But be warned, if you are going to order from her make sure you have lots of time! Her lead time was 4 weeks but I would definitely order from her again. Great stuff.

Lucia gets a little help from the Grandmas to model her new outfit!

Callie's sparkle rainbow shirt is from an etsy shop called Spunky Sparkles. It was $20 and Callie was SOO excited about it! Her St. Patrick's skirt was $12.

Decorations

I found a lot of rainbow decorations on Oriental Trading Company's website as well as at Party City. The great thing about doing it close to St. Patrick's Day is that not everything had to be rainbow. I found some inflatable balls and other decorations. I used black kettles with gold candies for centerpieces. The rainbow floral garland was one of my favorite pieces. 

We also did a lot of balloons! A cool trick I found on pinterest was to tie the strings around a golf tee and stick them in the ground. It looked very cool! 

For the tables we did a bunch of solid tablecloths with beads, mini hats and gold chocolate coins. The mini hats were a little bit of a let down, they were adult sized not kids sized, but I just tied a loop in it and they fit ok. 

Activities

We had lots of active possibilities for all of the toddlers at the party, so we had our slide

And of course the trampoline was a hit as always...

 a rainbow tunnel, 

a craft table and a pinata. 

The pinata was ridiculously huge. Thank god we had a bigger kid come to the party or it would've taken all day for the 3 year olds to pop it open! I filled it with bouncy balls, beads and other toys.

After what seemed an eternity, it was open! 

We also had a parachute, 

multi colored cones from Melissa and Doug (which were ridiculously popular! Who knew?) and twister. 

No one really played twister, but it sure looked good! Maybe next year:) 

Keeping lots of outdoor bikes and toys was helpful to keep all the kids entertained

For our craft the kids made rainbow crowns. 

Big sister Callie and her friend took it very seriously! 

They had a blast! Before the party we cut out the center of plain white paper plates. The kids used small glue sticks and attached tissue paper to the crown. 

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They were so colorful and some kids made more than one! 

Callie showing off her crown. Excuse the blood coming out of her nose, but that's Callie! Smacked her face into the bar on the trampoline!

I kept some fun items for the kids to play with like this hat and glasses. Found them in the dollar bin at Target. 

There were other things I had planned to do but they just didn't happen. I bought a white tablecloth and I was going to have the kids do potato stamping. Also planned to set up a photo background with St. patricks and/or rainbow fabric. But all in all, it was a huge success! The kids all had fun and so did the mamas and papas! 

Last but certainly not least...The Treat Bags

I had a blast ordering goodies from Oriental and Party City for the bags. There were clappers, rainbow sunglasses, head boppers, St. Patrick's activity/crayon packs, beaded necklaces with shamrocks (these also made great pinata filler). I put everything into tie dye bags. And what's more amazing? I actually remembered to pass them out this time!! Unfortunately I did not remember to take a picture of them, but they were super cute! 

So there you have it. Our rainbow party in its entirety!