summer nights

Tuesday night we met Stefanie, Adam and Ayla for dinner. Look at our little blue-eyed bugs!



Unfortunately, we went to Red Robin for its family-friendly atmosphere only to learn Matteo is afraid of the Red Robin character. While Ayla laughed and high-fived the Red Robin, Matteo sat as far back in his seat as he could and grabbed for Matt's hand.



After dinner we went to then went to Olbrich Gardens to hear an Afro/Cuban band. Stef took these photos of the three of us while we were at the concert. I love photos of Matteo (obviously), but candid family photos are even better.









This is how summer evenings should be.

solstice party

Each summer and winter the park next to our neighbohood hosts a solstice celebration. This year Matteo and I caught the procession of the species and giant puppet parade. It draws quite a crowd.








Charles Darwin, of course





Look at that nice raven. Unfortunately, the person wearing that costume left it under a tree while they went off and did other solstice celebratory things after the parade and before I could stop him, Matteo thought its head would be a good place to sit. Paper-mache is no match for a toddler - Matteo's butt ended up leaving a pretty big impression on that raven's face. If that was your costume, so sorry!




Here's Matteo holding the hand of the Mother Earth giant puppet. He's a treehugger already.


At the end of the parade, there was a performance involving several people dressed as badgers (representing state employees, school children, anyone else adversely affected by our new state budget) and a weasel wearing a suit (representing the governor). There was a lot of yelling by the badgers and growling and posturing by the weasel until a giant badger with ferociously sharp fangs came running out of the crowd and chased the weasel away, to the delight and cheers of the crowd. Politics in Wisconsin - these days there is just no escaping it.

sunset magazine

My dad gave me a subscription to Sunset magazine for Christmas this year and it's become one of my new favorites. Although it's targeted at people who live out West, I really love the home and food features. My dream (pipe dream?) is to eventually enlarge our little bungalow by adding a second story. Many of the homes featured in Sunset are older, small bungalows like ours, transformed into larger, more modern spaces and I've been collecting images that catch my eye.

In no particular order, here three home upgrades I've been dreaming about. All images from Sunset.

1.) Tile the shower in the upstairs bathroom - *drool*. Those blue Heath Ceramics tiles are insanely gorgeous. They're also insanely expensive. But what bang for your buck. We need to do something soon about the janky, gross shower stall currently in our bathroom and replacing it with something like this would be dreamy.



I mean, these tiles are so cool they even have their own movie.

http://youtu.be/gNCPygFbHGI

2.) Build a stone patio - At some point I would like to build a stone patio on the top-level of our backyard, which is currently grass. Ours would be a little more free-form than this one, but the intention is to better define an area of the backyard that would serve as an extended living space in warm weather months. I'd also like to enlarge our deck and, if space allows, build bench seating along the exterior of our home, kind of like this patio has but out of wood instead of stone.



3.) Enlarge our kitchen - This is the real humdinger. Because of the layout of our home, any kitchen expansion could only happen if we build that mythical second story and move the bedrooms upstairs, which would be a crazy humongous job. But, if I just happen to win the lottery tomorrow or discover a magic genie who grants me three wishes, you better believe I'd build that sucker in a heartbeat and turn half of the downstairs into an open living/kitchen area. I like the more formal dining area in the top picture, but that cute little Saarinen table and cozy bench seating works for me too.

matteo's village

Friday night we went out to an art show closing party where a couple of our friends were playing music and there was free beer and snacks. Matteo went with us and was all over it (the party, not the beer). He was running around outside with some bigger kids he met, went right up front when the music started, and spent a good part of the evening weaving through the crowd looking for hugs and goldfish crackers. He was in heaven.







Lucky for us we were both able to enjoy the free beer because there were about 10 of our friends there to help corral our wild baby. At all times someone was there to take him outside, share some snacks, or grab him when he started to eat things off the floor. At one point our friend Carrie turned to me and said, "It's so cool to see everyone looking out for him. He really does have his own little village of people who love him!"

At the end of the school year one of Matteo's teachers told me how wonderful it is to see him growing up with such confidence in himself. That has always been one of my biggest hopes - that I would raise children who are sure of themselves and comfortable in different social situations. I know so much of pesonality is innate, and that some children are just shy no matter what and that's totally okay too. But Matteo has always been a little sparkplug and I definitely attribute a lot of his confidence to being surrounded and nurtured by many, many awesome people who love him.

We feel really lucky to have such a good group of friends here who are helping us care for this amazing little guy. We seriously couldn't do it without them.

old friends in new places

Matt and I were so happy to spend Saturday with one of our former students from St. Maarten. I was Katalina's fourth grade teacher and Matt was her gym teacher and it is absolutely nuts to think she's going to be a senior in high school this year.


then - 2003


and now - 2011

Kat currently lives in Greece, but is spending the summer in the U.S. visiting family and interning at Random House in New York. She's in Chicago this week with her brother and sister-in-law and they were nice enough to drive her up and spend the day with us. We went to lunch at the Old Fashioned (no trip to Wisconsin is complete without fried cheese curds, of course), walked down State Street to the Union, and had ice cream on the Terrace. I don't know if we quite accomplished our goal of making Madison so irresistible that she'll choose to come to college here, but we tried our best in the short time we had.







Kat has grown up to be an amazingly cool person, as we both knew she would. It sounds like a weird thing to say about a 10-year-old, but I remember when I was her teacher telling Matt that I could imagine us being friends when she grew up. It was great to spend time with her and introduce her to Matteo. Thanks for coming to see us, Katalina! We hope to see you again soon! xoxo

five

Happy fifth anniversary, Matt. I love you!

playhouse

I need to stay away from Apartment Therapy. Argh! Last weekend I saw this post and I've had playhouses on the brain ever since. I've never been crazy about those little plastic houses, they always seem so sad and faded when you see them in real-life, but AT has featured some pretty charming fixer uppers.





After a few days of searching, I finally found one of those same playhouses on Craigslist and am picking it up tomorrow. My plan is to paint it like a traditional Caribbean house. One of my favorite artists on St. Martin is known for paintings of traditional, colorful Caribbean homes and I've been looking at his work for inspiration. So far, these are my favorites:









We have this print hanging in our bedroom and for sentimental reasons I think I'm leaning toward these colors.



What do you think?

up mama!

I get this a lot lately and I love it every time. Who can resist that face?! I mean, COME ON! He's just killing me with cuteness!

boombox

There is never a shortage of things to do in Madison, especially during the summer. And our neighborhood is the epicenter of summer celebrations. Last month signs like these starting popping up all over the neighborhood. What were they for you ask?



Why, the first-ever Boombox the Wasteland neighborhood festival. (Duh! Doesn't your neighborhood have one too?) We like boomboxes and were certainly curious about the neighborhood wasteland so we went and checked it out.

new specs

Since I've had the same lame glasses since 2003, I finally decided it was time to do something about it and ordered a new pair from Warby Parker. Have you heard about them yet? All of their glasses are only $95 (well, coke bottle lenses like mine cost $30 extra) and it's all done online.

I don't have the finished product yet but so far the shopping experience has been great. They have a virtual try on where you upload your photos and try on glasses online, but they also have a free home try on service where you choose five styles and they ship them to you for five days, free of charge.



I chose the Colton style in Whiskey Tortoise. Here they are, as modeled by Matteo.



I think my most favorite part about buying from Warby Parker though is their buy a pair, give a pair program. 1 billion people don't have access to glasses, which means 15% of the world’s population is unable to effectively learn or work because they can’t see clearly. That's crazy, right? One of my biggest fears is not being able to see and I can't imagine going through life blurry. I'm all about supporting businesses like this who go above and beyond to make a difference. Thanks for changing the way things are done and doing good in the process, Warby Parker.

bon anniversaire sophie!

Did you know that Sophie the Giraffe is 50 years old this year? In honor of this momentous occasion, a local children's store near our house is throwing her a birthday party this Saturday. Matteo and his Sophie will most certainly be going.



Matteo loves his Sophie. She was his first toy and still travels with us everywhere we go. Before having a baby I never understood why a little plastic giraffe was the most popular baby toy in the world but I do now. She definitely has a certain je ne sais quoi about her.







A few weeks ago we went to a Memorial Day parade and spotted this other Sophie lost in the grass! Quelle horreur! I thought about taking it home and putting up a 'Found! Sophie!' sign in the neighborhood but I didn't. I left it undisturbed in hopes her real family realized she was gone and would be coming back for her at any minute.



I hope you found your way home, little Sophie.