My Modern Mom

In Mia's class, each student made a Power Point presentation for their mom's for Mother's Day.

Colonial Life

Ava had a field trip to Greenbank Mill. She learned how to make lavender soap, how to card wool, and she helped make sugar cookies.

The United States of America

Mia has been studying maps at school. At dinner last night, she was eating her quesadilla and noticed that the shape was quite familiar. Only Mia would observe such a thing.

Easter Eggs

This year we tried a traditional method and a modern method. We tried pysanky which was fun. The beeswax had a nice smell. And we tried engraving the eggs after we dyed them. Both methods were similar in results.

Happy Easter!

We had the girls design our Easter cards this year.

Engraving Easter Eggs

Happy Birthday, Mia!

Mia had a great time at her 7th birthday party. She had lots of friends and family there to skate with.

Spasibo balshoye!

Thank you to the Awitan Family who sent Ava & Mia two beautiful matryoshka dolls from the Czech Republic.

Old School, New School

The girls set up a school for their American Girl dolls. Ava L-O-V-E-S to play school, Mia can tolerate it for a little while.

Funny, we stumbled upon a few of these chairs while on a prospective school tour a few years ago. Andy talked the art teacher into letting us have the baby Bertoia chairs before they ditched them during a remodel.

House Industries Kids Logo

We've been bugging our Dad to make kids House Industries tees. He agreed, then made us do the work. No salary, just free tees and health care.

Happy New Year

Our good friends Caleb & Matthew helped us celebrate New Year's Eve. We had a yummy dinner of quesadillas, tamales, rice, Jarritos sodas, Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes & cheesecake brownies. Guess we had a little too much "kid wine".

This time last year.....

we had long hair, cooled in LA, saw the Road Agent at the Ed "Big Daddy" Roth exhibit at the Peterson Museum (Daddy couldn't read the NO PHOTOS PLEASE sign)...oh yeah, Daddy did a gig there during the AIGA Holiday party but no one was listening to them.

Cookies for Santa

We made cookies for Santa. This year he drank all of his milk.

Penguins hijack Snowman Project....

Ava had a holiday project at school to make a snowman winterscape in a globe. I showed Ava how to make a penguin and her class went wild and "over looked" the main character, the Snowman and bugged she & I to make more penguins. I made a few more for friends and showed several kids how to make them. Although, Ava was NOT happy that her classmates wanted to copy our design. As I was showing another classmate how to form the body, I returned to Ava's desk to see a sign that stated:

Penguins are OUT OF STOCK!

Once we arrived at home, Mia wanted to make her own penguins. This started the penguin posse. (which Mia displayed on the picture frame in the hallway to our MBR) And a contest broke out to make the smallest penguin. Mia won, but only because she has the smallest fingers.

Mia's Gingerbread Chalet

Breakfast with Santa

We had breakfast with Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph yesterday after Mass. We know this Santa wasn't the REAL Santa. He was just one of his helpers. Check out Rudolph's strides.

Snow Day

It didn't snow enough to cancel school, but we did have fun sledding!

Black Friday

We spent Black Friday at our friend's Gus & Leo's house. We ate tomato pie, Pirate Booty and cookies. It was a crazy day. Those boys know how to have fun!! We wish we had brothers!! Mommy & Beth went shopping. They're silly they missed all the fun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a fun Thanksgiving. We started the day with Mass at Saint Catherine's with Mom Mom Terri & Pop Pop Bob. Made a quick stop to say hi to Mom Mom Candy & Pop Pop Bob. Then we drove north to have dinner (at 1 o'clock..can that be dinner?) at PopPop Angel's In-Laws (Sargio & Joan's house). By the way, their house is called, "The Chicken Coop". While we were there, we chased chickens and played a little guitar with Uncle Adam. We ate a traditional Thanksgiving meal...well Mommy & Daddy did. We ate Annie's Mac & Cheese and homemade rolls.

Then off to PopPop Frank's. Where we ate a traditional Thanksgiving dessert...ice cream. It was nice to visit with all of our family. The last pic is of our Uncle Fran & Angie.

Colonial Days...part 2

Mia's class spent the next few days completing their study of the Colonial Days. They hand wove placemats (paper), made bonnets & hats (paper), made Stone Soup, made corn bread batter, made real lemonade, wrote & drew with quill pens, made real butter and then had a feast. At the feast, each child wrote & read about something they were thankful for. Some children said their family, their parents, their teacher, God and pets. Mia was thankful for Olivia & Olive.

Colonial Days...

In Mia's class, she is studying what it would be like to be a child in the Colonial days. She had a field trip to the Hagley Museum. The activities were in the restored foreman's home and the Brandywine Manufacturer's Sunday School (school was once a week!) on the Worker's Hill. The children were able to do laundry, bake cookies, dress up in period clothing, and learn short lessons typical in a nineteenth-century school. If you ask Mia, the best part was eating the cookies fresh out of the wood stove!!

Froggy went a courtin'......

The world famous, Brian Awitan gave the girls a private concert last Friday. Went something like this.......

Halloween 2007 or 1957?

Ava & Mia were bobby soxers. The couldn't have poodle skirts, Olivia & Olive would have been insulted!

Storybook Character Day Parade

For religious reasons, our school cannot celebrate Halloween, so we have Storybook Character Day. Each class picks characters from one story to portray by dressing up. They have a parade and then a party in the classroom. Ava's class chose How I Became a Pirate. Mia's class chose Ira Sleeps Over.

Roat Family's Annual Fall Party

We went to the Roat Family's Annual Fall Party this past weekend. This year's theme was a Native American theme complete with a tee pee with a fire pit in it, tribal face painting, and drums. Lots of food & fun!

Awitan x Cruz

Ava and Marlena of the "What's Cookin' " blog, have finally met face to face with Ava & Mia of "The Top is on the Bottom" blog!

In six hours the girls managed to play Webkinz, play baseball with the Daddies, feed the koi fish, climb rocks at the creek, play with the craziest dogs Olive & Olivia, play Hullabaloo, dress-up, do a little yoga, watch a bit of a Barbie movie, eat quesadillas & cupcakes, and roast marshmallows for S'mores! Once bedtime arrived, Ava & Mia were alseep in a matter of minutes! I hope Ava & Marlena had as much fun as we did!!

Hometown Celebrities

We all went to the Delaware Humane Association's fundraiser "Walk for the Animals" on Sunday. Mia and Olive got their pic in the News Journal. Ava wore her Herbivore Clothing Co. shirt to show that she is nice to ALL animals...they serve hot dogs after the walk?????

We're Back!

We've just returned from our Southern California & New Mexico tour with our good friends the Roat Family - Rich, Sharon, Sebastian & Anna. Dad & Rich had a little business to attend to and both families decided to tag-along. We met Marilyn & John Neuhart, swam in the Pacific Ocean in Manhattan Beach, then bumped into Mo Willems at the Kidspace Museum, drove Volvo's at Legoland, ate an awesome, inpromptu Italian meal at this guy's pad (the cute one with the v-neck) and hit EVERY Japanese book & dollar store in southern California!

In New Mexico, we stayed at the beautiful Los Poblanos Inn, with Penny & Armin Rembe, Matt Rembe and his lovely family. Our first night there, Daddy & Rich had a business meeting and it was off to bed. The next morning after breakfast, Penny took all the kids to gather eggs (where Mia met a feisty rooster), pick apples & pears, tour the organic vegetable and lavender farm, and then sent us off for homemade tortillas at Duran's Pharmacy in Old Town, Albuquerque. At the Inn, we swam, played with Stanley the dog, followed the peacocks and had a great time. On the way to Santa Fe, we stopped at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque to see the Alexander Girard mural and then toured the Girard Wing at the Museum of International Folk Art. Our NM tour ended with a stay in a cool Adobe house with bunk beds and dinner at a sassy restaurant, Cowgirl in Santa Fe. Thanks Daddy......oh yeah Mommy went too!

Flashback.......

Trip to Pittsburgh, to buy a few chairs..OF COURSE. We stopped at the Warhol Museum first.

Thirty eight chairs??

Mia's math homework tonight was to make a tally of certain objects in our house. She'll have to explain that the 38 chairs are NOT a counting error. It's that her Daddy has a completist/obsessive chair collecting disorder. Just so that her teacher doesn't think we live in an auditorium, I didn't let her take inventory of the outdoor wire chair annex or the b-list shell chairs reserved for outdoor parties.

Shofuso Fall Festival

Today we went to the Japanese House in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. They had a traditional Japanese festival celebrating the changing seasons. We had a lesson in Sumie – Japanese calligraphy, a race using chopsticks to pick up adzuki beans, painted a paper folding fan, tried Japanese sweets and we even were able to wear a traditional kimono while we were taking in the sights. Daddy took way too many pictures but Mommy says we'll love to see them when we are adults.

What did you learn today?

Mia learned to tie her shoes today....from a classmate! We've been trying to teach her for the last year. When I asked her why she can learn to do something from a friend and not her parents, Ava chimed in and replied, "Because they speak to us on a KIDS LEVEL, Mommy." Thanks for clearing that up Ava! (background sound effects courtesy of these guys)

Back to School

Today was Ava's first day of third grade and Mia's first day of first grade.

Prepping for Back to School