Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas out there!

I really enjoyed my first Mother’s Day last year, but this year was even better. Maybe it’s just that with all the other insanity going on in my life these days I appreciate the complete awesome that is my family much, much more. Team Reeve is pretty great, and I love our life together more and more each day. Man, that was such a greeting card sentiment, but it’s actually true. I couldn’t stop smiling all day, I was just loving the celebration of this whole motherhood business so much.

I got my Spongebob Squarepants Mother’s Day card and gift certificates for Barnes & Noble and the Fat Quarter Shop first thing this morning. Best gifts, simple and no fuss! The Spanish F1 Grand Prix was this morning, so clearly that is becoming a bit of a Mother’s Day tradition. We got up to watch it live at 7:30am, and Hannah and I hung out on the couch while Adam made waffles. Perfection.

After a very chill morning we stopped in at my brother’s new house for a quick visit with my mom, sister-in-law, and nephew CJ. They just moved in YESTERDAY, and now they’re 20 minutes away instead of an hour. So the babies played with their Nana while we got the tour of their beautiful new house. Then, we headed to the Upper West Side in Manhattan for some fun times.

I can’t really deal with the whole holiday restaurant experience. Valentine’s Day dinners, Mother’s Day brunches, I just…nothing feels less celebratory to me than being herded through a packed restaurant on a prix fixe menu. So my idea of a perfect Mother’s Day lunch was…the Recession Special at Gray’s Papaya.

Adam hates when I put photos of him on here, but he was a huge part of why today was killer. So I’m breaking the rule today. This October will mark a decade since he moved here from the UK, and somehow in nearly 10 years I had never gotten him to a Gray’s Papaya. We don’t even know how that happened, but today I was inspired to fix that. Inspiration was rewarded with a happily napping baby and an empty counter. And hot dogs.

We walked over to Central Park with the rest of the city to take in the gorgeous weather. It was packed, and allergy season was so heightened we felt like we were snorting pollen. But, still gorgeous.

Dancers, stairs. The crowds on the stairs reminded me of the Spanish Steps in Rome.

It was actually Japan Day in the park. There was a very cool concert of traditional drummers and modern dancers and music. Hannah LOVED this, even though this was as close to the stage as we could get. There were origami stations, a HUGE line to have kabuki makeup applied, all kinds of cool stuff.

And then…we stopped to get ice cream. And Hannah had her first taste of summer.

She loved it.

A lot.

Adam drove home, and the baby and I passed out in the living room until bedtime. Hannah woke up, had dinner and a bath, and went straight back to sleep. Lots of fresh air and happy excitement today. I’m still smiling.

So I turned 34 on February 10th. Quite a different year from last year. And there was quite a lot of celebrating this year. I had a great one!

My birthday weekend started with a big snow storm on Saturday the 9th. So we had a great time playing in the snow with Hannah and trying out her new baby sled.

Then we spent the rest of the day staying warm inside, and I went ahead and opened my gifts that night since we had a big day planned for my actual birthday.

Some really great birthday goodies this year, my family is just the best!

We went to Adventure Aquarium in Camden on my birthday. Such a great view of Philly.

We went for the special turtle exhibition, but also because Hannah is a HUGE fan of Finding Nemo. We wanted to show her some real Nemo fish.

She liked them.

It was so much fun!

Then we went into Philly to have cheesesteaks at Pat’s. It was gorgeous weather, cold but not too cold. I had a really great day.

Then last weekend 10 of us gathered at the American Museum of Natural History for a Stray Boots scavenger hunt. I was so excited to do this, and it worked out perfectly. We booked a group event with Stray Boots, and all of the clues were through our cell phones. So we divided into 3 teams and took separate routes through the museum, answering questions and doing photo challenges. My team finished second but actually won with a perfect score! Adam, Dan, and I ended up on a team together, and we had a blast. This photo is from one of the challenges, pretending to hold up the giant canoe.

This was another awesome day with the one unfortunate wrinkle of lunch. We went to the 72nd St. Dallas BBQ for lunch after the hunt…and I got food poisoning. I actually went home sick from work Monday because of it, but fortunately I was fine by Tuesday morning. The one blip on an otherwise perfect birthday season, do not go to that restaurant if you value your intestinal health. But, it still didn’t take away from an awesome time. What are you going to do?

Hannah and I braved the cold and went into Manhattan for the day today. I kind of hemmed and hawed about it this morning because a) Hannah woke up at 1am in hysterical tears, no idea why and b) I had planned on meeting up with Kathy but didn’t have her Christmas and birthday presents ready yet. Somehow these things, combined with the cold, just felt too insurmountable. But, I dragged myself out of bed at 8:30 this morning and got us out of the house.

I’m so glad we went! I had such a wonderful day with Baby Girl!

We were going to the February meeting of the NYCMMQG, and even though we were half an hour late I had a great time. I’m always so shy at these guild meetings, and I don’t know. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming, but I just feel tongue-tied and self conscious. Maybe it’s because I look at work like this

and this

and I just feel a little awestruck by the skills and creativity. Let’s not forget our president, Victoria Findlay Wolfe of Bumble Beans Quilts, who was invited to create this pair of shoes for an upcoming auction:

Insanely cool. And then there’s our guest speaker Linda Lum DeBono, who brought projects from her book Sew Merry and Bright (which I ordered on my phone from the meeting).

Obviously I love this Advent calendar:

And this little Russian dolls ornament is so clever, I love it!

So yes, I feel like I have a long way to go with my craftiness to catch up to these folks. But I always get so much inspiration from them, and I love going when I can. I’m also the Charity Chair for the guild, and I have done absolutely zero in that role…this also makes me feel awkward when I go. But Victoria runs her own very successful charity organization, Bumble Beans Basics, and so the charity work seems to run itself through her.

After talking to a couple of other ladies there who’ve had babies recently, Hannah and I headed from Midtown to Chelsea, where we spent a couple of hours walking all over having a great time. We went to City Quilter and then walked passed a Marimekko store I didn’t even know was over there (I’ve only been to the tiny Uptown store). It was amazing.

Gorgeous fabric everywhere I looked, but so pricey; it was $53/yd. I came very close to buying some but decided until I have something specific in mind to use it for it would just sit in my stash being way too precious to cut. Sometimes that depresses me a little, so I’ve put it in the back of my mind for when the perfect project comes up.

And then there was this raincoat in Hannah’s size. The absolute quintessential print in a baby raincoat, I was so tempted. But again, it was pricey ($68). I may still go back for this, though. I really loved it. I tried to make a smooth getaway from the store after drooling over stuff for half an hour, but Hannah and I got stuck in the glass doors on our way out and had to be rescued. I move like a gazelle, I’m telling you.

We walked the Union Square Market.

We bought baked goods for Adam.

We bought baked goods for me at Baked by Melissa. Our last stop was Books of Wonder, where I read some of this year’s Caldecott books to Hannah. I have one left to track down, and then I can post about them all. She was particularly excited about Creepy Carrots; Peter Brown’s illustrations made her giggle and smile.

We headed home from there sufficiently pooped and exhilarated. I needed a day like this to recharge, I’ve been sleep deprived and a little stressed out since…well, since I went back to work, really. I realized today that we’ve just passed the halfway point of the school year, so from here to summer it’s a downhill slope! I can’t wait to hang out with Hannah every day and have more adventures, but today was wonderful for reminding me how many adventures we can have even when I’m working. She’s such a great little lady, so sweet and happy to go with the flow.

I’ve been enjoying a really lovely Thanksgiving weekend with family, but I’ve been dying to post the photos from Hannah’s first trip to her mother’s favorite holiday kickoff event, the inflation of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.

We kind of got going later than in past years. Hannah and I were there by about 3:45, but Adam got held up at work and then rerouted out of the subway. So we didn’t meet up with him inside the perimeter of the inflation until after 4. By then it was getting dark and very crowded, so next year we’ll figure that out. But it was still so much fun, and Hannah was so fun! She was just as interested in the crowds as the balloons, and it was amazing introducing her to this.

Long lines while we waited for Daddy.

Perfect!

Last Sunday Hannah and I headed up to NYC for a day out with Laura Ann. We met at her place in Astoria so I could see some redecorating she’d done (which looked fantastic, by the way). When I ran back out to the car for something, Laura Ann and Hannah posed.

So sweet! We walked over to Broadway to have lunch at The Queens Kickshaw. I loved this place, we parked the baby in her stroller by the door and sat at a big square communal table sharing cider and eating grilled cheese and tomato soup. It was the end of Cider Week, which is like Laura Ann’s high holy days.

We shared this giant bottle of Crispin cider, which was amazingly good. Laura Ann has me hooked now.

The grilled cheese and soup were perfect for the day.

After a nice long lunch catching up we packed into the car and drove to Chelsea to walk the Highline at sunset.

Laura Ann had been several times, this was my first. And I can’t stop thinking about it, I’m already planning my next trip and any reason to be there again at sunset. It was funny, I was thinking how much it reminded me of The Curious Garden, and then we passed a table for the Friends of the Highline that had the book on display. Great minds.

I especially love the seats where you can sit and look out over 10th Avenue.

Puffy vests, a city walk, cider, and grilled cheese with soup? I can’t think of a more perfect fall day.  I needed that city recharge.