ajmatt blog » allegra

Hummus

allegra — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:53:00 +0000

Run out of pita chips? No problem! Hijack a nearby ladle and carry on with your eating.

This is a girl who likes her hummus:

PS - Do you like her first haircut?

Suburban life

allegra — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:37:17 +0000

You know that place on the map where the squiggly street lines give way to blank space? That’s where we live now. The last housing tract right before a bunch of farmland. Things have been quiet around here (except in the photo gallery) as we settled into our new house. Here are a few things we’ve been doing the last 2.5 months.

We moved on May 14th and May 15th. I posted pictures of our empty house here, which Eva found entertaining.

My family flew in from Washington and California a few days after the move to help us unpack. When you have six people working, you can almost get a whole house unpacked in just one week. It was pretty amazing.

Matt and I took a week off to move, then both of us went right back to work and we’ve been busy. This is evidenced by Eva’s sudden obsession with working. If I leave my office unguarded, Eva likes to climb in my chair and pound on the keyboard and announce, “Eva is working.” She’s created some faux tasks in Outlook, but luckily she hasn’t sent any of my customers email.

In addition to working, I managed to completed the very first summer NaNoWriMo this month… and finish a few days early. After this experience, I have to say I do not recommend participating in NaNoWriMo if you are a stay-at-home-mom/business owner. It is too much. I suspected as much when I skipped it last November, and unless all of my business disappears I won’t do it again this November.

In the meantime, Matt has become Mr. Home Improvement. He and my dad painted our basement TV room, Matt painted our mudroom, and now he’s working on his dream of having a bright red dining room. He’s also patched our driveway, painted our light post, and fixed our air conditioning. After which he said, “I never knew how air conditioning worked. Now I do.” I really like this newfound skill set.

In absence of some of our old activities, Eva and I have been spending a ton of time outdoors. Our neighborhood was built in the late 1990′s, so we are lucky to have some real trees. Our new playground is a wooded area, which means it’s shaded all the time, as are my new running trails. And let me tell you, this makes a huge difference on a 90 degree day. It also means there are a lot of great sticks (Eva calls them all “dog sticks”) for toddlers to find.

We have a community pool that is fantastic for little kids. It is set up like a beach, which means two-year-olds who are afraid of their own shadow feel comfortable walking right in. We also have a deck at home and an inflatable pool, which means if we’re too tired to go out, we can have a pool experience right on our back porch. Eva has really bonded with her fish pool.

Finally, we’re enjoying all of our extra space. Eva can spread out her toys and not block a main pathway. Do you get the sense she’s a Lego kind of girl?

And on days when the heat index is 115 degrees, she can burn off energy by running laps around the kitchen.

While I’m still in mourning for our beloved Duncan library and Alexandria Gymboree, I really appreciate Ashburn’s empty stores and roads. And I’m looking forward to starting our busy fall schedule, which includes some free time for me. And that’s something that was hard to come by in Alexandria.

Birthday girl

allegra — Sat, 14 May 2011 03:15:14 +0000

Today is Eva’s birthday. We’d like to introduce you to our two-year-old:

Can you guess what her favorite book is right now?

Today is also the last day in our Alexandria house, and I spent a great deal of time trying to decide what do today. Which special activity would make Eva happiest?

It turned out Eva was in the mood to stay at home, which was a better answer than any innovative idea I could have come up with. We took a quick trip to our favorite grocery store to buy some cupcakes (homemade was just not happening today) and took a walk, but that was it.

We’re saving Eva’s big present until next week, but Matt brought home a balloon, and Eva couldn’t have been happier. Matt thinks this was the first time she realized a gift was for her.

We ate naan, tandoori chicken, and basmati rice from our favorite local Indian restaurant, then had bumblebee cupcakes for dessert.

Doesn’t that look like a stock photo? (Photo credit: Matt, who doesn’t think it looks like a stock photo.)

Eva approved of the cupcakes. They were delicious.

There are more pictures in this birthday photo gallery. Happy birthday, Eva!

Fine art

allegra — Fri, 13 May 2011 15:22:05 +0000

Last February I bought Eva a sketch pad and a box of crayons. Our new activity (she calls it “Kay-ons!”) was an immediate hit, especially when we added stickers to the mix.

While we played, Eva did not do much actual drawing, but we managed to fill up the sketch pad with drawings from family and friends, some of whom are amazing artists (we’re looking at you Humma and Auntie Kay-Kay).

On Wednesday this week, Eva stood by her table, scribbled a bit more emphatically than usual, then looked up at me and announced, “Woah-bah” (robot).

Matt and I looked at each other in surprise, and I said, “She just drew her first picture.”

So I give you Eva’s latest leap in learning. Please enjoy this work of modern art.

Last urban spring

allegra — Mon, 09 May 2011 03:28:15 +0000

This Saturday Matt, Eva, and I are moving to a new house in the suburbs, about an hour from where we live now.

We are doing this for several reasons – we want more space (in the house and yard), we want to live closer to Matt’s work (right now he commutes about two hours a day), and some of us (me!) are tired of living in a crowded urban area.

Even though I am not fond of DC metro area, I do love the neighborhood we’ve lived in for the last six years. Matt has lived here longer – he bought our house in 2002.

Del Ray is quiet, family-friendly, and walkable. If I walk a half mile I can get to: two playgrounds, a library, two coffee shops, a UPS store, my VW dealership, two grocery stores, a CVS, and a number of fantastic hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

I didn’t realize what a goldmine that was until I looked at a map of our new neighborhood and discovered I would walk to… nothing. Well, there is a nice wooded trail I’m looking forward to running on, but I’ll need to drive to the playground and library, which makes me sad.

We actually signed contracts to sell our house and buy the new one in January, so I’ve spent the last few months saying good-bye to my neighborhood by going on as many walks as possible. It has been a particularly beautiful spring:

We’ve never had tulips bloom in our front yard, but this one popped up this year to say good-bye:

Click through to the largest view – it’s stunning.

So good-bye Del Ray and Alexandria, I will remember you fondly. But I am looking forward to my new quiet, suburban dwelling, where spring of 2012 will look something like this:

Tata: In Remembrance

allegra — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:57:27 +0000

My grandmother passed away in her sleep last night. It was both expected and sudden, and I had no idea what to do after receiving the news. Work and do yoga, as I normally do during Eva’s nap? I decided drinking coffee and looking at family photo albums would be better way to start grieving.

Tata loved our blog, so I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures in this space, where her comments will be missed.

Above, Tata is second from the right, lunching with friends at a jazz club. I love the caption on this one – Tata and her friend on the right are wearing snoods, which were very popular during World War II and “great for bad hair days.” If only I had a digital copy of Tata in her Zoot Suit – that would be right next to this picture. (Click on all pictures for larger versions.)

Tata is in the middle row on the right on the stairs at Nat King Cole’s house. Yes, that Nat King Cole. The caption says he wasn’t there the night they were invited over.

This is our family heirloom or, as I call it, The Famous Jazz Picture. Of the four women in the picture, Tata is furthest to the right. There are some famous musicians in this picture – I want to say that’s Duke Ellington on the bottom right, but I can’t remember for sure, and my captioned photo is in storage.

With her five great-grandchildren last month.

Tata, we miss you already.

Timeless Seuss

allegra — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:25:26 +0000

Eva’s latest favorite book is The Cat in the Hat. Or as she likes to call it, “Meeeeoooow. Hat-tah.” Apparently love of The Cat is contagious – here I am reading it to Eva, three of her second cousins, and my mother:

According to my quick Wikipedia research (forgive me, I’m tired), The Cat in the Hat was first published in 1957. My mother remembers reading it, I remember reading it, and it seems the newest generation is entranced. Though these days I’m on Team Fish – that cat makes me nervous…

Note: In this picture am reading the book on my Droid, but we read a hardback at home.

Laughter

allegra — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:11:14 +0000

You would think there would be a story behind this much laughing, but it was just a giggly kind of day. Please enjoy three minutes of Eva losing her mind.

A mom’s-eye view

allegra — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:46:45 +0000

Have you ever wondered what life looks like from a mother’s perspective?

As I put up a picture from storytime captioned “Mom’s-eye view,” I thought, “I think I have a few pictures now with this very caption.” I ran a search in our photo gallery, and found five pictures. So here you go – this is what life looks like from my vantage point.

April 2009: The “nursery preparation while pregnant” view. I’d forgotten how big that belly looked – thank goodness that view is temporary.

July 2010: The “toes in the breeze on a walk” view.

August 2010: The “toddler holding knees” view.

December 2010: The “toddler tugging at clothing” view.

February 2011: The “hold onto Mama’s shoes during storytime” view. (Also note the girls in the top left corner holding hands. So cute.)

The regulars

allegra — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 03:42:32 +0000

At storytime last week, the children’s librarian had a cold and had a hard time deciding what songs to sing.

Ever helpful, I said, “How about ‘Firetruck?’”

The librarian said (mostly to herself), “Some weeks I need help from the regulars.”

What does a storytime regular look like? I give you Eva, lying on the floor as if the library meeting room is her second home.