and now we pack

after the dinner party on friday we had a ton of leftovers, and the house was still clean, so we decided to have some more people over for dinner. we had a great time.

then sunday we had church and i went to the finals of the tennis tournament at the tennis hall of fame. my big start sighting was



bud collins.
it was my first professional match. while i have met arthur ashe, rod laver annd stan smith i had never seen them play in person. it was exciting.

on friday nell and zaven helped in the kitchen. at one point i thought nell was about to crawl, she was on all fours, i grabbed the camera, but by the time i made it back she had dropped to her tummy.



she has two bottom teeth now, and bites!

now we are starting to get ready for our trip.
le

boom done

the party is done. i think it was a success. although it was touch and go there at the end. i was really tight on time. the baby sitter did the flowers, which looked great. and as the first guests arrived i ran up stairs with steak on my hands and threw on a dress, a lily pulitzer i just got out of the stored summer clothes). brushed my hair, put on blush and lip gloss and that was that. good thing i had showered earlier! hopefully i did not look too crazed to the guests.
chris was a life saver in the last 30 minutes. he made the sangria, and got all of the hors devours ready. while i finished seasoning the salads and sliced the meat. oh yeah and saved my sauce. remember how i mentioned putting too much dijon, i thought i had gotten enough out, but when i got the sauce out to put on the table, it was green in color but pretty much tasted just like dijon. so i took half, thinned it out with olive oil, called mom in a panic. put more basil and mint and pine nuts and a more lemon juice and it worked out. i guess it was a good thing i had overbought on the herbs!
so we started the party in the backyard. it was a beautiful evening and people seemed happy with the sangria and ate a lot of the hors devours.
then we started dinner, all went smoothly. everyone seemed to like everything. the steak was grilled to perfection (if i do say so myself, in the words of tom blanton, "i nailed it") there is a lot of salad left over, even after sending one guest home with a big tupperware thing of the bulgur wheat salad. so we are planning on having some people over tonight. then i served the cheesecake squares, each with a mint leaf, that zaven had picked off the stems for me, they were a hit, many people had two so that was good. then people stayed and visited and left around 9. it was great having the sitter here. she helped a ton. zaven did great, he is a wonderful host. he greeted the guests and then would say "would you like to join in the back yard?" and then he was out there telling people to try the ginger and cream cheese, the "ginger party" as he calls it. nell fell asleep around 7 and was put in her crib, and zaven and georgia played and visited and we even got zaven to eat a little dinner and go to bed while everyone was still here.
so there were a couple of odd things. there were 6 people of the expected 30 that did not come. one couple did not come because the fellow had resigned from the vestry the day before, but they never called to say one way or the other, another couple came by around 4 pm with 4 bottles of wine to say that they could not make it because their daughter had unexpectedly come to town, and the other couple called at 6:15 to say something about a computer being down at work blah blah blah. whatever.
it was a really nice group.
i wish i had planned better and had a better idea of how long it would take to do all of those things and the challenge of doing them while holding nell. anyway it all worked out.

party prep

well we are one day out from the party. now up to 31 guests. i hope there will be enough hours in the day tomorrow. (since i am still planning to play tennis from 9:30-11.) i am trying to do some things each day, but there are only certain things that can be done ahead. i can't really clean up, because a clean house only lasts like 30 minutes here. i have dusted. and zaven helped dust yesterday. and i have vacuumed. i am going to clean the bathrooms today, make the spinach dip, maybe the cheesecake squares. yesterday i made the herb pesto for the meat. i almost ruined it by misreading the recipe i was using 4T instead of 4t of dijon and i realized at the moment before i pushed the button on the cuisinart, i was able to scoop out the excess. it turned out tasty. i also ironed the napkins. today i will gather the plates, glasses, flatware from the church.


we got most of the grocery shopping done. there were no shallots at grocery store so now i will go to a more upscale market in portsmouth and get those and the bulgur wheat that they sell in bulk so it is better to buy there anyway. may also treat myself to sushi for lunch from there,

it is decent. i always laugh when i am in the onion section at the market here, when lexie was here she said that she had seen better looking onions in third world countries. it is true, my market is onion challenged.

today we are also goig to the library, zaven is joining the "listners" reading program, so when he turns in two books today the lady will ask him questions about the books and if he answers right he gets stickers, or something. should be interesting. one book is about trains and the other is a rhyming story about mrs. pirate. i'll let you know how he does. then we are going to michael's art supply. i got some coupons in the mail, one for 50% off framing, and i happen to have a print from a local artist that i need framed. and the other coupon was for 50% off anything, so i am going to let zaven get something for the plane.
better get moving...
righto! bye bye

baby bag

we had a good day. we got up this morning and headed into newport. we found a parking meter in between the shops we needed to go to. nell in her stroller and zaven walking with me, we headed to the gap to look for a bathing suit for nell. no dice. then we went to the other gap to look for a belt for chris, no dice. then we walked up the water front to the store mandarin, where we made an exchange and headed back to the car. it was a nice little walk. then we hit old navy and tj maxx still looking for the belt and swimsuit. found a swimsuit for nell but no belt that met chris' specifications.
then we came home and had lunch, zaven played in the bathtub (a favorite past time)
then we headed out again because zaven has been wanting to go to barnes and noble to play with the thomas trains and then we went to petco to look at the animals. the small white mice were going nuts on the little running wheel, it totally cracked me up for some reason. but we saw mice, guinea pigs, ferretts, fish, geckos, turtles, birds, dogs getting groomed.
then i tried to find some smocking supplies, i thought i might like to try to learn while on vacation, no luck. then we came home and went outside to swing.



meanwhile, nell played in my "supermom" bag that poppy gave me


afterward,


then we had eggs for dinner.
i am thinking i should start cleaning for the party on friday, but i don't feel like it. hmmm
righto, bye bye

we had a great day. after a long and a little harrowing night (can something be a little harrowing?, anyway)nell was up a lot, playing... and zaven had a bad dream. even though it rained most of the night it was dry enough by 10 to play my weekly tennis game. i tried my other racquet and found it to have a good bit more power, so that was nice. when time ran out it was 6-3, 5-2. i have decided to bring my racquet to TN, hoping to find some opponents there.

after getting home, showering getting everyone lunch, zaven, nell and i headed out to the library and then we went to the playground. it was nice weather, so i guess everyone was at the beach, because we were the only ones at the playground.
nell got to swing in a baby swing. she loved it. we were are the real horsey playground and there were some girls riding and then brought the horse right over to the fence for us to look at.

after that we went to the grocery store and then the get ice cream.
it was a nice day. when we got home, chris was down doing his wedding. nell took a bath (prepare your self for some really cute pictures of nell in her new cover up!)




oops...

then zaven helped me make a new salad. bulgur wheat with cucumber, shallot, toasted pine nuts, parsley, feta and a lemon dressing. it was delicious and zaven ate it too. we had that with grilled chicken for dinner.

then chris and i watched "stranger than fiction" it was a very good movie. it does not lend itself to a 30 second ad. so i can see why it did not become a big hit in the theaters. but it was great.

eyes in the back of your head?

tonight zaven asked me, "mom, why do you have eyes in the front and the back of your head?" i said that i did not, mostly just wanting to know that I had told him that I did and he said, "Well, Tips thinks you do."
It was so funny.
It was a rainy, slow going day here. I did some cleaning up downstairs, Zaven took another bath, Nell continued cutting her first tooth. She is handling it well.
Then we headed on to BJ's (like Sam's) I need to take my camera some time, they have giant carts and Nell and Zaven sit next to each other, it is so cute! They have the best time together. We got the basics, cashews, cheddar cheese, chicken, tomatoes, atkins bars (for Chris), bottled water...I think that is about it.

Happy 4th

There will not be a viewing of the firworks for us this year.
We went out last year and saw the display, but it is so late for Zaven. He gets all crazy and then i get all cranky. I think we will just forgo it this year. He does not even know to want to see them, so he won't feel deprived.
We have had a nice day.
Started with some Wimbledon, although we are seeing a lot of the same 2 matches that they have been able to fit in between rainstorms. Then we decided to put another coat of Sweet Orange on the wall in the den. Looks a lot better.
Then we headed to the beach. We stayed for 2 hours, but then it got cloudy and a little chilly. So we came home. But it was a good day at the beach. Zaven's friend Merritt was there, so they played. Nell and I sat in the tent and I read. While she stood holding on to my chair. And Chris read and sat in the sun.

Nell appears to be about to get her first tooth. The other day when she was gnawing on my hand I thought I felt one and today I caught a glimpse of something just below the gum. Hopefully she will tolerate the breaking through well and with little fussiness....time will tell.

No plans for tonight. Maybe dogs and beans for dinner if I can get Chris to go for it.

Gotta run, Zaven is ready to get out of the bath!.
LE

friends

it was a great weekend. friday chris and zaven ended up being dressed the same.

later, the morrises came and we were thrilled to have them.
saturday we hit the beach for most of the day. the kids had a great time.
the weather was nearly perfect.
chris had two wedding this weekend. so his busy schedule continued.

church was nice on sunday. i had my first sunday in the nursery and that went well.
ned flew out of providence sunday and ellen and the kids left first thing this morning.

zaven and william had a lot of fun playing. they are just 3 months apart in age.


nell was happy that there were more people around to hold her!

today zaven had a day full of playing with bennett.
then a trip to the dr about his rash...now thought to be eczema. we will start a steroid cream. change sunblock, in case that is the cause. and use benedryl to break the itch scratch cycle. hopefully we can get it cleared up.

i would say we are set for a quiet 4th.

our dryer got fixed today too! so laundry should be a lot easier now.