Have a great weekend!

Granite State here we come!

It's only Friday morning and our weekend's packed with plans.  Today's dedicated to more house hunting, while tonight's date night!  We'll probably just head to the local pub, and that might not sound to romantic, but my husband and I will be out together WITHOUT our kids!

The Druid - Inman Square, Somerville

Tomorrow I'll take the girls with my parents to visit our relatives in the granite state.  We'll have a pre-Thanksgiving lesson in "living free" (or dying).  You gotta love NH!  It's been a while since we've seen our extended family, and it should be fun.

Saturday night we may join one of the "Maya" families (a Maya family is one with a 3-year-old-girl named Maya who the twins worship - there are multiples) for a German Lantern Festival in Brighton, and Sunday will bring more house hunting.

No matter what your weekend brings, try and enjoy every minute of it.

Too early for Holiday decorating?

I just got off of the phone with a friend who'd just been pre-shopping Christmas decorations.  She has a new home in Chicago that's a craftsman, quintessentially American, and an ideal house to decorate.  She figured that she'd decorate the day after Thanksgiving, while another friend decorates before Thanksgiving so her house will be ultra-festive for her turkey-day guests which seems like a wonderful idea.  So I say, unless you're a major retailer it may be a little too early on November 8th to decorate, but certainly not too early to start thinking about it. 

I love the green pears, green balls, and the wreath hung with a non-traditional fabric.  I also love bulbs at Christmas, it seems so refreshing.

This is a cute tree for a family with little kids or a folky style, from Wisteria 2009



Modern and I love it!




I do a lot of blue on my tree, but without the seashells and faux snow.



This doesn't scream Xmas, it's just nice and subtle.

This table setting from Pottery Barn would be really easy to re-create.  I always display sparkly pine cones which I spray myself with glitter paint from Loews, tthey're nice in groupings, and free!  Also, Amaryllis is a nice alternative to traditional Xmas plants.

Pottery Barn calls this the "Nostalgia" tree and it has apples, stars, and stick ornaments.

This is from Pottery Barn, but the elements are simple: paperwhites, candles, pine cones, and a few decorations.

houzz.com is awesome.

I'm completely obsessed with the site www.houzz.com . It's so easy to lose track of minutes and hours while touring other people's homes and ideabooks for their future homes. Better still, I've recently learned that the site's members are also an invaluable resource. I posted a question to one of my favorite members and within minutes had a response!

Eclectic kitchen idea

Chandelier takes center stage in this room.

Note to self: A cobalt blue door looks so pretty in the snow and dressed for the holiday.

Have a Great Weekend

Let the Halloween festivities begin!  The girls are going to go door-to-door for their first "real" trick or treating experience.  It's yet to be seen if they'll actually wear their fairy (Sienna) and ladybug (Sophie) costumes for more than 5 minutes, but if they do, I'll be sure to post pictures.  Mind you they first modelled and then cried for said costumes until I bought them in TJ Maxx, but a toddler's emotions are hardly rational.

If I were more organized I might have planned a fabulous Halloween Party like socialite Alison Sarofim whose annual bashes included themes like 80s, Surrealism, and Japanese Anime.  But 1) I don't have someone to produce a party like that, and 2) I think hiring shirtless male servers might be a little out of my budget.

Sarofim's "Surrelism" costume



Marjorie Guggelman's vision of "Japanese Anime"

I would also have loved to host the Dia de los Muertos party I mentioned in a previous post.  I'd set up a really cool Altar with neat skulls, lots of flowers, candles, and pictures of people who have passed, and make many toasts to their lives (and after-lives).  Maybe next year......

Dia de los Muertos skull dolls

Enjoy your weekend, and no matter what you have planned make it festive and maybe a little scary!

Love This: Poison Bottle Labels

Having two 2-year-olds limits me to merely planning future grown-up Halloween Parties.  However when I free up to host a real party again, I'll be ordering these Martha Stewart vintage-feel bottle labels from Grandin Road:

http://www.grandinroad.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=21755

Set of 12 Stickers $9

Day of the Dead

Maybe it's my sliver of Aztec ancestestry, but I think Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is fascinating. This blogger http://whippedtheblog.com/2010/10/25/host-a-last-minute-day-of-the-dead-party/

suggested having a Day of the Dead themed Party. The idea is you set up a festive altar and everyone comes with pictures of friends, families, maybe even celebritites that they want to honor, you create one big altar, play festive Latin music, dance, and eat Latin food like guacamole and tamales. I'm definitely doing this someday!

When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, it was an indigenous ritual, and typical to most conquerors they tried unsuccessfully to stop it.  Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, the Aztecs embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, wouldn't that be interesting?

To make the ritual more Christian, the Spaniards moved it to coincide with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (Nov. 1 and 2).

Different Dia de los Muertos traditions include visiting the cemetery where their loved ones are buried, decorating gravesites, bringing toys for dead children and liquor to adults. They sit on picnic blankets next to gravesites and eat the favorite food of their loved ones.  Families also build altars in their homes, dedicating them to the dead by surrounding the altars with flowers, food, pictures of the deceased, and

lit candles.

The store Nomad which is just blocks away from my home sells everything you'd need for your Day of the Dead decor.  From $2.80 Candy Skulls to $500 Haitian Voodoo Skulls.  http://www.nomadcambridge.com/dod.htm

Deceptively Delicious

Do Chocolate Chip Cookies with hidden chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) sound a bit odd to you?  They did to me too, but when I saw the scrumptious photo in Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook Deceptively Delicious, I thought it was worth a try.  A friend gave me the book a little over a month ago, and I've pulled it out for ideas to get my little non-eaters to eat.  Seinfeld's strategy is to secretly add purees of vegetables to kid's favorite dishes: think meatballs with butternut squash hidden inside, or scrambled eggs with cauliflower puree. 

Truth be told, I'm a very inconsistent cook, so for these cookies to be a hit (my husband said they may be the best he's ever tried), the recipe must be foolproof.  Did I mention that my twins helped bake them?  This added a whole other opportunity for error.

The cookies are light and fluffy, which isn't what I typically like (I prefer sugary and crispy), but I do think they're very good, more filling than a trypical cookie, and actually have some nutritional value.  Here's the recipe:
Ingredients
nonstick cooking spray
1 c firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 c trans fat-free soft tub margarine
2 large egg whites
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cup ap flour
1/2 cup oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. In a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and margarine with a wooden spoon or on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the egg whites and vanilla, then the chickpeas and chocolate chips. Add the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low speed until a thick dough forms.

3. Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto the baking sheet, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart. Press gently with a fork to flatten. Bake until the cookies are golden brown and just set, 11 - 13 minutes; do not overbake. Transfer to a rack to cool.

4. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Happy & Healthy Eating!