Jane and the ducks

Dance Class

Sometimes, our favorite pictures are lost in albums filled with 200 pictures or so... Lately, I am really liking small albums with 6 or 7 pictures for the special moments in our lives... Sweet and simple!

 

Jumpsuit Love

 

All of these are from Little Fashion Gallery and I think they are fabulous, so 70's!! My favorite is the last one but it's sold out in Lily's size so now, I have to make one myself!!! That's fine but see, I cannot find a pattern... If someone knows where to find this, please let me know!

The Cook Fatigue

It may be because William left yesterday for 7 weeks... maybe because I watched Fast Food Nation with its strong message against industrial food processing (or at least that's how I interpreted it)... maybe a bit of both and because it is not easy to cook for 2 young children and not have someone (dixit William) who is always happy with everything I make... So today, I have serious cooking fatigue and I don't know what to do about it... we go out of course but we can't do that everyday! Does it happen to you too? Do you have a great new book to recommend? A blog with fresh ideas? Thank you so so much;-)

The cook.

(Other than the above, all is well)!!!

The First Recital

She was so nervous last night and so excited this morning! She played Sleeping Beauty Waltz by Tchaikovsky and I am so proud of her;-) The idea for the side bun came from Elle Magazine, via La Poule (Thank you;-).  

 

Let's go see the Cherry Trees...

If you live in DC, you KNOW that those pictures were taken a few weeks ago;-) Now it's the azaleas that are flowering and the colours all around the city are gorgeous. I have been taking daily trips to our local plant store and I cannot get enough. I spent 2 hours browsing the other day and left with 2 blueberry bushes;-) I try to get plants that either flower in the spring or fall because we are never here during the summer months to enjoy the garden. Time to finish my tea and put on my boots to dig some holes!! Have a great day!

 

La robe de chambre

We are making crepes after school today as per Manon's request. The dough is waiting in the fridge and the pan is on the stove. As soon as the 2 niblets get off the bus, we can get started!

I made this little "robe de chambre" for Lily today. She said she absolutely needed one at night... apparently, the house is too cold;-) Well, the temperatures will be in the 80's until the end of the week so she may not use it much after all...

The pattern is Thadee from Citronille and it runs way too big. I cut a size 8 for Lily and it fit me... see, big! I shortened it a lot everywhere I could... I am not a big fleece fan but I admit it is soft and comfortable so I made an exception and lucky enough, I found 2 fleece Ikea blanket at the bottom of "a" pile.

What I really like about it is the hood...

 

Toasted-Pecan Butter Cookies

It rained all day yesterday and my plans of going to the nursery were ruined! I started to feel as though the day was going to be entirely wasted (didn't feel like sewing) and the girls were back at school after 3 weeks with us so of course I missed them a lot! I thought I would salvage the day by baking cookies and it worked! And it smelled so good in the house! Here is the recipe. These are very very good and super fast to make! Too bad Manon can't take them to shcool (yep, nuts in there)!

 

F. R. Y.

Lily chose the little stashes of fabric and the yarn at Purl. How can you resist those little piles of color? It was my first time visiting the store and it is adorable. I would love to see a store like that in DC and even better, I would make it my workplace!! We also paid a lttle visit to M&J Trimming, a very quick visit because the Guggenheim was waiting...

 

NYC

You could spend days in New York just walking around and doing nothing else (except stop to eat here and there... favorite spots are Pastis for the crowds, Balthazar for the breakfast pastries, Bubby's for the peanut butter pie and Magnolia for you know what;-)... With the girls, I feel good when we include a few culural stops along the way. If Broadway's Little Mermaid is one of them, then that was our first and they loved it of course. I thought it was pretty good too. Other things we saw were Times Square and the amazing red steps, the Brooklyn Bridge (especially loved it after seeing Sex and the City (the movie) last week) and the Guggenheim. Next, I will show you our shopping;-)

 

Summer Dress

I cleaned up the girls closets the other day and now, there is plenty of space to hang newly sewn dresses like this one. I made the pattern myself but the fabric choice was inspired by a project in Weekend Sewing. It was nice to finally use this fabric, it is one my favorite. We are going to NYC today and will be there for a few days... We are taking the girls to see The Little Mermaid on Broadway... needless to say how excited they are!