Oh No! The British are Coming!

By far one of the most delightful things about living in Boston is Patriot's Day. This morning I peeled the rascals out of their beds at 5 a.m., loaded them in the car and made it to Lexington in time to see and hear "the shot heard
round the world." As you can see, the Little Mr. was in fine form and looooved the event. He's been talking about those "Redcoats" all year since the last re-enactment, so it was hard to coax him off the Green. Breakfast with friends in Lexington, parades, a daytime ride of Paul Revere through our town, the Boston Marathon and the opening day of a favorite ice cream stand complete the day. Now I'm off to take a well-deserved nap!

Scavenger Hunt in Harvard Square

This year our oldest celebrated her 11th birthday by inviting a few friends for a scavenger hunt in Harvard Square. The girls had a blast going to Pinnochio's Pizza, Curious George's Bookshop, Out of Town News, an "ancient" cemetary, the Irish Potato Famine statue in the Cambridge Common, counting the rocks in front of Harvard's Science Center and lastly sketching their favorite animals at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. In all, I think we walked about 3 miles! I just felt lucky to keep up with these gals! A fun day was had by all!

The Best Pizza Ever.

Today for "Boys School" I had each boy make a pizza in the shape of the first letter of his first name. The boys had a great time and oh my, did that crust ever turn out deee-licious! It seems like when I make a full pan of pizza the middle pieces turn out a bit soggy. Well, this is the solution--monogrammed pizza! The chef hats were also a hit (while they lasted!).

Pizza Dough Recipe:

Mix these and wait five minutes:

1 Tbs. active dry yeast

1 Tbs. sugar

1 cup warm water

Add:

2 Tbs. olive oil

1 tsp. kosher salt

2-2 1/2 cups flour

Mix and roll into a ball. Let rise for 30 minutes. Knead for a few minutes and then shape into your favorite letter. Let rise for 15-30 more minutes. Bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Add toppings. Bake at 400 for 10-15 more minutes. Enjoy! Yum.

Enough to Make My Heart Flutter

A few years ago on the eve of the "Boston's Best Day" (aka Patriot's Day), a stroke of genius hit and I decided to sew all three of my girls mob caps to wear to the 5:30 a.m.  re-inactment of the shot heard round the world.  Well, much to my dismay NONE of the girls would wear them!  I was so disappointed and stuck them in the bottom of the dress up box.  Just the other day while rummaging for something else in the basement, I came across the mob caps and brought them up with high hopes for this Patriot's Day.   This little cutie took her cap from my arms, promptly placed it on her head and asked if she could sleep in it to keep her hair from getting messed up!  She slept in it, all right, and came home from school and immediately put it back on top of her braids.  In the midst of all our dinnertime/homeworktime chaos, I found her peacefully reading the story of Abraham Lincoln while wearing her sweet mob cap.  Now that's enough to make my mother/historian-wannabe heart flutter!  Love that girl!

p.s. Want to sew your own historically accurate mob cap?  See here for directions.

Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

We celebrated our oldest's 11th birthday this weekend.  Among other festivities, she asked to take in cupcakes to her classmates.  Just to spice things up a bit we decided to make them earn their cupcakes!  In order to get a cupcake, each student had to compute their favorite equation.  Apparently some of the kids grumbled as they figured the equations on their napkins before getting the cupcake, but overall, it turned out to be quite fun!  See if you can answer any of these off the top of your head!  

For her birthday date out with mom and dad, guess where she chose to go?  Yep, the bookstore!  We went in to Harvard Square and had a blast browsing through the Harvard COOP and the Globe Bookstore.  We love that she is such a bookworm (though I think it does run in the family)!

Rockin' Birthday

Once again, to prove that I do stitch in addition to running around taking everyone everywhere, here is a fun birthday present I made.  The Twin's little friend loves High School Musical and Camp Rock, so they thought it would be fun to make her a guitar pillow for her bed.  I just sketched out the design for my pattern and used scraps already in my stash.  As you can see it was quite a hit!

Cheap Thrills

One of my favorite things about Boston is that folks put seriously good stuff out on their sidewalk for those of us with no pride to take and enjoy for FREE!  I hate to admit it, but much of our home has been furnished by really great curbside finds.  Well, now our winter fun has been furnished by a kind gentleman (in a fancy suburb) who set out this vintage 10 ft. toboggan for our sledding pleasure.  For goodness sake, it is long enough to fit our whole family!  It was quite a sight when we tried to fit this into our fully-peopled minivan while still dressed in our church clothes!  I just love that cute tongue peeking out on the driver and eager anticipation on the passenger--what a fun day of sledding!