A few of my favorites...

~ Class for LM:  Baby Moves NYC - Messy Art Class.  This is the most wonderful 45 minutes of singing, crafts and playtime for toddlers.  The space is clean, bright and very comfortable.  The people who come to these classes are laid back and easy to talk to.  And Dawn the teacher and owner is the just fabulous.  Very attentive to the children and adults - we just love coming week after week and look forward to our 2's program starting next year!
For more information on Baby Moves check out their latest page on Facebook...where the LM is featured!  And here is the LM making a bumble bee in class today...

~  The Standard Hotel's Biergarten:  What a fantastic place to break away for a drink after work or a long day or...even to bring the lil one!  I was surrounded by babies at this place, one cuter then the next.  It was a loud and fun scene so the babies were only there to be viewed and could not be heard which was great.  You purchase tickets upon entry to use for beers, bratwursts and pretzels.  This is where I went to break Passover...where I had a large doughy pretzel and a beer while celebrating my friend's birthday.  Great spot for singles, groups (you need to go early) and dates.

~ SJP:  Sarah Jessica Parker.  I walked by her today on the way to Messy Art class with LM.  We purposely walk down Charles Street every Wednesday in hopes of seeing SJP.  Well today was our lucky day.  She was leaving her Charles Street brownstone and had to actually wait for LM and I to walk by in order to get out onto the sidewalk.  Unreal I tell ya.  Unreal.  Unfortunately she wasn't in any kind of exciting outfit...but it was still pretty cool seeing her.

~ Crewcuts:  I used to do the production for the Crewcuts boys line at J.Crew managing all wovens.  I would always melt over the samples that I used to recieve and talk about how I wished I had a boy to dress these in one day...well that dream came true and now the LM is starting to fit into their size 2's.  Bingo!  I ordered the most adorable graphic tees, hoodies, shirts, shorts and bowties for the Guncle's wedding that we have coming up in Mexico in just a few weeks!

Egg Dying 101

Thanks to Martha Stewart, more often than not, my go to guru for everything home + family related - I put on a lovely little Easter brunch today.

This Easter weekend LM spent 2 nights with his Grandparents.  They always have the best time tiring each other out and my hubby and I got to party down.  While LM was on the car ride back to the city with his Papa, I had some time to get some imporant work done to prep my Easter brunch.

We just had a couple of friends over for 12 noon and since it was during the 8 days of Passover where we did our best to keep Kosher (no bread, but yes bacon) I had a nice challenge on my hands.

Here's the menu I came up with based on these data points...
* Scrambled eggs with roasted red pepper & feta
* Brown sugar topped bacon
* Herbed cream cheese with matzo for spreading
* Lox, lemons & celery...
* Fruit salad
* Coffee & OJ
Breakfast was easy, delicious and beautiful.  Took me less then 2 hours to prepare...
10am - Took out 8 oz block of cream cheese to soften; set the table - used paper plates with blue + white stripes which were in the shape of eggs (very cute, got at Target).
10:30am - Took a walk to Murray's Bagels to pick up fresh Nova Lox.
11am - Got the bacon into the oven.  For the recipe click here.

11:30am -
~ Plated the lox with lemon wedges and celery sticks leftover from the Spring Fling party on Friday.
~ Chopped herbs, celery and scallions that were leftover in the fridge and combined well with the cream cheese (seriously, to die for delish)
~ Took out the bacon to cool
~ Set out the leftover fruit salad
~ Whisk together 12 eggs
As our guests walked in the eggs were made and LM had already started to sample...the food was a huge hit.

LM is wondering why the mozzarella balls are falling...I was a bit hungover.  Couldn't strive for perfection at this very moment.  Give me a break would ya?!

Now - you're probably wondering when we're getting to the eggs?  So after looking at a million sites and studying Martha's tricks here's how we dye...
1.)  Boil your eggs + cool; save your egg carton for drying the eggs; set out newspaper on your workspace.
2.)  Using a glass jar for each color, fill halfway with water and add a good splash of distilled vinegar.

3.)  Squish out 5-10+ drops of food coloring into the water mixture.
4.)  Wrap your eggs with rubber bands if you want to create a white design on your egg.
5.)  Dip your egg.  And let it sit in the mixture for a good 5-10+ minutes.
The longer you wait...the darker the eggies get.

6.)  Scoop your egg out with a spoon and place in the reserved carton for drying.

7.)  Once your eggs are dry...go nuts!  Hide em, eat em or throw em in a bed of wheat grass...ha ha ha...

Have fun...We sure did!!  And Happy Easter to all of our friends.

Spring time cherry blossoms

As you may know from my recent postings, I love cherry blossoms.  For the spring fling party that I was having tomorrow night I decided to use cherry blossoms as my main back drop + centerpiece.  They are branchy tall and pink which was one of my theme's colors.  They also...make a huge mess.  No joke!  But that's ok, I still love them.
Anyway, I had placed an order at my favorite spot for flowers on 28th street earlier in the week while there getting white arrangements for Passover.  I ordered one bundle amateurly thinking that this was normal.  Well, guess what one bundle was?  That's right, this forest you see here laid out in my guest bath...
It took me a good hour to weed through this beast of a bundle but once I did...boy did they look good!  For more details on the set up and final outcome of the cherry blossoms for the spring fling party click here!

DIY: Passover place cards

Passover dinner was pretty low key this year but I still like to do it up and make my table look pretty.  I had thought of everything...except place cards.  It was down to the wire and I had to come up with something pretty quick.  So I looked in my fridge and cupboards and whipped something up...

My hubby wanted to buy a stick of fresh horseradish when we were in Citerella picking up ground fish out East over the weekend.  I have to admit, it was so tempting because everything looked so fresh in there.  Since I knew it was a completely useless purchase that we had no need for I thought it would be best used as my place card base.  So I sliced into rounds and took cheese markers to display the names.  My hand writing is awful so they didn't look very professional but none the less...still cute and very functional.

RR does it again!

Brilliant:  A week's worth of dinner menus.  Healthy ingredients, creative menus and full grocery lists to shop for on Sundays!  My goodness.  I really love love this !!
One example...Roast Chicken with Panzanella.  Thanks Rachael Ray!

Gimme some Spring

This shot from the BBG (Brooklyn Botanic Garden) site makes me WANT SPRING!  I love cherry blossoms.  Love.

To do: Visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden...or take a class!

I took a gardening class at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden today.  It was fabulous.  I didn't learn much BUT I got very inspired to plant some flowers and tons of herbs + veggies this summer at my house out east.
The few things that I did learn however were actually very important and a good start for this warm spring season that is upon us...
1.)  ALL soil should be tested for lead.  Especially if you've got lil ones who will be helping you out in the garden (I cannot wait to get LM out there!!).  Supposedly it's easy to find local spots to send a package of your dirt for testing.
2.)  If you're a gardening amateur like myself, you should start your project with wheatgrass.  It looks pretty (I'm going to be using tons of it for a party that I've got coming up in a couple of weeks...) and is very easy to grow!  Well so you think...I shouldn't talk because I haven't seen any buds yet.  But it's great practice and perfect for planting indoors while the weather is still cool.
Tip that I learned: try to plant with your kids if they are a bit older and want to help out.  A darling idea especially for Easter is to use egg shells as the base for your soil.  Here's a quick how to if you want to give this a try...

I am going to use this as inspiration to make the place cards for my Passover dinner...too cute!

Here's a quick snapshot of a flower that I found beautiful while walking through the green house at the end of the class...

And here's a shot of greenery growing out of onions that were planted directly into soil.  Very cool and they told me that kids at the garden did this!  Another crafty idea for some spring fun...

I highly suggest checking out this gorgeous garden - it's worth paying a visit too...or taking a class.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden
900 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11225

      

B or Q to Prospect Park
2 or 3 to Eastern Parkway