The Cluttered Pantry

When we started shopping for the items we’d need to hit the ground running with the “wee kahunas” we worked our way down the long list of things for a nursery…and then it suddenly hit us that we actually needed to be setting up the rest of the house for the tiny people we were [...]

These images are part of an ongoing project to capture the colors of nature. I have this thing about shooting nature in ummm nature. Hand held, natural light, in the wind.
Locations as far flung as my own garden and that of my neighbor (who plants thistles and pink roses) to the botanical garden here [...]

Ok, so we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here….but at this point we are planning on a combination of montessouri pre-school and homeschool for the girls, at least for the first couple of years if possible.
There are lots of ways to do this, but regardless of the “school of thought” [...]

How do you review a table that despite perfect styling, excellent accesories and the sustainable path of being able to litterly grow with your children has turned out to mostly be a source for tears and the need to run for ice packs?

The Land of Nod work/play table
The Wee Kahunas and I use this table, [...]

The Cluttered Pantry
I’ll divulge a little too much about myself and tell you that when the world around me starts to press in, starts to feel uncontrollable (I am a self described control freak) I tend to organize my pantry. I’m not speaking in some metaphorical code here, I mean I actually go through [...]

It’s been 5 months since we brought home our two new, adorable, tiny daughters from eastern Siberia. We’re so unbelievably happy to have them in our lives, and we’re even more happy that these two sisters get to stay together. That day in October, when we finally began our 18 hours of air [...]

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. We were just hoping it would be later.
First it was a small thud, then the pitter-patter of tiny feet. We raced up stairs and opened the nursery door and there she was. Zhanna had flung herself out of her crib. The hilarious part is that when [...]

Mark just sent this pic from his iphone to me. I’m at the studio working, and he is in the park with both girls testing gravity. They LOVE the swings so much we sometimes have to bribe them to come back home. We are certain to have to answer for the snowsuits when [...]

Tomorrow, we will have been home with the girls one full month.
Last night we followed our usual routine (sesame street watching after diner, some play time with the many toys downstairs, clean up time which is mostly everyone tossing toys back into the baby jail, potty time, change into PJs, sitting/squirming through Daddy reading [...]

You know that commercial for the Marines-”we do more before 6am than most people do all day…”?
Well, unless they have two toddlers in their care, they are just liars!
Today the girls and I played dress up, chase, slide, pretend cooking, had real breakfast, pretend phone calls, dress up again, read books, ate snacks (real and [...]

Ok, I’ll admit it. The routine being routine is starting to get to me.
The girls are still recovering from ear infections and the weather here in Chicago has been blustery (go figure!) so we have been mostly trapped indoors. And I’m running out of things for us to do.
Don’t get me wrong, shredding up the [...]

To be certain it has been a blur. If that amazingly kind judge in Chita hadn’t waived the ten day wait we would have only been home for a couple of days.
The routine is, well, routine. Bed time, wake time, snack time, lunch time, nap time, bath time, diner time…. All relatively predictable.
What is [...]

They told us the girls would gain weight quickly and make up for lost time. I had no doubt, but never expected the first week to result in so much of a weight gain for each girl! Elena has gained a few ounces more than a pound and Zhanna has gained a pound and [...]

So, we’ve been home for a week now, and the man on man defense we started with works pretty well. Two parents – two children. The next stage of settling in requires the real world transition to a routine that involves Mark back working in the studio. On thursday we realized that with the [...]