fall is here! well... sort of.

Fall is officially here... even though we still have our AC on... and it's still in the high 80s, the kids and I are so happy that fall is here... which means the kids and I get to snuggle a little bit longer in our bed, and wake up to sweet potato pancakes!



It's a simple recipe I got from Deceptively Delicious, where pureed sweet potato intensifies their nutritional value of a maple syrup saturated breakfast. Add a dash of pumpkin spice and even our mouths are welcoming fall!





And Ava of course asks at breakfast, "can we go collect fallen leaves now?" And I have to explain to her unfortunately that being in the south just makes our seasons complicated. Fall is too short of a season for us to enjoy - where here, we can expect it to drop 20 degrees overnight, any day now... so she asks if she can go swimming instead. Not a bad idea...



Welcome fall - although you are technically here, we can't wait to feel you...

Happy Mother's Day!

A bouquet from my two little [and 1 big] lovelies arrived early today... and wanted to pass these along and enjoy them with you...

Have a wonderful day being incredible YOU!

first cut

Lighter than air itself, Noah's hair is a natural wonder - just like him. Born with an ebony shade, his angel cherub soft hair grew into a helmet of golden curls, sprinkled with strands of blonde and brown mixed with a heavy layer of heaven. To me, it was simply fitting to his unique personality.

One of his signature comedic performance is when he'd shut his eyes, pucker his lower lip, and then sway his mane from side to side - making us laugh down to the core of our stomachs. But the inevitable came around the corner. His goddess-like hair turned into a frenzy of layers across his face and eyes. The gradual change surprised me. So I returned the favor, and took Noah to get his first haircut.



Embarrased by the attention, Noah frowned with disapproval. He had missed his naptime thanks to his mother's spontaneous aha moments. He didn't make a peep, and one lollipop later, he would have been happy to sit through a perm from an intern.



I wasn't sure what to tell our stylist, a good friend of Mom's who runs her own salon nearby. I trusted her instincts and in the end, we got a look at a completely different Noah... and he did too.



Hair out of view, his layers now round his face, and soften those cheeks we often bruise with too many kisses.



Cushioned by Grandma's arms, it was Ava's turn to sit in the hot seat. Another bounty of beautiful golden brown curls was surveyed, and we decided a small trim on top would make her trademark curls bounce. Ava liked the sound of that...







Sporting their new do's, Ava and Noah were true champions at the salon. And while I will anxiously await for Ava's hair to lengthen back to pigtails ... and for Noah's curls to hug his nape again, I will cherish the locks they were born with - now resting in their keepsake boxes.

They look different don't they? To me, they already are... portraying the unique faces and wonder they have grown into... ever so gradually...

the art of family

Our children constantly challenge us on how we feel about everything. We find ourselves constantly amused and confused over what seems to be the biggest obstacles to even the smallest of details.

It seems like a lifetime ago when we first learned we were pregnant (actually it was just 3 years ago really) but even so, it was a very exciting time for us - two people from two very different upbringings, cultures and religions, spending countless hours designing and dreaming a future together with little ones.


As we crafted this image of our "family" in our minds, we shared our favorite childhood memories and pastimes and talked about how amazing they were.

Aaron Indiana Jones-ing through sewer tunnels in hopes of discovering a lost artifact. He collected baseball cards and sold blow-pops on the school bus so that he could purchase more than his allowance stretched. Even yet, he truly believed he was the hulk because his arms really did glow under the covers. I played department store and tagged all my dolls while running a register out of my jewelery box. I even made my own chandelier by cutting strands of colorful yarn and taping it around my ceiling's light bulb.

Bliss was running through sprinklers in the summers with your cousins, collecting fireflies at dusk, and just making things out of anything we could get our hands on. I once took a stack of Chinese take-out menus from the front lobby of our apartment building and made Chinese stars so that I could sell them door-to-door. It meant the world to me when one neighbor exchanged what I made with my own hands for a dollar. Looking back, I am grateful to that person, who could have easily shut the door on my face, but instead encouraged a budding entreprenuer to knock on the next door. Moments like these from our childhood resonate deeply. Replicating these moments for our own children seem to be a challenge however. Mostly because of where we live and the obligations we find ourselves so conveniently wrapped up in.

Family gatherings, wooden toys, kites at the park, hand-sewn books, and endless opportunities to be creative, playful and adventurous - that's what childhoods are made of. We envisioned taking it further by adapting a greener lifestyle and surrounding ourselves with things as intended by nature. This was the ideal vision for our new family [of course, that didn't last long when I discovered a very unpractical pair of Ralph Lauren pink suede loafers for Ava.]

Now that Ava is a toddler - her natural wonder and mobility to discover and create things on her own has our hearts racing. And sometimes even out of control. Baby Noah's sweet demure and rebellious breakdowns is a courteous reminder that he is not like his big sister and therefore everything we learned the first time around no longer applies.

Our lives are shifting as fast as they are growing - and that's pretty fast. With what time we had, we raised questions and challenged both our old and new dreams. Things we have been doing suddenly didn't make sense anymore, and things we haven't been doing are now on the priority A-list.

The art of family or the creative process of raising children, is about learning from each other. It's about dreaming and connecting our imaginations together beyond what we know now. It's about growing - and learning and being lucky enough to capture the moments.