party preparations

after chanda left for her patrelle nutcracker rehearsal, i got ready for her birthday party. korrina stopped by after work to help out. it was nice talking with her while preparing the scallops and shrimp and spinach salad.

she laid out all the nuts and dried fruit and cheese that i had bought from the coop in our pottery dishes.

it all looked very appetizing and i made a ginger ale punch in the glass bowl (ginger ale, seltzer, ginger sorbet . . )

final birthday party preparations!

 making gael's goody bag with the cowboy print . . 

 packing the quill pens with the ink bottles . . 

 and putting up with the photographer . . 

greg was cleaning while i was cooking . . i mean . . taking photographs . . well, it was a cooking break! the menu consisted of dilly brown rice salad and black bean salad (along with red bean and quinoa chili for saturday night's dinner, all from cynthia lair's feeding the whole family); celery salad with red kidney beans (a norwegian recipe from my brother-in-law's family); pasta salad; muffins (corn molassis and gluten free strawberry from pamela's pancake mix); and the piece de resistance: flourless chocolate cake, only tripled this year since i forgot to get extra butter. but tripled is easier. my pots or bowls don't quite hold quadrupled . . whenever i make this cake i always want to make another batch the next day . . it is so good.

summer strawberries and birthday party preparations

we've been eating fresh local strawberries these past few days. they are so good! it's a nice change from bananas and apples. 

this morning chanda worked on the cloth bags and morgana finished the linings for the pencil cases. in the midst of this the quill pens arrived. yay! i was worried they wouldn't get here in time.

 a nice part of summer . . strawberries and cream . . 

morgana also tore the paper for the book pages . . we're working on how to sew it together. i think the answer is a simple coptic stitch. (oh! so simple, she says!!)

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later today, chanda and i went up to talk about her costume with her dance teacher. the unitard i dyed just is not working. it just doesn't look right. today, with input from korrina, morgana and some of the other dance students, chanda decided to try brown linen shorts with a striped green top. (sigh). we've never had so much trouble with a costume before. thank goodness korrina is set with a black unitard, and morgana with her dyed silk dress, leotard and tights.

party preparations and schoolwork

this morning we enjoyed the bread chanda and i picked up at balthazar's. 

 

and started reading evangeline. (it's a beautiful old book i found on alibris.)

i blocked the shawl for morgana's ballet school's fundraiser . .

and camille came over to help sew party prizes . . 

 

chanda got to watch fantasia after doing all her work, and then she and morgana watched children of theatre street with camille after dinner. they went to bed late, but it was fun for them to hang out together working on birthday party crafts.

summer-like spring days

morgana's birthday party is sunday and she has been busy making prizes for the treasure hunt she wants to have in prospect park. the children will be divided into groups of three and there are prizes for first, second, third and fourth place. one of the prizes is a stationary kit (work in progress above).

chanda and i traipsed to the east village to get 16 glass jars of black cat india ink as part of the party favor (along with a feather quill pen, 16 of which should hopefully arrive in the mail on friday). it was a very warm walk. it's been in the upper 80's with 96 percent humidity.

 we had a nice dinner all together, of niman ranch burgers and a salad. 

hanging in there

tonight was the first gilbert and sullivan performance. after a tiring week of tech and dress rehearsals, morgana and chanda slept in.

when morgana woke, she worked on her birthday party invitations. chanda . . read redwall and did about 100 handstands.

greg and i went to see the show this evening, and it was wonderful. morgana was a mean and salty pirate, and chanda was a sweet mikado daughter. we were all very tired when we came home; korrina also as she had work and then script analysis class.

thursday errands and activities . .

korrina, morgana and chanda shared studio time this morning. here m and c are entranced by . .

the usual ongoing construction that keeps nyc busy!

while k worked on her dance . .

after the rehearsal, chanda and i walked to dick blick to get dye for the t-shirts for the party tomorrow. on the way back we walked through nyu's washington mews. it houses their french and german departments.

the roses are beautiful . .

morgana and korrina did some water color paintings that will be turned into bookmarks for birthday party favors.

in the evening, m and c and i had high five tickets to see the new york city ballet. we ran into an old ballet friend there! it was very nice, and we were all happy because our favorite ballerinas danced this evening: wendy whalen, jennifer ringer, and maria kowroski.

oh wow, a bathroom picture! yes, a recently renovated bathroom in the new york state theatre . .

sewing and history

chanda awoke and immediately continued working on her felt leaves for her birthday party tomorrow. she'll be handing them out with butter leaf cookies in a goody bag.

she sat in bed and listened to the city under the back steps until it was time for breakfast. afterwards, we did a little history, italian and violin, and then she started sewing again.

morgana is working on a map of ancient babylon. today, we started reading about the minoans, and theseus and the minotaur. i'm looking forward to reading more from the book: the palace of minos at knossos.

party preparation

m's 14th birthday party is tomorrow, so our friend (who is very much like a sister to the girls) came to stay the night and help out with last minute details. we were finishing up the party favors and needed more i-cords, so here they are busily knitting away as m and i made the cake.

after i-cords and cake making, it was time to slice the strawberries to have with the cake.

the birthday cake

m wanted a flourless chocolate cake . . . now last year she felt that the pieces we served to the 30 or so people that were at the party were a bit small as we only tripled the recipe. . so this year do you know what she made us do? QUINTUPLE the recipe, and all at once!


the egg whites almost ran over the bowl rim, and we were just a little worried that they wouldn't stiffen . . 19 egg whites! we were so careful to slide the sugar down the side and not plop it in the center where it can make the whites fall . . (which happened to us once when we were making angel food cake).


the big pot came out of the cupboard as great grandma's bowl wasn't large enough to hold egg whites, egg yolks and 1 kg of chocolate! (we didn't have enough . . we had to run to our trusty culinary ally for more).