Family Fridge

My family fridge is a constantly evolving documentation of our days. The summertime achievements have been taken down for the fall. But not everything changes. I mean the Bob's Appliance Repair calling card will probably stay up there at least another year at least after repairing our stove (we do live in a house from the 1930's and it's not like my husband or I are especially house-fixin' handy.)

So like good ol' Bob's card, there's the reminders and necessities like:

- cub scout calendars

- takeout phone numbers (Pizza House should be memorized, really, though)

- a free ticket to the movies I haven't redeemed

Typical stuff. But I try not to let it get to cluttered. Ha! What I mean is, I try not to let the functional overpower the, well... the cultural. The things on our fridge that capture our family's personality.

Like the art from the boys which I usually change out every week or so. Gallery-style. It's mostly daycare glue-and-fingerpaint projects from Sam, often involving a body part like a thumb or a foot (see butterfly above) or Charlie's drawings.

Charlie's drawings typically depict:

- what shows he's watching (Adventure Time With Jake & Finn above)

- what games he's playing (Castle Crashers below that)

- sometimes comic-book style stuff like a megalodon shark with a flamethrower

Sometimes he tries to visualize what he wants to happen in real life through art. For example, when his classmates were all asked to draw fall leaves, he drew a complex bridge-and-ladder, two tier treehouse scene, complete with Daddy, Charlie, Sam, Mommy, a fire pit, (oh, the actual pile of fall leaves) and even a root system underground where a little worm is checking out the action above. This is because he wants a treehouse. Hey, there's a strategy. But drawing it so complex is probably not winning the arguement with Chris, who would have to build it. Did I mention not exactly handy?

Then there's the actual magnets. Ones that look like:

- cartoon red u-shaped old-school magnets

- legos (my favorites)

- old milk top lids

- vintage typewriter keys

- and even ones that look like iPhone app icons

Sam loves to rearrange the app magnets, because he's iPhone/iPad obsessed. In fact it's becoming a problem. Not the app, game and online video obsession, really... just the fact that the megalodon flamethrower drawing keeps drooping down off the fridge where Sam has removed the You Tube icon magnet.

I don't have a lot of photos. But the ones I do, are tiny little gems.

- a photo booth strip of Kathleen and I from when she was just a teen

- a boat tour of Manhattan tourist pic with me, Dad and Donny (below)

- (it was freezing but also one of my favorite New York memories)

- and these hilarious fake-photos made by my husband, Chris

Chris actually made these for a big annual work event, where all the employees get a "character" card to match the theme of the event, and Chris photoshops together these clever, charming, silly vignettes for everyone. The Toy Story dinosaur one really makes Sam pause and look twice. The shark is a little disturbing. But did I say my husband wasn't fixin' things handy? I misspoke.

I love my fridge. And my family.

Haunted Portraits

Haunted paintings where the eyes follow you are pretty cool. So one Halloween about, oh, five or six years ago, I decided (with the help of my sister and our mom) to make a couple portraits as Halloween decorations – complete with moving eyes. We had some old frames in the garage that would be perfect, and this was back when we were really doing elaborate Halloweens at our parent's house.

I figured out how you do it, is just set the eyes back further within a cutout, and for some reason from whatever perspective you view the portrait from it seems like the eyes "follow" you. I actually painted the eyes on a clear piece of plastic (like from a bakery box lid or something handy) and backlit them with white battery-powered twinkly lights, so at night, the eyes also lit up.

The style of these were definitely inspired by my childhood Victorian phase. The three children are a nod to me and my brother and sister.

We actually did these in one day. Because we may decide to whip up a project on the fly every once in a blue moon (or full moon in this case), but we also like instant gratification, so it's not like these are meticulous by any means – just a whimsical way to spend an October day.

But I do love to stare at them every year. And I love how they always return the favor.

Summer Achievements. Snow Cones. And Zombies.

Even though the heat lingers on (at 100° plus in these parts), the kids are back at school and summer is officially over. That means taking the "Summer Achievements" down off the refrigerator.

This achievement system was masterminded by Charlie, who was inspired by the extra achievements you can earn on our favorite household iPhone game, Plants vs. Zombies (sorry Angry Birds, you've been replaced). So basically if you've already won the entire game, oh, say two or three times (like Charlie and I have together) you can still get your fix by running over a certain number of zombies on your front yard with the lawn mower, for example, thus earning yourself these bonus merit-like badges.

Charlie came up with the idea to use the merit badge system to track some of his big summer to-do's, like learning how to tie his shoes with the "Knot Up" achievement. Completed and paid! Uh, yeah, there was a monetary reward included for a little extra oomph. But let's just say Charlie and I both earned that five bucks ten times over after all the drama and tears that went into mastering a shoelace tying technique that would last more than five minutes out the front door.

But other achievements like Nappy Happy (trying to get a seven-year old to still take naps on Sunday afternoons so mom can crash, too)... not as successful.

Other summer projects were just to beat the boredom, like a summer camp diorama kit I got at a hobby store. Charlie and I put it together one Sunday afternoon when it was too hot to go outside and he wouldn't take even the shortest mid-day snooze (which pretty much described every Sunday this summer).

Now, technically, the zombies did not come with the kit. I don't think this particular hobby store (let's just say they close on Sundays for other reasons) would really carry that kind of family fun. So we kinda added that part ourselves. But, hey, we've always defined our own brand of wholesome entertainment around here.

I mean, like how much more Leave It To Beaver can you get than catching the ice cream truck on a summer evening? Of course, that ice cream truck would be like zombie bait in any true neighborhood infestation. That music alone would draw them for miles.



Which is why Sam is on high alert. He's always spotting zombies. "Zshombeees" in Sam-speak.



Oh yeah, they are totally coming down the street. Charlie, make sure your shoes are knotted tight. And someone start the lawn mower.

Lego Condo

So about a week before our entire-family-beach-trip, Charlie and I started fantasizing about what the three-story condo we were going to rent was going to be like. I firmly believe that anticipation is the best part of any vacation, so we decided to build our preparatory vision out of the best toy ever invented... Legos.





First, we had to be sure our Lego getaway was in fact three stories, which was the most mind-blowing thing about the whole condo-to-be since we usually stay in like hostel-similar hotels when we go to NYC and when we were kids we'd all cram into one motel room. Second most important feature to capture was our very own pool in the backyard. So I tackled the towering condo. Charlie worked on the pool. Then we connected it together...







... and added the most important factor. Little tiny food.

The actual beach house did not disappoint once we got there. Our family went nuts running up every story picking out our rooms and screaming our heads off. Kathleen is doing a great documentation of the beachy-aspects of our trip. So not to be too redundant, here's what happened exclusively "in the house":

Top 5 Actually-In-The-Beach-House Moments:

1. Kathleen and Charlie leaping in the pool with all their clothes on the minute they jumped out of our two-car Honda Fits family caravan after two days of driving.

2. Working assembly-line style in the kitchen putting away the week's worth of food we went out and got that evening from the grocery store. Then Kathleen said she felt like some group of crazies was going to trap us in the house or hold us hostage... or something like a giant post-apocalyptic flood was going to force us to barricade in ourselves on the third floor and we'd have to live off of our cornucopia of snacks from the Publix. Each eating only one Whole Wheat Wheat Thin a day to ration ourselves.

3. Standing on the balcony two days later waiting for Donny and Anna (his girlfriend) to arrive from New York City. When they stepped out of their rental car below we started screaming. Donny told us that when they rented their car at the Mobile, Alabama airport the lady behind the counter told them (as they were both all tall and clad in black and grey with beautiful severe features) that they "looked like people from the TV." They played it cool, but then quickly got in the car and got all puffed up, gleefully repeating "we look like people from the TV!"

4. Playing our own version of Marco Polo in the pool that Donny invented where you start off as a zombie (in his case a zombie with a wet drooping disheveled mustache), and groaning a lot with your eyes closed had to touch someone else in the pool (pretending to eat their brains optional) and then they became a zombie too and so on and so on. Lots of screaming again. The neighboring renters, a nice elderly couple who walked their cute dachshund dog every day, probably just didn't know what to think. Except to keep a close eye on their little dog for fear of him getting devoured.

5. Mom making us write our names in Sharpie on our one blue plastic cup we were allocated and Kathleen writing "Forget You." (A clean homage to the Cee Lo song).

6. Completing jigsaw puzzles with the microwave timer counting down our deadline... you know to keep the pressure on.

7. Dad with his fishing rod out by the pool, trying to catch discarded socks and diving sticks in the water by casting in an actual hooked lure, inches from little Sam's face. I never doubted. My dad casts like an expert archer hits an apple on an assistant's head. Or in our family's case, like Donny can whip a cigarette out of his assistant's mouth (or is that the other way around?)

8. Always forgetting something that you needed on the third floor. A blankie, the sunscreen, an iPod, shoes... underwear. I didn't really mind going up and down the Vertigo-like stairs. It was kind of fun, like a fitness challenge. When you're spending all week in a bikini next to P90-X girl and a girl who dances for a living... um, you can use some extra steps to keep you fit. I just thought of my kids shouting down the stairwell as my personal trainers.

9. The stairwell itself was especially interesting at night. Everyone had bedrooms on different floors. According to my sister, if like Sam would even peep in his sleep in one room, I'd be bounding down two flights in the dark, on marble freaking floors, in an eerily responsive flash. Have I mentioned we are a family of intense sleepwalkers, sleepwalkers... sleepscreamers? Screaming is a theme. Wait, maybe our family is the group of crazies that descended upon the house after all?

10. Taking my kids around the house to say goodbye on our last day. Goodbye third floor balcony where we had an impromptu afternoon dance party during an impending thunder storm and Kathleen pretended to be Lady GaGa, hiking her cutoff shorts up her rear and prancing around with her "paws up." Goodbye giant winged ant bugs that liked to drop down into our bed right when my husband and I were finally alone, cozying up and about to fall asleep. Goodbye marble staircase that no one (thank God) broke our neck on. Goodbye kitchen counter where after biting into one of Kathleen and Jeremy's healthy no-meat hotdogs, Charlie commented "this hotdog is good, but I think it needs a weenie inspection." Goodbye zombie pool. Goodbye beautiful beach house. See you next year. Don't worry, you'll hear us coming from a mile away. Screaming.

Angry Bird Birthday Cakes

My two boys' birthdays are on the same week. So I've been doing these combo cakes the past couple years for them. This year I did Angry Birds cakes. I was so close to just doing two side-by-side iPhone cakes with all their little game apps as tiny square construction paper icons, but decided the birds were more of a crowd pleaser. The crowd being our family for our family-only party (surprise, surprise).

A couple of years ago Super Mario Brothers mushrooms.

But every year is something fun. I have no baking skills, these are all straight out of the box from a mix, two tubs of white icing, a ton of food coloring and a butter knife. But I just wing it. As did our mom growing up. We always had crazy (if not precisely executed) cakes, like:

flower cake (complete with fuzzy bees stuck in with wires)...

big pink lips (totally appetizing, right?)...

and one of my all time favorites Pizza Cake!

I remember the first time I followed in my mom's cake footsteps was for Donny's tenth birthday (so I was around thirteen or fourteen) and I helped make him a Freddy Krueger face cake from Nightmare on Elm Street for his sleepover party.

We made pinkish red icing for his skin, and then made it all squiggly and deteriorated, and then made it so he was holding one gloved hand up by his cheek and used strips of tin foil for his finger blades. It was so awesome. Alas I have no pictures of that one. But I promise to post it if it turns up some day.



In the meantime, I'll just have to save the disfigured serial killer face cakes for when my boys are a bit older. The Angry Birds are edgy enough for now.

My Little Apprentices

So I saw this speaker at our local TEDx conference, Jeff Sandefer, give a great talk about education revolution and how our kids are not widgets and so on. One thing he said that really stuck with me, was that before the Industrial Revolution, where everything was assembly-lined, including our schools, that parents used to "apprentice" their kids in their own trade.

I thought "you know, I can draw, Chris can draw," I am going to teach Charlie our "trade." On a side note, I've also been trying to teach Charlie to "use his powers for good and not evil." (No, not because of this devil drawing.)

So a couple weeks ago I really started working with Charlie. Showing him how I "broke through" to the next level of drawing when I was his age. And, get this, it really worked! His pictures are looking sooo good. I picked him up the other day from after care, saw an amazing Finn drawing stuffed in his backpack (Adventure Time With Finn & Jake anyone?) that he had done from memory and was like "that's awesome!" Then this too-cool-for-school eight year old girl with crimped hair and about a billion arm wrap bracelet thingies who was standing there, gravely said "he's a true artist." Yes. Affirmation of your peers. I lived for that kind of stuff back then ("back then," heh... who am I fooling?)

But last week this apprenticeship took a commercial turn, let's say. Ironic since my actual trade is advertising agency creative director. We were all hanging around on the back steps and Charlie found a stick in the backyard.

Inspired Charlie: "You know what I'm going to do with this stick?"
Me: "What?"
Inspired Charlie: "I'm going to make a flag..."
Me: "Okay..."
Inspired Charlie: "A flag for Sprite!"
Me: "...."

And that's what he did. He is obsessed with Sprite. To him it's like it's the nectar of the gods. It's the only soda he ever gets to drink, and he's only allowed to have a cup when he's not using his powers for evil. Then he always takes this huge swig and swishes it around in his cheeks before he swallows. It's the American Dental Association Approved technique.

So he deadly seriously draws this flag on white paper. (With Sharpie, no wimpy pencil lines underneath... grasshopper is learning quickly). He has me help him tape it to a stick, and then, well...





...flies his freak flag.



But here comes Sam. He must have the flag.



And he's pissed.



So he gets the flag. We may have to apprentice Sam in hostile takeovers some day.



Then everyone gets snarly.



Then Mommy saves the day.

Sam doesn't fly anyone's freak flag but his own.

Devil Inside

So momentous occasion. This, my friends, is that very first time you find a devil picture in your child's backpack.

Time to check his still-baby-blonde-hair for triple sixes beneath the scalp, look for small animal bones under his top bunk mattress, make sure no lipstick is placed in easily accessible backwards-writing range of any mirrors... and stop feeding him pea soup.

You know, just in case.

Donny's Bag

This is Donny's trusty bag. In off-seasons it travels with him across the country on his burlesque tours, in more touristy times it rides the train from his Brooklyn apartment to the glittery lights of Times Square where Donny sometimes works as a sidewalk barker for Ripley's Believe It Or Not. And of course from Memorial Day to Labor Day it spends many long afternoons resting in the sideshow dressing room at Coney Island (on the floor next to the snake's tank to be exact) while Donny runs the ten-in-one for the constantly revolving crowds.

It also comes home with him on the holidays. He packs light. Spare socks in one side pocket, spare undies in the other. One pair of skinny jeans inside, rotating out with the pair he wears. The same system with his button-up shirts, one white, one chambray. And a couple wife beaters for good measure.

When his tour came through Oklahoma, he showed off a smaller companion leather sort of dopp kit bag that matches this bigger saddle-style-backpack one. He was very proud of it. I was like "um, Donny, are you going to do something real with your money, or are you just going to keep buying bags?" Kathleen thought this was hilarious. I think it hurt Donny's feelings a little. I was halfway through my second ungodly strong vodka tonic, so I am absolved.

Lastly it comes with this odd white thingamabob.

Which actually isn't strange at all. It's kind of sweet. It's a viewfinder. The picture inside? That's Anna. Donny's "girl." Wowsa, right? You don't know the half of it. But this post is about traveling light, so Anna tales must wait for another day (and for me to be sure that she doesn't mind getting the Thomas treatment, i.e. telling all to anyone who'll listen.)

So in the meantime, like Donny's spare socks, just know she travels with him wherever he goes.

Halloween Countdown

It's the most wonderful time of the year.



So what's coming out down from the attic at our house this week?







Halloween of course.





Cheesecloth is a staple.



There's plenty of carving in our future. But for now, just pumpkins waiting for faces.



These get a little attention in the meantime.





This is just my house. Almost a little too cute, verging on a Martha Stewart, Real Simple version of Halloween, right? But don't be fooled, we are some serious Halloween purists around here. No stuffed scarecrow. No way no how. No cutesy harvesty hay bales. Uh uh. You'll see. More to come from this family when it comes to Halloween. I'm sure you're shocked. The freak family loves Halloween.

This is just the countdown.