Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you had a good one!
It helps when special days come on Fridays or on weekends, it makes it easier to take a pause with much dire consequences…

Paris Themed Birthday Party!

This year she wanted her birthday party in a barn with horses, but since its winter in Minnesota and I was a little nervous about half a dozen girls giggling around and goofing off in horse stables, I steered the conversation in a different direction. And Paris came to my rescue one more time… it was going to be a Paris Glam Party. 

We designed the invitations ourselves and got 5x7 prints from the local pharmacy photo shop.   

Eiffel Tower Cake

I love it when my girls ask me to bake birthday cakes for them. When they were young I tried to get their cakes made at the local bakery but as soon as they were old enough to have an opinion they always opted for me to bake the cake for the party. I think it has less to do with my baking skills and more about the chocolate connoisseur they have become; they love a rich chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache.

The tree’s up…

The Christmas tree went up earlier this week and now every evening I can’t wait to spend a few moments in its nightly glow and reflect on the blessings of this life.

Love the togetherness...

Being an expat, one learns to lean on their spouse, a lot. There is always a balance but during my initial years in the States, the scale was severely skewed with me leaning heavily on DH, not just financially but emotionally as well… leaving my family, friends and job behind in the age of no internet and very expensive long distance phone calls was very tough to say the least, and devastating on some levels. 

But I survived and learnt to thrive largely due to my husband.

And now that we have settled into a rhythm of life, the assurance of each others presence taken for granted, I sometimes fail to appreciate all that that has taken to get us to this level of comfort. Looking back at those years and all that we have been through together since then, fills me with gratitude. I am glad I married the man I did.

It takes years’ worth of moments which brick by brick and layer by layer build the institution called marriage. It took many moments of caring, sharing and meaningful exchanges and few of neglect and disengagement as well for us to grow together and grow as individuals as well, and whether its perfect or not, it is where we are and it is our Present for ourselves, our family and for society as well. 

My favorite lines are the last few from Khalil Gibran's poem on Marriage —

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Happy Halloween folks!

2013 was a special Halloween for us; it was the first time that DH agreed to dress up. I had picked up a skeleton suit for him but he wasn’t sure and so I had not planned anything either so when at the last minute he slipped into the costume, I had to come up with something really fast. And besides an angel and a witch, a girl with long dark hair can always bank on dressing up as Frida Kahlo. A warp around skirt and a shawl that DH had picked up in Spain and a few accessories later, I was ready.

A skeleton, a kitty cat, Frida Kahlo and a fortune teller.

The girls chose their own costumes, a cat and a fortune teller. I wanted to make the cat ear and tail myself but when I found the whole Cat kit in Target for five dollars, I knew my time will not be worth it. So it was store bought (sacrilege), I know.

The fortune teller was a combination of skirts for layering effect and a scarf that we had picked up during our last Paris trip. Rest was accessories from our dressing tables and jewelry drawers…

p.s. sorry about the noisy picture... its a phone picture but I really wanted to share now and not wait for pictures from the really camera :-)

Monarch butterfly costume - DIY

I love it when my kids get creative with the Halloween costumes. There is nothing better than thinking outside the box (box stores in this case).

So last year when my girl said she wanted to be monarch butterfly, I got beyond excited because I knew I will not be ordering this costume online or buying it from a party store, I will be creating it.

Happy 4th Everyone!

It is amazing how each festival is known by its name but the Independence Day is known by the date.

I am familiar with two, 15 August (India’s Independence Day) and July 4^th (Independence Day of United States). So, hope you had a wonderful celebration and if you don’t celebrate freedom day on 4^th then whenever it is… it sure is a blessing to be free.

Sari-Party

Since, my sari pictures were so well received at the ‘discomania’ that I decided to share a few pictures of Sari party that I hosted at my place last fall.

I have travelled and moved so much as a kid that I always felt that I carried my roots in my arms, roots that go beyond my ethnicity and encompass the experiences and encounters that have molded me. I have lived in this state and this country the longest I have ever lived in one place and though it is very different from where I originated, it has significantly contributed to the roots that I have finally began to let go. I have caught myself saying that I don’t want to move again till my girls are in college and that is very unlike me as I used to be.

I have taken a lot from the culture that I now call my home and I have given back equally. It is not possible for any person to live in isolation and with interaction comes exchange of ideas, of philosophy, of books, of food, of hugs and love. Well, this Sari Party was my way of giving back to the community that I have received so much from as a person and as a mother through my kids; It was a pleasure introducing friends to the ‘unstitched fabric’ or the ‘pure fabric (something that has not been spoiled by the needles made out of animal bones). There is usually 6 yards of it but it can be longer depending on the style it is tied around the body and it can be of any fabric from silk to cotton to modern day mixed fabric and has a myriad of patterns and embroideries.

My Birthday through lens

Ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery after lunch at Noodles & Company

Little pastries at midnight or close to it ;-)

Breakfast in Bed

A tour at the James J Hill Mansion

View from the James J Hill House

Waiting for lunch at Axel's

Coffee Mug from girlies...

Birthday gift from Paul J, the perfume connoisseur 

Birthday Dinner cooked by DH

Mussels cooked in saffron and white wine sauce

A leisure walk on Grand Ave

Visit from a friend

My birthday exclamation cake...

A surprise gift from DH, Decorate by Holly Becker

A few quiet moments

Then we filled it with laughter

A very special bookmark 

Birthday rose...

Frida Kahlo + Chef + Witch.... this halloween

I feel very excited when my girls can look beyond the popular culture and let their true self show.
My older one wants to be an artist when she grows up and so it wasn't surprising when she asked me that I dress her up as Frida Kahlo for halloween but secretly I did a happy dance that I was able to break away from the traditional princess and other party shop costumes.

 

My dad thought that I did a pretty authentic job with the rolled up braids, flowers on the head and the classic eyebrows. That pretty much made my day.

It was kind of bumming that a lot of people didn't know who she was dressed as even when she said 'Frida Kahlo' except a few neighbors but she took it in stride...

The costume required a lot of imagination and I ended up customizing a lot of my accessories to give it a more layered look and of course save her from the colder weather when she went trick or treating...

My younger one decided to be a chef, which entailed wearing an apron and a chefs hat and carrying a mixing bowl around. The cutest thing she said was, Mom, "I was chef this Halloween now what will be when I grow up".

And I dressed up as a witch to hand out candies to the trick or treaters...

All in all a good halloween with a big dose of sugar rush. 

A Christmas Cake tree...

Kids are such wonderful way to relive your childhood…

I know this phase is not going to last forever but these days my first born sees me as a role model and wants to do everything that Mamma does.

The latest request is that she wants her birthday to be on Christmas and when I explained that it’s not possible to change ones birth date, she asked for the next best thing. To have a Christmas tree cake but it cannot be lying down; it needs to be standing up tree.

Here’s what I came up with…

I stacked up three chocolate cakes on top of each other and kind of squished the top layer into a conical shape. Rolled up Marzipan that was colored green with food color; I did read about painting with food color after the final layer is in place but thought adding color to marzipan early on gave me more control.

I approached the decoration of the cake like the paper trees that are so popular these days using the scrapbook paper. Saw it at the local Starbucks coffee shop the other day and the idea clicked.

You can tell it was my first time using marzipan for icing, I totally miss calculated the quantity and had to fill in the hole in the leaves with colorful light bulbs.

But as with any creative process, if you are having a good time, it does usually turn out good.

And with the edible gift boxes by the tree and princess surrounding them, it looked pretty sweet… at least that’s what the birthday girl thought.

Merry Christmas!!!