February 2015 - Mermaid City Kids

grateful list

January Grateful List

The Arts

Broad City season 1.
Reading Summer House with Swimming Pool, Her, and The Girl on the Train.
Seeing the new Annie with Anouk and her friends (and loving it).
Listening to Paul Thomkins's comedy album Freak Wharf.
Friends is on Netflix!
Listening to a lot of the Mountain Goats (thanks Dave for reminding me)

Food

Detroit-style pizza from Union Brothers
Chelsea Bake house
Pad thai from Boon (my new favorite Thai place in the 757)
Belizean food at La Cabana (Manteo, NC)

Places

Visiting the North Carolina Aquarium.
Bike rides at First Landing State Park.
Chuck-E-Cheese with Kelly and Molly and the kids (making it rain tickets like the good moms we are).
Discovering a new thrift store (Family Thrift in Virginia Beach).
A much-needed Saturday night out at Winners (thanks J. and T. for organizing).

Stuff

vintage silk comforter from my friend G. (the comfiest thing ever and we all fight over it while watching TV)
They carry Strivectin at Costco! (because I'm cheap and also old)
Gorgeous new yarn in beautiful colors.

Etc.

Game night & winning Cranium with K.
Re-learning to knit.
"I love the dentist, mom. Like, love love." - things I never thought I'd hear my kid say.
Whistling contests in the car with A. and J.
A. doing addition on her math racer app.
Karaoke-ing it up with my ladies. <3

What kinds of wonderful things are on your list?

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, by Cath

12 in 12

A Day in the Life (February 2015)

February 12 this year featured some of my favorite things in the world: food, friends, and snow!! Behold.

10:00 AM: Early playdate with M. and B. The girls make Valentine picture frames, so cute, and then the girls make "dessert" for the dog.

12:30 PM: We make our sesame peanut butter noodles for lunch (from this recipe). It's our fave!

3:00 PM: Working on Valentines throughout the afternoon. We have already done several batches. Anouk might be a little tired of it.

5:00 PM: Snow! A few flurries flutter by as we're leaving to go out to dinner.

6:30: Kids eat free at Guad's every Thursday and it's a little crazy with balloon animals and face paint galore. We meet up with some friends and let the kids run wild while the moms talk.

9:00 PM: Books are read, Anouk is in bed, so it's time for me and J. to watch the Americans and while we do, I work on my latest project. I re-taught myself to knit over the new year and it's a lot more slow-going than I remember. This may eventually be a blanket.

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, by Cath

donuts

Virginia is for lovers. And donuts.

Valentines Day falls on a Saturday this year, which to me means: you go out for delicious breakfast/pastries/brunch on Valentines morning. If you are looking for a kid-friendly destination that fulfills this requirement, allow me to suggest O'DoodleDoo's Donuts, a sweet little retro roadside shop in Suffolk that offers some gorgeously fluffy and delicious cake donuts in creative flavor combinations. James, Anne, and I drove out to sample their wares last weekend, for research purposes of course.

Besides the donuts, O'DoodleDoo's was hosting one of the Virginia LOVEworks and so we all posed for photos with it while we were there. For some reason, Anouk and I are obsessed with the LOVEworks statues and really want to hit as many as we can. For a complete list of LOVEworks locations, click here.

And if you are really interested in a full report, our favorite donuts were the French toast, chocolate fudge, and chocolate-peanut-butter habanero (sweet with a spicy kick). O'DoodleDoo's has dozens of flavors and changes it up their menu on the regular, but their Facebook is really good at letting you know what to expect on any given day.

Happy Valentines Day in advance!

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, by Cath

diy

DIY Paint-with-water Valentines

Anouk originally picked her own valentines this year -- some paint-with-water ones we found at Walgreens. But sadly, when we got home and tried one out, we discovered those store-bought valentines were kind of a bust. The paint didn't paint, the colors ran, the paper ripped as soon as it got wet. But A. was committed to the paint-with-water concept so it seemed we would have to come up with a DIY solution.

We tried a few versions, but our final and most successful valentine was made using watercolor pencils and card stock. I designed the card (according to A.'s careful guidance, there is nothing more micromanaging than a 3 year old) and then we printed them off and she colored them in with the watercolor pencils. (The more color we used and the harder we pressed, the more vibrant the end result turned out). We tested a few by adding water, and they went from patchwork to brightly tye-dyed, just as A. wanted.

I designed these size-wise to fit little envelopes we already had, for small thank you cards. We did include small brushes taped to the envelope with washi tape so our friends have everything they need to paint their valentines at home.

If you'd like to make your own, paint-with-water valentines, I've uploaded our template here.

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, by Cath

diy

Upcycled pom-pom shirt

Anouk inherited this hand-me-down blue corduroy shirt from my friend Molly's son, Z. My kid usually likes lots of glitz and glamour and pink, but I thought this shirt was innocuous enough that it might slip by without comment. No such luck. As soon as A. pulled it out of the pile of clothes: "Mom...this is for a BOY."

The pom-pom idea was something I saw on Pinterest, ages ago. They had suggested sewing the poms (onto a skirt) but I found that the act of piercing them with a needle made them fall apart. And hot glue melted them (I only have a high-temp gun). In the end, we used E6000 craft adhesive, which is usually for working with metals or woods, but it worked great and has been through 2 washes (but not in the dryer!) with no problems.

Anouk loves her quick, cheap, and easy pom-pom shirt! So much so that she was really voguing it up during our photoshoot.

^^ the tongue is her signature pose. SO FASHUN.

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, by Cath

bakery

Kid-friendly dining >> The Bakehouse at Chelsea

We've been reviewing a lot of places to eat lately because...we've been discovering a lot of great places to eat lately! Our latest find is The Bakehouse at Chelsea, down in Norfolk's West Ghent, where you can get delectable pastries, wood-fired European hearth breads, and flatbread pizzas. Not only do they use organic flour, but the folks at the Bakehouse also make a point to use fresh, locally-sourced produce, to boot.

On the morning we went, a group of moms and kids for a little bit of coffee klatch, we sampled raisin scones, pain au chocolat, tarts with fig jam in the middle, and a few different kinds of breakfast sandwiches. It was addictively good. We also took home some goodies -- the loaf of house bread that came home with A. and me didn't last very long at all because we snorfeled it up.

Besides stellar baked goods and a laid-back neighborhood atmosphere, the Bakehouse also features some really knowledgeable employees. When I happened to ask a question about a type of bread, they turned it into a conversation about the different kinds of things that they bake and showed us some of the processes used to create each. (And this is before they knew I was a blogger -- they are just that nice). It was a pleasure to know that the people who made our food were passionate about making it.

Next up: scheduling a date night to sample some of those pizzas.

^^ My thoughts exactly, little B. Thanks for summing it up.

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, by Cath

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January Grateful List

A Day in the Life (February 2015)

Virginia is for lovers. And donuts.

DIY Paint-with-water Valentines

Upcycled pom-pom shirt

Kid-friendly dining >> The Bakehouse at Chelsea

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Pages

January Grateful List

A Day in the Life (February 2015)

Virginia is for lovers. And donuts.

DIY Paint-with-water Valentines

Upcycled pom-pom shirt

Kid-friendly dining >> The Bakehouse at Chelsea

Where We Are

Who We Are

Where to Play

Blog Archive

Search This Blog

Like us on Facebook

Popular Posts

Like us on Facebook

Flickr Images

Instagram

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