Daddy and Daughter Dance and a great Fundraising idea!

The girls' school has this wonderful fundraising method that takes the place of selling candy and
wrapping paper. It's called Great Gatherings. Maybe this is something everyone has heard of with school age children, but this was a first for me!

The idea is that teachers/ parents/ families of the kids that attend the school offer a "gathering" and set a price to attend. The host donates their time and any financial outlay for the event. All the proceeds then go to the school. Gatherings include anything from a group hike, kite-boarding lessons,  to mother- daughter tea, wine & canvas, beer & brats, and sushi & sake evenings (this last one we just hosted!) Some are adults only, some kids only, and some are for the entire fam.

In November, there was a big bash for parents only. You bought tickets for $25 and got your pick of whatever food you wanted from 4 food trucks and the opportunity to sign up for a Great Gathering or ten of them. This is such a great idea for providing creative opportunities for families to get to know one another and to decrease any financial outlay for the school in order to raise funds.

One of the Great Gatherings we signed up for was the Daddy Daughter Dance. It was for K-3rd graders and their Dad (or any other special male guest, i.e. Grandpa or Uncle). L & S had so much fun getting ready for their big night. We borrowed some fancy dresses from cousin Luna and curled their hair and even put on some colored lip gloss and eye shadow, fancy!!  It was a bit of a battle to convince them not to wear their dress-up 'high heels' (I won in the end). They had a blast making special tiaras and wands, eating fabulous cupcakes, drinking pink lemonade and of course, lots and lots of dancing.

Dad and Grandpa were fantastic dates! I couldn't help but volunteer for the event so I could take pictures:)

April Celebrations I: My Annual Celebration

I am obviously still trying to catch up with my posts… My birthday this year was the first one that the girls understood what was going on. It was neat to see them so excited that it was my birthday; and it seemed genuine, not just ecstasy over their own ingestion of cake. There was a slight disruption during gift opening time though when Lucy barged right into almost tearing the first one open (note to my mom: the princess wrapping paper probably didn't help).

When my sister or I had a birthday, my mom would often get the other one of us a small gift to decrease the chances of a sibling meltdown. While naturally I will not have to worry about this on L & S’s birthday, the thought did cross my mind to get them something small on my day. I changed my mind. And it worked just fine. It might be different if there was another sibling in the mix however, especially if she had to watch both her sisters open gifts on the same day.

I started the day walking the girls down to the coffee shop so I could get my birthday drink and goodies. We met Dave down by the harbor around lunch. We did, one of my faves, Indian takeout, and then all had a hand in the creation of my birthday cake. It was a coconut white cake, which had a ‘fancy’ frosting that took about 25 minutes to whip. It was worth it!

Thanks Fam for a great day!

Burns Night and The Haggis

The Haggis

Our fellow friends Tony and Michelle hosted a Burns Night this weekend and it was quite the
culinary adventure. I had never heard of Burns Night before so to bring us all up to speed I did some Googling. Burns night (and the Burns supper) is a celebration of the life and poetry of Robert Burns. He died at the end of the 18th century, and apparently the Burns annual celebration began shortly thereafter and has continued to this day. He was Scottish and a Burns night consists of eating Haggis & Neeps (turnips), drinking Scotch Whisky, and reciting Burns' poetry- all of which we did!

This is just part of the lengthy Address to the Haggis that is recited prior to serving:

 His knife see rustic Labour dicht,
An' cut you up wi' ready slicht,
Trenching your gushing entrails bricht,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sicht,
Warm-reekin, rich!

But mark the Rustic, haggis fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his wallie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whistle;
An' legs an' arms, an' heads will sned,
Like taps o' thristle.

Ye Pow'rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinkin ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer,
Gie her a haggis!

And then with a huge knife, the host slashes the haggis open. And of course many "toasts to the lassies".

What is Haggis? I had an idea but Wikipedia says it nicely: Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a sausage casing rather than an actual stomach.

They special-ordered it from a place in New Jersey that makes the stuff. I was glad to hear that, since it was made in the US, there were no lungs in the mix (since that is illegal here). They did get a vegetarian one as well.

Now, for anyone that knows me, I really had no intention of eating the real Haggis. However, I wanted to write about it, so i had to try it. And I did. I filled my plate with a little real Haggis, some vegetarian Haggis, and neeps. The girls plates also consisted of the same. I took a bite. It was really quite wonderful! It's no surprise Dave liked it, but the girls snarfed it down as well! We even had seconds (and my second serving was significantly larger than the first).

I have to say I am pretty proud of myself for trying it:)

Slainte!!

Belated Birthday (Post)

Of course I cannot believe my little girls are already THREE. But we all know and have been told
my many many other parents about how quickly time flies with children. But... I also know that I never really understood it until it happened to me. I still don't understand how time works. When I was a kid time seemed to drag on and on. It seemed to take forever for my birthday to arrive and the same for Christmas. It seemed like the school day would never end, the weekend would never come, I would never become a teenager, and it took centuries to get my drivers license.

My theory was that with so much change, time seemed to spread out because there were so many turning points, so many milestones. But even as a kid, summers still flew by, as did vacations, and holidays... I guess it made sense: summers, vacations, and holidays were glorious, magical times that just made everything extra special and we didn't want them to end.

But how can one life event feel like it happened so long ago but at the same time feel like it was only yesterday?  It seems so long ago that Lucy and Stella were teeny babies, but not that long ago that they were born. My only conclusion is that, as adults, (especially with kids), we are experiencing these things simultaneously. We are experiencing so much change within our children- so many turning points, so many milestones- that can potentially make time seem longer... but there are also so many precious moments that you want to hang on to, whether its an actual vacation or holiday or just a lazy afternoon (the kind that you may not have appreciated when you were young).

Birthday lunch, poolside
next to their private cabana

As we age, as we grow, we learn to appreciate the simple things, the relatively insignificant things... we learn to appreciate these things as the truly glorious, magical times that make life extra special. These things happen every day, all day. It's those lazy afternoons; its those victories whether its potty training or empathy; its a funny joke, its a funny face; its seeing someone else smile; it's feeling wonder; it's fresh air; it's picking tomatoes; it's real vanilla ice cream with a cherry on top...And we don't want these things to end, because we know now that these are the things that are our life. Our beautiful life.

So it makes sense that maybe life can seem like its flying by at times; but while we may never want our personal precious moments to end... if we can have the ability to find magic in our every day- make our own daily turning points, our own daily milestones. Then maybe that, will provide us with enough change every day to make our lives feel a little longer, and if that doesn't work, at least our lives will be that much better as we take note of our surroundings and dig in to enjoy that ice cream.

Stella eating a dirt pie on her Birthday!!

And on another note, we had a bug-themed party for them this year as they are pretty fascinated by these little creatures (I am trying my best to not freak out when there is a creepy crawly). We had plastic bugs everywhere along with bug catcher nets, make-your-own bug boxes, and grandma came with homemade bug skirts (before she even knew about the bug theme), pretty cool!

The Big Birthday Surprise

It was Dave's 30th birthday this year... and I have been thinking about it, well, basically since his last birthday. I wanted to do something big for this milestone.

We had several friends turn 30 this year, and several of them had surprise parties. So I thought, why not be unoriginal... and throw a surprise 30th birthday party for Dave?! I started thinking about it in October... started talking about it in November... Dave's dad and brother secured their tickets... I sent out save the date emails.

I didn't know where it was going to be yet, but I knew it couldn't be at our home... being that I definitely could not keep that hidden. And, I thought no kids was probably the way to go as well; as least no Treiber kids- we love em' but if they were there, everyone but us would be 'partyin'. So the research began: do I know anyone who would let us use their house? What about having it at a bar/ restaurant? Renting out space at a hotel? Well, I didn't want the liability of doing it at a friend's house; hotel/ bar/ restaurant would be extremely pricey... and we would have to eat/ drink their food and we would be constrained to their time table. So I started thinking, and since Dave's family was flying in as a surprise too- why not rent a house where they could stay and could double as the party spot? Done.

It was less than a mile away from our home and we had it for Friday and Saturday night. This way, I was able to drop off all the supplies on Friday, cook/ setup etc. on Saturday afternoon. I "fake" worked both days so Dave wouldn't start getting suspicious.

On Friday evening (after my fake work and really picking folks up from the airport) we went to Peter's Inn for a late dinner. We had it all planned out so 10 minutes into our cocktails, a couple of gentlemen walked in- that just happened to be Dave's dad and brother! Surprise #1= success.

That night I was trying to convince Dave to relax and said I would drive the family back to their "hotel". We didn't want Dave to know about the rental house just yet, because that would ruin the surprise for the next day. Unfortunately it was snowing, and there was no convincing Dave... so he drove them back to the hotel we said they were staying at (The Radisson downtown Baltimore). By then it was after 1AM, and his Dad and Bro had to find a cab to bring them back to their true lodging place- I guess it took almost an hour due to the weather etc (sorry guys!).

The big party day- Saturday. So I went off to "work" again at a made-up Financial Literacy Festival. I came up with a speaker that I thought my mom would like to hear... so I could have her come for part of the afternoon to help out. I had a few friends come early to help with food and decorations.
I got home "from work" around 7PM. I was picking up all the guys to go to a design show first then off to another party (which was actually going on, and Dave even bought special beer to bring to). We hop in the car, miraculously found parking in the busy neighborhood and approached the door. It was locked. LOL. So I snuck around to the window and started making faces to try to get the awaiting 'surprisers' to open up without Dave seeing anyone. It was a close call, but it worked. We walked in to a lot of noise and a big "Surprise!". We had 25+ who showed up despite the icy weather- we had a great time! Surprise #2= success- Welcome to your 30s Dave!