Weekend Round-up!

Greetings from freezing Chicago!

Sorry I've been MIA over on the blogesphere; we've been busy with heaps of family events and parties! Thankfully we made it to that white winter wedding (it even made the evening news!) in one piece (minimal skidding involved!), and we made sure to party hard with the adorable bride and groom (you can view some pictures of the wedding party here). I haven't had much face-time with my computer this week, apologies for the lack of posts! But here are some links from around the web that I've been meaning to share with you all:

- Dwell Studio now does mobiles.

- PASKEZ Teeny Bits Cookies featured on the Not Martha blog!

- A new and useful mom-in-the-kitchen app.

- Dreaming of springtime in this awesome bracelet...

- An easy ode to Valentine's Day.

-  The most adorable little French bow-ties.

Wishing you all another fabulous weekend!! Stay warm my cold-weather compadres!

Jet Pack

Happy (belated) Monday everyone! (This image from here had me totally smitten while packing...!)

We're out (and cold!) in Chicago, but it's warm and toastie in this Skokie fortress with all the siblings and cousins filling up these large empty modern spaces of my childhood home! Packing for this weather was so very far from an easy feat. There was just no way to keep to a packing method or system - much too much gear, layers, cold-weather-accessories to keep it light... Left me feeling very out of control! :)

Our flight here was lovely - JetBlue always manages to keep it pleasant! Freida and I inhaled one too many bags of the complimentary Terra Sweet Potato Chips (apparently they moved up and on from the blue tubers), and Manasseh enjoyed the (all kosher!) contents of their ShapeUp box. While those super-cool seat-back TV's are highly convenient (and we enjoyed plenty of Food Network, ESPN, HGTV, and TVland; Freida is still feasting on Yo Gabba Gabba, so we made sure to download a few new episodes on iTunes (and print out a few Gabbaland themed coloring sheets, as well). Also, I make sure I got at least the bare minimum of these in-flight favorites!

Now that we are finally here and settled in, it looks as though the weather will be shacking us up for quite some time.... I'm quoting the news-folk here, "potentially the biggest storm this country has ever seen."!! While we will be trekking out to the wedding on Wednesday night (someway, somehow!), we most definitely will not be getting out much before then. Tonight we stocked up with the makings for s'mores, grilled sandwiches, soups, plenty of Netflix and magazines, and, of course, hot cocoa. And I'm being real thankful my mother kept all the great retro toys we played with as kids - the basement is grandchild-grand-central!

P.S. If you've ever been delayed while flying JetBlue and found yourself wondering why.... :)

Cool Runnings

If you haven't noticed, I'm super stoked about our trip to Chicago next week, and I've got winter on the brain! With my childhood in Canada and the Mid-west, I really had my fair share of snow sledding experiments (in 4th grade I even broke my leg while doing some casual hill-side sledding at a friend's in Wisconsin), and test-running all sorts of sleds downhill. Funny how some things never change; apparently I'm still in the 4th grade - on the lookout for the hippest most ergonomic sled of the season! And it looks like I've found it... The Zipfy Mini Luge is one of the cutest compact sleds I've ever seen. It promises top-notch safety, easy-as-pie maneuvering, and the most thrilling downhill ride! The small-scale production is the factor that truly steals my heart (at only 3.5 pounds and 13"L x 21"W x 16"H!!), not to mention me being a sucker for all those bright color options!

Zipfy Mini Luge, $35.00

And if you think the Zipfy is cute, check out it's little brother - Zipfy Junior (ages 3-5)!

Zipfy Junior, $29.99

New York Magazine wrote about the debut of the Zipfy in 2008 and was quoted having said, "Where the average plastic saucer lumbers down a city-park hillsides like a minibus, [Zipfy] handles more like a Porsche...”.

The Brick Thief

Wickedly awesome!! The Brick Thief - a LEGO short film.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC0vb9XDz38&feature=player_embedded]

Festival of the Trees

Freida and I celebrated this lovely little holiday by reaping some early-spring garden-bounty, and planting some little seeds. At the Mommy & Me session this morning, Freida got to play around with the textures of seeds and soil while potting some dill and parsley. She never held little seeds before and she seemed to find it rather intriguing...

Later that day, we stopped into Freida's Bubby's backyard to pluck some of the ripened Meyer Lemons from one of her trees. I would have never thought this fruit would grow so ripe this early in the year! In a few months from now these sweet and fragrant fruits will be sold by the (way-overpriced!) case-full at the Farmer's Market; I thought I'd take advantage of this early spring bounty!! Plus, was a perfect little lesson for Freida on Tu B'Shvat (not to mention we could make a legitimate Shehecheyanu blessing on them)... There's something so significant about the way children respond to seeing fruit on trees - her expression always amazes me. Taking children fruit-picking is one of the very important ways we can help to improve the way the future generation will relate to food - we are teaching them it is not just something that comes in bulk from the shelves at Costco, but rather something that is planted, cultivated, and reaped - by man working the earth and God making it grow. They should know that food comes from someplace much more special than the grocery store...!

(She even found a lone little pomegranate - either a left-over or an early-bloomer - from the neighboring tree!)

Later that afternoon (after a good long nap for her and lots of errands for me), we put the lemon-y treasures to use by making little meyer lemon pies. I had ripped out the recipe from an old Cookie magazine, and never got around to actually trying it. It was basically little graham-cracker crusts (baked), with a filling made of blended firm tofu (I used Mori-Nu), lemon zest and juice, and confectioners sugar. I guess it's meant to be like a little cheese-less cheesecake (all that protein-rich tofu in the filling made me think this would be great as a super-healthy dessert). While Freida was most definitely fond of licking up the filling, I personally wasn't so keen on the outcome... but it is supposed to set fully overnight, so I can let ya'll know in the morning. Maybe we'll attempt a Tofu-Meyer-Lemon-Pie breakfast! :)

Here's the recipe, in case you want to give it a go... but I'd probably just add the zest and juice to a basic cheesecake instead. Chag Sameach!!