Activity for the kids: the giant paper doll

We could use any material to dress our doll. We decided to leave it bold and sorry about the horrendous teeth (that was F's idea - it was his project after all!)

You probably all know what paper dolls are, right? And you've probably played with some when you were young. Well, a couple of weeks ago, F came back from school with a giant paper doll. Our project was to design an outfit for it. I thought it was a pretty fun and original idea. So I decided to share it here. 

I hope it will inspire you as well!

Finally Monday!

I was suppose to publish this post yesterday, but I got caught with other things... So here it goes:

After a four-days weekend, today it definitely feels like Monday. I love taking a break from our routine but I love even more when we get it back. Have a great week!

P.S: This post is so insignificant that I should have had time to post it yesterday. This is just a "hello" sign.  I'll think of something more interesting to post later on.

The Weekender - Have a nice long weekend!

The Village from Pedro Sousa on Vimeo.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm loving those aerial short-films, which make everything look like miniature toys. This time we are in Portugal, in the region of Óbidos. 

Here in the U.S. we have a long weekend. Monday is a national Holiday - Memorial Day. So we are going out of town. And I'm really looking forward to it. Let's just cross our fingers for the weather to cooperate a little bit, because the week has been absolutely miserable. 

Have a good one!

Kiddie songs for grown-ups?

Are you tired of the traditional nursery rhymes? Of that childish melodies in your car and your house? Do you hear yourself sometimes singing "The Wheels on the Bus" in the middle of the supermarket?

Is it possible to find kiddie songs that would please both children and adults? Yes! As a matter of fact, I recently discovered that they do exist.

Meet Elizabeth Mitchell. She's actually being around for some time now (she's been recording children's albums since 1998), and I'm a kinda late "discoverer" of her talent. But I thought that maybe other people, like me, didn't know her. She has a sweet voice and sings old-fashion songs, accompanied just by the sound of a guitar. Some songs are well known, but they she gives them a special touch, singing them in her own version and rhythm.

Laughing at the not so distant past

Shapeset by Tim Fishlock

My husband was traveling (again) last week. So Friday night, after putting the kids to sleep, not having any company, I just went back to my most faithful friend during those lonely hours - the Internet.

I read some stuff (nothing worth sharing), did some shopping (always a pleasure when it doesn't involve entering a physical store) and re-read this post of mine. 

I don't know what exactly made me read it again. But, at the end, I was laughing at myself. Is just that so many things that I mentioned in that post have changed recently, that while I was reading it, it made me feel that it had been written years ago. Why don't I give you an update on the current situation? 

First of all, as from last Thursday, I don't own three strollers anymore. I sold one of them - actually the first I bought while F was still in my belly. As stupid as it may sound, it made me sad to see it go. Also, I'm starting to become one of those "nerdy" moms. I'm not sure "nerdy" would be the best term to describe me. Maybe, mom-too-concern-with-her-child-performance-at-school, would a better one, but way too long. It seems that F is a little bit behind at school, so I've been more and less forced to do some catch up at home with him. I now completely understand the "pity" look that the other mother gave me on the bus when I told her that I had forgotten about F's report. He may be doomed for life because of me (no matter what, I've discovered that it's always the mother's fault).

However, if I'm responsible on having such a bad influence on my child, I should also be very much capable to have a positive impact on his education. Therefore, I became very engaged on changing the situation. And I recently bought so many educational material to help F, that I'll probably write a post about them later. I'm actually surprised on how by making the whole learning process fun, the kids do learn incredibly fast and I'm glad we have access to all those support material. I wish I had done that before with F, but I thought I was paying the school for that. Apparently not enough... Anyway, one of my mottos in life is that there's always something good to learn/retain from any experience. And I became really interested on the alphabetization process done through phonetics. I'm currently waiting for a Jolly Phonics kit to arrive and then I'll give you all my impressions about it.

Boy, our summer will certainly be fun!

The Weekender - A nice song for the weekend!

DR TOM - LA LIBERTE EN CAVALE from ONE MORE PRODUCTION on Vimeo.


Have a nice and warm weekend!

What we've been up to...

Mostly, just enjoying the great weather (finally!). 

On our way to the park today, we passed in front of the U.N. building. It has just been renovated and cleaned up. Look how great it's looking now. 

I love walking around this area, because in just a few blocks you can see people from all over the world and hear so many different languages. It's kind of taking a short trip to an imaginary Babylon. Then, I realized that I have never been inside the building for a tour. It always sound kind of strange to do some tourism in the place we live, don't you think? But I'm really thinking about taking one of those tours. 

Books of the week: The Terrible Plop

Last Saturday we went to see the play "Plop!", at the New Victory Theater. The play was great and it was based on the book "The Terrible Plop", written by Ursula Dubosarsky and illustrated by Andrew Joyner. It's a fun and cute story. The kids loved the play, so on our way out, we bought the book. And it ended up being of great use as entertainment during our lunch (kids and restaurants are not always a good combination - so any kind of distraction is always welcomed). 

Visit to the Glass House

Last Monday I had the opportunity to visit one of the most important architectural project of the 20th century: The Philip Johnston Glass House. Situated in New Canaan, Connecticut, it was the retreat of the famous architect (First Pritzker prize winner) Philip Johnston. He designed the house and built it in 1949. The project is very minimalist and modern. The house is just a big rectangular open space, with no room divisions and all surrounded by glasses as external walls. At the time, it was very innovative in terms of materials used and the construction techniques used to build it.

In the 47 acre site, there are many other buildings. As Mr. Johnston himself liked to say, he used that space to do some "experiments". So he also built, a Brick house, just in front of the Glass House, which used to be the guest house (he didn't really like his guests to stay too long, so he tried to make it as uncomfortable as possible for them to leave soon - i.e. there were any windows in the bedroom); a small building for his extended collection of books about Architecture and where he also used to work; a pavilion next to a pond, where he liked to have picnics in summer; a private gallery for his Art Collection (he loved Art and was an avid collector); a Sculpture gallery and finally a building with no purpose which looked more like a sculpture (it was designed by American Artist Frank Stella). 

"Da Monsta" - designed by Frank Stella

The Library/Study and the "Ghost House" (the transparent structure behind)

The Brick House

The Pavilion

We only visited the Glass House, the Painting Gallery and the Sculpture Gallery. Unfortunately, the Brick House is currently closed for renovation. There was a flooding accident, a few months ago, that destroyed the whole interior of the house. I loved the Glass House and the sensation of being outside while inside. 

However, what really impressed me the most was the Art Gallery (and, of course, the only one I didn't take any pictures, but there are better than I would have shot on the website). Philip Johnston designed an incredible mechanism of rotating walls that let him exposed 42 large-scale paintings at the same time. He had a big collection of Modern Art, which included artworks by Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Jones and Cindy Sherman. He donated a vast quantity of this collection to the MoMA.

Interior of the Sculpture Gallery:

The Weekender - Thank you Mom!

Thank You Mom from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.


A special post for all the amazing moms around me and for the best of all - my mother! Thank you mom!

Happy mothers day!

Picasso at the Gagosian Gallery

PABLO PICASSO
La femme-fleur (Françoise Gilot), June 1946

The Gagosian Gallery, on the upper east side in New York (980 Madison Ave.), is currently presenting an interesting exhibit showing a parallelism between Pablo Picasso and his lover and muse Françoise Gilot between 1943 and 1953. 

I didn't like everything but there were some incredible paintings. I'm always pleased with Picasso's geniality. I wasn't very familiar with Ms. Gilot's work and wasn't very impressed by it. I really liked, however, the dialogue between Picasso's and Gilot's paintings, portraying scenes of their daily lives. 

The exhibition "Picasso and Françoise Gilot: Paris-Vallauris 1943-1953" goes until June 30. 

Book of the week: Where the wild things are.

I couldn't talk of any other book today, for the author and illustrator of this children's best-seller, Maurice Sendak, has died today at 83 years-old. He started as an illustrator in the early fifties and afterwards he soon started to write his own children's book. Mr. Sendak's stories, characters and illustrations are not the typical ones found in children literature. The stories are kind of nightmarish, the characters are not necessarily nice and cute and the illustrations have gloomy colors. But the books never stopped selling and Mr. Sendak's was considered one of the most important children's book artist of the 20th century.

His most famous book "Where the wild things are" has been a best-seller for almost 50 years. We obviously have one copy here at home and we also have a DVD with some of the stories that became animations. 

Also, here's a good article from the New York Times, that was published today about Maurice Sendak. 

Educational Toy: The Responsibility chart

Lately, F has not been excelling in terms of obedience. So following the advice of a friend of mine, I decided to reward him for his wrongdoings with a "Responsibility chart". It consists of setting some simple goals for the child and try to make him responsible about achieving them. I don't really like giving "rewards", but if this is what it's going to take for F to start acting the way that I want him to, to be more responsible, then so be it. As adults, we usually work for money, so let him "earn" something if he cleans up his toys after playing with them.

We chose together some obligations for him (for instance: no whining, say "sorry", clean up toys, etc) and everyday he accomplishes them, he gets a magnet. If he manages to complete the whole board during the week, he'll receive a present (a DVD, for instance, that he's been asking for some time). If he completes a full line or more than one I'll treat him with something nice during the weekend (we still have to figure this one out, but probably an ice-cream or something like that). 

So far, I can already tell you that he won't complete de board this week. However, he's in good shape to have one or more full lines and he's starting to get a grasp of the game. 

The Weekender - Let's go to Venice this time!

Venice in a Day from Joerg Niggli on Vimeo.


Busy week, no time to post here. The weather has been horrible here in New York. I really hope it will get better, so we can go to the park. I'm looking forward for a very lazy weekend.

Have a great weekend!

Books of the week - A funny story brought to life with a puppet

What about mixing reading with puppets?
I bought this book a couple of years ago and it's still a big hit here at home. It's so cute to look at the somewhat scared faces as the monster is being brought to life page after page and then their euphoria when they send it away. So as soon as I discovered that the puppet of the Big Green Monster existed, I bought it right away and it's been a lot of fun to read and play at the same time.