Jamisen's Big Debut - Aristokittens

Dearest Jamisen loves to sing. He is a SINGER and he has some great tone. He can hold a note and a tune like nobody's business.

Chris suggested that we get Jamisen singing lessons. I did a quick Google search and came up with what I thought was a choir.

It was not a choir. It was a theater troupe.  And they had a musical that they were planning to put on ... on Jamisen's birthday! What a weekend for our little guy. His birthday AND his stage debut, all at once. 

Jamisen played a very important role in Aristokitties - the role of Roquefort - a heroic mouse that saves the kittens from a dastardly plot to kill them. He had lines to memorize and dance moves to do. It was a lot for what was just originally going to be private music lessons. He rose to the occasion.

It was a challenging weekend because not only did he have his birthday party, but he was fighting an aggressive infection of the salivary gland that caused his face to swell in a rather crazy and insane manner. It was also deeply uncomfortable and accompanied by high fevers.

Originally, he had been misdiagnosed with mumps (and put in quarantine while Chris was in Saudi and I was single-parenting it so that was a challenging week). As it turns out, it was not mumps. Jamisen had an occluded salivary gland (which his Grandpa had diagnosed from a photo well before the incorrect mumps diagnosis). Jamisen was on very strong doses of antibiotics for his stage debut/birthday weekend AND was told that there was a 40% chance of his infection rupturing through his cheek. It was under this heavy duty craziness that his big theater debut happened.

We are proud of our little dude for persevering.

The show was a huge success. The kids were cute. Jamisen smiled, danced and said his lines with aplomb. Obviously, he was the best Roquefort. Ever.

A few photos from my 40th Birthday Party

You only turn 40 once and so, inspired by another girlfriend that threw a blow-out birthday party for her 40th, Chris and I went all-in for my mid-point birthday party.

We rented a lovely Italian deli out for the night.

The food was epic: platters of Mediterranean food, cheese, phyllo pastries and of course, desserts from my favorite shop (Pure Bliss).

The desserts were a mixture of delightful sugar cookies and assorted cupcakes, including a stunningly delicious salted caramel chocolate cupcake that was filled with salted caramel gooey deliciousness.

It was fun to see all of my friend groups together at once. It was a great mix of book club girlfriends, political friends, and workout friends.

It was good the party was in a wine shop/deli because the party was **thirsty** and went through quite a few more libations than we originally anticipated.

We had a DJ and everyone danced late into the night.

There were also a few toasts though I cut them off at 3 to keep the momentum of the party and celebration going.

It was such a fun night that I exclaimed to longtime Bramble Berry COO, Norman, the next day that I couldn't wait to turn 50 to do it all over again. =) He suggested that 41 was a fine year to do it as well. Ha! =)

Friends. Laughter. Good food. Witty Conversation. It was a wonderful night to remember. 

Happy Easter

We had the most wonderful time at the local Easter Egg hunt. Every year, it's held at the Lairmont Manor - a historical manor that is commonly used to host weddings but once a year gets taken over by small, adorable munchins searching for sugar like pigs searching for truffles.

The kids all line up for the starting 'Go!' The eggs for the little kids are hidden in plain sight (come to think of it, it's not really hiding. It's more like 'gently and lovingly placed every egg in close proximity to small ankles and within eyesight of all but the blindest of squirrels').

The kiddos very much enjoyed the easy placement and hoovered up eggs with candy as though they were training for the Annual Vaccum Cleaner Convention (which, fun fact, does have vacuum cleaning competitions).

Equally fun fact: Jamisen still has ALL of his candy over three weeks later. Lily has none. Jamisen also is judiciously using his candy to reward Lily for being extra cooperative. The kid understands motivation theory.

Baby Alise was just as into the egg hunting and both girls were happily oblivious for the real reason of the day (queue ominous yet somewhat celebratory music) the gollllllllden Easter Egg.

Jamisen heard about the Golden Easter Egg and was intrigued and, his competitive streak totally came out. He wanted that Golden Egg SO bad. He was strategic about trying to hunt it out. And when another father "helped" his son find the Golden Egg, we got to have many many conversations about cheating.  Thanks random Dad for that early-learning ethics conversation.

The kids loved the face painter. Jamisen became a pirate (which was SO annoying to try to wash off later) and Lily chose an orange and white baseball to be painted on her cheek. Her mind works in mysterious ways.