At four months old, Teagan likes to...

TALK!!!! Oh, and chew on her fingers.

Missing you...

I can't believe it's been a year. So much has happened and at the same time so little has changed. I'm missing you...

Look at Me, I'm Turning 3!!!!

This year for Owen's 3rd birthday, he wanted a Superhero party. So we ordered him a Superman costume and he was ecstatic, which I think is funny because he has never seen a Superman movie, cartoon, comic book etc. But for some reason it is just in his blood. He runs around pretending to fly like him with one arm out and then shows his muscles. I didn't have time to make invitations so I sent out an evite that said Look At Me, I'm Turning 3 and having a Superhero Party.
This is the picture I used for the invitation.

I made capes for all of the kids coming with their initials, even the babies, and then decorated the staircase with them until they took them down to put on.

Here's the dining room before the party.

My mom and I made large cutouts of the birthday boy as a centerpiece.

Here's Papa "entertaining" the kids while we finished getting everything ready. Nana and Papa came in town as a surprise for Owen's birthday, but secretly I had a suspision they were coming. No Aunt Kika and the kids this year though sadly.

Finally it was time for the party. I loved seeing all of the kids arriving in their costumes, especially the neighbor boys who rode up on their bikes in costume. Too funny!

The party was a blast, but chaotic of course. I decided to let Owen open presents as people arrived. He was excited about that and wanted to start playing with everything right away. This however made it challenging to get any good pictures. It was hard to get any pictures of the kids in general, who were all over the place understandably. Shortly after the party started I gave up on the idea of getting a picture of all the kids in their capes!
Here's Owen opening presents with our nanny Amanda, and his little friend Lilly.

O'Rya and Henry. Henry didn't have a superhero costume, so they dressed him as a hero instead. Love it!

We were so blessed to have all of our friends and family over for the party. Mike's Uncle, Auntie, and cousins came down too with Grammy Helen.

Then it was time for cake. Another one for the "pretty" cake club!


Nana holding Teagan in her superhero costume.



Three pregnant super mamas to be, Bethany, Tatiana, and Caitlin.


Kenny came down from Boston with his kids Tate and Felix, and his girlfriend Amy and her daugther. It was so fun to see everyone getting into the spirit of the party.

The Powers even came from New Hampshire for the party. Here is Owen giving Carey a big hug goodbye.

Amanda stayed afterwards to help Nana and me clean up. What would we do without her?! Thanks again for all the help.

Teagan found a comfy place to relax.

The next day Nana and Papa had to go home so we snapped a few more photos with them.


Because I know everyone is wondering what incredible thing Grumpa Bruce made for Owen's birthday this year, here it is...

Isn't it awesome?! And it works too! Thanks again Grumpa! And thanks Mimi for making your delicious food for the party.

These are masks I had for everyone to decorate. They were black and then you scratched it off to reveal color underneath.


Thank you everyone for a wonderful birthday!!!! It was truly one to remember!

Eric Carle

I am a big fan of Google and use it almost everyday. I love it when they manipulate their logo for a special occasion, like the series they did for the Olympics. Well today I love it even more because Eric Carle has done the logo to celebrate both the first day of Spring and the 40th anniversary of one of my all time favorite children's books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We have a few copies of this book and the stuffed caterpillar with the various foods that tuck into the sides that I had to buy for myself, I mean Owen. This weekend I am going to buy the special edition pop-up version as one of Owen's birthday presents. To be enjoyed at a much later date though of course.

V Day Festival 2009

The 2009 VDay:Until the Violence Stops Providence festival has finally come and gone. Last Spring I saw that the Vagina Monologues were coming to Providence and that they were having a week long festival to raise awareness about violence against women and girls both locally and globally. So I emailed the coordinator of the festival Nancy Rafi. Well, a simple email to see if she needed any volunteers for a day has changed my life forever. The next thing I knew I was hosting an event for the festival at my work for her, and shortly after she asked me to be on the VDay board. Now I am proud to say that a year later I have become a part of something so important and moving, and that all of the board's hard work these past nine months or so have paid off. The festival itself had around fifteen events, which you can see and find out more information about on our website www.peaceprovidence.com. I however, was responsible for two of them, The Good Body Fashion Show and The Red Tent Event.

The Good Body Fashion Show, inspired by the book written by Eve Ensler, was a fashion show for women of all shapes and sizes to express that all women are beautiful. We had it at the new NYLO Loft hotel. It was a lot of fun. I ran the back of the house and Nancy did the front. Then at the end we all walked the "cat walk" together, including Teagan who wore a special tutu Nancy bought her on Etsy. Teagan has become the youngest member of the board, as she has been attending meetings since in utero and shortly after. Everyone loves having her there. She now has a lot of VDay "Aunties".

Here are the models at a meeting we had. This picture ran in a local newspaper and magazine.

I didn't get any shots of just the hotel, which is too bad because it's awesome. Below is a picture of one of the reserved tables. It is full of seashells.

Me, Teagan, and Nancy backstage. Teagan is wearing her "DOES THIS DIAPER MAKE MY BUTT LOOK BIG" onesie, which I thought was very appropriate for the event.

Teagan was an angel the entire day and even enjoyed sitting at the registration table with Teddy. She is such an easy baby to take to things because she is very happy and will let anyone hold her. Teddy is one of two males on the VDay board. He is on the swat team in Boston and has an extremely low voice. Teagan just stares at him in amazement when he talks and sings to her.

Maria and one of the other models strutting their stuff. Maria and Nancy headed up the festival this year.

Teagan and me taking our stroll down the catwalk. You could hear the oos and aas following us as we walked and they all adored her. Thanks again for the tutu and matching hairband Nancy.

It was physically impossible for me to go to all of the events of the festival, but I definetely tried to go to as many as possible and volunteered at a few that weren't mine too. The first one I volunteered at was Anyone Of Us. Anyone Of Us is a performance piece of writings compiled by women in prisons around the US. It was a very moving piece with a panel discussion afterwards. There was a very good turn out for this event including the mayor.

The Vagina Monologues are of course an important part of the festival so this year I took Mike, his parents, and Joyce to see the production. It was Angela's birthday too, so we went out for breakfast and to the playground and then dropped the kids off at home with Amanda before we headed off.

We snapped a pic with Baby T before we left. (I have to say that neither of our outfits look very flattering in the picture below, but they are both really cute. Or at least I think so.)

The Vagina Monologues were performed in the ballroom at the Providence Renaissance Marriott. Outside of the ballroom was where I designed and built my Red Tent, which we had up for people to enjoy the day of the monologues and then for the Red Tent Event, which was the next day. It was a long weekend to say the least. Friday after a half day of work, I went to the hotel to start building the Red Tent with the help of Nancy and two others. I went home for dinner and then went back to work on it until around 3 am when I finally went home. Saturday morning we started the day early with breakfast with the Willards and Joyce and our day of activities, then Sunday was the last day of the festival and the Red Tent Event. So again I was at the hotel from 9am until breaking down the tent at 6pm. But it was all worth it. I am very excited with how the tent turned out.
But back to the Vagina Monologues... I thought it was a great performance and I even think Bruce and Mike enjoyed themselves too. I tried to sneak my camera around the table to get a picture of Bruce and his reaction to things. At the end he said, "I never knew so much about vaginas, and I'm glad I don't have one." We are too Bruce!

Mike and Bruce standing in front of my Red Tent.

And now for The Red Tent, which I have to admit I am very proud of. The idea behind the event was to have a day to honor women and to end the festival with a bang. We wanted women from all economic backgrounds to come together for a day of pampering and support. We split the ballroom into four suites, Beauty, Medical, Wellness, and Activist. You could get everything from a makeover, massage, blood pressure check, to taking a mini yoga or belly dance class. The Red Tent itself was then used as a safe place for women to gather and share their stories. We had social workers on hand for women who needed support during this time. It was a very peaceful and effective space. A couple of the sessions did end up getting pretty intense and we were happy that we had the necessary tools to help these women.
My role, in addition to helping Nancy with whatever she needed, was to design the tent, find local furniture stores etc. to donate their goods for the weekend, and then build it. Here are some pictures of the finished project.
The inside...





The outside...



Random pics from the day...

Teagan and two of her "Aunties". Victoria above and Tab below.



One of my ideas was to have a fake paparazzi taking pictures of you as you walked in on a red carpet leading to the elevators to the ballroom. This ended up being a lot of fun. We even got pics of some of the valet staff wearing our boas.

We also had a henna artist at the event. She did this woman's palm, so we had her do the VDay sign.


And finally, me and Nancy. Thank you Nancy for making me a part of all of this. I can't wait to see what kind of trouble we get ourselves into next!