Red, White, & Bradford

I grew up in a very musical family. We all sing and play various instruments, and holidays are always celebrated with songs.  As a kid, 4th of July meant Kentucky Fried Chicken and a medley of patriotic songs complete with choreography, performed by myself, my sisters and my cousins.  We would put on little shows for the adults, and we thought it was grand fun! Good memories.

So in keeping with that spirit, I tried to teach a couple patriotic songs to Jack. He thought it was funny and kept asking me to sing the Uncle Sam Doodle song, but he loved the line, 

"I've got a Yankee doodle sweetheart.." 

He would even put his hands together by his face...if only you could see him singing it. Too cute. Just too darn cute.  He didn't really get what we were celebrating...at one point he said, "It's Valentines Day Mommy?" and he also has since confused Uncle Sam [see photo from parade below] with Fireman Sam.  He also was not a fan of the fireworks.  He has always been sensitive to noise, so he didn't like the BOOM of the fireworks. We still had a lot of fun celebrating with family and friends!!

My Mom "Mia" and my Aunt "Nina" with Claire and Gabriel 

Like I mentioned already, we have a 3rd of July party [because that's when there are fireworks in the neighborhood where Nana lives :-) This year we all went to my sister's house for dinner and then headed over to Nana's for an ice cream social! I wanted to get more candid shots, but my camera battery died [doh!]. We had a wonderful time and it was fun to see my newly-wed brother and his cute wife who were in town from L.A!

 And just in case you thought we were totally un-American by solely celebrating on the 3rd...we went to a small town 4th of July parade [on the 4th] with our friends, Ryan, Nichole, Brett & Haven!! Brett is Jack's best little buddy, and coincidently (wink wink), Brett's mama is one of my best friends! Our boys are 5 months apart (Jack's older) and now our girls are 5 months apart too...(Claire is younger).  It's so fun having good friends to raise our kiddos with! The boys had such a blast in the wagon, and they waited so patiently for the parade to start!

They of course loved the old fashion tractors, cars, fire trucks and even a train {on a flatbed...but still]!

So much fun in one weekend. Whew! We really are blessed to be in this country.  It's not perfect, but the freedoms we have are priceless.

Ok, I think that officially wraps up the Red, White, and the Bradford.

Red, White, & Blue {Cookie Decorating}

 My mom makes the best sugar cookies and homemade frosting in the world. not kidding. As a child I always loved decorating cookies, and now my sisters and I still love to do it with my mom and our kids (and occasionally a wiener dog named Derby too)!

We made these on the 2nd to take to our 3rd of July party, and it was so hard for the little ones to not eat the cookies! We told them they could each have one, and then we had to save the rest for the party.  The temptation was just too much for my Jacky boy.  He grabbed one off the table and announced that he was going outside to eat it. I quickly said, "No Jacky. Come here now." He handed over the stolen cookie and then covered his face with both hands and burst into tears. It was the saddest thing ever. Needless to say we went outside and ate a cookie together! 

Sometimes you just have to let them have another cookie.

xo

The Mystery of "Gnocchi" on the Shelf

 "The first time I come to the place you call home you quickly must give me a name of my own."

                -from The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, 

                 by Carol V. Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell 

    

If you are a parent, you are probably familiar with the Elf on the Shelf.  Just in case you are not familiar with this recent addition to family-must-have traditions at Christmastime... the Elf on the Shelf is a cute little book that come with a little vintage-style knee hugger Elf.  The book calls him a "friendly scout elf" who helps Santa by keeping track of all of your naughty and nice behaviors.  Every night he flies magically back to Santa to give his report, and each morning he is back- but in a new spot. This is really the fun part about it. The kids have to find the Elf every morning. 

Sidenote on Santa: we are not doing the whole "Santa" thing.  Our theory is that the best approach is that Santa is a fun Christmas character and it is fun to imagine Santa and his elfs ect, but we will not be promoting the Santa as being real. You may disagree...but that's just what we decided....moving on.

So you may be wondering why I'm even posting this since Christmas is over, the decorations (mostly) put away, and now the New Year is underway... well we had an Elf on the Shelf mystery.  Part of the book tells you that you have to give your Elf a name of its own, but it wasn't like we sat down with Jack, read the story, and then made him pick a name for this little Elf.  He just started calling him "Gnocchi Shelf" (he kinda leaves out the "on the" part).  The first time I was kind of surprised, I even asked him, "Oh- is that his name" and Jack said, "Yes! Gnocchi Shelf!" and he excitedly showed me where he had found him.  From then on out he was "Gnocchi Shelf" and we were puzzled. Why would he call him Gnocchi?  

We could only think of two associations with Gnocchi:

1.) We do love Italian food, and gnocchi is one of our favorite dishes- Jack loves it too, so maybe that was where it came from? He does love his food. The thing was that we hadn't had gnocchi recently, so that was kind of a long shot. 

2.) There is a cat on Curious George named Gnocchi.  He (appropriately) belongs to the Italian chef on the show. Jack LOVES "Georgy Georgy," so we thought maybe he just picked up the name from the show and gave it to the Elf. 

We honestly didn't know, but we just went along with it, and chuckled about it all season long! 

Then on the 27th, we went to Fashion Valley for a few minutes around 5:30ish (worst decision ever...sooo crowded). We walked from Bloomingdales to Anthropologie, and after that we were so overwhelmed by the masses we were practically running back to Bloomingdales (where we parked) when all of a sudden we were passing Geppetto's Toy Store, and Jack looked up and saw the giant Pinnochhio over the doorway and said, 

"Gnocchi Shelf." 

 We were hurrying along and Sean and I both replied something like, "Yes, that's Pinocchio, he does kind of look like Gnocchi.." and we both stopped in our tracks.

Pinocchio. Gnocchi. That was it!!! He remembered Pinocchio and was subsequently calling the elf by the same name- but in his adorable 2 year old venacular, it was Gnocchi. 

So that was it! We just never made the connection because honestly, I'm not even sure when Jack heard about Pinocchio. He never ceases to amaze me; the things that he knows and remembers. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I kind of think he is a genius. I'm just saying. One thing is for sure- "Gnocchi" on the Shelf is officially the Bradford Elf, and I love it. I'm already looking forward to bringing him out again next year!! 

xo