colonel mustard

good morning! a bit of catching up to do after one day of dead camera & one day of camera forgotten. this is what i wore wednesday, for a day of work before meeting up with keiko and some new friends for dinner in dumbo, a dinner that heavily featured pork belly and beets, two of my favorites.






my mess of a closet. i've been compulsively buying stuff on thrifting missions for months now without updating my store and the situation is out.of.control. i finally broke down and ordered a dressmaker's mannequin yesterday so i can easily take pictures of & post a lot of stuff quickly; expect major shop updates in the coming weeks. some really amazing stuff, too! my hips are not what they used to be, and it's time to let go of some old favorites.

dress: asos
slip: thrifted
heart: bando shoe clip
shoes: ebay

this dress is really similar in shape and color to one i pretty much wore into the ground over the last couple of years. it started to shred around the bottom, so i chopped it off and made it into a blouse; i finally just replaced the buttons a couple days ago so i can get it back into rotation.

what are your plans for the weekend? i'm meeting a few girlfriends for drinks this evening, which i'm looking forward to; the rest of the weekend will be spent, i think, hunkered down on some invitations i'm working on.

more soon to come,

xo audrey

and the birds cease to sing when you rise

obscure title day! i chose this lyric because a. i'm wearing turquoise, and that's the name of the song i'm quoting; b. sam's been playing donovan records a lot lately and c. i roasted a chicken last night so birds ceasing to sing seemed like a morbidly appropriate lyric!

so! after a few days of ordering food to beat the heat last week, we've decided to just embrace it and drink cold beer to compensate. we got a nifty vertical chicken roaster from our wedding registry (thanks little brother!) and i've been really loving it - it cooks the bird evenly and has a nice little well for veggies, and for easily catching the liquids that are released during the cooking. i wanted to use as many ingredients from the farmer's market as possible, so i came up with this pretty straightforward recipe.

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kumquat & fennel roasted chicken

3 1/2 pound chicken
about 1 T of good, chunky mustard (we got some at the market that is basically mustard seeds and honey, soooo good and simple)
2 T butter, melted
2 onions
fennel (i just used some leftover stems that i had)
salt & pepper
about 8 kumquats, some halved and some sliced
one ripe peach (optional)



this is an adaptation from a cooks illustrated recipe - i use their methods, but not their ingredients. makes nice, crunchy skin on the wings and lets and soft, juicy meat inside. quite tasty, indeed.

start off by brining your chicken. this, they tell me, keeps it nice and juicy, and it certainly seems to work. dissolve 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of salt into a pot of water big enough to cover your chicken, and let it sit, covered, in your fridge for at least an hour or even overnight if you think of it ahead of time. remove from water, pat dry, and set on your roaster (or in a roasting pan on a rack if you prefer.) we buy cleaned chickens that have already had their giblets and whatnot - it makes for a much easier time. preheat the oven to 375.

chop up the onions into thick slices, cut about half of the kumquats in half, and dice up your fennel and stuff the chicken as full as you can with the three. take the remainder that won't fit and scatter them in the pot below the chicken; with the extra kumquats, cut into slices and set aside. melt your butter and mix the mustard into it, then brush on liberally. salt and pepper the chicken, then squeeze and cover with the remaining kumquats. go ahead and place it in the oven and cook it at 375 for 30 minutes, plus 5 extra minutes for each 1/2 pound of bird (so if you're cooking a 4 pound chicken, give it 35.) drop the temperature down to 200 and roast for an hour, then take out the chicken, use the brush (or a baster, mine is broken) to brush with some of the liquids that have pooled at the bottom, and add the peach at this point if you want. i loved the peaches cooked this way, but sam didn't care for them - they definitely taste like chicken fatty peaches, so if that doesn't sound up your alley, skip this step. crank your oven back up to 400 and cook until a thermometer inserted in the thigh reads 170 - should be about 10-15 minutes.





kumquats: also delicious in your tecate.

unable to locate any green tomatoes, i attempted some fried green tomatillos, but they were a big disappointment. pretty though!

meeting a friend for drinks after work today, so i decided to step it up a bit and pull out a dress from my new favorite thrift store in new jersey - part of a haul that included this dress and this dress, with still a couple more to be debuted.





apologies for the mess behind me. i'm in the process of re-organizing my room and i have come to the conclusion that i quite simply need to throw a bunch of stuff away, but i have a lot of trouble parting with anything. . .

dress: thrifted
belt: thrifted
pin: c/o accessorize
shoes: nine west

stay cool and have a lovely tuesday!

xo audrey

green & gold

yesterday morning sam and i rode our bikes over the manhattan bridge and down to the southside seaport, where the new amsterdam market is held every sunday. i have kind of a thing for farmer's markets, but somehow i'd never made it down to this one before - i guess i'm kind of lazy and generally just walk to the perfectly good market that's about 6 blocks from my apartment. since getting new bikes a couple weeks ago, though, i'm trying to force myself to make at least one long, tough ride per week, and it's much easier to motivate myself when i know there's a bunch of farm-fresh meat, veggies and cheese at the end of that ride. we packed sam's backpack until it was literally overflowing out the top, rode back home. . . and i basically collapsed in bed for an hour or two and watched back to back episodes of breaking bad. i just started watching it this weekend and it is (appropriately enough, considering the plot,) a terrible addiction that has me deep within its clutches. i snapped out of it sometime in the afternoon and decided to make some pickles.



we'd bought about a pound of misfit cucumbers, along with a couple kinds of onion, rainbow chard, 2 duck confit legs, a pig neck fillet, fennel, corn, and peaches. i grabbed a couple of jars, a handful of spices from the cabinet, and this book, and got to picklin'.

i adapted the recipe a bit - i only had 1/3 of the cucumbers it called for, and i didn't have any dill, so i subbed fennel - but the process and temperatures i used were the same, and i think that's very important if you're trying to make something shelf-stable. be careful and be sure to use a thermometer!

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spicy fennel pickles (makes 2 pint jars)

1 lb cucumbers, cut into 3-4" sections and then halved or quartered
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
1 T kosher salt
mustard seeds
whole coriander
caraway seeds
black pepper kernels
cumin seeds
dry mustard
cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves
a few sprigs of fennel



boil a pot of water big enough to cover the jars with at least an inch of water and put the lids in a heatproof bowl. while waiting for the pot to boil, place cider vinegar, water, and salt in a saucepan and bring it up to 180 farenheit. (i used the pasteurizing method - bringing the jars up to 180 for a half hour - rather than the regular process, because it results in crisper pickles.) once your water is boiling, carefully use tongs to lift the jars out and pour the boiling water into the lid bowl. place jars on a paper towel and quickly dump in a little of everything - all spices, about 1 t of the dry mustard, 1/4 t of the cayenne, a couple garlic cloves, some fennel, and a bay leaf in each jar. now place the pickles in the jar, fitting them in as tightly as you can without totally squashing them. now, using a funnel, fill the jars with the cider liquid to about 1/2 inch from the top. remove the lids from their hot water, carefully wipe the lips of the jar with a paper towel, and fit each with a lid. now place them back in the water bath and bring the water up to 180, and make sure it stays that hot for a half hour before removing the jars. take them out, let them rest for an hour, and then check the seal on the lids - if they are both well sealed and not popped up, store them until you're ready to open them up, at which point you should refrigerate; if any of them didn't seal and the lid is popped up, refrigerate and eat them within a week or two.




ta-da! i'm going to give them a few days before testing them out - i'll let you know how they taste.

and for dinner i decided to go ahead and spoil us with some duck confit pasta. i think any long noodle will work well for this one - i used bucatini, which i like because it's like spaghetti with a more fun texture. like pasta straws!



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fennel & duck confit pasta

1 onion (i used a cippolini that we picked up from the farmers market - still with it's stalk attached, so i used a couple leek-like inches of that, too.)
1 bulb of fennel
1 duck confit leg
1/2 box of noodle pasta
1/4 cup of chicken broth
1/3 cup heavy cream
drizzle of olive oil
handful of parmigiano-reggiano cheese
(optional) thinly sliced tomato

slice the onion and fennel as thin as you can. drizzle some olive oil in a sauce pan and turn it on medium; add the fennel and onion and let them saute for a good long while, until they are soft and beginning to caramelize. this'll take some time, so get a big pot of water boiling with a bit of salt, and get to shredding that duck confit leg. pull it apart as much as you can and just put it aside in a bowl, reserving all the nice fatty parts as they'll melt down and help make your pasta saucy.

your water is boiling? great! put the pasta in and keep an eye on it - let it be a leeeetle on the al dente side. i've been using a pot with a pasta strainer piece inside (this one) and it's kind of magic, since most of the time i make pasta i add the pasta and a bit of the pasta water to the sauce before serving.

add the duck to your onion/fennel mixture, and once it's starting to melt down, add the chicken broth, too. let most evaporate and then add half of the cream and stir until it reduces into a thick mixture. you can season some at this point; i used a smokey salt and freshly ground black pepper. once the pasta is ready, dump it in with a few tablespoons of its water and mix it up well with the duck mixture; add the remaining cream and stir until well coated, will mixed, and nice and thick. add cheese to your hearts desire and serve.

i swear i'm not shilling for crate and barrel (although if they wanted to sponsor me i wouldn't say no!) but the multi-cooker came in incredibly handy here because i was able to steam the 2 ears of corn while cooking the pasta, so everything was ready right on time without a bunch of extra mess. i served the corn simply, with kimchi butter.





voila! i served mine with a few slices of yellow tomato on top, partially because i wanted to use the damn thing before it went bad and partly for a little variation of temperature & texture. i think it worked well, but wasn't really necessary.

that's all from me today! i missed posting on hottest-day-ever friday, because i accidentally left my camera in the office thursday night; i'll do my best to get some good outfit shots up this week.

thanks for all the haircut love by the way! i've been cutting it myself in the mirror like a psycho so it's good to hear that it still looks okay, although i guess the scary part, if there is one, is in the back.

more soon,

xo audrey

medium rare

hello hello! i write you from a pool of sweat somewhere in soho. my god, it is hot. our office has no a/c, nor does our apartment, so i am deciding to think of my current state as "permanently glowing," rather than "constantly sweaty." and sam just brought me flowers at work! so now i am flushed with love. ah, wedded bliss. give it a try some time.

anyway! it is hot as hell, so today i elected a dress with a semi-open back that i picked up at a thrift store a few weeks ago. it's a bit big but i used a belting trick that a reader (thank you gabrielle!) gave me to nip in at the waist. naturally, the belt isn't helping with the whole sweatiness situation, but i digress. in fact, shoutout to 29 skirts! this is my first (actually accidental) thrifted thursday - everything in this outfit was thrifted, except i guess the shoes, which i scored on ebay for a song, so that kind of counts, right?





dress, belt & necklace: thrifted
shoes: scored on ebay

and this outfit happens to match what i made for dinner a couple nights ago, so why not throw that on here?




this was sooo quick, sooo easy and sooo delicious. and probably even soooort of healthy! ish!


baby romaine lettuce (i just used the pre-washed stuff they sell in plastic containers at the grocery store)
1/2 lb flank steak
about 1/4 cup of blue cheese (or feta, or goat, or none at all! if blue is too much for you)
1/2 red onion, verrrrry thinly sliced
a drizzle of really good aged balsamic vinegar

so! turn a pan onto medium-high heat. pat the flank steak dry, then sear it well on all sides, for about 3 minutes per side. let it rest and season with salt and pepper. slice, serve atop the lettuce and onions, drizzle with balsamic and crumble blue cheese on top. voila! the flank steak was soooo good, nice and juicy and simple, and worked great with the lettuce and red onions and blue cheese gave it just a bit of a bite. if you like your meat a little more cooked, cook it for a couple extra minutes on each side - this was very rare, but that's the way (uh huh uh huh) i like it.

all right! i'll attempt a 100 degree outfit post from the firey pits of new york city tomorrow. stay tuned!

xo audrey

bbq

hi guys! sorry for the lack of post the last couple of days - i know there is a nasty heat wave everywhere, and that's no excuse, but after running incredibly late yesterday and forgetting my camera and then panicking because i can't figure out how to wear something that is both office appropriate and won't have me sweating my ass off for the 9 hours i'm in my ac-less office. . . well, let's just say nothing's been worth posting.



but i had a really fun weekend! sunday i spend much of the day at my friend ashlee's place, where we barbecued ribs and chicken (they'd even picked up cherry-soaked wood chips to smoke the ribs and chicken with, sooooo good,) grilled a fish sam caught a couple of days ago, and noshed some cantaloupe and coconut lime ice creams that ashlee churned out (literally! ha!) the days before. it was a lovely, lazy, beer-swigging time.










how was your weekend? any good food? how are you handling this heat?

SO sorry to those who have commented in the last couple of days and not yet received a response - NOT YET! because you will! i have just been a bit busy.

xo audrey

in technicolor & sepia tones

now, with all the videos and wedding photos out of the way, it's back to our regularly scheduled programming.

wednesday night i had the privilege of attending an event at the coach store on bleecker street. it was a lovely event (as per usual, the waiters pegged me as "the girl who will eat anything" and always came to me first with their trays of h'ordeuvres and champagne [not that i'm complaining,]) not only for the food, drink, & beautiful bags, but it was teeming with lovely ladies - claire, christine, keiko, kim, natalie, lindsey, katy, and jenni. we all chatted, ate and drank, eyeballing the lovely purses all the while, until closing time when we got to choose whichever one we wanted. i selected this bright red shoulder bag from their new collection, which i think will work nicely with all the color in my wardrobe. i wore this peter jensen dress i snagged on sale at asos awhile ago and have been saving for a special occasion since. (for the purpose of full disclosure, these photos were actually taken in my kitchen last night while macarons were resting, haha. i woke up too late wednesday morning to take pre-event pictures, and got home way too late on wednesday.)





dress: peter jensen
brooch: c/o tiffany
shoes: thrifted
belt: thrifted
purse: c/o coach

i adore this dress. it has all this smocking (is that the right word?) coming off the collar that floats behind you as you walk. it's a tad big, though - i need to figure out a way to take it in a tad at the waist. and the red of the purse and blue of the dress are pretty much my favorite color combination, ever.

so! one of my exciting weekend plans is attending a bastille day party tomorrow evening in manhattan. i have a feeling i was invited half because they wanted me to bring sam and half because they wanted me to bring macarons - but hey, if i can put on a dress and dance, i'll take whatever invite i can get. so i stayed up last night baking a batch of vanilla bean shells, to be filled with dark chocolate ganache.



now. a word about macarons. i get emails asking for tips or advice from time to time, and i'm always happy to share any tips i have - after all, i've made my fair share of them, for events large and small, and i even went to french culinary school to be taught the proper way, for goodness sake. i STILL have my struggles with the things. some of it i blame on my awful, brooklynite oven - it's got hotspots worse than a damn volcano, and it often leads to leaning, wonky-footed macarons. sam has seen me lose it over a botched batch on more than one occasion. BUT. after a few pretty-damn-perfect batches in a row, i think i have three words that will change your macaron world forever: egg.white.powder.

when i'm having a tough time with macarons, i turn to this lady: she is a macaron master. her most recent french macaron recipe (linked) includes 5 grams of egg white powder with your sugar (what you use to make the meringue) and every time i've used this recipe they've been spot on. last night i tried it in my awful oven for the first time, and every single macaron came out, dare i say, perfect. here's the recipe i used last night:

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vanilla bean macarons with dark chocolate ganache

100 g egg whites (room temperature)
29 g sugar, with one whole vanilla bean's seeds scraped in
5 g egg white powder
125 g almond flour
200 g powdered sugar

sift together the almond flour and powdered sugar; set aside. combine sugar & egg white powder. whisk your egg whites (i just use a hand mixer, it gives you a bit more control than a stand mixer,) until there's no more yellow and they're white and foamy; slowly add the sugar/egg white powder, whisking all the while, and beat and beat until you have not-quite-stiff peaks and your mixture is white and glossy. use a sieve and sift in the almond flour/powdered sugar mix in five batches - mix in a fifth, fold in with a spatula until it's well mixed, and repeat 4 more times. once it's all combined and no lumps remain, spoon this into a piping bag and pipe onto parchment paper on a heavy duty sheet pan (pipe a tiny bit of batter onto the four corners of the tray, so that the parchment sticks down,) leaving about an inch between each dollop. tap the tray twice, hard, on a table to release any bubbles and let the macarons sit until they don't stick to your finger when you touch them - i let them go for about an hour. place them in a pre-heated 300 degree oven and bake for about 12 minutes, rotating halfway through.

for the ganache:

4 ounces of dark chocolate and 4 ounces of cream. bring the cream to a boil and immediately pour over the chocolate; let it rest for a minute or two, then whisk slowly, from the inside, until it's all combined and smooth. let it sit until room temperature and then pipe a little dollop onto one half of a paired up macaron shell. voila!





what are your plans for the weekend? tonight i think we're staying in and taking it easy, and then tomorrow we've got some more baking to do (and i'm hoping to sneak off to the brooklyn flea) before our party in the evening. then on sunday, any of you new yorkers should come to williamsburg - my friend rachel, who started up terrific magazine, is bringing together a bunch of awesome brands, food, and booze for a big sale at union pool.



i'll be stopping by there early afternoon then heading to another friend's place for some barbecue and homemade ice cream.

hope you have a great one!

xo audrey

viva la france!

hello everyone! happy bastille day! i just made a bunch of crepes for my office mates, and i'm heading home tonight to make macarons for a bastille day party sam & i are attending on saturday. in the meantime, i have the final stylecaster & hawaiian tropic video to share - along with a couple of recipes, including a galette, which is french. full circle.



galettes are free-form french pastries that are great for any time of year - a delicious, buttery pastry that you can fill with just about whatever meat, cheese or veggies you have hanging around in your fridge, mixed up with an egg and topped off with some salt and pepper. i also love rhubarb - it's only around for a short time of year, and it's sweet and tart flavor is well paired with juicy summer strawberries. the crumb i use here is good on just about any fruit you can cut up and bake - peaches, apples, or blackberries all make delicious crisps.

thanks so much for watching! i had so much fun making these videos with the guys from stylecaster, and i'm very grateful to hawaiian tropic for helping me keep my skin freckled but sunburn-free this summer.

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heirloom tomato & swiss chard galette

ingredients:

for the dough:

2 cups all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
12 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
1/3 - 1/2 cup of ice water

for the filling:

1 yellow onion, sliced
2 bunches rainbow chard, with stems removed
6-10 heirloom tomatoes of various sizes & colors, cut into thin slices
1/4 cup white wine
a splash of olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
salt
pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 eggs, beaten
feta cheese
thyme

directions:

1) cut the butter into small cubes and combine with flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

2) use two knives to cut the butter until it becomes pea sized pieces, adding a little bit of water as needed.

3) add just enough water so that it does not crumble and roll into ball; there will be bits of butter throughout the dough.

4) wrap it in plastic and refrigerate while making the filling.

5) preheat oven to 400 F.

6) cut and separate onions, swiss chard and tomatoes

7) sauté onions in a large pan with a splash of olive oil and butter until soft.

8) add the swiss chard and cook down until wilted; add white wine, salt and pepper. cook until most of the wine has evaporated.

9) add cream and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the veggies are coated with a thick liquid and little excess remains. Remove from heat.

10) roll out the dough into a large circle

11) beat egg in small bowl. stir almost all the egg into the chard and onion mixture, reserving a bit to brush the dough with.

12) put the mixture in the middle of the dough circle and tile the tomatoes on top of it in a mosaic type pattern. sprinkle the top generously with feta cheese, then a few leaves of thyme.

13) fold up the edges of the galette around the filling; there should be three or so inches of crust all around the edge. brush with the reserved egg, and then bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.


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ingredients:

for the filling:

4 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced in half
6-7 stalks of rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
vanilla

for the crumb:

1 stick of butter, cut into squares, chilled
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cup of nuts of your choice (I used almonds)
1 cup oats
1 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt

tarragon whipped cream:

several tarragon leaves, made into a chiffonade
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar


directions:

1) preheat oven to 350 F.

2) cut strawberries and rhubarb and place into ovenproof dish.

3) combine water, sugar, cornstarch and vanilla in a pot over the cooking range until boiling; stir carefully and let it boil for 2 minutes. pour this over the strawberries & rhubarb.

4) to make the crumb mix flour, oats, nuts, and brown sugar and salt together in a food processor until finely chopped. add butter and pulse the processor until you have a good-sized crumb. sprinkle this on top of the rhubarb.

5) bake for 30 minutes or until crumb is browned and the edges bubble.

6) for the cream, beat ingredients until cream makes soft, but stable peaks.

enjoy!

there is also a recipe for a cocktail i whipped up, straight of an ernest hemingway novel i read while sam & i were on the honeymoon - you can find it here.

all right! i hope everyone has a lovely thursday! one day closer to the weekend. . .

xo audrey

shimmer by the pool

all right! time for part two in the hawaiian tropic + stylecaster series. i am a leeeeetle self conscious about posting this one, not only because i am super awkward, but because it's a whole lot of me in a bathing suit. so be gentle.



i have skin that tends to skip "tan" and go straight to "burn," so i always wear sunscreen when i head out into the sun — particularly if i'll be spending a few hours by the pool like i did shooting this video. my figure is a bit more 50s curvy than modern day skinny, so i embrace that with vintage style bathing suits and big floppy hats.

the next - and last, i promise - video is my favorite, because there's a lot fewer shots of me and a lot more food porn. and some recipes!

thank you all so much for the outpouring of kindness over the last week or two. it's hard to say it without just sounding like a hallmark card, but it really does mean a lot and i never ceased to be surprised and incredibly flattered by it all, big time.

have a lovely day!

xo audrey

as long as we both shall live.

all right! the last excessive wedding photo-tastic post. surely a relief for us all. well, okay, to be completely honest i can't look back through these photos without cheesing like. . . well. . . like i am in every single one of them. i had a really clear picture of how i wanted our wedding to look and feel - i mean, a wedding is pretty much one big party combining all things i love to do: paper crafts, food, playing dress up - and it really did turn out pretty perfectly. of course, i probably would have felt that way no matter what, but i'm very grateful to sam, and to both of our families, for letting me do this the way i wanted. it was a pretty sweet party.




oh, the balloons. i had wanted to hang a million streamers inside the tent, but the (very kind, i should mention) tent guy said no way - the dye from the streamers comes off in the tent on humid days. fair enough - how about balloons? as many as you like, he told me. and how. i bought 700-some odd balloons and my dad, little brother and brother-in-law filled every single one of them on the morning of the wedding. i'd had this picture in my head of balloons filling the roof of the tent, with the ribbons hanging down, kind of streamer like - of course, the balloons all quickly migrated to the 3 highest points in the tent and stayed there, but at least i still had my ribbons! . . . until the wind kicked up a bit.



yeah. . . goodbye, balloons. we managed to rescue about 75% of them but lots got away - which made for beautiful photos but possibly also some dead birds, which i felt pretty terrible about. the whole idea was that the ribbons would make 'em easy to grab down and hand out at the end of the night, so they wouldn't escape. thankfully i have an unusual number of extremely tall friends and family, so we tied them all down for the remainder of the night.

first dance jam! sam and i are both huge kinks fans - one of our first road trips together, we heard an album neither of us knew playing in a record store and bought it from the guy on the spot. it turns out to be a fan-club only album and is absolutely my favorite of theirs - the song we danced to is the first track, appropriately titled "until death us do part." (you can listen to it here.)



oh, we got fancy, it was just to quick to be captured on film. or something.


we served locally brewed beer by the keg (and, uh, a few bud lights for the discerning drinker and also had our favorite bottles of red and white wines; this banner hung over the walkway that the wedding party, um, walked down, and was made by the sweet caitlin.
cheers!

after dinner (mussels, corn on the cob, and lots of barbecue - chicken, ribs, and salmon,) we rounded everyone up for the battering of the piñata - just one of the many ways in which my wedding resembled the birthday party of an eight year old. i made it waaaaay too big without really thinking, but my sister and mom decorated it and it turned out pretty awesome, like a big ol' sun. i'd thought about trying to make it heart shaped - love! - but the idea of beating a heart until it burst seemed kind of wrong.





it took three people and two good whacks (one of sam's groomsmen, johannes, claimed 'piñata controller' as one of his skills, and i tell you what, he did not lie,) but it broke right in half and everyone snagged candy, those boxing-balloon thingies, and army men. and one friend turned the discarded piñata into a headress. a true visionary.



friends!

we cut the cake. . .




. . . which i threw into sam's mouth AND HE CAUGHT because we are a TEAM! and he fed me a piece very gently which i appreciated. high fives. then. . . dancing!



my dad and i danced to "do you realize" by the flaming lips, and sam and his mom to csny's "our house." my dad and i were THIS CLOSE to just busting a move to "burning down the house" by the talking heads (an old family favorite) but we realized that the message ("burning down the house" right before "our house"? "burning down. . . our house"?) was questionable.




jammin' out with my ma & ma


i'm fairly certain that i am shouting "shout." you know the song.

and that was it! our dj was supposed to leave at 10:30, but we kept slipping him $50s and he ended up staying until about midnight. the photographer left at 10 or so, but beyond this there was some pretty insane dance moves from my friend john, sparklers, bubbles, and lots more drinking. . .

on a more wholesome note, i leave you with some gratuitous pete pictures (cutest baby ever!) and one of my favorite portraits of me and my handsome husband.




clichéd or not, it was the happiest day of my life, and i am the luckiest lady i know.