happy thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope your day was filled with yummy food, good conversation and a treat or two. 

A New York Minute.

Last weekend before the holiday season set in, one of my dearest friends and college roommate, Liz and I met up in the grand, the wonderful and always fabulous New York City.  Being able to escape to New York City for a few days to catch up, see some art, and hit the pavement is such a treat for me. And it made it even more fun to have a partner in crime this time. Liz and I walked our feet off, ate yummy food and chatted just about non-stop. So from a delectable dinner at Balthazar Restaurant, a beautiful Henri Matisse paper cutting exhibition at MOMA, coffee stops in the morning, browsing the stacks at The Strand plus more we did as much as we could squeeze into a couple of days. 

Click through to see more pictures of our trip.

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Last weekend we headed up to Penntengil Farm in Salisbury, MA to explore their Vintage Holiday Bazaar. It was fun to walk around and it helped us to start to round out our holiday shopping list. Clearly, the highlight for the excursion for Oliver was driving the tractor.

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Riding bikes home after swim class, Harvard COOP storytime and lunch at Shake Shack. 

And finally, this week at school was a vast improvement over his first. He did really well with drop off and is coming home with stories about his days as opposed to what he is missing about his old school. I do believe the fact that he got his first real backpack helped with the happy factor. hey it's the little things, right?

Taste it: Maple-roasted butternut squash salad

This salad screams fall/winter to me. And your house smells amazing while the butternut squash is roasting. It is a win win for dinner time. The main star of the show is the sweet yet spicy crunchy on the outside, puffy on the inside little nuggets of butternut squash but all of the elements of this salad balance out to create a satisfying meal. So click through to read about the yummy fall favourite in our house. 

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my bug. my boy. my big blue-grey eyed mini date on the town. I may be feeling a wee bit emotional today because you see this week is his new week at his new school. Yesterday was his first day and he was so excited and proud all day at school until I picked him up and then he was a cranky mess. So then cue this morning which started out just fine around the breakfast table but quickly crumbled in the car. He started listing off things that he missed about his old school and that he did not want to go to his new school. I was trying my best to be cheerful with him but as soon as we parked the car the tears started and Oliver clung to me with every fiber of his being. And he stayed that way until I extracted him and gave him a kiss and hug and I tearfully left the room. I know he will rally and have fun and I hope we can keep him on the up swing for the end of the week.  

So before school started we had and Oliver/Mama dater.  We did our third installment of a hand cut silhouette by Erik Johnson. He is an amazing 3rd generation silhouette artist and I highly recommend getting a beautiful memento for your home.  

reading a passel of superhero books at the Brookline Booksmith. 

We ran around like crazy people at Joey's Park in Belmont. 

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a bit late to the game. again. sorry. but here are a bunch of our comings and goings for leading up to Halloween. Oliver was totally loving on Halloween this year and was super excited to go trick or treating with all of his neighborhood buddies. We live in a great part of Cambridge which has a street that shuts down and is full of themed filled houses and we walk down from our house and get to reap the benefits. 

sweet snuggles on a farm outing. 

annual trip up to Freeport, ME to get some xmas shopping wrapped up early. and wander around LL Bean, of course. 

pumpkin carving.  

saying good-bye to some wonderful friends at his old school before he starts his new school this week. fingers crossed that the transition goes smoothly. it was hard to say good-bye. 

and yes, the main event...Halloween! what a blast to galavant around with all these kiddos. Everyone had a great time, adults included.

crazy town on Dudley St. 

candy jubilation!  

inspecting the loot at the end of the evening.