Samantha Hahn for the Chicago Tribune

The artwork of my amazing friend, Samantha Hahn (creator of the illustrations for the Sakura Bloom Styleathon), was featured last Sunday on the cover of the Chicago Tribune style section!

How cool is that?

Now, allow me to share a fun little behind-the-scenes secret:

The artist asked yours truly to pose as a reference for the illustration!

!!!

As you can see, Samantha is even more talented than we had imagined, capable of transforming even the most humdrum of living room photo shoots into material for a glamorous cover (see: toddler about to pounce from nearby couch, ratty old bath towel standing in for bright beachy one, and suspicious lack of sand). Not to mention that she dealt so kindly with this mama's generous share of wobbly/saggy/stretchmarked bits :)

I have never felt so bathing beauty-ish!

Thank you, Samantha!

Also, note to self:

This does not count as an actual trip to the beach. No.

We need to get cracking on one of those.

It's the 4th of July weekend already, sheesh!

Here are a few of the other versions of the design

that were considered for the piece. Aren't they so fun?

wow. thanks.

Oh my! I can't begin to tell you how much the response to my last post has moved me. It is so wonderful, exciting, powerful to get a sense of who is actually out there reading my blog, and I want you to know that every single comment and email that I receive is so very deeply appreciated. Thank you so much for reading, and thank you so much for saying hello! You guys are the BEST and I love you!!!

These are two of my favorite photos from the weekend. Above, Jackson and me, mugging for Photobooth while still in bed, early Saturday morning. Below, Walker onstage with Taro for the introductory speech on opening night of the Our Time pre-teen shows.

saying "hi" + a surprise...

In the month of May, 53,125 of you visited Marvelous Kiddo!
Who are you? How old are you? Where do you live? What do you do?
Take a moment to introduce yourself or just say "hello".
Thanks for visiting.
Have a wonderful weekend!

XOXO, Leigh

PS: Be sure to check back in on Monday...I have a fun surprise and I can't wait to share ;)

rubysmith photography

My dear friend, Liz Rubincam, is an amazing artist who recently founded Rubysmith Photography, a small team of image-makers who love photography and storytelling, based in Victoria, British Columbia. Check out the Rubysmith website and be moved by the collection of beautifully candid moments captured there in Liz's soulful, documentary style. Just wonderful!

Selima for Crewcuts

Did you know that Selima Optique has a range of eyewear for kids, designed exclusively for Crewcuts?

My friend Angel, who works at Selima's Bond Street boutique, introduced me to the line one day when I dropped by the store to shop for myself. The collection is so freaking cute, I knew I had to tell my readers about it!

The frames come in several classic shapes and a snazzy array of colors, for style options to suit any budding fashion maven. Jackson and Walker loved rocking the sunglasses that Angel lent us to review and photograph, and it was amazing to see how they gravitated to different styles that perfectly complimented their very different personalities. Jackson immediately picked the Delancy frames as his favorites and started channeling his inner movie star, whereas Walker looked utterly himself the second he donned the insanely-precious-yet-still-totally-badass-pint-sized aviators.

I am in love with the range of mauves and pinks that the Scout style come in. So pretty, right? Doing this post is making me want my own new pair of sorbet-colored glasses! Lucky for me, Selima has the grown-up styles covered too ;)

Shop the entire collection of children's sunglasses online at J. Crew, or bring your kiddo by a Selima store location to get a custom fitting for prescription lenses.

Spring

Spring! And Earth is like a child
who has learned many poems by heart.
For the trouble of that long learning
she wins the prize.

Her teacher was strict. We loved the white
of the old man's beard. Now we can ask her
the many names of green, of blue,
and she knows them, she knows them!

Earth, school is out now. You're free
to play with the children. We'll catch you,
joyous Earth. The happiest will catch you!

All that the teacher taught her—the many thoughts
pressed now into roots and long
tough stems: she sings! She sings!

--Ranier Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus I, 21

All photos by me, except for 2 and 4, which are by my friend, Corie.

recent favorite moments

It's been a while since I've posted about our daily goings-ons, and I have a ton of photos piling up on my phone, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite moments captured in recent weeks. The first photo, above, taken at the Temple of Dendur while visiting Abbey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is going to go down as one of my all-time proudest snapshots. I mean, srrsly! A perfect moment captured. Moving on...

Daffodils = Spring, yay!

Joanna took these next ones when she and Toby came over recently. With two chatterbox toddlers, tandem nursing is the only way I can get a word in edgewise ;)

My parents were in town last week, and we had so much fun with them. One highlight for the boys was making art at the

kitchen table with Papaw:

The painting above is by Walker. He has some major chops with the brush, am I right?

I spotted this old Singer sewing machine during a recent walk. It was sitting on the sidewalk in front of a junk shop. I was so tempted to buy it, but ended up just snapping a pic instead.

Toby and Walker in the sandbox.

Jackson and Walker on their favorite local race car.

A nice play of shadow and light from that visit to the MoMA I was telling you about.

Toddlerwearing + museumgoing :)

My bling-y nails. I am a hopeless manicure klutz. I absolutely cannot do my own nails to save my life, or at least that's what I thought until I tried these. LOVE. So easy and fun. I still can't make them look perfect, but at least there's no dry-time and they don't smell awful like regular polish.

Walker and I took my mom out to celebrate her birthday at Pure Food and Wine. It's one of our favorite restaurants -- everything there is so delicious that the fact that it's all entirely raw seems beside the point! This Classic Sundae was so good we ended up ordering an extra one.

Another day, another treat. This one is the soft serve sampler at Momofuku Milk Bar. The flavors? Candy Bar, Crack Pie, Grasshopper Pie, and Cereal Milk. It was hard to pick a favorite. I adore the fact that the sampler includes fun toppings, woot!

Mamaw outdid herself with the building of blanket forts while she was here.

A recent after-bath, naked-baby-romp.

And this is how the boys nap.

They're so lucky to have each other.

rainbows for your weekend

It seems like every image I've saved in the last week has been inspired by rainbows, so I thought I'd throw them all into a post and share! Enjoy the colorful goodness and have a wonderful weekend :)

XOXO, Leigh

PS: What are you up to? Today we're going to visit Jen and Steven at the Pulse Art Fair, tomorrow we're hanging out with friends, and on Sunday I'm joining Nancy to meet Ina May!!!

Images, top-bottom: Shrimiatreya on Flickr via Honestly...WTF, Zara pants via Style Essentials, Gabriel Dawe thread installations Design*Sponge, Isabella's party via Ohdeedoh, yarn gift wrapping from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts via Oh Happy Day, Rain Bow Tote by Ross Zietz via Swiss Miss.

This Week in Classic Cinema: Modern Times

For the second week in a row, we visited our friends Corie and Micha'el and enjoyed watching a silent film classic projected on their living-room wall, movie-theater style. This time, they introduced us to Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.

We loved it, and I was particularly wowed by the female lead, Paulette Goddard in the role of the Gamin. Besides being shockingly gorgeous, her face and style was the most fresh and modern thing about the film. She could be a young hollywood starlet of today! I have to admit, now I'm a little bit obsessed with her, so of course I had to research a bit (hello, Google!) and I found out that she and Chaplin were a real-life couple. How fantastic and sexy do they look in that photo, above?

Here's a delightfully genius sequence from Modern Times:

Between Earth and Heaven

Photo via The Robert Goldwater Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Flickr.

This week the kiddos and I met up with friends to visit Abbey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she works! It was sooo much fun to hang out in such a magical setting, and it was the most delicious luxury to be guided through the museum with Abbey's fabulous insider perspectives and insights. Many new-to-me treasures were revealed.

One of my favorite discoveries was this gorgeous metal tapestry by the contemporary Ghanaian artist, El Anatsui, entitled Between Earth and Heaven. Made from bits of aluminum liquor-bottle-labels woven together with wire, this hanging sculpture billows luminously against a saffron-colored wall, and to me felt positively alive with shimmering, undulating energy. Standing before it, I definitely had one of those spine-tingly (almost spiritual) art moments. A photo cannot possibly do the piece justice, so you'll just have to go encounter it for yourself! Meanwhile, here's a nice video I found that illustrates the process of creating and installing the work, in case you're interested.

Thanks, Abbey, for introducing me to a new favorite thing ;)

W explores The Temple of Dendur, another highlight of our visit.