NAME MY LABEL

NOTICE THE POLL AT YOUR LEFT!! VOTE VOTE VOTE!

i am trying to come up with a name for my handmade label and etsy shop. i think emily sparks: handmade is boring. so, i am polling you! i have come up with 4 names. if anyone wants to through a new one into the mix, just comment on this post and i may add it to the poll! thank you for your help.

last weekends excitements

sunday

we went to the park on sunday after church and let penelope run in the sprinklers. it has been so rainy, we wanted to take advantage of the sunshine. penelope had mixed emotions about it. she laughed, she cried and we all had fun.

saturday

we started out on saturday by going to the cooper-hewitt design museum. my favorite display was fashioning felt. it was a really cool exhibition on felt and the different ways it can be used. i got a few pics from my phone, but you should definitely check out the website.

felt dresses, felt chair, p&b reading in a felted tent!

the cooper-hewitt has the largest private gardens in manhattan. penelope really enjoyed running around. it was a very nice visit.

us in the cooper-hewitt garden

bryan in one of the garden chairs and penelope pushing her stroller

we went to the flatiron building. it is one of bryan's favorite buildings. it is such a cool building!

we stopped at a park to get penelope's wiggles out!

we went to the empire state building too!

we went to design within reach. everything there was designed by really great furniture designers. bryan aspires to be able to furnish our home with furniture from dwr...it is, however NOT within our reach now, so we were just lookers.

some chairs

penelope and bryan enjoying the goods.

we entered a blasting zone...brian reagan anyone?!?!?

MAILING LIST

i have started a mailing list! i am going to start sending out a few newsletters a year (at most 6 a year) with information about my handmade products! i will let you know when i am having sales, givaways, new items and venues that will be selling my items. if you are interested in joining take a look at the left side of the page!

thanks

e

penny gets free stuff!

ever since we got to new york city penelope has been treated like a queen. she tends to attract a lot of attention. she has gotten a lot of free food from generous people. we were in a gelato and italian pastry shop and the head chef gave her free gelato! we were in a grocery store and the manager/owner, i don't know his title, came up to her and was talking to her and asked me if she likes the fishy crackers? i said that she did and he gave her a container full of fish crackers. and on friday we went to bryan's work to say hi and check out the club monaco sample sale (i got pencil skirts, 1 cashmere sweater, 1 long button up cardigan, a hooded shirt, a belt and a purse all for & $21...YAY!) the girls in the design firm next to bryan's, smart design, saw up walk by and thought she was adorable, so the next time we walked by they all ran out to give her a pack of cookies and a juice box. i don't know why i bother packing a bunch of snacks for her, she gets them all on her own!

i can't believe how big she is getting. she is such an industrious little girl. she likes to take my shopping bags and walk around the apartment filling them full of things she finds within her reach, usually shoes and her own toys, and then she carries them around the apartment. she also likes to load up the little cart we got her at ikea and push it around. BUT the thing she likes the very most is conversing. she will look you square in the eyes and blurt out sentence after sentence, then she will wait for you to respond and then continue talking. if someone is not around, or if i am already talking on the phone, she will grab up an object that looks like a phone and talk on it. she is so much fun!!! and in 1 week she will be 15 months old-crazy! i love you penelope jane.

tuesday with jess

we went out to the west village with jess yesterday. i have made it a goal of mine to find the best cupcake in NYC. i found a top 20 cupcakes in NYC online the other day and my beloved crumbs was 18th. the top 3 online are all in the west village! so, it was of the utmost importance that i go to the west village to visit magnolia bakery...#1! it was jam packed with cupcake lovers, i could hardly get penelope's stroller in. i understood what the rage was about very quickly...the cupckaes are amazing. i was able to find a free recipe online at food network, click here if you are interested in trying it out! i love is when chefs are confident enough in their product that they GIVE AWAY the recipe. i will definitely be making these when i return from the summer (i lack a lot of essential baking gear here.)

we also went to my beloved purl. i have been a reader of their blog for sometime and i was super excited to see their actual shop. it was beautiful. i picked up some yarn for some things i am working on for the shop. i have been working on some new scarves and things that i will unveil in a month or two...get excited.

on our way back we stopped by washington square, saw NYU and we shopped a tad at urban outfitters.

me and penelope at washington square

arch detail

the goods

for dinner bryan and i went to the barking dog, it is very close to where we live and we had heard good things about their food. we got wings and onion rings. bryan was craving the wings, he is definitely a wing man. the wings were good, but their onion rings were the BEST i've ever had. i am not a big onion ring fan, but i will definitely be getting those again.

it was a good day.

GO TO BIJOU!!!

the BIJOU MARKET is ON SATURDAY!!!

please go! it will be super cool. you can check out their website here and get some ideas of the goods that will be sold there.

our adventures of late & happy fathers' day

first of all, i want to say happy fathers day! bryan and i have a wonderful fathers. thank you! and i want to give bryan a shout out!!! he is an amazing dad and penelope loves him. thank you bryan!

here is an update of our nyc adventures so far. thank you julie and justin for your advice on activities and we are definitely adding a few of those activities to our "to-do" list! during the week penelope and i keep busy going to central park, running errands and hanging out at home. we had a crazy day on wednesday penelope was playing with my phone in central park and i didn't realize that she had taken it out of my bag and we went home. when we got home i was looking for my phone and my friend jess, who went to the park with us, told me that s

he had seen penelope playing with my phone in the park!!! so, my phone was lost in central park...which was as good as gone forever. jess stayed with p while i went back to the park. as i rounded the corner leading to the part of the park we had been playing in this guy came up to me and said, "did you lose your phone?" i was surprised! i said, " yes! how did you know that?" i guess when i was gone jess had called the phone again and this nice guy and his wife answered it and she let them know i was on my way. we have found the people in new york very nice in general!

this saturday

New york has been a pretty rainy city lately! we decided to go to the american museum of natural history for our saturday activity. it was super cool! we really liked the dinosaurs and we got to go the an exhibit called extreme mammals, which was super cool. i learned a lot. it was rainy and saturday, so it was extremely packed. it was good to get home.

easter island figure. bryan found some cool artifacts from some areas that he served in the marquesis

millipede enlarged!! yuck!

life-size blue whale... remember him from Night at the Museum?

we are working on animal sounds. penelope growls for EVERY animal. for the tiger it is appropriate!

HUGE CRAB and LOBSTER

moose or meece? what is the plural for moose? moosen?

last sunday

we went to our new ward for the first time last sunday. everyone was so welcoming. it is a pretty young ward. there are a lot of children penelope's age. bryan's first mission companion is in our ward!!! small world. after church we walked around central park and let p roam...she loves dogs, birds, sticks and rocks, so she was very happy.

penelope running up a path. it is hard to keep up.

bryan chilling out in front of a sweet bridge

crumbs makes delicious cupcakes and cookies...mmmmm!

last saturday

we walked down to the piers and took the ikea ferry to pick up some essentials. it was really fun to see the pier and it was children's day, so they had a lot of fun music and activities going on. we also got to walk down wall street. it was fun to see a new part of NYC.

this is the boat we intend to sail on when the weather is nice. it only costs $25!

penelope pointing to the statue of liberty from the ferry

here we are on the ferry

on the pier

brooklyn bridge

our new diggs

so here is our apartment! we are living on the upper east side, just a couple of of blocks away from central park.

our building

kitchen

(very small...but it works just great)

entry

our bedroom

living room

(it's bigger than it looks..it also has a tv and desk)

i love our area, it is so much fun to walk around and explore. there are a lot of great museums that we want to go to. we are starting our "to do" list.

here are some of them:

1 sail around manhattan & check out the piers

2 flea markets

3 go to the top of the rockefeller center

4 coney island

5 a broadway show

6 go to an upright citizens brigade show

7 go to the manhattan temple

8 statue of liberty/ellis island

9 central park zoo

10 museums ( Met., MoMA, Guggenheim, museum of natural history)

11 take the ikea ferry

on my personal to do list i have:

1 h&m (only 6ish blocks away)

2 farmers' markets

3 yarn stores (string and purl)

4 run a race in central park

any suggestions?

my friend from byu, jess, is living out here right now and came by yesterday. we walked around in central park, we picked up some groceries, and we found an AMAZING looking cupcake store called crumbs. i think i will pick us up a cupcake today for dessert. today i need to find a place to do laundry...that is my goal. i also need to pick up a bath mat.

jacqueline kennedy onassis resevoir in central park