My House Is A Shrine To My Family

The Kinder Studio has come up with a way to flatter our kids and recognize their artistic accomplishments in a way any parent can appreciate:

"As parents, we strongly believe that children's art, however crude or fabulous, deserves appreciation. We also know how challenging it can be to show the proper respect for each and every creation while maintaining some semblance of grown-up home decor.

After layers of tattered paintings and drawings threatened to take over our walls, we got the idea to turn our favorites into digital files which could then be reproduced as easy-to-frame prints."

When I bought FeeFiFoto last year I thought it would be fun to sell personalized gifts, but I never anticipated picking up anything for myself because I see my kids all the time anyway. I designed a photo calendar just to see how the site worked, and a photo handbag as a conversation starter, and discovered a warm feeling I hadn't expected from looking at things with pictures of my own kids, similar to the feeling I get when I hear the greeting my daughter recorded on our voice mail.

Turns out that the personalized photo items mesh well with my home decor theme of "shrine to my children." I've framed drawings and paintings; I even framed the papers on which each of them first printed their own names. Nearly every room in our home is decorated with:

a pastel,

a self portrait,


or a map of the United States my son drew free hand from memory in thefourth grade. No kidding -- by the time they finish sixth grade kids at his school map the entire world from memory.

Here's one more just for fun. Can you figure out who this person is? Take a guess, and then click on her to see if you're right. Go ahead -- I'll wait.

My most unusual mementos/artworks, are each kid's first Jack O'Lantern. It might sound peculiar but actually it was ridiculously simple although, admittedly, inadvertent. After my son's first Halloween I couldn't stand throwing away that cute little pumpkin with his lopsided smile, so I popped it in the freezer and forgot about it. Nine months later I found it to be almost entirely freeze dried; I put the pumpkin in a very low oven, turned the oven off and left the pumpkin in there overnight. The next morning the little fella was dry and firm. I did the same thing for my daughter's first pumpkin, and they both occupy a place of honor in the dining room.

Halloween Already?

Cleopatra's been mulling over this year's Halloween costume since the day after Halloween last year; she and Robey also usually begin planning their birthday parties the day after their birthdays. A few months ago she decided to be Lola from Hannah Montana ("Lola" is the alter ego of Miley's best friend Lilly, who dresses in disguise whenever Miley's disguised as Hannah). Normally Lilly's a blonde tomboy, but in full Lola regalia she wears funky mismatched clothes and a wig in purple, orange, green or red. Lilly's played by Emily Osment, the younger sister of Haley Joel Osment, the kid who sees dead people; wearing a wig she looks like her brother if he were, you know ... wearing a wig.

At first Cleo declared she was going to have her hair cut short and color it. This was a baaaad idea. Not because I like her in long hair since, frankly, Cleo won't let me fix her hair and when she does it herself it looks like she brushed it with an egg beater. No, this was a bad idea because, as much as I love seeing her pixie face peeking out from a pixie haircut, I had a sixth sense (sorry -- had to throw that in) that the moment the first handful of hair hit the floor she'd melt down and it would be ALL MY FAULT for, I don't know, letting her have her hair cut, which somehow would turn into making her have her hair cut. Consequently I pretended not to understand English when the subject came up.

Well, with Hannah Montana tickets ready and waiting Cleo became more determined to dress as Lola, so today I browsed Google and came upon a lime green wig on Amazon:
Actually, I came upon quite a number of similar wigs in a variety of colors, which I conscientiously showed to Cleo and here's the point to this whole story: my daughter, who always knows what she wants, and wants what she wants, and gets what she wants, insisted on RESEARCHING the exact color and style of wigs Lola wears in different Hannah Montana episodes, and debating the relative merits of each option. So I visited Google again and came upon a YouTube video featuring Lola in various states of wigness. After a good amount of debate Cleo fixed on the lime green, with a request that I save the video for when it's time to research the outfit.

Now I remember one Halloween when I dressed as a leopard in a yellow shirt and yellow tights with brown paper circles taped all over me; admittedly I looked goofy, but I don't think I debated the subtleties or symbolism of my costume choice. Is it really necessary to put almost as much thought into a Halloween costume as some women put into the selection of wedding gowns? Just asking.

Visit my web site, FeeFiFoto.com, for personalized photo gifts. We will put your photos on almost anything. Personalized photo calendars, mugs, handbags, jewelry, ornaments and porcelain plates make great gifts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, birthday, anniversary, new baby and graduates.