"With Hot Air Balloon, the idea was not to create a kids' album, but to create good music with kid-friendly lyrics and sophisticated, interesting instrumentation," Vanessa says. "I had recorded a previous CD of acoustic folk music, but I'd never done a children's album before and neither had [producer] Neale Eckstein. So, thankfully, we didn't have any notion of 'dumbing down' the music. We wanted variety, fun, accomplished musicianship ... and of course, we wanted a get-up-and-dance groove!"