Busy Busy Busy

We have been busy!

We have been trying to get the house clean for Santa to come visit. Santa really likes it when the houses he visits are clean. (Mom does too!)

We have been getting some cookies ready, because Santa loves to have a cookie or two.

We are finishing the last of the Christmas surprises. And wrapped presents are starting to appear under the tree.

These are not for us however. Just for others. The ones for us are all hidden away still. And I've only had to re-wrap one of the presents so far. 

On this shortest day of the year we are keeping busy and trying to focus on what it is ahead. Christmas is coming full speed ahead. 

Magical Grocery Shopping

Today is our first day of Christmas break! Yahoo!

And can I tell you about my own little Wednesday miracle?

M and I usually go grocery shopping on Mondays while C was at school. But Monday was the Christmas program so that didn't happen. And yesterday M taking a nap won out over grocery shopping again. But we needed some groceries.

So it was either take both kids or figure something else out. And guys HyVee Aisles Online came to the rescue. Since we already shop there in our rotation with our fuel saver card, they had a list of "favorite items" and most of what I needed was on there anyway. So it took me about 10 minutes online. Then for $2.95 someone else walked around the store collecting my groceries and bagged them up.

All I had to do was load the kids into the car and drive up. I called the number and about two minutes later my groceries were loaded into my car for me.

God Bless America. Obviously this isn't an all the time solution for my family, because Aldi does save us a bundle on groceries every week. But for the times when I want a specific brand (looking at you Heinz Ketchup) this is a reasonable solution. For real the $2.95 was less money than the impulse buys that would have occurred almost certainly.

And we have enough food now to get through the next bit before Christmas!

I should add here that I was talking this experience up as magical and C was slightly disappointed that the groceries didn't fly out to our car... so there's that. But it was in fact, grown up magic to me!!

The TK Christmas Program

This afternoon I got to go to the TK Christmas program! I know, try to contain your excitement.

But I cannot because seriously how cute is this kid in his Christmas sweater?!

Anyway, the kids sang:

• All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
• Jolly Old St. Nicholas
• Away in a Manger
• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• Quiet Night
• Santa Clause is Coming to Town
• We Wish You A Merry Christmas

I didn't have a super good seat because I volunteered to help set out the cookies before hand but that's Husband's head directly in front of him and he took a video and pictures so... that is awesome. 

I love our Parish school and I am glad C has had a place to shine and be loved for his 2017/18 school year! Only one more day of school until Christmas break! That's crazy!

A Nearly Perfect Weekend

Oh my friends. This weekend has been a balm for my soul. That is over-dramatic certainly, since nothing in life has been bad. But this weekend has just been great.

Friday I made that viral Pinterest/Facebook hot chocolate recipe in anticipation for the #clanunseen Elf Twitter party. Basically, we all watched Elf at the same time and tweeted about it using the hashtag. They have been doing this since 2012 and it's funny to go back and see my old tweets. This year did not disappoint.

The hot chocolate was good. Super rich but definitely good for a party. The movie was funny. And I loved feeling connected to other families all while spending time with mine. It's really the best kind of party honestly.

Then come to find out that Younger Season 4 dropped on Hulu. We have been waiting since September for this and we... binged the whole thing and didn't go to sleep until 2:00 AM! I know! We're crazy! But we couldn't stop and we just love it. It was just as good as I anticipated. Charles yelling at Liza on his birthday in his office? Yeah, that is my favorite moment so far of the whole show.

Yesterday was super low-key. Because we stayed up super late the night before. And you may think between reading and television that is all I do these days. But we actually cleaned our porch, built a bookshelf and completely cleaned out and reorganized our toy cupboard. And people just looking at my playroom with our "grown up bookshelf" *cough Ikea over Walmart so super fancy upgrade obviously* and very little that doesn't have a place to live... it brings my heart peace. 

No clutter = inner calm. God bless my clean house. 

Then today. Pink Sunday. (I know, rose. I get it. But seriously... it's pink and that's okay.) Mass was good. Then my Vikings went ahead and made themselves division champs. CBS only showed the game until halftime because it wasn't interesting enough. I think I could solve the problem of no one watching football by having them just air the game they say they will air but I am not a network executive. 

My fantasy football team is in the playoffs and somehow it's a two week game, I handily won last week. But this week isn't going so well... eh. It would defy odds to have a Vikings win, Packers loss and a Down By the Schoolyard win all on the same week. 2/3 is okay. (And Julio Jones could have an amazing day tomorrow which would really help the cause.) 

Anyway. I've got a roast to get from the crockpot to the table so I will leave you here. I hope your weekend has been equally wonderful!

Totally Tuesday

I am very happy to report in on this Tuesday that everything is fine. Our gingerbread house has survived thus far. Which in all honesty surprised me. It has never been something I've worried about but I fully anticipated waking up on Sunday morning to disaster. 

My Monday was about as typical Monday as it gets. There wasn't anything particularly remarkable about it. I did two loads of laundry. Ran the dishwasher. Took C to school. Went grocery shopping. Picked C up from school. Etc. 

M spotted these "cooker mittens" at Aldi. 

It was sunny for the bulk of the day but in the mid afternoon it flurried/rained. Our news outlets really want it to snow and they keep throwing the word around trying to will it into existence. Yesterday was about as minimally flurried as it can get to still call it flurries. Which for the record I am 100% okay with. I know we are supposed to dream about a white Christmas but since our holiday involves driving I am a dreaming about clear and safe road conditions. 

Woah. That is probably the lamest, most ridiculous paragraph that has ever been blogged. 

Anyway, we've been slowly watching The Crown. I am trying to savor it. Usually I am a binge watcher. But the show is so gorgeously done that I fear it will come to an end rather quickly. We'll still probably be done with it by this time next week, with only ten episodes total. 

Today M and I have a play date while C is at school and she is ridiculously excited about it. It otherwise is shaping up to be another mostly regular day. Well, it is Taco Tuesday. And we will be having a taco party for dinner. What makes it a taco party? That is a good question. 

Whenever I plan for a dinner that at least one member of my family is bound to not enjoy, (In this instance C and due to peer pressure or the fun of copycatting probably M too.) I call it a party to make it more enticing. This means I will add chips and salsa to the table along with the traditional taco fare of meat, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and rice. We only serve dragon approved taco toppings and even still one taco will probably have to be cajoled into a food pipe. 

Ah real life. So un-glamorous and boring to read about. Alas, that is what's going on in my world. Have a good regular Tuesday! 

Gingerbread 2017

It is that time of year again! Yesterday was Gingerbread Day 2017. It is one of my most favorite days of the holiday season. We make a gingerbread house (or houses) from scratch every year. Everything on our houses must be edible which is kind of a dumb rule since we never, ever, eat them ever. Nor would we want to because food safety is absolutely not our concern while we are making them.

We started the evening with the kid houses. We prebuild their houses because they aren't quite patient enough to hold the walls and roof in place until they're dry. They truly weren't all that patient anyway and asked approximately 97 times whether it was time yet.

Pinterest will tell you about the muffin tin to hold the candy. It really isn't a bad idea. We offered M&Ms, jelly beans, chocolate chips, Christmas tree sprinkles, bite sized Airheads and mini Swedish fish. 

After we were all set up... we let the kids loose! 

And their results were lovely! Obviously the advent candles are lit for ambiance and not accuracy. 

Kids Houses 2017

After we got our children nestled snug in their beds... we got to work on the adult house. This is our sixth year doing a gingerbread house as a team, but this year we really dove in. My entire goal of this house was to do windows. 

And we added windows. But we also added chocolate work, impressions and a very specific house to emulate with a roof that is best served not by gingerbread. 

This was our house in the process. We were testing the windows but I just stuck some tea lights in there, and they were flickering as candles do. And there's no roof and Husband thought it looked a little bit like Tara burning. I was pleased with how the windows turned out for our first attempt. I followed Martha Stewart's video for making windows.  And while ours definitely tasted burnt, since I didn't care if it was tasty it worked out just fine. 

Anyway... here is our finished house:

"In an old house in Paris..."

Peg Dolls from Punch and Judy Pegs. 

I am super duper pleased with how this house turned out in the end. But man did we put the effort in this year. We were working on it until about 1:30 this morning which is late even for us. 

Now, this is where I need to write things to remember in the future. We started baking really late. Like at 2:30 or so. We were really battling the royal icing and next year we need to buy more powdered sugar. One can never ever have enough powdered sugar available on Gingerbread day!! But the Just Whites company needs to start making the powdered egged white again because last year with meringue powder the icing was too stiff, and this year with pasteurized liquid egg whites it was too loose. 

Husband and I had some miscommunication. He did brick impressions on the whole house and I thought we were just doing them on the chimneys. As it happens, I didn't even get brick impressions on the chimneys which is a funny little twist that wasn't super funny to me in the heat of the moment. We take our gingerbread seriously and at that point it was a little too seriously. 

We definitely aimed high this year and man did it throw some challenges our way. (Picture me with my hair dryer trying to cure the roof... because that absolutely happened.) It was the first time in our six years I truly thought Husband was going to call it quits. In fact he did suggest that we just leave the roof off and deal with it in the morning. But we persevered and I am so glad we did!

What We've Been Up To and I've Been Reading

Wow wow wow. It's Thursday. 2017 is slipping away from me here and I don't like it one bit! It really blows my mind that it is already a week into December!

St. Nicholas found us yesterday. Which is always fun. This year he brought Disney Christmas pajamas, and some books for the Christmas book basket.

We also made the Fluffy the Snowman pancakes for dinner last night.

It wasn't a complete Pinterest fail situation. Of course ours doesn't look as lovely as the IHop website picture but it was still pretty cute and tasty. A nice winter dinner anyhow! 

I have one of my book clubs tonight. About 6 months ago we turned a corner and our meetups to discuss the books have been very thematic. Tonight's book to discuss is Where'd You Go, Bernadette.

I wrote about it a few weeks ago. It's a little hard to describe without completely spoiling the whole book, but basically the book revolves around Bernadette an agoraphobic architect who goes missing before her family's trip to Antarctica. (Colleen if you see this, this is definitely a book for adults but would be rated PG! But I know fiction isn't your thing!)

Anyway as it turns out, Husband has a work event tonight and I was a moron and forgot about it when we scheduled book club. So I can't go. But... that's actually kind of thematic to the book since, Bernadette disappears and all. So I didn't tell my friends I wasn't going to be there and instead had Husband dropped off this package this morning. 

Manjula is Bernadette's assistant. Inside I wrote a letter explaining my whereabouts and some of my thoughts on the book. That is also thematic because the book is epistolary in style for the bulk of it. But then I also included a copy of next month's book for all of them as a Christmas gift. (I picked the book and it's a fairly new release so I am hedging my bets they don't all own it already.) What can I say? I like a good theme! 

This picture is actually a picture the host took and texted out to all of us letting us know it arrived. I didn't want to be the only one not to respond so I sent a thumbs up emoji. I can't wait to see what they think tonight. 

In more book news, I was on quite a few wait lists through my library and obviously Murphy's Law, I got all 4 books automatically checked out to me within days of each other! So this past week I have read: 

Radio Girls. Historical fiction about women who work at the BCC at the very beginning of the organization. Also a really good, for adults but pretty PG read. There's a little bit of suspense but not so much to kick it out of the historical fiction genre. This would be a wonderful book club pick! 

Before We Were Yours. Once again a PG read but it was intense for me at time. The story follows Avery who returns home to help her senator father in the midst of his declining health. She happens to meet a senior citizen named May. Avery decides to find out more information about May and discovers a hushed up history of stolen children and illegal adoptions. 

This book is historical fiction in that the characters we meet are primarily made up. But the children's home and staff members at the children's home were real and some of the situations you read about are taken from accounts of children who survived it. A lot of what they go through is truly horrific and you can't believe the injustice. I liken the reading experience to reading Orphan Train or The Nightingale. Well written and important. 

Little Fires Everywhere. This was probably my favorite book I've read in a while. It is my second book I've read by Celeste Ng and I personally really like her style. She has a slow and steady pace, and she jumps around in time a lot. This book is a drama, mystery, family psychology, storytelling from many points of view... and I enjoyed it. That said, I know that some people really don't like her style so take that as you will.

It is hard to describe the plot because it's kind of a little of everything but it primarily follows two families in a seemingly perfectly planned out suburban town. These families are completely different but become intertwined and a very public custody battle plays out and line are drawn.

I really liked the book but it is definitely a PG-13 read.  However reading this immediately after Before We Were Yours I declared to Husband that I did not want to read another book about adoption for a while.

I still have two books I am currently reading so when I am mysteriously absent from the blog I am probably just reading. :) Of course after these next two I am sure there are more on the horizon. It's my final push for 2017 books read.

"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"

"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" "full season" dropped on Wednesday. Full season in quotes because we got seven more episodes. And, I know. I know I sit here in my little tiny corner of the blog-o-sphere and go on and on about Amy Sherman-Palladino and how wonderful she is. But you guys, this show is good. It is so good.

Let's go ahead and state from nearly the beginning that it is definitely rated R for language. (Swears and sexual content.) So if language bothers you, this isn't your show. It also isn't for children. That said,

Somehow AS-P has conceived, written and directed show that showcases her artistry. It's fast and smart like "Gilmore Girls." It's charming like "Bunheads." But it does it's own thing and it gets deep and personal. In the final ten minutes of the season finale, to quote Amy here, my poor little heart couldn't take it! I became so emotionally invested in Midge, Joel and Susie in eight episodes. But the cherry on top of this amazing AS-P sundae is that in addition to being fast, smart, charming, deep and personal, this show is funny. It is deeply funny in a way that I didn't really realize a show could be funny.

There's situational comedy, subtle comedy, high comedy, stand-up comedy... it is intriguing and heartfelt, you are Anton Chekhov-ing it all the way home because if you are not laughing you are crying. This show made me feel. It made me reexamine my life and goals. Can I do more? Should I do more? Am I helping or hurting my marriage?

What Amy does well is she makes everything so personal but she shows all sides of a situation. No one in real-life is all good or bad. We find a balance. And that is how Amy writes her characters and shows. Her heroines are good but they make poor choices sometimes. But the true strength of AS-P is that she doesn't just write characters. She writes a whole world. Midge gives us insight into so many facets of life in the 50s (good and bad) that you can't help but be amazed.

It is a deeply satisfying show that is charming, funny and brilliant. If you do not already have Amazon Prime to be able to watch "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", it would be a very good time to get the free 30-day trial. Eight episodes is easy enough to get through in that time plus free two-day shipping for Christmas. It's a win win.

Disney on Ice 2017

Last night was the kickoff to our Christmas season because we went to our 6th annual Disney on Ice. And now December can begin!

This year we had the whole section to ourselves which was really nice. It has been a few years since that's happened. Actually it hasn't happened since M has been attending come to think of it. We waved hello to Minnie and Mickey, then thoroughly enjoyed watching the rest of the show.

This morning we opened the first doors on our Advent calendars and we are ready to rock December!