Eli had a blast today. Not only did we get our first significant snow, but we also put up the Christmas tree. Eli also thinks that advent wreaths are awesome: he loves candles.
Amelia couldn't care less.
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| From Snow! |
This is the one holiday that it is about a meal, but somehow the entire long weekend became an endless meal only interrupted by sleep. We started on Thanksgiving with a waffle brunch, and then a lackluster turkey dinner at Leon's. Friday evening we had a nice traditional dinner. My mother did the usual fare, but some things were new. Bridgit made a pecan pie with apples and cut the sugar in half. The apples gave it sweetness without the gooey sugar layer that pecan pie usually has. My mother also did a sweet potato mash covered with sugar and nuts.
We had people over for breakfast on Saturday and we had some amazing food. We pretty much made it our Thanksgiving meal. Bridgit made a Cranberry Spice Bundt which was amazing. The most amazing thing to me was that she actually almost followed the recipe. The only thing she changed was some whole wheat flour in place half the regular flour. She also made a pumpkin fondue thing that was spectacular. The only problem was that one of the pumpkins tipped over in the oven and poured goo out and made a bunch of smoke. Holly made quiche florentine which had more stuff and less eggs then most quiche.
Then to wrap it all up we used the turkey carcass to make a turkey soup and had it for dinner tonight.
Now I need another long weekend to sleep off all the food.
Oh, and Amelia is now eating real food. Real food means rice cereal and sweet potatoes.
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| From Amelia Rose |
I remember mountains of wrapping paper strewn about the house Christmas morning, but hopefully my kids won't. Christmas generates enough packaging anyway that we don't need to put one more disposable layer on it. Bridgit's family has used fabric bags for some time, but for the past few years we have been using straight-up fabric. It is fun and we have developed a good stockpile of fabric and ribbon to use.
It started a while back when I discovered the art of Furoshiki which is kinda like origami, but for wrapping things. The Japanese Government has a handy PDF to show you how to wrap what shapes.
While we sometimes use those techniques, I usually do the standard paper techniques, but with fabric.
There are some tricks to making it look good:
Bonus: cleanup is super easy.
It's safe to say Amelia is moving. Tom put her in the middle of the quilt, and here she is… photolink
(Awesome quilt made by Erich Harbowy's mother. Thanks!!!) There's also phtos of Eli in soccer socks that he put on himself, and a few photos after going to the park on a cold day: Eli has some pretty sweet clothes on.
She's also gigglin', especially when Eli does anything goofy, which is most of the time, so we have a pretty spirited home theses days.
We were getting ready to start the bedtime routine tonight and Eli ran into the other room. We were doing other stuff, so we let him go. A few moments later we hear a whump… “hehehe -ow- hehehe.” It was pretty funny.
I was thinking today about our new President and all the usual jazz about the historic-ocity of the moment. This morning I told Amelia (who is 4 months old today) that she would get to grow up under an Obama presidency and she smiled and giggled at me. This evening I was thinking back to the first time I heard of this guy with a funny name. It was at the 2004 Democratic Convention. I still remember the feeling I got from listening to him; it was awe inspiring. The first thing that came to mind was JFK. I'm not sure if it was the youth and energy, or the inspiring language. In his speech he introduced the US and the world to Barack Obama. I recall talking with friends about how amazing this person is and that he should be President. Now he is.
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On Friday night we ditched the kids with grandma and grandpa and went to see Margret Garner at the opera house in Detroit. Once I adjusted from a movie mentality to a music mentality I enjoyed it much more.
The story is kinda really depressing, but that usually makes for good opera.
I had posted a while back about what our new car should be. C&D has a new article that shares some of my frustration about the lack of wagons and specifically the lack of hot wagons. Some of the wagons I like more then others, but all would be acceptable.
Bridgit brought home some a few days ago and we cooked a buttercup last night. I forgot how much I love squash. Properly prepared it is a wonderful comfort food. I usually prefer squash in the smashed form, but in cubes it is good as well.
Everyone loves butternut, but I think it is a little overrated. Buttercup is lesser known, but has wonderful nutty and smoky notes that make it great for blending into butternut.
And don't forget pumpkin! Pumpkin pie often gets a bad rap, but is one of my favorites.
Check out this cool eyeball test. It can be addicting. You have to do things like find the center of a circle or make right angles.