Tag: life

Christmas Recap

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Christmas is always a whirlwind of family parties, church, food and wrapping paper and this year was no different. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful family – we were missing a few members this year to their in-laws, but we managed to adjust tradition and make it a beautiful holiday.

We kept with the tradition of the family sneaking all their gifts to one house so that the kids awake/arrive to a sea of presents. This year we hosted gift opening and it was a blast. PW and I both went to Bay’s room when she woke up and the first question out of her mouth was “did Santa come?”. We told her yes and that he had eaten his cookies and milk and that the reindeer loved their carrots. Her response? “did he put his dishes in the sink?”. Clearly she is my child.

She got to open one gift first thing – her new backhoe scooter – complete with a tool kit. What? Not everything has to be pink and pretty! She loved that she would have something that she could get around on quickly (she hasn’t quite mastered her trike yet) when she plays with Britain down the street.

She beeps when she backs up

“rip and tear!!”

Once she was done opening her presents, she asked for a “time out” in her crib. Which I think was a nice way of saying “overloaded”

“Boots like Morgan!!!”

We switched up our usual schedule a bit which left Christmas day afternoon open – which meant plenty of mimosas at brunch and a nice long nap for the whole family. The best part was that we had several friends stop by. Normally getting together with friends means much planning and coordinating of calendars, but the shared day off by all meant lots of very welcome impromptu visitors. We got to catch up with a great friend and best man from our wedding, Ryan and by Baylor’s Godfather Joe and his fiance Brandy. There was also a convoy of new bikes, scooters and cars with the neighborhood kids while the parents sat on the patio and sipped champagne. It was a perfect holiday.

After Bay had gone to bed last night, PW and I enjoyed our gift from my parents, a 2007 bottle of Cakebread Cabernet (we typically by wine base on the fact it’s under $15, not so much on the year). We were snuggled on the couch when PW looked over at the coffee table full of new Legos and said:

“Your Lego tower is pretty wonky”.

“It’s a tree” I replied.

“Wow. That’s a pretty crappy tree.”

“Listen, I don’t work at Lego Land, ass. Use your imagination!”

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas!! 

Thank you all for reading The Goon Room,  for all your comments and words of advice. I’m grateful for all of them! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, memories and much happiness.

Hand print Santa by Baylor Wand

I love looking at all our friend’s smiling faces!

It wouldn’t be Christmas without torturing Bear with some antlers.

Baylor’s Christmas list:

1. Boots like Morgan (her best buddy has a rad pair of green galoshes)

2. Presents.

Well said little lady!

Baylorisms – Part 3 – The Christmas version

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Christmas has brought a lot of new words to Bay’s vocabulary and not all of them are easy to understand. The Grinch, for example. I asked her to repeat herself 16 times before I sent her to PW for interpretation.

Silly Lu Lu – Cindy Loo Hoo.

Zinsh – The Grinch. This one is hard to write because it’s really more of a sound than a word and leads me to ask “show me what you’re talking about”.

There’s me! – her greeting when she walks into a room.

Sarah – Dora the Explorer. She doesn’t watch Dora but for some reason thinks her name is Sarah. Her swim diapers have Dora on them and when I put them on she says “Hey Sarah!!”.

The Teddy Bear – Winnie the Pooh. We’re going to see the Winnie the Pooh Christmas play today so I’m guessing she’ll know his name after that.

Krishness – Christmas!

 

Preschool Play

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Baylor had her first Christmas play last week and to say it was adorable is an understatement. I have been hearing bits and pieces of Christmas songs like Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Angel  and Are You Sleeping? for weeks so I was excited to actually hear the songs in their entirety.

Room 1 was lead in by their fearless (I think that’s actually part of her job description) leader, Teacher Jackie. They sang three songs with no tears and only a few wiggles. If there was a picture of Peter, me, my mom and his mom, we would have all looked like giggling idiots – my face hurt from smiling.

Ready to belt it out

Finally spotted Mom, Dad, Grandma and Noni

Hand motions for the “like an angel in the sky” part

Proud of their performance

I love this – they hold hands when they walk somewhere – B and her buddy Morgan know the drill

Kid Friendly Nativity

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Growing up, we had the most beautiful nativity scene. It was all carved wood and was incredibly detailed and had so many people – it was like a religious Barbie house to me. I loved playing with it. I like staging all the figurines, hiding baby Jesus and enjoying every minute of it.

As an adult, I had a hard time finding an equally beautiful manger scene that was kid friendly. But then I came across a hand-made set at a silent auction for Circle the City charity (amazing amazing amazing. If you don’t know, find out). I was stalking a bid I had made on a bedding set for Baylor and noticed the adorable figures. They are all knitted and include the three wise men, shepherds and sheep, a donkey, camel and of course the holy family and an angel. The auction was closed for it, so I asked the lady collecting the cards if she could give me the information for the person who made them. The lady said she didn’t have it, but if I would give her my info, she would have the lady contact me.

Flash forward 3 months and I got a call from Sister Joan. I had no idea who sister Joan was, but when a nun calls you, you listen. She explained she was driving to Arizona from California and that she had my manger scene for me. Huh? I confirmed that it was for me and not someone else since I had only been interested in knowing how much one cost…and yet now I apparently owned one. Or at least I was going to own one, once I knew how much it cost. To keep it brief, I almost drove off the road when Sister Joan told me what the winning bid was for the nativity scene at the silent auction. But she then told me that the lady who make the scenes donates them to Circle the City so whatever amount I wanted to donate was perfectly fine. I decided on a number that didn’t make me want to choke and handed over the check and collected my goodies.

Bottom line? Worth every penny. The best part about the figurines  is that there is not much that could destroy them so Bay is free to play to her heart’s content. She had baby Jesus in her baby buggy and was pushing him around because “His mommy Mary said it was ok”. Just love it.

The whole gang..happy at home in the hutch.

The wise men

The shepherds and the camel

The Fam – I love the donkey hiding behind them!

It’s Happened, G*ddammit

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So it’s finally happened. It was bound to happen and I think most parents go through with this (well, maybe not the good parents). I’m talking about when your kiddo busts out a swear word. And even better, uses it correctly and in multiple forms.

Last week after swim lessons, we were home and getting dinner started, laundry done and catching up with our neighbor, Melissa. I was headed out the door to the grill when Baylor walked out of the office and said “Oh no. Daddy forgot his pens for work. Goddammit!”. Melissa and I both paused and asked her what she said to which she answered “Daddy forgot his goddamn pens!”.

I stopped and silently absorbed what she had just said to me. I can’t lie and say that it wasn’t funny that she used it so perfectly – but I bit my tongue and held back the giggle and explained how that was not a word we use. Ever. No matter where she heard it from (i.e. Me).

The next day we were at the grocery store. It was particularly windy and her hair was not in her now trademark pigtail “knots” on top of her head. Which meant her hair was everywhere. As I was putting her in the car she declared “my goddamn hair clip won’t stay in!!”.  This time I asked her to look me in the eye where I explained that she is never, ever, ever to use that word. It wasn’t funny or ok. She then proceeded to say it 3 more times. I mustered all my strength and said nothing. I didn’t look at her, tell her to stop, nothing. I simply put the groceries away and ignored all further comments until I heard a very soft “I sorry, Mommy” from the back seat.

That was Friday so I’m crossing my fingers that we’ve at least side-stepped this one. That is until the printer wouldn’t print in anything but variations of yellow and blue…PW is responsible for that one.

Easy Christmas Decorations

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Holy cats. This Christmas has been screaming towards us like a Mack truck. I feel like we’ve been scrambling from the get go to catch up / get ahead of this holiday. When we were putting up decorations, I realized one of my favorite things is one of the simplest. It’s  a trifle dish full or ornaments surrounded by a fresh, live wreath. And this past weekend, I found a banner that cascades out of the middle that really is the icing on the cake – er, trifle. And really, it’s so something that Kristin Thomson at www.oneprettyplace.com could whip up lickety split.

Ali Hearts Coffee

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I love making mini Christmas trees. They are so fun to dream up,  to create and so fun to give as gifts. Peter’s mom and dad are both UofA grads as well so their tree is a UofA theme with all four of our graduation pictures as ornaments. My mom has one with an ornament for each of the kid’s family’s. I have aspirations to make one for Bay with a picture from each Christmas, but I haven’t found the right inspiration yet. But I did find inspiration with some coffee…

My sister, Ali, has always been a lover of Starbucks. She even worked there for a short stint in high school. I knew she had been collecting the mini ornaments they sell at the holidays so I asked her to bring all that she had and compiled them all into a tree.

I usually pick up a box of three, mini, prelit trees from Michaels in the after Christmas sale. So I had the perfect little 14 inch tree for the project. I tied on the ornaments, glued on some bells, tied on pretty ribbon and found the perfect espresso cup as the topper. I also found a mini tree skirt at Target – perfect!

Lettuce Eat

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Remember this post about the lettuce table that PW built for me? Well it’s back and better than ever! Bay and I planted seeds about 5 weeks ago and they are growing like weeds. I think we are some fertilizer and a week away from eating like rabbits for every meal. The best part is that Bay is totally persuaded to eat because she grew it!

 

 

Pasta Fagioli

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I am so fortunate to have become good friends with the other two room moms from Baylor’s class. They are incredibly funny, smart and freakishly talented multi taskers. And they like wine so we were a match made in heaven.

We sipped and snacked on Monday night at Postinos. I’m embarrassed to say that it was my first time there (look, I like to ride my bike and I live where I can do that to like 15 great restaurants, why go where I have to drive?!). We all ordered a cup of the Pasta Fagioli with sausage and it was awesome. I googled around and found a great recipe. It’s soup, but very hearty and great for a meal.

My  variations are that I used fresh herbs because I had them, hot Italian sausage (Safeway meat counter), kidney instead of cannaleni beans and I added 3 tablespoons of butter to the final mix, just to give it a little more flavor. I loved this recipe because it was a chop-and-dump-into-pot variety which is my favorite. Be sure to add the Parmigiano on top, it really pulls it all together.

Ingredients

    • 1 tablespoon olive oil
    • 1 onions, chopped
    • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
    • 1 carrots, peeled & chopped
    • 1 stalk celery, chopped
    • 1 lb sweet Italian sausage links or 1 lb hot Italian sausage, casing removed and crumbled ( can use turkey sausage)
    • 2 teaspoons dry oregano
    • 1 tablespoon dry basil
    • 1 -2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, to taste
    • 1 1/2 cups canned chopped tomatoes with juice
    • 3 -4 cups vegetable stock or 3 -4 cups chicken stock
    • 1 can progresso cannellini beans
    • 1 cup ditalini or 1 cup small shell pasta
    • 2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
    • parmesan cheese

Directions

  1. Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium high heat.
  2. Cook onion in oil 2 minutes.
  3. Stir in garlic, celery and carrots and cook for 3 minutes.
  4. Add and brown crumbled sausage.
  5. Add basil, oregano and red pepper.
  6. Toss to coat.
  7. Stir in tomatoes and stock.
  8. Bring to a boil.
  9. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes.
  10. If necessary, add an additional cup of stock or water and stir in beans and tiny pasta.
  11. Simmer for 6- 8 minutes or until pasta is tender.
  12. Stir in parsley and serve hot with grated Parmesan cheese.

Recipe credit from:http://www.food.com/recipe/pasta-e-fagioli-italian-soup-with-italian-sausage-38088