This morning M was snorting over one of our baby photo books. “And put syrup on Isis!” she cackled. For a few weeks when J was a toddler, she had discovered humor, and her idea of a joke (probably born during a pancake breakfast) was to add this phrase to anything anyone else said. As … [Read more…]
I said that we’d decided to upgrade the basement playroom as the girls’ main Christmas gift, mostly because we were interested in doing it eventually and they hadn’t given us any ideas. At one point I’d asked J what present she’d like if she could have some sort of fabulous fantasy, and she said that … [Read more…]
Amid all of the shortbread baking and de-cluttering, I went into a minor panic on December 23rd when I couldn’t find a bunch of gifts. I don’t know about you, but in the month before Christmas, I’m constantly squirreling things away into various hiding spots around my house. I might put a ton of thought … [Read more…]
I know. It’s been forever. First we were busy with Christmas and visiting relatives in Vermont. And Cute W’s been home from work, so we’ve been on extended vacation mode. We’ve been doing things like learning how to play our new cooperative game, Forbidden Desert, binge-watching Modern Family, and testing which chocolate chips produce the … [Read more…]
Last night I was pressing shortbread dough into molds, Cute W was applying orange frosting to blue cupcakes in preparation for Monday Night Football, and we were catching up on news of the day. Cute W said, “A girl I went to high school died. I didn’t know her well. Cancer.” I gave a little … [Read more…]
Among the many, many foods we ate during our Thanksgiving, we tried something new: pickled pumpkins. My sister had made them, and she offered them up as an appetizer, placed on a lettuce leaf with a bit of cheese and gussied up with pumpkin seeds and a fancy-pants pomegranate syrup that she made from reduced … [Read more…]
I’ve been wavering between feeling downright euphoric (I’ve actually squealed at the piles of boxes waiting for me to open and squirrel away, and I was super-excited when I scooped up something the girls will like thanks to my oh-so-clever friend C) and going into a minor panic at what I haven’t done yet. Did … [Read more…]
I’ve been de-cluttering. I know: you thought I might be running around shopping or decking halls or some such, but cleaning out some storage is Christmas-gift-related. That’s all I’ll say about that for now. But I’ve been uncovering treasures and not-quite-treasures. It was a pretty epic purge, if I do say so myself. In one … [Read more…]
We spent Thanksgiving in Savannah, visiting my parents and my sister and brother-in-law, who all live there. It rained almost the entire time that we were there. When it wasn’t raining, the kids were riding around on my parents’ golf cart, which is always a big highlight of our trips down south. I went to … [Read more…]
It was a beautiful day to hunt down and bag our Christmas tree! We ended up going with the widest tree we’ve ever had. M has named it “Plumpy.” The girls found the tree and I was skeptical but unwilling to quash their enthusiasm. “That one’s really nice, girls, ” I said. “Did you see … [Read more…]
