Holiday Happenings

I've been pretty busy this week!  All of these pictures are a little dark because the past couple weeks we leave in the dark and come home in the dark so I haven't been able to get decent photos.  Anyway, this year I challenged myself (I also challenged friends and family but no one accepted) to not purchase any gift wrapping supplies.  I had to be quite creative - some look pretty cool and others look not so pretty... but I did save money and a few trees :)  These are Callie's presents from Santa (good thing she doesn't read my blog!) - wrapped in the paper that was in that same box that we used to make Callie's car!  Nothing from that shipment was wasted :)  She truly believes that Santa is bringing Rudolph and Clarice with him to our house so to go along with it, she will have a gift from each under the tree!

(Silly Hair Girl (AKA Lalaloopsy) tree house from Santa, "girl" Lego set from Clarice, and a very cute stuffed puppy from Rudolph)

*Oh my gosh!  I just realized when looking at this picture that I spelled her middle name wrong!  Better change that before she accuses Santa!  To my defense, it was pretty late when I wrapped these - haha - I can't believe I did that!*

Spicin' up the school uniform with a cute headband!

The past few nights I've been working on my stock of Christmas treats to hand out.  So far I've made Chex mix (just the original recipe on the back of the cereal box), Granola (my own recipe with a couple extra Christmasy ingredients), candied nuts (recipe below), and strawberry jam.  I still have to make Russian tea cakes and mock almond roca - hope to do that tomorrow.

For the top of the jam jars I just used the lid as a template to cut circles from some decorated paper I already had.  I think they turned out pretty cute!  Gallie took her teachers each a jar this morning :)

And just for fun... this is what Caleb looks like after a 15 hour day of shooting on Snoqualmie Pass!

Sugar-and-Spice Candied Nuts
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

1/3 cup dark-brown sugar
2/3 cup white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt (I might up this by a 1/2 tsp. next time for more of a sweet/salty balance)
Generous pinch of cayenne pepper (I swapped this with 1/4 teaspoon of hot smoked paprika)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pound walnut or pecan halves or whole peeled hazelnuts
1 egg white, room temperature
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix sugars, salt, cayenne, and cinnamon, making sure there are no lumps; set aside. Beat egg white and water until frothy but not stiff. Add walnuts, and stir to coat evenly. Sprinkle nuts with sugar mixture, and toss until evenly coated. Spread sugared nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet fitted with parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from oven, and separate nuts as they cool. When completely cool, pour the nuts into a bowl, breaking up any that stick together.

Happy Birthday Bobby!

Lily turns 3 years old tomorrow!  But her RUDOLPH party was today!  It was such a great party - I think Gallie actually had more fun than the birthday girl :)  And I'm sure Lily is still up as I type this playing with all her new toys!

Both of the girls love Rudolph and all the characters from the movie.  Libby did a very nice job with the cake and all of the party favors!  And you should have seen the favor boxes she gave the kids!  It was like Christmas!

Had to throw in a picture of Luca :)

Make a wish...

and blow out the candles!

Happy Birthday Bobby!  We love you!

What we've been up to...

Well... some pretty exciting stuff!  We've spent the past week looking at Christmas lights in our pj's, staying up to watch TV Christmas specials, wrapping presents to fill beneath the tree, having dinner out with friends, and super excitingly opening the advent calendar each morning (6:30 am even on  non-school mornings to be exact!).

Today was pretty chilly (27 degrees this morning!), but after school for Gallie and a meeting for me, we bundled up and went out for a walk.  The sun actually felt really nice.

Throwing rocks on the frozen pond to try and make water holes for the ducks :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon indoors mainly playing with Gallie's new "car" - a box our Vital Choice was delivered in today.*  She seriously played with this thing for like 3 hours!  It's actually a pretty sweet ride - working steering wheel, key hole, seat belt, and a car seat for her little animals!  She got a new school ID recently and used that as her driver's license :)

I was the library lady and the restaurant lady - she would drive to the library and check out a book and then drive to the restaurant for a snack - this little routine was reenacted about 30 times :)

Thanks to our Vital Choice order today we had a pretty great dinner!  Gallie recently discovered she loves shrimp and ate about 20 of them tonight!  After dinner Caleb left for the weekend - he's teaching youth film making workshops all weekend in Seattle.  Gallie and I have plans to finish up the last little bit of our Christmas shopping tomorrow... and also, Rudolph is on at 8 pm!

Over the weekend...

Saturday was a very busy day!  We got up bright and early to be the first in line to see Santa!  Gallie wrote him a letter the day before and asked for "one hundred and one stuffed animals" - like I've mentioned before, she has a slight obsession with stuffed animals!  On the front of the envelope I asked her to try and write Santa by sounding it out herself and she did a pretty good job :)

After Santa, we went home to get ready for yet another birthday party (we've been to 3 in the past month!) at noon.  It was for Emmy - Gallie's bff at school.  She got her Shrinky Dinks and Littlest Petshop.

We got home around 2:30 and Gallie begged to do the gingerbread house project that we had planned on doing Sunday... I'm flexible :)  We did the same one as last year - Trader Joe's - which is really the best one I've made.

That evening we went to a Christmas party for one of Caleb's biggest clients, Vital Choice.  It was so much fun and the food was AMAZING!!!  Vital Choice is a seafood company, so of course that was on the menu.  Here is what we had (and Caleb and I both agree it was one of the top 5 meals we've ever had):

H'orderves - hand salad w/ prawns (Vital Choice), grapefruit, and pomegranate; cream of mushroom cappuccino shots; baked crisp bread w/ prosciutto; open bar (I opted for the blackberry/plum spritzer which was perfect).

Salad (Course 1) - mixed greens w/ candied pecans, prosciutto, pears, blue cheese, vinaigrette.

Course 2 - baked bread w/ potato and pancetta accompanied by mint pesto (very mild and tasty).

Course 3 - baked golden and red beets w/ poached cranberries.

Main Course - baked squash (not sure the variety?) stuffed with forbidden rice and topped with black cod (Vital Choice).  This was so good I can't even describe it!

Dessert - eggnog mousse w/ a variety of fancy cookies on the side + coffee.  I devoured the mousse and tried one bite of each cookie... that's all I could do.

I really ate a lot of food, but it was over the course of 4 hours so I think that's why I kept going :)  It was a great night out.  And thank you to Cody for babysitting!



Sunday was a different story... the only times we left the house were to go for a walk and go look at Christmas lights after Gallie was in her PJ's!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We decorated for Christmas last Sunday... and we decided to use our little tree one more year :)  We don't really have a lot of decorations, but there are little touches all around the house to make it warming for the holidays.  Callie was so excited she could hardly stand it - I remember feeling like that when we decorated the tree when I was little.  Each of us kids would take turns hanging one ornament until the box was empty.

Handmade decorations are best :)

We have a small collection of the Annalee figures... love them!

The stockings were hung on the mantle with care...

Gallie's advent calendar - she can't wait until Thursday to open the first one!  Santa filled it with little erasers, stickers, and non-candy prizes.

The vintage reindeer figure is Gallie's favorite (courtesy of Molly).

And to top it off, we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas last night!

My resolution...

I've been wanting to learn to do something new or add a skill to my resume and I've narrowed it down to three things:

- Learn to sew, embroider, and/or knit
- Take voice lessons
- Study Spanish

I want to learn to sew so I can make things for Gallie.  And also so I don't have to go crying to Molly every time a button falls off a shirt.

I want to take voice lessons because I really love to sing... I'm just awful at it.  I wouldn't try to go join a band or anything - it would be for self gratifying purposes only.

I want to learn Spanish because I think it would be cool.

I hope to decide in the next few weeks so I can start in the new year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Also, happy 3 week birthday to Luca!  He's so cute :)