Made it Home

We got stuck in Mississippi after that crazy blizzard shut down all airports in the North East. What better place to be stuck, though, right? It could have been much much worse. So after two days of waiting for the all clear we headed back to Boston (first class!)



The snow on the ground was beautiful!
We dug our car out of the 20+ inches of snow, obtained provisions, and snuggled by the radiator (how romantic) for the rest of the evening.

I hope you will be happy to hear that one of my resolutions for the coming year is to blog daily (or at least almost daily). Please be prepared to comment daily as well (I, in turn, will also be commenting on your blogs more-I always read them, mind you). And as a jumping off point, I'll ask what are your resolutions this year?

Just Me and My Helpers

This morning I awoke to the sound of birds chirping and not fire engines or people yelling. It was lovely.
I then proceeded downstairs to find warm blueberry muffins that my sister made!
I was inspired to go ahead and make the Christmas goodies that will be gifted this week. I won't say, yet, what they are for fear of ruining the surprise, but accompanying me all morning were my helpers, George Jones on vocals and Red, the bird, on constant window tapping...

He watched me the whole morning and continues even now to tap on the glass near where I'm sitting. Sweet little guy, if you had thumbs maybe I would have let you help.

An Early Christmas

Bryan and I opened our gifts to each other early this year because we are headed to Mississippi right now, as a matter of fact. (this is mobile blog number 1- coming to you direct from the Atlanta airport)

I was so excited when I opened my gift! And if we're being completely honest, I teared up a little.

I felt like I had been initiated into the you're-finally-a-real-chef's club or something! My very own Le Creuset Dutch Oven in white!!! Hooray! I can't wait to use it when we get home.

And for my Beloved, his very own coffee maker!

We have a wonderful French press but it is quite labor intensive to make several pots a day with the constant cleaning and washing and brewing of water in a kettle and what not. The new one can be set to brew at whatever time you'd like and will keep your pot warm for much longer than the French press does, and it can make many more cups at once! Hooray!
Merry weekend-before-Christmas! It's going to be wonderful to visit Mississippi! If this post from my phone works out, I promise to keep you more entertained all week!

The Story of Our Life

Earlier this year I picked up this big blue book full of blank pages and quickly decided to fill it with The Story of Our Life.
Page One is complete!

All of the frame work is cut paper. The lettering is cut from thick wool felt. And the photograph is one I took for a photography project. It is my 'Raggedy Ann' doll and Bryan's 'Grazer' dinosaur from when we were little.

 felt lettering

 cut paper framework

 plenty of blank pages to fill!

and so you can get an idea of how big this book is, that's a quarter on the lower right corner

Adele's Big Adventure

Another nanny and I each took our respective 15 & 14 month old to the Boston Children's Museum last week. I had just as much fun as Adele did and she was totally worn out after 4 hours of running, climbing, and exploring.

 They were dancing on a green screen yelling "look, look, look" while pointing to themselves on the monitor. 

 Adele dialing into "The Car Song" by Woody Guthrie... she loves that song!

Most of the pics are a little blurry because they never stopped moving the whole day.

Barely made it out of the building!

Gingerbread Time

The party was super fun, and I think quite the look into people's personalities...

 15lbs of flour and Derek & Tiffanie's double oven were the main ingredients shown here

 each kit was prepared with four walls, one roof, one chimney, one tree, and one person

all of the participants brought some kind of specifically assigned candy

 this was Carolyn's workspace... this may also have been building attempt number three in progress

 Bryan's architectural genius at work

Bryan's house and his ginger-self with a red faux hawk. We all made our ginger selves with red hair and freckles.

Bryan's

 Jim's... possibly a gingerbread interpretation of the Waco, TX massacre. There is a white flag of surrender, a wounded ginger man in the yard, land mine M&M's, and a large compound-like fence.

 David's house

Nolan's house which was attacked in an anti-Canadian hate crime... notice the twizzler flames climbing up the side of the house and roof

 the bearded ginger man and his torch

This one is mine. The only one with landscaping... if you don't include Jim's land mines

Elizabeth's suburban home with a three-car graham-cracker garage. I guess she also did some landscaping.

Ben's. I think his was the most clean and well constructed one of the bunch! I'd live here...

And in the end, Carolyn ended up with a sculpture garden.

 Our gingerhood

 Jim's compound really lowered the property values of all the others, I must say. Next year we'll have a strictly enforced gingerhood covenant.

I have a fantastic gingerbread recipe and house templates that I created if you want to make some magic at your house!!