New Year

Christmas and New Years look a little different now than they used to.  There's no long traveling days and flurried packing and sadness leaving our tree on it's own hundreds of miles away.  But there's also no full week off for Ian.  He's loving his new job but the time off is built up so these first years are feeling tight on long family vacations.  We'll get there.

In the meantime I get this week to myself with the kids.  Right now that means staying up while Ainsley putzes around in her room until almost 11 and getting up with Felix at 6:20 to help him find his new favorite batman mask and costume because he just can't start the day properly without them (I get it bud, for me it's coffee and a plan).

To be honest I'm excited about this week.  The kids got so many wonderful new things to do and play with.  We spent all day yesterday (the day after Christmas) building and creating and napping (for me!).  I read 1/3 of the first Harry Potter book to the girls and if Ainsley had her way I'd have read the whole thing straight through. (When Louise woke up this morning she told me excitedly about a great dream she had about Hagrid...success!)

I LOVE seeing their interests so honed in on this Christmas.  Ainsley is particularly enamored with all of the doll goodies and medical things she received.  From Santa she got the American Girl diabetes kit and arm crutches and from her Aunt she got a playmobile hospital and between those two she was occupied for 5 hours yesterday.  Louise's favorite so far is a paint set she received from Grammy.  The paintings look so professional and her hands are adorably stained from her hard work. She's also IN LOVE with her new Wellie Wishers doll Emerson. As I mentioned Felix is SO into his new superhero duds.  It's so funny to me that Ian and I made this little uber boy.  Santa brought him the Millenium Falcon, that plus his new Rescue Bots, giant Firetruck, and read aloud super hero books are pretty much all he wants in life.

I feel odd not having a knitting project on my needles at the moment.  I have a few baby things I could knit, and I've been wanting to make myself a winter hat, but for some reason the motivation to start isn't there.  I'm putting a lot of my mental energy towards this yoga program I'm doing, that and trying to stay away from sugar and treats to up the effectiveness of the daily yoga seems about all I can muster!

Ian got me Molly on the Range for Christmas and I want to make nearly everything in it.  This woman and her recipes appear to be the combination of everyone and everything in my life.  Born in the north suburbs of Chicago (my parents!) to a Jewish mother (Julie and Sim and Rory) and a Chinese dad (yum cuisine!) moved to New York for school, married a Scandinavian man (Ian + his entire side of the family), moved back to midwest (north Dakota/Minnesota) and currently lives on a chicken farm writing her food blog (pretty much my life dream).
Ian's hankering after the cauliflower shawarma and I'm super excited about the wild rice hot dish, homemade dumplings, and Israeli Shakshuka, among many other things.

I'm still really trying to revamp my meal planning, mainly sticking to the meal plan.  It's been really hard to shake the take out habit.  By the end of the week I am so over cooking and cleaning up after cooking that pizza just sounds so much easier.

I'm slowly remembering that keeping simple pantry staples is enough to throw something together most nights.  Last night I made crepes stuffed with leftover ham from Ainsley's birthday and roasted cauliflower, from the veggies tray on her birthday, topped with a simple cheese sauce (recipe for that and the crepes from my Moosewood cookbook).

I've really liked having a soup in the fridge for easy healthy lunches this winter.  Yesterday I made a batch of lentil soup (also from moosewood) and love that it was so simple (made just from pantry ingredients) and super healthy.

Today I am hoping for a slow morning, getting a few things done, getting out a bit, and lots of fun family together time.

I hope you all have a great week bridging these two fun holiday weekends!