not necessarily in this order

  This has been a week. Honestly, this has been a year. However, the Mr having a full week business trip the week before Christmas (and the week that all of LM’s activities do their “ let’s do a Yankee Swap ” and “ let’s wear Christmas pajamas ” nights on top of my car battery dying and our first snow was a bit much, haha! On this winter solstice, Lil Momma and I are writing our intentions for the new year and sending them off into the universe the next few weeks. I’m truly excited to end this year at a slower pace (Monday is my last day of work until after school break) and reset my house and habits. And, of course, there’s the baking, haha! As we gear up for Christmas week, here are five things I’m excited to make: One : I’m using Sadie, my sourdough starter that I started at possibly the worst possible time 8 weeks ago, for the first time and risking our traditional Christmas Eve and Christmas Day  cinnamon rolls  on a Sadie-risen recipe.  Two : I’ve started makin...

  We made a trio of cookies to get us through the holiday this year and fill out some small gift boxes for Lil Momma’s friend crew. Baking cookies is such a weird nostalgia thing for me because while my grandmother, Mimi, loved baking and always had these tins of homemade cookies she’d pull out after dinner for all of us, my own mother (her daughter) thought baking was the worst thing in the world and I grew up thinking the best chocolate chip cookies were Betty Crocker’s bag ones. (A fact that horrified my Mr when we first started dating, haha!) I’ve come to really enjoy baking in the last decade or so and love to try a new recipe each Christmas along with our family favorites. LM loves to help now, which warms my heart, even if that help is more measuring and taste testing vs cleaning up. Our new recipe for this year was for Chocolate Crinkle Cookies from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe ! Described as “ They are a delightful cross between a soft, chewy chocolate cookie and a rich, fudgy brow...

Oh my stars, food is so messy and full of feelings sometimes, right? This post is kind of about cookies but it’s also kind of about coming out of challenging times and not the best habits and it’s also kind of about being stuck in a rut. We’re having a weird health fall/winter. Obviously, I’m not going to go too deep and no one is in imminent danger and we’re all ok - but some of us are having to focus more on how much sugar and carbs we are  having and some of us are having to think more about fiber and movement. And, as our resident anxious worrying overthinker, I’m trying to make a plan, haha! Added on to that is we are in this transitional year for Christmas and New Year’s where we are reimagining so much of how we do holidays together after losing my mom - the possibilities are endless, which is exciting and hard and weird. When so much has changed, what we hold on to are these traditions that remain and, for us, that’s our Christmas desserts. We are a cookie family, especiall...

Maybe I should have called this “Dancing Uphill” as my life is revolving around these weekend dance competitions right now, haha! A few thoughts from lately:   Lil Momma had an amazing first dance comp of the year 2 weekends ago. Her first-ever duo got one of the special judges’ awards for storytelling and they placed in their category, her hip hop dance placed in its category, jazz was adorable, and she had a wonderful time running around with her friends. Bonus, all of her dances were done in ONE HOUR. Of course, we did hang out for SEVEN HOURS to see awards (not to mention driving down the day before and having a parking nightmare from the comp and a college graduation making spots impossible – I had to drop LM off, watch her go in, and then drive to a parking garage and power walk uphill 15 minutes to get back to her), but it was all worth it to see her having a nice little moment.   Last weekend’s comp was a bit oof, to be honest. We stayed overnight at a hotel, which was...

  Some thoughts from a February snow day for my girl and work from home day for me and her dad   One  “Why is Lil Momma up so early when we didn’t have to get up?”   Two “Is my hair too wild for video calls or can I hide it with my headset?”   Three “Thank goodness cinnamon toast felt fancy enough.”   Four “I am so glad the Mr and I aren’t doing Valentines because I didn’t get anything.”   Five “So much for checking my technology for that big meeting tomorrow.”   Six “Yay for friends who take my girl sledding.”   Seven “I will give myself grace for having the Mr get himself a card from Lil Momma since I thought we weren’t doing Valentines.”   Eight “I don’t know why I am so exhausted  at 4pm .”   Nine “I only have  until Friday  to finish one of my library books and I am not enjoying reading it but I have to finish it for a challenge”   Ten “I am so glad we can have family dinner and a cozy night and early bedtim...

Well, we made it! It was one of those weird life moments where the day itself was significantly less stressful than it has been in past years (weighed down so much by logistics and illness), which made us all feel incredibly guilty for enjoying our “all pajamas, appetizers and dessert forward, sad-and-fun-and-small ” Christmas. We felt our feels and had some laughs and memories and had a lovely day together, which was the best part.  I had leaned in on prioritizing bakes to give us things to do. I stand by this strategy; however, we could end up with a significant amount of desserts for only three people. It is what it is. I’ll start with the random one: on Christmas Eve Eve, Luke and I decided we needed a cake-like dessert for us to eat because we are not going to eat the one Lil Momma was making (a favorite of her and my mom, but too sugary and cool whip-y for me and too peppermint for Luke. We have been watching the Christmas Masterclass episodes of the Great British Bake Off w...

What a week, what a week… I have been seeing all these memes about the audacity of people still sending emails and work tasks when it’s basically the limbo that is Christmas week into New Year’s and I feel like life doubled down to make it super real to me!     Work has been oof the past few days as I found out me (and a bunch of us) are  losing our assigned workspaces  in the office and need to be cleaned out by mid-January. I always knew it was a possibility, but such a bummer to hear about this of all weeks (and with no warning / appeal) (and right before my 10 days off) and have to communicate to 30+ unsuspecting folks I sit nearby. I mean, I have no intention of going  in 4 days  a week just to ensure I can be assigned a desk again, but it’s hard to deal with change when there’s no good reason. This all may be my hatred of packing, too, haha! There are worse things, but airing a small grievance felt right? Random penguin to transition into holiday top...

  To kick things off, a win for Lil Momma who conquered her nerves and sang her solo and duet verses so well at her musical theater school’s holiday concert! There was a lot of drama leading up to it: She got herself sent home from school on Friday, we discovered the white sweater we had bought would make her melt because of how hot it was onstage and had to do a desperation shopping trip the morning of the concert, her coming clean about both being nervous and incredibly, vividly sad that her Nana wouldn’t see her sing  ❤  but,  we rallied ! Her replacement outfit looked adorable and we drew blue hearts on our wrists (in honor of her Nana’s blue eyes) before we left.  She was just fearless up there and did such a great job  with her song – both a confidence booster and an emotional win for this bumpy holiday season we’re having.    I also came home to a  surprise from Kathrin  ( formerly blogging at  coellefornia.us , which I use...

My Lil Momma and Luke both are creatures of routine and love Christmas something fierce. Although we have been challenged with a lot of life in recent November/Decembers, I do my best to rally the troops and focus on these rituals that they thrive on - even though giving up our nightly   Taskmaster   watching for holiday movies is making me a little Grinch-ish, sigh, haha. Last year, for the first time, I got each of us an advent calendar to brighten up our cold December mornings; mine was Marvel figurines, LM’s was Harry Potter figurines, and Luke’s was  A Christmas Story  figurines.  You might note the amount of figurines there… It was a lot. Just so many. And what do you do with them after?!?!!   This year, Luke has horror movie figurines and LM has rubber ducks (she felt so strongly pulled to them), but I decided to something different for myself:  a month-long tea trying adventure! Although I love tea and it’s part of my daily habits, I haven’t tr...

Our Thanksgiving was the quiet and weird one we figured it would be. Lil Momma asked for a pajama day and we leaned into that vibe:    Don’t want to start cooking until after we watch the parade?  Sure!   Having trouble timing the rolls with the turkey being done?  Rolls are the appetizer course!   Apple dessert not made yet?  Dessert will be dinner!   I had missed my usual “carbs are the priority” test bake weekend, so all of the baking was an “on the day” risk – but, we were ready for it!   LM had asked for “ homemade Bertucci’s rolls to dip in olive oil with parmesan ” as her one meal request. Now, I have made dinner rolls, but I haven’t made Italian ones before. I found  this recipe  and did my best to time it out. Making the “biga” 12-24 hours ahead went well (don’t ask me about the 2 forgotten bigas from the tests that never happened, haha, but please don’t), but I ran into some trouble with not knowing how long the first and ...

Obviously, it's been an emotional few weeks, but life peeked in, as it does, and we keep going, as we do. A few memorable moments from recent times: One  the casting came out for LM’s spring musical theater class musical,  Matilda Jr.  a few weeks ago. The owner (who was my teacher when I was a child), had pulled both LM and I aside the week before and said what a great audition she had, which made us both feel a glow because LM had worked so hard in preparation. Wildly, she did not get either role she read for - but, she did get one of the leads! She’ll be the villain, headmistress Agatha Trunchbull. She had a moment of sadness (“ But I’m not a mean person! Do they think I’m mean?! ”), but came into excitement when she realized that she’d have 2 songs and a ton of lines. This will be a journey, haha .  Two  the cast came off! (check out its final Tarbies trip below). We had a countdown of days going, but the Friday popped up when we had to head back to the orth...