5:25pm — Anna and David and the kids came over. Anna and I needed to do our makeup so we had a shot and then…
6:13pm — Next-level New Year’s Eve makeup!
7:10pm — Then we cooked and ate a delicious Hello Fresh dinner.
10:39 — Rum punch down!
10:55pm — Look at this cute little family, LOL.
11pm (Midnight EST) — Small fireworks! We did it for the kids but they didn’t even care.
11:04pm — Adult champagne celebration.
We went over to Anna and David’s for Christmas Day dinner. And another batch of Dave’s amazing Trinidadian rum punch.
Daaaaamn. I guess I do like rum. Merry Christmas!
If I haven’t mentioned it, we have created a bubble with our good friends Anna and David. Each family quarantined for two weeks and we always wear masks when we are with anyone outside our bubble—and even try to avoid prolonged visits with anyone outside the bubble. So we do hang out with each other a lot.
We usually share Hello Fresh dinners but decided to splurge tonight on not one, not two, but three orders of our favorite octopus appetizer from our favorite restaurant (Primo) and a homemade charcuterie board. That was seriously all Tom, Anna, David, and I wanted. Easy peasy.
We didn’t take one single picture of our amazing dinner, but it was delicious. We might also have drank an entire batch of Dave’s amazing rum punch and watched Christmas Chronicles with the kids. I’m not naming names but someone fell asleep.
Then we got ready for Santa!
We left out Girl Scout cookies because Katie texted Santa and asked if he liked them and gave him a choice and he picked the chocolate and peanut butter ones. The candy cane is for the reindeer.
I absolutely love the letters both kids left for Santa. Owen thanked him for being awesome (and gave him a spot for a Robux code) and Katie wanted Santa to write his name.
And this was where Maggie was. Maybe sneakily waiting for Santa, too?
I started with Pink Champagne lips and it looked okay…but that color is really just too light for me.
So since I am trying to redo ALLLL my color collage photos, I tried two other colors. My favorite is the Sheer Berry.
But check this out. I had Anna try the same Pink Champagne color and look at how different it looks! That’s simply due to the different color of our lips—hers are much more pigmented then mine!
We haven’t done cookie decorating because I just don’t have the patience. Buuuuut Anna wanted to do it so we tried. And even though there was a bit of a shaky start…Katie was actually pretty good at the whole thing. I was impressed. Owen doesn’t like sugar cookies so he did like one cookie and that was it. Tom and I even got into it.
We did a Frontera pickup today from Dwell Social. It’s a bit more prep than just dining at a restaurant, but we didn’t have to drive to Chicago, so it’s a win. This photo is missing most of the main courses but trust me, it was all there.
Short Rib Enchiladas
Six homemade heirloom corn tortillas, each wrapped around braised Creekstone Farms beef short rib, roasted local gold potatoes, tomato-guajillo chile sauce, Samuel’s artisan Jack cheese. Served with black beans and chocolate-pecan pie bars for dessert.
Tacos al Carbon
Wood-grilled Creekstone skirt steak and Gunthorp Farms chicken breast along with everything you need to make fabulous tacos: guacamole, roasted poblano rajas, black beans, classic Gulf-style rice, grilled knob onions, shishito peppers, two salsas and handmade tortillas with heirloom corn from Oaxaca, Mexico. Finish off with Mexican vanilla flan for a sweet ending.
Guacamole and Chips
Mashed Michoacán avocados, local Mighty Vine tomato, serrano chile, cilantro, lime. House-made tortillas chips served with red three chile salsa & green roasted tomatillo salsa.
Queso Fundido
Samuel’s artisanal Jack cheese, garlicky roasted peppers, and homemade chorizo served with heirloom corn tortillas.
BAR SÓTANO CRISPY TLAYUDA (TOSTADA) STARTERS
Six crispy Oaxacan tlayudas (rustic tostadas) with 2 toppings:
Kim Ho Ho Ho’ed everyone today with treats and a #momsquad wine glass for our Secret Santa exchange…
We had a great time but can’t wait to see each other in person again…
I wasn’t sure what color scheme I wanted to do with my tree. My friend Britt has a gorgeous red/gold/silver tree that I thought about trying to duplicate…
…but when I went to Hobby Lobby with Anna (to get some clearance Christmas decorations and (hopefully) ornaments) they had nothing with color that I liked. I did get a few generic items like silver deer heads and neutral burlap balls—as a start.
And then.
Anna said she had a whole bucket of unbreakable purple ornaments I could have. I had thought about purple but didn’t really want a PURRRPLE tree. But as soon as she showed them to me I knew they were perfect. They are in the dusty lilac plum family.
So now I need to find some bigger ornaments in those colors. And get some ribbon (right now we’re just testing it out with a few lengths Anna had on hand). And maybe add some snowflakes or icicles…
Friendship means Thanksgiving dinner plate leftovers delivery at 10:30pm because we had deep dish pizza today. (And we had had a game night with a bunch of us!)
When you’re on a cheese party zoom call in the kitchen you have to make do.
Playing some new online collaborative games. Quiplash is my favorite!
When your husband is out playing poker with the boys, you invite your bestie over to play in makeup. (I am sure the kids are still alive downstairs somewhere.) And then since we had our make up freshly done at 8 o’clock we went out to Marshalls.
The running joke for countless years has been that Tom was only in this marriage for my dad’s tools. Well, the time has finally come…my dad agreed to give up some of his tools that he just doesn’t use anymore.
So Tom and David drove up to the U.P. with a trailer (and David’s truck) to haul everything back. David had never been up there before so of course Tom had to take him up Brockway Mountain.
They were only there for about an hour and a half siteseeing and loading and then it was back home in the same day! They left at 5a and got home shortly after 10p!
And then a strange yet cool photo that happened accidentally when trying to put together a collage.
We are removing some of the dead shrubs and trees so tonight Tom had help with the stumps. David was happy to oblige. Now Tom wants a truck even more.
Today we explored another new nature reserve with Anna and David and the kids. I generally don’t take many pics but I did think this tree was super cool.
So recently Sam’s Club had my favorite egg chair on clearance so I bought another one and Anna also got one. We often video chat from our chairs but we are never in them at the same time and one or the other is doing something where we can’t get there. I said one of these days it will happen or I’ll make it happen.
Today was that day.
She called from her chair and I was just in the kitchen so I ran out to my chair!
We commemorated it with a screenshot.
I took this picture so on an upcoming day when she’s being a little brat, I can point out to Tom that there was a point at which she was being cute and sweet.
We did have Anna take a family photo later on the walk to prove we actually got out of the house.
Going off trail to explore the lake. They were so excited you’d think they’d never seen water before.
Plot twist! #lifehacks #winning
Anna and David came over to attempt flying kites at the park. The kids were kinda excited until they realized it was harder than they thought. We all gave it a good college try for about an hour then called it quits.
There are lots of parks and nature preserve around so we’ve started checking out some of them with our friends. I need to take more pics—this was one Anna managed to get.
Anna and I have been dying to get back to the salon to get our nails done. For some reason my cuticles turn to crap when I don’t have fake nails no matter what I do… Plus my real nails keep breaking at the base and are painful.
The salon felt safer than most stores I’ve been in. Masks required. Wait outside until you’re called. Temps taken upon entry. Everyone was wearing a mask—CORRECTLY. And they had plastic barriers between each worker and client.
I think this is half what we had the first time we did this. Maybe next time if we halve it again…
Anna had the idea to take all the kids to Goodwill and let them pick out something to take apart (okay, destroy). So we all masked up and wandered the aisles until the kids found fun stuff. Then we just gave them screwdrivers and let them go.
Anna didn’t believe me when I said I had A LOT of kitchen stuff. Today we tackled the plastic storage. She also couldn’t believe we use all of this and I assured her we use the majority of it. (We were matching lids so these will condense but it’s still a lot.)
So I admit it’s a bit frightening to see ALLLLL your plastic storage out at one time…. But that’s what happens when you move and have to find a new home for everything!!
Yes it seems like a lot, but we really do honestly use most of these. I freeze a lot of food and we’ve been eating out of the freezer to prep for the move so most of these will go back in the freezer once I start cooking again!
Are you a storage fiend like me? Or am I insane?
They were running late so this is where Owen was perched, desperately waiting.
Anna and David watched our buckets o’ plants while we were moving so we wouldn’t have to remember to water them! So tonight was the night we finally went and picked them up!!
He’s fine but has a scratched cornea. Always wear safety goggles, kids.
After Anna dropped the kids off from their overnight stay, Owen started complaining that his eye was bothering him. I figured he had an eyelash or something in his eye so told him to let it water and flush itself out. Nope, still there. I looked, nothing. I then tried to rinse it out—a challenge considering everything was obviously packed and I couldn’t find my saline, squirt bottles, or eye drops. (I might not have been in the best frame of mind, either. After another long day with the movers, now I’m having to deal with this at 3pm.)
So then it became the challenge of him letting me actually get his eye rinsed out. First he wouldn’t even let me get near his eye. Then he kept shutting his eye. Then he couldn’t tip his head back. Good times. I finally got some water in and he said it really hurt. Hmmm, that’s not good. So then I had to decide whether to see if we could get in to his doctor, go to urgent care, the ER, or try his eye doctor. I picked eye doctor and of course they had no appointments locally (they are five minutes from us) but a sister office 30 minutes away had an opening…so off we went. One quick look with some eye drops and yep, two small scratches. We were in and out within about 15 minutes.
And you can believe we had a big conversation about preventing things like this because the simple act of not wearing goggles meant we had to pay $70 for the appointment, $15 for the meds, and then another $70 for the follow up appointment. I told him we’d obviously always take care of these things, but that money could have gone to…a whole year of Netflix. Or about six trips to Culver’s. Or half of an Xbox. You should have seen the look on his face when he learned that. So hopefully that sunk in.
So how did this happen? The boys were (apparently) sanding wood blocks with a block and sandpaper—no power tools involved because David had wisely put the kibosh on that. I asked why he didn’t wear goggles and he said there was only one pair and one of the boys was smashing something into pieces so he wore them. Owen said he would sand and tried to keep blowing the dust away from him…?!
I can’t imagine how tired our movers are because they’ve been busting their asses since 8am. (Normally they load in one day and then unload the next day but the boss wanted it all done today!)
A huge thank you to Anna—my saving grace—taking the dog AND kids out of my hair ALL DAY. We’re also sleeping there tonight since the plans have changed about right times today and it will just be easier to stay there.
There is a tiny bit left for tomorrow so I’ll be back at it at 8am…and Tom will be back at work after his half day today (which was soooo nice).
We invited friends over for a physical distancing movie night.
We introduced the kids to Back to the Future. It had a lot more language in it than I remembered… Katie whined that she didn’t want to watch it but of course she ended up liking it.