Category: Family
Carrot and Beet Salad
Sometimes you make up a dish with whatever you have on hand and it turns out more attractive and tastier than you had any reason to expect. My sister C is visiting from Florida, and she, her three kids, and my mom came over last night for pizza. It was Auntie C’s first time meeting the twins.
I wanted to throw together a salad, but the baby spinach I was counting on was well past its prime.
I used one of my favorite kitchen tools, the mandoline, to slice up some carrots and (precooked and vacuum-packed) beets, drizzled with a balsamic glaze I’d forgotten was in the cupboard, and sprinkled some crumbled goat cheese and sunflower seeds on top. Look how pretty!
I realized when cleaning up dinner that I had some fresh thyme hanging out in the fridge, which would have been a nice addition to this dish. If balsamic isn’t your jam (or, in this case, glaze), you could use lemon juice instead. A lot of nuts could work in place of the sunflower seeds. I think if I ever actually planned to make this, I might choose pistachios. Yum.
You might notice, in the second photo above, that the bottle of balsamic glaze is sharpied with yesterday’s date. I try to remember to date containers of things — spices, salsa, pretty much anything that comes in a jar — when I open them. That way, D and I can make informed judgments about whether to dispose of stuff weeks or months (or, ahem, years) later.
Selfie w Twins
Achievement unlocked: selfie with twins (sort of). Yes, the below image is a little blurry, but it is my favorite because:
- In an effort to keep everyone attentive, I was singing “Silent Night” here.
- My singing apparently caused A to crack up. This is the very first time I have seen her smile.
- My singing apparently caused H to throw signs to other members of his very tough, plaid-wearing baby gang.
Christmas Eve Eve Dinner Party
We had a few folks over for dinner last night (nine people around the table, plus twins in various arms), and, as usual, I was so busy hosting and enjoying that I neglected to snap any photos. Luckily, I did take a few minutes before the shenanigans got under way to catch the twins (age 6.5 weeks) in their dinner party outfits.
Here are some spiced candied pecans that I put out with the appetizers and then again with dessert. They are that good. Recipe is from Smitten Kitchen.
And today is the first time ever that the twins are wearing shoes.
It’s alive!
Cork Strip Art Wall
Long before their small motor skills are minimally developed, kids in daycare bring home a lot of art. A lot. Of art. And by art, I mean concoctions of construction paper, glitter, popsicle sticks, marker, glue, paint, yarn, crayon, rips, and tape that sometimes defy description by even the artists themselves. (We could have a whole discussion, of course, about whether any artist is truly qualified to describe her own work, but that is BSTB – Beyond the Scope of This Blog.)
Art wall, take 1:
What does a loving parent do with all of this treasure? Well, this one tried a few different strategies, and the second to last strategy was a kid art wall. Husband D is a little twitchy about tape on the interior walls (as I discovered the first Holiday season during which we cohabited, when I scotch taped all the cards we received to a door frame and he had a verrry quiet conniption. Now I use painter’s tape. Much better.), so I surfed Pinterest (briefly — I am a bad Pinterester) and eventually settled for stringing wires on the wall and clipping the projects to them. The available wall was mostly vertical, however, so I did something I hadn’t seen on Pinterest: I mounted the wires vertically (with Command hooks at the top and bottom). It ended up looking like this.
Cute, right?
I might have known, however, that craftier Pinteresters than I had rejected this system for a reason. My smug sense of self-satisfaction faded over the subsequent months, when the wires occasionally but persistently failed to actually stay on the wall. I came to realize that the Command adhesive (in the size hooks I used — no offense, adhesive monolith 3M) was insufficiently strong at the key points. Sometimes the wall’s failure was exacerbated by the dog’s tail’s hitting the whole setup as she trotted by. Thanks for nothing, dog.
I made this gif with GIPHY. Never did that before.
Art wall, take 2:
The next and final version of the art wall involved these cork strips and this Gorilla tape. (Sorry, honey. I love you.) I lined the cork strips up vertically end to end, trimmed the two at the bottom (This involved a cleaver. It wasn’t pretty. Did I mention that I am really not that crafty?), taped the ends of each strip to the wall et voila! Art wall! I then mounted the art on the cork with clear plastic push pins.
EDIT: M saw her family portrait on the wall and chided, “It’s upside down!” Of course it is. Sorry, M. Here’s the corrected image, which does actually make more sense.
Santa, according to M
December 6 is apparently St. Nicholas Day. Four-year-old daughter M and I went to a little event at our church with dinner, crafts, and story time about St. Nicholas.
Near the end of story time with Pastor Hughes, she talked to the kids about similarities between St. Nicholas and Santa.
Pastor Hughes: Have you ever seen Santa at your house?
Kids: No.
PH: Why do you think that is?
Kid: Because he’s invisible!
PH: Well, I’m not sure he’s invisible. Can you think of another reason?
*pause*
M (age 4): He’s nocturnal.
Vocab for the win, you guys. Next up: crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk).
Do not laugh.
Being a month old is serious business.
