New Year’s Eve

Spending the new year in New Orleans celebrating with friends that feel like family and showing the kids the magic of this city. Happy New Year’s Eve, friends xoxo.

Christmas Eve-Eve

Christmas Eve-Eve is, to me, almost as fun and exciting as Christmas Eve. This year, like year’s past, we made Christmas Fettuccine a la The Holiday and gathered around the dining room table to eat it.

The kids stayed with their aunt and nana that night, so it was just us and my mom and younger sister and her fiancé. It was a nice, adults-only evening where we listened to Christmas music and drank wine and cooked. My favorite kind of night

Alex, my best friend from high school and his wife and one-year old daughter were in town, so he stopped by after dinner to say hi for a few hours, and it was so nice to catch up after not seeing him in a few years.

I can’t think of anything better than spending the evening with good food and the people you love.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Wanted to pop in and say, from our family to yours, that we hope you have a lovely holiday. Stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy the most wonderful time of the year.

The Sounds of Home

Maybe it’s the cold weather or the fact that it gets dark at 6p now, but lately I have been loving being home even more than usual.

Home is my happy place, my safe haven. A place where my family can run wild and just be ourselves, free of judgement from the outside world. Where the way we look doesn’t matter so much as the way we treat each other, and where three new childhood memories are made in the same place mine were made. I hope yours feels like that, too.

A big part of my love for our family home are the sounds within it. I was telling PJ the other day, as the washing machine was spinning in circles in the laundry room and the dishwasher was gently humming in the kitchen and the kids were laughing upstairs and our dog’s paws were tapping the floor as she walked, how much I love the every day, seemingly mundane sounds around our house. They’re something I think I used to take for granted but now focus heavily on.

I love the sound our 100 year old floors make in certain parts of our house when you walk across them. I love to listen to our cat Alyster purr when he’s happy (currently happening as I type). I love how loud of air conditioning is when it kicks on; it’s so loud, in fact, that when it stops blowing out air or heat, it feels like someone turned the loud music off at a dance party and suddenly the entire place is still and quiet. It kind of catches you off guard if you’re not used to it.

Even the sounds I complain about when they’re happening, like our oldest jumping off his bunkbed ladder and landing on the ground, making a loud THUD when his feet hit the floor and sounding like the entire ceiling is about to fall through above us, I would miss if it never happened again.

I think I just love the sounds of life happening in our house. It’s home, and it’s my favorite place in the world to be.

Christmas Cards Are Sent!

I just put the last few in the mail two days ago! I hope they make it to their individual destinations on time, but if not, it’ll be a nice after-Christmas surprise.

I love the act of sending out Christmas/holiday cards. My mom was always very big on them when we were growing up, and I think a little bit of that has rubbed off on me. It’s especially fun to do now that we have children, and I can’t wait to look back at all our various cards through the years and see how much the kids have changed.

I can’t tell you how much I loved opening our mail box and finding an envelope that very clearly is not a bill or junk mail just sitting inside and waiting to be opened. It’s a reminder that not everything is digital these days, that snail mail still exists and is a much more charming way of communicating, if I do say so myself. Knowing that someone thought enough of you to take the time to write out your name and address and send whatever it is to you is such a warm and comforting feeling in today’s world of quick emails and fast text messages.

And if you’ve sent us a Christmas card to our PO Box, thank you!!! They’re currently hung in the doorway leading to our dining room and they frame the house beautifully.

Happy holidays, loves!

Dry January: Yay or Nay?

Have you ever done a “Dry January” before?

It’s when you don’t drink any alcohol for the entire month of January, in an attempt to reset for the new year. I’ve heard of people doing it for years, but I’ve never actually tried it myself.

According to some experts, there are major health benefits associated with going alcohol-free for a month:

• You'll get a mood boost.

• You'll sleep more soundly.

• You might feel less bloated or even drop a few pounds.

• You'll save money.

• You'll have a stronger immune system.

• You'll feel better in the morning.

• You'll have a new relationship with alcohol.

I think I am going to try it. I love new year’s resolutions and resets and starting fresh every year, and after the holidays (where recreational drinking seems to ramp up), I could use a break. A month seems like the perfect amount of time, and who knows? It may be the start of something knew.

You can read more about Dry January and all the health benefits that come with it here.

A Fun Gift Idea: Goat Poop

A sweet subscriber sent us the most delicious, if not the most creative gift in the mail the other day: little chocolate covered balls from our friends at Beekman 1802, appropriately called Goat Poop.

John’s note said when he saw these, he immediately thought to send them to us, and I’m glad he did. They’re so good! The container has a bunch of different varieties of chocolates and fillings based on the name of the goats in the herd.

For example, the one called “Hazel” is an artisanal producer of roasted hazelnuts covered in milk chocolate; the one named “Shadow” is made from toasted almond covered in dark chocolate; and one called “Talea” is made of sea salt caramel dipped in milk chocolate.

These things are so addicting and would make an unexpected, cheeky little gift this Christmas, don’t you think? Thank you so much, John!! These definitely put a few smiles on our faces.

The Holiday

While I picked up the house yesterday, I put on one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time: The Holiday. Anna and I watched it and ooo’d and ahhhh’d over Cameron Diaz and the little girls’ cool fort in their room. Of course, I fast forwarded through the parts that weren’t appropriate for a 4 year old, but overall it was so cute to watch her get into the movie.

I love introducing them to my favorite films. Most of the time they roll their eyes and say “Not again! Do we have to watch The Family Stone today?” but yesterday was actually a winner! She loved it. And I can’t think of a more perfect film to watch over and over again on repeat this time of year.

Blessed is the Season Which Engages the Whole World in a Conspiracy of Love

It’s quiet and cold this morning. The kitchen is somewhat messy, signs of life and fun from last night still all over the countertops. Our friends Matt and Beau are leaving today to go back to New Orleans for the holidays so we had a goodbye dinner last night and I made this recipe. It turned out well! Perfect for a cold winter night.

I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized we have less than two weeks until Christmas and we haven’t done any of our actual shopping yet. Why do we wait so long every year? Christmas has a way of sneaking up on me, I suppose because we’re so consumed with the craziness of the end of the year, and I seem to lose track of time this time of year. The plan is to get all of the shopping completed this weekend and to do what we can to relax and have a smooth rest of the season. We’ll see if it actually happens that way.

As the holidays are setting in, I hope they feel like the photo above: warm, cozy, relaxing. I want them to be filled with joy and laughter and kids playing and family time and cozy Christmas movies and pasta and wine and blankets and lots of hunkering down at home. Of course, there’s much more to life than warm and cozy feelings, and the chaos of the holidays are a great reminder of that, but I think the best we can all hope for is to have those moments sprinkled in with the rest of what life has to offer

That’s my wish this year: To appreciate all the moments that this season brings, the cozy and the crazy (which can sometimes be one in the same). Hamilton Wright Mabie said it best:

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”

From Where I Sit

I haven’t written in a bit.

We just got back from Breckenridge, CO a few days ago which is the main reason for being too busy to update anything on here. Right now all five of us are sitting at the dining room table and the kids are coloring and PJ is, too. Christmas music is playing in the background while the kids are bursting out laughing at something silly Anna said.

If it sounds like a Hallmark Christmas movie, that’s because it feels like one. Life has been nowhere near perfect lately, and it’s actually been quite difficult in different ways, but right here, right now, it feels pretty damn good. I think that’s what I love to write about most: Those little moments that zoom in on the parts of life that seem mundane and uninteresting, but are in fact what makes it whole.

I enjoy focusing on those moments, especially in written form. I always have. I have kept some form of journal, either online or on pen and paper, for as long as I can remember and it feels especially appropriate now that we have kids so that I can remember these times for as long as possible and relive them again and again.

The new year always brings a sense of wonder to me, and a sense of a fresh start. A renewal or sorts. I think in the new year I will use this blog differently. Maybe it will come more personal; a place to jot down the days’ best and worst moments and make it more of a habit so that one day when we’re gray and old I can look back on our life with ease. Sometimes, for me at least, writing things down helps process life differently than almost any other medium does. It’s therapeutic on many levels and it’s something I look forward to when the day comes to end.

We’re getting ready to go to our first holiday party of the season so I am off for the night. Have a lovely weekend, friends. xo