holidays

Is Christmas indeed over? For real? What? How did that happen? Well,we still have two family Christmases to attend this weekend, so even though it is a new year, it will still be Christmas 2014 for us. And with Christmas, another birthday has come and gone and for the first time I'm realizing I am not eternally youthful. 28 isn't old, but it isn't even "young adult." It's just adult. And each birthday comes faster than the last and before I know it my gray hairs will have multiplied to cover my head and I'll have permanent smile lines and grown children. That's actually a lovely thought.

David humored my birthday whims and cleaned the apartment for me and helped me cook the foods I wanted most: meatloaf (my mom's recipe,) mashed potatoes, and roasted Brussels sprouts. He let me pretty much dictate the day, and being the homebody I am I chose to bake my own cake and rent Guardians of The Galaxy for when Roger went to bed. The cake blew my mind, if I say so myself; it was Ina Garten's recipe for dark chocolate cake, and I made a simple peanut butter frosting for both layers and a dark chocolate ganache for the top. Heaven. And people ask me if I mind making my own birthday cake!

 

We had to pause the movie umpteen times with Roger's frequent waking. I really need a plan to help him figure out how to get himself back to sleep. Right now he assumes every wake up = milk time. It's not the easiest arrangement for momma.

Our Christmas the next day was simple and sweet. We really didn't go commercial at all this year- no gift exchange, just a little present to ourselves in a DVD copy of 2013's best movie (in our humble opinion.) Then we headed to the home of the family I nanny for, where we got to hang out, drink eggnog and cider, eat a lot of good cheese, play board games, and share a nice meal of lasagna with them and some of their extended family. We really feel like we've been adopted in as extended family too--it's such a unique and wonderful situation and I am very aware of what a blessing I've got in "working" there. Providence has smiled upon me, being out-of-state from all our blood-relations.



Roger is a child, which means we can dress him however we want for maximum cuteness. So here he is eating a red pepper while wearing his festive duds.

I won't drag this post on even though I have much more I could say-- we've got some packing and cleaning to do before we hit the road tonight--but I will say we had a wonderful and unexpected experience celebrating New Year's Eve with some new friends from church. Roger even woke up for the midnight sparkling-juice toasts, without being too grumpy, and consequently let his momma and daddy sleep in this morning! A great way to start 2015.