Creation and Destruction

Painting, creating.

Disassembling an old alarm clock, to see how it works.

Creation and destruction, all part of the childhood learning process.

Hat Creek grain burger with sauerkraut, and sweet potato fries. They have a whole line of housemade fermented foods now, also available at Whole Foods, that you can add to your burger.

Winter essentials: zinc lozenges, fire cider.

Tried a seasonal Temple Turmeric drink, Holiday Spiced Lassi. Didn't care for the strong yogurt flavor.

I am always on the lookout for never-before-seen kombucha flavors. Clearly Kombucha's black currant flavor was tasty. 

So addicted to Guayaki yerba mate mint terere. It gives me lots of energy without the spacy, shaky feeling that coffee gives me. I also treated myself to a seasonal Hot Chocolate Clif Bar, and some cinnamon stevia for my morning oats!

Gingerbread Houses

Tony took the kids to Target one day and they returned with gingerbread house kits. While I am not crazy about the indefinite shelf life of gingerbread in a box, I have to admit, it did taste really good. And the kits provided an opportunity for the kids to develop their exterior decorating talents.

We also tried cutting out some Star Wars snowflakes, but even with an x-acto blade, it was pretty slow going. As in, I still have a pile of uncut snowflake templates on the bookshelf.

We had lunch at Bombay Bistro, which I never used to be that fond of, but it had been a long time. I can confirm, I am still not fond of it. C'est la vie.

Thanksgiving 2015

Feels weird writing a Thanksgiving post after Christmas, but that's life. Thanksgiving dinners are always rather brown, aren't they? We actually had two Thanksgiving feasts this year and they were both heavy on the brown tones. Even the green beans take on a brownish hue when incorporated into the ubiquitous green bean casserole. Thanksgiving alchemy at work.

First we celebrated a few days early with my parents. My mom did all the cooking and would not accept anyone else lifting a finger! For me there was sweet potatoes, corn, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, and rolls.

Nice family photo.

Take two.

Then it was off to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving #2 with my mother-in-law. I had my usual car meal, a hummus falafel wrap from Tom's Tabooley.

More brown in the form of corn, mashed potatoes, broccoli rice casserole, rolls, and sweet potatoes.

Schrodinger's Thanksgiving leftovers...is it margarine, or mashed potatoes? WHO CAN KNOW FOR SURE?

And other brown meals followed. Golden Corral? Golden mac n cheese, yes, but also heavy on the brown.

Another brown/gold combination, nachos at Iguana in OKC. Thankfully, our sangria swirls were not brown!

The first part of our visit, the weather was fantastic, so we were able to meet up with my friend Sunshine and her kids. We let them run wild on the OU campus while reminiscing about our college days there.

A storm blew in on Thanksgiving Day, and the cars got covered in ice. Such a novelty for my Texas kiddos.

Scraping (and eating) the ice. Observing nature while also testing and strengthening their immune systems. Win-win.

Hope you had a lot to be thankful for this year. I know I did.

Merry Merry!

Hi guys! It has been awhile. We have just been caught up in the holiday whirlwind. 

Jackson and Olivia have probably grown since last time you saw them. They are always growing.

We had a nice Christmas feast yesterday with my parents. My favorite dish was the Broccoli Rice Casserole from Cookin' Crunk. I threw some French fried onions on top.

I also made roasted Brussels sprouts, candied sweet potatoes, and garlic mashed potatoes.

I made a couple of pies from Vegan Pie in the Sky. The chocolate pudding pie was cool, creamy, perfect.

The maple pecan pie was for Tony. Pecan is his favorite. He said the maple flavor made it extra special.

Jackson and Olivia both helped prepare our feast. They are excellent potato peelers and mashers.

What else has been going on this season? Well just in the past week, we had the dual language party at the kids' school.

The teachers played games with the kids, a nice time to relax and socialize outside of the classroom.

Mitten hi-five!

At the library we did a Polar Express pajama party, and I put my little elves to work. 

They also got to hang with Santa and discuss the intricate subtleties of naughty vs. nice.

Book tree! So pretty.

Oh yeah, and we saw STAR WARS.  Someone was beyond excited.

Jackson and Olivia somehow knew who all the new characters were and ahem...some spoilers...before they saw the actual movie. That elementary school grapevine, man! They still loved every second. Tony and I did too!

Ernie the Elf has even been busy. Before returning to the North Pole with Santa, he baked some gingerbread cookies to leave out on Christmas Eve for the big guy.

It all led up to this morning. Monster was the first one awake, and ready for his annual sacrificial chew toy.

Shouts and squeals of excitement soon filled the house.

Santa did good this year. By early evening, these little ones were completely tuckered out.

Hope you have had a very merry Christmas.