Thursday, December 1, 2011

Christmas tree cutouts & Tofurky #2 (Celebration #1)

Guys! November is over! I am kind of glad because jeeeeeez my family was unwell for a lot of the month. Hopefully the end of plague season is at hand. (Josh is coughing raucously as I type this, so maybe I shouldn't speak too soon.)

I'm still feeling way off but I think it's pregnancy related. I kind of would like it to be the flu though-- I really don't want this to be my new normal for the next 6-8 weeks.

Speaking of new: NEW THEME! I am a big old Christmas nerd, and that's the honest truth of the matter. Every year that I've known Josh, we've gone to his parents' house for Christmas, which is great, but this year we can't go because no way are we cramming me and my belly in the car for another 13+ hour drive in this calendar year. So this will be the first in eight! eight! eight! Christmases that we'll be at home and I am soooo excited. While being at home unfortunately means not being with more of our family, it also means that I can go totally crazy doing things we don't normally do at Christmas, like decorating a tree. A TREE!

So I've decided that my theme this month will be holiday celebrations. I'm just going to do something celebratory every day between now and the end of December.

Christmas cut out trees

I kicked it off today by doing a simple craft with my main man. I cut out some Christmas tree shapes and some colored balls from construction paper and let him go crazy with some glue and markers. He decorated his tree (right) and then helped with mine (left). And then insisted on hiding both trees and the markers underneath a towel.

He really did go kinda crazy with the glue, too. We're talking both hands in the dish. It took almost 10 minutes to get all the glue out from under his fingernails afterwards.

Couldn't have asked for a nicer way to spend 45 minutes, especially since I am really just not able to be standing up much at all. So good to have something interactive we could do together that was not very physically intense. I'll need to think of some more stuff in this vein...

Tofurky #2 - crockpot with veg

Dinner! We had tofurky #2 tonight. I popped one of those bad boys in the crockpot along with some chopped veggies (onion, carrot, potato, parsnip) and a couple handfuls of red lentils (to thicken it all up) and covered it all with broth. The end result is very very moist, and surprisingly not salty... thus eradicating both of my major complaints with Tofurky in general. Unfortunately, I have a new complaint about this variant: it's just kinda bland. I put in a ton of dried herbs and expected it to come out tasting maybe a little strong. But in fact, it just tastes kinda savory and not very much like anything.

Not our ultimate Tofurky experience, yet, but don't worry, we have a ton more in the freezer to work through...

Here's your daily Emperor, hard at work on his Christmas tree:

The artist at work

2 comments:

Amey said...

hey sweet friend, I'm glad you're feeling a little better. I hope it gets better and doesn't stay like this! You've been such a peppy preggers up til now. I am also super excited about xmas this year... and it's so nice that you'll be able to be here for the holidays. Yay! There's a really fun SC xmas parade downtown on Saturday this week - I think it starts at 10. Little man might like it!
xo

ps. check the ppk thread about our thanksgiving party this weekend... not sure if you'll feel up for it, but it sounds like folks are willing to come to SC if you'd rather not drive over to Los Gatos... hugs!

Anonymous said...

Yay for fellow Christmas nerds!! Cuddling at home is the best way to spend the holidays and I am so glad that you get to do so this year! Take pics of your Christmas decorations so this nerd can get giddy with holiday delight :)