Category Archives: Holidays & Entertaining

Happy 4th of July!

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declaration-of-independence

I hope you all are enjoying yourselves today!  We’ve decided to just stay home and take it easy today. Well, except for Drew who wanted to finish spreading mulch around our bushes and flowers outside! I had a rough night with Laura and I’m super tired (and a little cranky) today. Although, I am looking forward to our surf & turf tonight 🙂 Last night we let the boys do some sparklers. (There are photos on Flickr, but all of my family photos are F&F only, so if you would like me to add you, please ask. Though I can’t guarantee I’ll “friend” you if I don’t really know you, sorry.) This morning I also took Laura’s one-month photo and that’s up there as well. After I finished my pictures this morning I realized that I had nearly 600 pictures on my sd card, so I finally cleared that off.

Tomorrow Drew’s mom and aunt are coming up and bringing the hutch that goes with Noah’s bedroom furniture (which is really Drew’s old set). Hopefully I won’t be as tired as I am today. ::Yawn::

At any rate, I hope that your day is full of good food, good friends, and lots of fun. I’m sure next year we’ll be up for something more exciting, but this year it just ain’t happening.

Good Morning!

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alice-dalton-brown-summer-breeze

Even though I was up crazy early this morning, I don’t even feel tired because I went to bed around 7 last night! I was able to put Laura down (asleep!) in her carrier and thought I’d lie down too. Next thing I knew it was 9 p.m. and she was hungry. We’re working towards sleeping in her crib, but right now I think she’s too small and feels very much alone there. The boys both preferred the infant carrier at the beginning too. This is progress, since for a while at night she’d only sleep on me 🙂 In fact, today she is one month old! I’ll be sure to take some photos later. The last four weeks sure did fly by. A month ago right now I was standing in my kitchen with Drew and my parents, agonizing over the fact that I couldn’t even have a drop of water, getting ready to head to the birthing center for 6 o’clock. And now? I’m watching the news, drinking tea, covered with my cozy ripple afghan, and peeking at my sweet sleeping baby girl. Who could imagine?

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is the 4th of July; it certainly doesn’t seem like it. The weather has been so cool and wet and not at all summer-like. Let’s hope for sunnier, warmer weather this weekend! You know what’s awful? I’ve been watching all the “fireworks are dangerous” stories on the news and every time I see a mannequin’s arm blown off, I can’t help but laugh for some reason. I know it’s not funny but… something about blowing up mannequins cracks me up. I’m surprised the news doesn’t follow up those kinds of stories with advice to seek out life insurance leads if you plan to be shooting off Roman Candles in your backyard, LOL…

Anyway… we still haven’t decided what, if anything, we’re doing this weekend. It would be fun to take the boys to see fireworks since they’re old enough to both stay up that late for a treat and not be totally scared by the noise. And Laura would probably just nurse her way through it all. Germantown and Saugerties both have fun activities going on tomorrow, so we might venture out there. Kingston is having their celebration on Sunday. We’re not bothering with Rhinebeck since it’s expensive to get into the fairgrounds ($30/car!).

I’m also really into the idea of going cherry picking since Lisanne mentioned it on Facebook. Cherry Ridge Farms in Hudson seems easy to get to and it would be something different to do. We’ll see. Then again, we might just feel like staying home, having a nice dinner (I’m thinking surf & turf — thaw out the lobster tails and filet mignon in the freezer and maybe pop open a bottle of bubbly), and light some sparklers in the yard. What are your plans for the weekend?

Easter Bunny’s on the Way

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Easter EggsWe dyed eggs the other day and they took significantly less time to do than the sewn eggs I’d been working on! We kept it simple this year. In previous years we’d gone for the swirly eggs or the glittery eggs, but this time around I bought the basic Paas kit (of course the fact that it was free after ECBs at CVS helped influence my decision). The colors came out great! After they dried the boys put some stickers on them and that was that. Today the eggs became devilled eggs and an egg salad sandwich, LOL!

As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be having Easter dinner at my mother-in-law’s. She and her sister absolutely love lamb, so I am always worried that roast lamb is what’s going to show up on the table (I don’t care for lamb unless it is in the form of a gyro), but thankfully they’re just making a ham. The great thing about Easter dinner is that usually it’s not filled with my favorite foods like at Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I don’t have to rush to the computer after waking up from my food coma and try to figure out what is the strongest diet pill. As long as I control myself around the Cadbury Eggs, I should be OK 😉

I wasn’t asked to bring anything, but I might make an Under the Sea Jell-O mold, which tastes a lot better than it sounds. It’s a delicious concoction of canned pears, cream cheese, and lime Jell-O. Trust me when I tell you how good it is! My mom has made it for years. I just need to decide whether to use my trusty trifle dish (which eliminates the stressful unmolding aspect of the recipe), or use a vintage copper mold that would look very pretty. Decisions, decisions!

patchwork eggs

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fabric easter eggs

When I saw the tutorial at Retro Mama for these adorable Easter eggs, I knew I just had to make a few! They are super simple and make a quick and easy decoration. There have been a few snow flurries off and on today, so it seems strange making Easter crafts, but it’s just around the corner. The boys colored eggs this afternoon and I think they’re dry now. Good thing because they are begging to decorate them with stickers and such!

Catching Up

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31 weeksAs you can see from the photo, we are less than 2 months away from our baby girl’s big debut! I have reached the “tired of being pregnant” point. Generally I feel good, but man — it’s like Cirque du Soliel in my womb. I’ve had more than a few jabs that actually hurt, LOL! I’ve been able to cross off a couple items on my to-do list, so at least I’m doing something.

Drew and I enjoyed a kid-free weekend. The boys went to their grandmother’s on Saturday afternoon and Drew’s picking them up after work tonight. We had a great time and were able to both enjoy some relaxing down-time as well as get some things done around the house. I didn’t get any crafting in, but there’s still time this afternoon. I’m torn between relaxing and finishing up the laundry, LOL!

Jake is on vacation this week, and the weather doesn’t look very cooperative, unfortunately. So I’ve been trying to come up with some fun activities to do with the boys. Obviously we’ll dye Easter eggs (and I will enjoy devilled eggs later in the week – yum!). I also think I might make hot cross buns with them on Good Friday. We’ll probably decorate cupcakes for Easter dessert (I think I might skip the nests this year – lemon cupcakes sound really good to me instead.) Sandra recently made Flubber with her kids, and I think the boys would have a blast with that. I was also thinking of using cotton balls to make bunny pictures, since that’s something Noah could easily do. And finally I was thinking we could go and snip off a few stems from our forcythia bushes to force inside. They have little tiny buds on them so it should work! Aside from that, we’ll just wing it.

I’m really looking forward to Easter! We’ll be going to my MIL’s for dinner as usual. I’ve also got all the goodies for the boys’ Easter baskets (I have to remember to hide everything before they get home tonight!). We usually have them put their baskets out before bed and then the Easter bunny fills them while they’re sleeping. This way I can use the same baskets every year 🙂 They’ll be getting jelly beans, a “golden” egg, a small chocolate bunny, activity books, a Hot Wheels car, some new toys for the sandbox, and a couple other little things. I think they’ll be happy!

Holiday Hangover

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I think I just might be suffering from a holiday hangover because I am so tired and achy today. I think all the driving, all the delicious (but not necessarily healthy) food, and general craziness surrounding Christmas has caught up with me. But that aside, we certainly had a wonderful holiday! We had dinner on Christmas Eve at Drew’s mom’s house, and then I hosted on Christmas day. I would, without a doubt, make the beef tenderloin again. I could not believe how easy it was, and the result was delicious. Next time I might only cook it until 125 degrees (internal temp.) instead of 130 — I think it could have been a bit rarer still, but it was pretty pink inside and melted in your mouth.

The boys were thrilled with their toys (Legos, Transformers, a Hulk Smash game, baseball set, just tons of toys!) and Drew took us all by surprise with a family gift he saved for last. When the boys tore off the wrapping paper and I saw that he’d bought a Wii, I was shocked! (Happily shocked, but utterly surprised!) You see, Drew isn’t really into video games or computer games. He’s not the kind of guy who sits around playing World of Warcraft. Heck, I can’t even get him to play Wordscraper on Facebook! But apparently he’d been looking into various video game systems and really liked the Wii. He also got a Wii Fit and several games to go with the system. We’ve been enjoying the tennis game most of all so far, and Jake loves his I Spy game. It really is a lot of fun!

I was spoiled with some beautiful jewelry (including a gorgeous etched glass cameo that will look stunning with a knit lace shawl — now I have my motivation to finish one!). And the other gift that blew me away was a hand-painted jewelry armoire. I’ve wanted one of those armoires for years! I am so excited to transfer all my jewelry into it. Drew loved his book of Tom Waits sheet music, and the various iPod Nano accessories that I picked out for him, as well as a few other odds and ends.

We spend the day after Christmas at my parents’ house and had a great time there visiting with mom and dad and my brother and sister-in-law. Mom made a bunch of delicious Polish food and I especially enjoyed the homemade kielbasa that they buy locally and the cabbage pierogis. *So good!* I am really spoiled. The “kielbasa” and pierogis you buy at the supermarket aren’t even close to the real things. We got home late Saturday afternoon and had a lazy day yesterday.

Today I’ve been trying to clean everything up and getting ready to take down the tree and decorations. As much as I love having them up, I also love after I take everything down and put it all away, reclaiming all the space in my house! I love starting the new year clean and uncluttered.

I hope you all had wonderful holidays as well. Any exciting plans for New Year’s?

Christmas Eve

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Well it looks like a pretty rainy day out there today, but hopefully at least some of the snow will stick around. We have well over a foot of it, so I doubt it all will melt away.

I have to say that this is the most relaxed Christmas Eve I’ve had in several years. I think part of the reason is that I chose food for Christmas Day that doesn’t require really any prep work. Last year we did a variety of appetizers and pizzas and that was really time-intensive. In previous years I’ve done brunches and prepared egg dishes that needed to be prepped and set overnight, as well as a variety of baked goods. This year it’s filet mignon (which I still think was the best buy of all the holiday food sales), au gratin potatoes (sorry, from a box — easier and the boys will eat them), salad, green beans, and rolls. Super easy. My MIL is going to bring dessert — anything leftover from tonight. That should work out well.

This morning the boys and I plan to bake some chocolate chip cookies for Santa. I’ve also been doing a little candy making for last-minute additions to gifts. And I am still not done with one last knitting project! Argh! I just hope I have time to finish it up. If not, I am sure the recipient will understand.

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope your preparations are going well!

A Great Feeling!

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Yesterday morning I officially finished our Christmas shopping!!! What a load off my shoulders. Of course, I still have some crafting I need to finish up, but everything I need is in my house and I don’t need to spend anymore money, thankfully. I also got a little gift for myself yesterday — new (faux) leather boots. My brother and his wife had given me a Macy’s card for my birthday, and I had like $7 left on one my parents gave me two (or is it three?) years ago. The purses (my original idea) were ridiculously expensive there, even on sale, and I could not find anything else I liked. As I was leaving the store I passed by the shoe department and figured it was worth a look. I ended up walking out of there with a pair of these beauties at an even better price than listed on the company’s website! I think they’ll be supercute with jeans.

The other big deal yesterday was that I finally figured out what I’m making on Christmas Day. Shop Rite to the rescue! This week they have beef tenderloin (filet mignon) on sale for $4.99/lb (which is an excellent price), so I purchased one that is slightly over 5 lbs. I’ll serve it with iceberg lettuce wedges and blue cheese dressing, probably green beans, and some kind of potato. And don’t forget dessert (my version of “diet supplements” this time of year, LOL! Lord knows I’ve been supplementing my diet with plenty of them). I might see if my MIL wants to bring a buche de Noel like she did last year. If not, I’ll proabably just do cookies. I also have been craving my mom’s pear and lime Jell-O mold (don’t laugh — it is SO good!), so I might make that too. I’m really looking forward to it now that I have a nice, easy menu!

Today I am hoping to finish up our Christmas cards, but right now I promised Noah I’d make Rice Krispie treats with him. 🙂

Hudson Valley Holidays

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This list is mostly for my reference, but who knows — maybe some other HV’ers will find it useful! This is just a list of free holiday events going on around Dutchess County. I doubt we’ll hit them all, but hopefully we can make one or two.

Sat., Dec. 13, 1-5 PM @ FDR Historic Site – Henry A. Wallace Center (Hyde Park) – Make holiday cards to send to the men & women serving on the USS Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt. Photos with Santa at no charge. Children’s book fair including HV authors. Live music & entertainment

Sat., Dec. 13, 2-5 PM – Tivoli Winterfest – Tree lighting, music, crafts, activities, Santa, bonfire, fireworks

Mon., Dec. 15, 6 PM – Center For Performing Arts in Rhinebeck – Holiday Entertainment Celebration – Magic songs, Christmas goodies, Santa. (Free w/ donation of a new toy, book, gloves, scarf or hat for a child in need)

Mon., Dec. 22, 7PM – Hyde Park Train Staton – Polar Express Night – Story, crafts, model trains, refreshments, visit from Santa

Plus, of course, all the mansions are decorated for the holidays. From what I’ve seen, they are mostly free unless you want a tour or there is a specific event going on. There’s more in the southern part of the county too, but I don’t usually make it much further than Poughkeepsie. If you know of anything fun, please feel free to mention it!