What's Up Wednesday: December 2019

I'm so excited because in 2019, for the first year ever, I participated in What's Up Wednesday every single month! You can see all my What's Up Wednesday posts here. I love this way of capturing moments in my month.

image from here

What we're eating this week... Right now as I write this (Monday at noon), I am eating tomato soup (from a can) with Caesar croutons to make it more interesting. Other than that, the plan is to eat a lot of beans this week -- burrito bowls and Spanish rice. And we'll probably mix up another batch of our holiday cookies. You can find that recipe here. I have yellow and blue Jell-O this time so maybe we'll make them as Channukah cookies. Yum!

Left: Making cookies with Sam and Rachel a few weeks ago

Right: finished cookies from a few years ago

 I might have bought some of the holiday chocolate on my errand running today. So we'll probably be eating more than a little bit of this over the next week :)
 

What I'm reminiscing about... My parents are coming here for Christmas this year so I'm reminiscing about the last time they were here for Christmas which was four years ago. The kids were so little then. Sam was six and Rachel was four.

What I'm loving... It's Christmas potpourri time. I make mine with a couple of orange slices, a couple of cinnamon sticks, a handful of frozen cranberries, and some whole cloves. It simmers for a few days and then I make a new batch. I just add water as necessary. Our house smells AMAZING right now.

What we've been up to... We've been getting used to a new schedule, on top of all the holiday things like Channukah parties at Religious school, Christmas pageant practicing at church, a holiday showing at dance for Rachel, and waiting for our washing machine to get fixed. (Okay, that last one isn't a holiday thing, but it is something we've been up to. Ha!)

The new schedule has to do with the fact that after three and a half months of unemployment, I started a new job last week. While it's supposed to be an on-call, as needed position, I hit the ground running and worked four days last week. Yikes. I wrote more about my new position in this blog post here.

What I'm dreading... ICE. There is so much ice right now. We keep getting rain and then it freezes. This is our sidewalk and the end of our driveway. It's so hard to keep clear and it's so slippery to walk. Ugh.

What I'm working on... Our holiday cards. Ooops. Last year we were so on top of these and this year, not so much. The kids are off school today so maybe I'll try and employ some bribery to get some of them ready to send. Hopefully my friends and family are excited about receiving holiday cards in January. Ha!

What I'm excited about... Last year my parents were away over Christmas so we had to come up with some new traditions. One thing we incorporated was the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóð, and we all loved it. So we're doing it again this year. I'm excited to give everyone their new books on Christmas Eve and to spend the rest of the night reading :)

Sam and Rachel reading last year on Christmas Eve.

What I'm watching/reading... We haven't watched ANYTHING lately, unless you count me watching Rachel at dance. It's been so busy. In terms of reading, I've been getting a little bit of reading done but honestly, going back to work has exhausted me so I've been opting for sleep at night instead of reading. However, if you want to read about what I'm recommending people read this winter, you can check out my post from Monday here. I'm hoping to finish The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern before tomorrow.

Rachel had two different dances this past weekend at the holiday showing -- she was a Winter Wonderland for modern and baking for ballet. Now we have a three week break from dance and I'm not sad about it.

What I'm listening to... As I'm writing this part of the post, it's after school and Rachel is having a play date with a friend so I'm listening to them play each other songs on the piano. It's super cute. I'd take a picture to show you but I didn't ask the parents' permission to post a picture of their child on the blog. Just imagine two cute third graders playing piano songs for each other :)

What I'm wearing... Last What's Up Wednesday, I wrote about our holiday pajamas. Well, we've been wearing those a lot lately!

What I'm doing this weekend... The kids are off for the break starting on Friday. On Saturday we're heading to Glow Gardens in Toronto with some friends. You can read more about it here. On Sunday morning is the Christmas pageant at church and Sunday night is the first night of Chanukah. My mom and dad arrive to celebrate Christmas with us on Monday so I'm just excited about all of that!!! Yay!!!

What I'm looking forward to next month... After Christmas, my parents are heading home for a couple of weeks and then flying back here because we're all taking off to somewhere warm together! I CAN'T WAIT!!!

What else is new... My new job is the biggest new thing and I wrote about that under "What we've been up to." Other than that, it's just the start of the holidays. Whoooo hoooo!!!