What's Up Wednesday-- December

With Christmas falling on Wednesday this year I thought I'd share my What's Up Wednesday post a week earlier since I hope I will be busy celebrating with my family next Wednesday.

 Merry Christmas everyone!

What We're Eating This Week: 
Sunday: Haddock (the boys will eat homemade chicken fingers), green beans, and rice pilaf

Monday:  Alfredo pasta with broccoli and cauliflower 



Tuesday: Turkey chili and cornbread

Wednesday: Bacon, broccoli and cheese quiche with salad



Thursday: Steak, roasted potatoes, and salad

Friday: Turkey pot pie



Saturday: Pork, broccoli, & rice casserole (I used this recipe but subbed leftover pork tenderloin for the chicken.


What I'm Reminiscing About: With all these Doctor appointments, ultrasounds, talk of my uterus and D&C's I've been thinking a lot about the births of each of my boys.  While I am actually quit thankful to not have babies in the house anymore there is nothing quite like newborn snuggles.

Ian: I was induced "from scratch" as they say and after a long and grueling 40+ hours of labor he was finally born... followed by an emergency D&C.



Alec: Born a week before his due date, Alec delivery was easy and rather uneventful.  We arrived at the hospital around dinnertime and he was born in the wee early hours of the morning.



Evan: After a very quick couple of hours Evan entered the world... so fast they didn't even have time to give me an epidural.



What I'm Loving: Having older kids!  This is the first year that my boys all stopped believing in Santa Clause and while I thought that would make me sad I am loving it!  No more elf on the shelf to try and hide, no more sneaking around trying to hide presents (I mean I do hide them so they don't know what they got but I don't have to stress over them seeing me with boxes, bags, and wrapping paper!).  Big kids are quite handy to have around and I am loving having their help this year... in fact I am loving it so much I wrote a blog post about it on Monday. 



What We've Been Up To: ALL the Christmasy things!  We decorated the house, toured the Breakers Mansion all decked out for the holidays, attended a Christmas concert, went to see the Florence Griswold Museum and their holiday palette trees, attended a Christmas Around the World Homeschool event, decorated gingerbread houses, wrapping gifts, made up a new cookie recipe, etc.

Our mantle

The boys' houses

Florence Griswold Museum

The Breakers

Upside Down Buckeye cookies

Making our yule log for our Christmas Around the World Party

What I'm Dreading: Not really dreading but I am definitely getting nervous about my outpatient procedure on Monday.  I can not wait to have that safely behind me and I am just hoping and praying everything goes well and that it actually works.

What I'm Working On: I need to have everything ready for Christmas by this weekend. I want to make sure everything is done in case I'm not up to doing anything next week.  I knew that was a possibility when we scheduled my appointment and the family has been great about pitching in.  I finished up my very last gift over the weekend and I think we are good to go.



What I'm Excited About: Christmas is just one week away and I can not wait to see the boys' faces when they open their gifts!!

 What I'm Watching/Reading:  ALL the Christmas movies!  Seriously I don't think I could even name all the ones I've been watching.  I re-watched all my old favorites like The Holiday, Love Actually, and National Lampoon's Christmas vacation while also adding in a few new ones like Noelle (on Disney+) and the Grinch (2018 animated version).





I've also started watching the latest season of Fuller House, Merry Happy Whatever, and Virgin River.



So far this month I've read 6 books and will be sharing my favorites of all 90+ books I read this year on Sunday-- here's a sneak peek at my favs.



What I'm listening to: Christmas Music!  I downloaded the Iheart radio app onto our Roku and have that playing when I'm cooking in the kitchen.

What I'm Wearing: 'Tis the season for ponchos and scarves with boots and dark pants!  I've been wearing them a lot lately.




What I'm Doing This Weekend: We have a Christmas brunch party with my husband's side of the family and my husband's step mother always does such a great job hosting.

What I'm Looking Forward to Next Month: Shh! Don't tell my boys but I bought them all snowshoes for Christmas and I can not wait to try them out. We had so much fun when we rented some last year. We've had enough snow already this year that we could have gone a time or two so I'm just assuming we'll have enough snow to try them out in either January or February.



What Else Is New: Nothing that I can think of..

Comments

  1. the 4 M'sDecember 18, 2019 at 7:13 AM

    Praying for you for your Monday procedure. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas. Those sweets look so yummy and that quiche, yum!!
    www.chezmireillefashiontravelmom.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Meditations in MotionDecember 18, 2019 at 7:53 AM

    I loved it when my kids got a little bit older too. When we didn't have the pressure of Santa anymore, there was much less sneaking around. Merry Christmas!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joanne December 18, 2019 at 1:19 PM

      I had no idea how much pressure Santa added to the season until I actually had kids.

      Delete
  3. Dara @ Not In JerseyDecember 18, 2019 at 9:46 AM

    Looks like you're enjoying the season! I didn't realize everyone was posting this today, oops!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joanne December 18, 2019 at 1:20 PM

      We are definitely enjoying the season. I wasn't sure if anyone would be posting theirs today but I just knew I wasn't going to be posting next week.

      Delete
  4. AniDecember 19, 2019 at 11:11 AM

    I watch The Holiday every year too, I love that one. And The Family Stone is one of my all time favorites. How was Noelle? I keep meaning to watch it. I so miss having babies around the house. I keep telling Eric that we need to find a younger couple to be friends with because all of our friends and family are done having babies, and their kids are all our kids ages. I really enjoy the lack of diapers, and crying fits, and I'm super enjoying the sleep though, so it's definitely a trade off.

    OK, you have to fill me in on the snow shoeing thing. Is it essentially hiking in the snow and the shoes make it so that you don't sink in?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joanne December 19, 2019 at 3:39 PM

      I watched the Family Stone too; that's such a cute one. I really liked Noelle-- it's a perfect movie to watch with the kids. Snow shoeing is like hiking but the shoes help you not to sink. There has to be 6" on the ground for them to work and you do have to take them off when walking across rocks or land where there is little snow cover because it can ruin them. We found a local Audubon place that rented the snowshoes for like $5/hour-- it was the prefect way for us to try them out without making a big investment in them. My boys loved it and Ian was looking up snowshoes online before we even finished our hour.

      Delete

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