happy new year, peeps

Photo courtesy of dear friend Amanda

feliz navidad

simplifying

He was supposed to be singing "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer." Whatever.

So I have really been enjoying this Christmas season. Even though I haven't baked a single thing for anyone, I haven't invited anyone over for Christmas dinner, we're not doing Christmas cards because we are living in faraway lands, and maybe we are trying to "go green." (Not really, I still want all of your Christmas cards). Also, the kids are only getting three presents each this year, and we're gonna blame Santa if things get melancholy.

It's not that I'm Scrooge-ish. I'm lazy-ish. And I'd like to think that there's a difference... or maybe I just wanted to simplify my life. What do I really want to do this Christmas? I thought.

So this year we tried something new. An advent calendar paper chain as seen here (if you don't know about www.sugardoodle.net and you serve in Primary or YW, you are doing yourself a disservice, friends). There was less cutting, wrapping and baking. But there was also a little more love in our hearts for the Savior as we thought about the gift we were giving Him each day. I liked it very much.

siete años

 

Time flies, non? B was a hard baby. He cried a lot. He screamed in the arms of strangers beginning at three months. He drooled like a leaky faucet and sweat like a hot tomale. And he only ever wanted Bruce, which worked out super since Bruce was almost never home those first few years with the firm. Like every first-time mother that has ever lived on the earth (I like to think Eve was like, Cain and Abel, so help me...), I had no idea what I was doing and he suffered the brunt of all my anxieties. Poor baby. I know he felt them. It is hard to be the first.

So really, it is a miracle they grow up in spite of your best efforts at unconscious sabotage.











We are all so glad B came first. He is so much better than me at taking care of the little ones. There is more patience in his sensitive soul than I will ever own.

o christmas tree

We had about 30 ornaments break and then M got banned. So she rocked her nakey interpretive dance moves with Eartha Kitt instead.

Festive.



















Also, how heartbroken am I that Glee won't return until April 2010? *sob*



George Michael might have been the best thing to come out of the 80s.

p.s.

this is audrey.

noey's sister.

and i've snuck onto her blog.

bc she forgot the best picture from our annual sibling ny trip this year.

i know we have way too many ny pix, but this one? ...makes me love you both even more.

mmm, i do love my sisters. they're MY best friends too. mwahhh.

oh and p.p.s.  here's the one and only shot i got of the burtons, noey...

here's to annual dim sum at the golden unicorn!!

thanksgiving 2009: nyc

And this is it. I promise. I will move on to Christmas. Seeing as it's one week away now (really?).

We stayed with my sister, Danielle. Her apartment is the cutest and service is impeccable. Mint milanos and peanut M&Ms hovered tantalizingly at my bedside all night (Matthew, you know us so well). While we wandered a bit around West Village drinking hot chocolate and munching bagels, most of our time was spent boot shopping. I think I wandered in and out of Shoe Mania in Union Square five different times. Like it kept calling me back with gravity-like force. And then I went running the next morning, got lost and looked up to find myself there again. Curse it. I hate that store.

We saw Bye Bye Birdie. Sadly, while there were a few glimmers of hope, there were just a few... I do not recommend it if you only have time and resources to see one Broadway show while you're there (Matt and Erin, still harboring guilt for coercing you into coming! And how did we not get any pictures taken together?).

Gina Gershon sang like her voice was stuck in a bottle and John Stamos was painfully unfunny. Kim McAfee's voice was youthful and Disney-esque but her stage presence was meh. Conrad Birdie was good and perfectly unappealing. And applause goes to Mr. McAfee for being able to sustain that level of physical comedy every single night. But Gossip Girl's Jonathon was a perfect Hugo Peabody. He was my very favorite.

Broadway, I still love you.





























Love my sisters. They are my very best friends.

thanksgiving 2009: why it's fun being with family

Generally speaking, families appreciate and like to do the same things. Those things you spent lots of time doing together while growing up become an inherent part of the family culture (there's wisdom in that counsel for threading in family scripture study, family prayer, family home evening, chores, etc.). In our case, the family culture includes music, eating, art, dance, meandering through life, lazing around, hot chocolate, reading books... we are not exciting people. We lead a vapid existence. But that's okay when we're together, because it's just us. No one to entertain, no one to impress, and maybe bored was a bad word in our house. But that's why we can hang at Barnes and Noble on a Friday night for hours without even looking at one another and feel utter contentment in how we spent our evening.

dear food diary

I had two bowls of Banana Nut cereal this morning. Two.

I went to B's Christmas Posada at school shortly thereafter and somehow ate two tomales (that would be cornmeal mixed with pig lard and tomatillo salsa) and drank a cup of ponche (a mexican version of apple cider). I'm not really sure how it happened, but I looked down and there were the empty corn husks littering my styrofoam plate. Styrofoam. The atrocities don't end there.

I came home and took a nap with M and woke up starving but reached for that Banana Nut cereal again instead of the bag of salad. Curse the carb addiction that courses through my veins.

I took B to futbol practice and only ran two miles, because - again - I'd had Banana Nut cereal instead of salad. Lead in my belly, Food Diary. Dinner rolled around and I finally yanked out that bag of salad and threw some chicken and balsamic vinagarette on top. I was full. I was...

But then my friend, Suzanne, came over, and we mosied over to the quesadilla stand two blocks away. Quesadillas that are deep fried in oil and loaded with chicken, queso, crema, tomatillo salsa, and perhaps a parasite or two and are maybe 2500 calories and 40 grams of fat each. Death in a crispy corn tortilla.

And also there may have been bites of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies throughout the day. Maybe five to be exact. Not bites, whole cookies. And maybe I kind of sort of want another one right now. Because when you have something salty, then sometimes you want something sweet and vice versa and la-di-da, it's a vicious cycle.

Food Diary, I will try harder tomorrow. I will. Though I see you shaking your imaginary finger and berating me for how I would have to run two marathons and hike Pike's Peak to work off the consequences of my non-existent will power. But dadgum it, those quesadilla people are out there every night.

With heavy-bellied remorse,
Noelle

p.s. I have a thing for even numbers and may have had two of those quesadillas.

p.p.s. I hope I get a parasite. Or two.

sara, scott & co.

I took family pictures for my friend, Sara. Sara loves doing triathlons, Scott is Australian and their girls are like little, blonde fairies. And I made them jump - a lot. But wouldn't you rather have this on a greeting card then all those run-of-the-mill family posing pics? They were good sports.

thanksgiving 2009: turkey bowl