advent and preparation

We have a tree up with beautiful white lights on it. And I have a fisher price nativity set my mom gave us a few years ago that Ivar likes to play with (and by play, I mean throw the shepherds and wisemen around). But other than that, I haven't put up one single decoration. Oh, except the barn to a nativity set that I brought upstairs a few weeks ago...but I haven't unpacked any boxes to find the people, so it's just a barn. No peeps in the stable.

I just don't have it in me this year. I'm tired. I'm queasy and I sort of don't think I can handle adding more clutter to our stuff. As it stands our house is strewn with brightly colored toys and tupperware and it already feels full. More decorations just seems like it would be too much.

In an effort to comfort myself, to give permission to this years lack of tradition-making, I have been on a quest for fun advent ideas. And I found this post and wanted to link to it so that next year, when I'm feeling spry and energized, I can be the supermom I know I can be. Just not this year.

So check out this link of fun ideas for the 25 days leading up to Christmas. She has great ideas for family outings, special nights at home, service projects for others and then writes about that super fun idea of wrapping up all of the Christmas books at the beginning of the month and then letting your kids unwrap one book a night all throughout December and reading it before bed. I love this idea.

egg in the hole?!!

I am working my way through Pioneer Woman's cookbook and thought it was so odd she put a recipe in there for a piece of bread with a fried egg in the middle. Her cooking is always a bit more complicated than that.

But last night, as a last ditch attempt at supper (we're low on everything...) I decided to give it a go.

And oh my goodness, it was good. It wasn't just eggs and toast. It was like something different, with some egg baked into the toast, and the toast in ready position to sop up the runny egg. I don't even usually like sunnyside up eggs, but with enough salt and pepper I am a believer in this SUPER EASY and hey-that-felt-like-a-real-dinner recipe.

Here's her "recipe." I have a feeling I am really behind on this one. My guess is that many of you were raised on this, but egg in the hole is a new find for me, and I couldn't be more happy to have found another easy-peasy supper to add to the mix.

little house

Oh have you seen Little House lately?!! It's perfect for me right now because the frames don't move too fast, and the only food they show is ma pulling out bread from the oven. I can't get over how sucked in I get to these episodes. I called my sister yesterday after having watched the episode The Blizzard. I started crying at some point in the middle of the show, and by the end it was the ugly cry. And then the show was over and I still was ugly crying.

Annika watched Little House faithfully when she little and she claims all of her forehead wrinkles are from watching this show and the worry and heartache she took upon herself on behalf of the Ingalls.

Anyway, if you're looking for a good gift for some girls in your life, I can think of few things better than the books or the dvd's.

my party chicken.

My friend Emily sent this to me this morning and it made me laugh out loud. Because I really need to find my party chicken again. I have been so moody with this pregnancy. (That post I wrote on Friday was so crabby...and you can even pinpoint the moodswing in my writing!) I'm not sure where my party chicken has been, but Emily has unlocked it. Thank Goodness.

christmas lights