Drumming with Kristin

Nutcracker

A few photos from our botched trip to see the Nutcracker. You'd never know it was going to go south so quickly from the photos:

Snow day!

Meatloaf, smeatloaf, double beatloaf

We hosted some of our neighbors for a holiday dinner last weekend. Jeff recently spotted a recipe in a fancy home design magazine, dubbed "Billionaire's Meatloaf" and even though in principal, I think meatloaf is pretty gross, I couldn't get this recipe out of my head. It was wrapped in bacon! Thus our 1950's dinner party was born. One couple brought cheeses for us to snack on and an apple pie for dessert, and the other couple brought mashed potatoes and peas with pearl onions. We provided the meatloaf and a bartender (Jeff) to make old fashioneds. There were 4 children present under 4.5yrs old and at one point Jeff asked aloud whether the house would have been quieter if there had been 4 monkeys loose in the house instead. We all agreed it would be.

Behold! A giant loaf of meat:

And a rather unappetizing plate due to red lighting coming from the red flowers and votives nearby, but I  assure you it was amazing:

I had (naively) planned a dessert craft project for the kids that involved directly copying my friend Lindsey's Facebook post from earlier in the month. Each child was to receive 2 ice cream cones to frost with green frosting and decorate with sprinkles and candy. It was also their dessert. It was closely controlled chaos but at least no one cried (at least that I can recall).

Grown ups trying to eat and pretend that chaos isn't reigning in the room immediately to our left.

Jeff took this panorama but poor David moved his head and looks like someone squished it. It's the rare occasion when I'm so glad we have a giant round table in our dining room.

The Usual

Just the usual afternoon walk in our tutu and snow boots.

Better things to do

Jeff was just pretending to rock Edie in his arms like a giant baby while she tried to have a snack. Out of the blue she yelled, "Now you're just wasting my time!"

Nutcracker fail and a gym triumph

I had tickets to take Edie with my Mom to the Nutcracker yesterday. Tickets were expensive and it was a gamble that didn't pay off unfortunately. I loved getting Edie all dressed up and she looked adorable in her formal navy coat. But she had a nasty cold coming on that I was trying to pretend wasn't happening and it literally choose the moment the curtain went up to arrive in full force. I took her to the cry room to watch so she could cough without judgement from those around us, but the view was terrible and if I'm being totally honest, the ballet was a bit more… boring than I remembered. The music is live, but it seemed like the volume was on 1 out of 10, and coupled with my daughter's relentless dry cough, it was a lethal combo. I felt stressed out. We watched from the cry room until intermission and then surrendered.

We watched the Robin Hood cartoon from the 80's at home in our comfies instead. Wah - waaaah. Best laid plans…

I was up multiple times with a miserable kid last night, but she woke this morning pumped and wanted to go to school. So I dropped her off and went to the gym for my latest training appt as scheduled. I was tired and thinking it was going to suck. And it kind of did. HOWEVER! There was one golden moment out of the hour of physical suffering. Mike asked me to try something I had previously been terrified of. I'd even told him a month ago I was scared that one day he'd ask me to do this and he just laughed. Well, today was the day. Admittedly, a shitty choice on his part, given my fatigue. But I rallied and I'm really, nerdily proud.

This may seem a small thing, but he asked me to jump (with both feet at the same time) onto a bench about 2 feet off the ground and land with both feet at the same time.  Before you think this sounds like not a big deal,  go walk up to something (a tall coffee table maybe) and think about doing this. Hopefully I'm not a giant wuss and this will seem intimidating to you as well. Please also remember that I am barely 5'3" so this bench hit me about an inch above my knees. It was TERRIFYING. I felt like that kid that climbs up the ladder to the diving board and then just stands there counting to 3 over and over, but not jumping. I tried to bargain my way out of it a few times but Mike assured me I could do it. I faked out a few times and then... I just did it. It felt like a trust fall with no one to catch me but myself. And I totally caught myself! The high was remarkable, but it only lasted a second because then he made me do it like 10 more times and every single jump was only slightly less scary than the one before. But seriously - the endorphins from that are still with me, hours later.