Yum

A little mathematical truth for you: As the amount of winter outerwear Ava is wearing increases, the probability that you won't be able to stop nibbling her delicious cheeks also increases. Exponentially.

(Tree lighting ceremony in St. Joseph)

QED.

outing my sister's wine problem - she's going to love me for this title

I am planning a delicious Christmas Day dinner - probably the yummiest brisket known to man. I want it to be like, reeeeeeally good. So I am following every.single.instruction and ingredient to the T (it's quite involved). The recipe calls for a dry, red wine. Usually when a recipe calls for wine I use grape juice but this time I am using real red wine.

So I was at the grocery store, perusing the wine selection, wishing they had a section entitled "cooking wine for the devout and unlearned". I was too proud to ask the couple making a vodka selection for help but I could not figure out what wine to get. Is a sweet wine also dry? How come the only obvious dry wines were champagne? What's the difference between a merlot and a pinot noir? I needed someone to google these questions for me so that I could make an informed decision. Also, it had been like 7 minutes in the wine aisle and I'm pretty sure I was starting to look suspicious. So I did what anyone in my situation would do - I called my 17 year old (and also devout) sister for advice on wine. Listen. It seemed completely normal at the time. She was sure to be by her phone and therefore a computer because her phone basically is a computer because that's how 17 year olds roll these days.

So I called Shannon. My father picked up. He, apparently, was the one by Shannon's phone, not Shannon. So I started telling him about the situation and my father asked how Shannon would know anything about wine. Yeeeeeah. Good thing Shannon doesn't secretly sip booze, otherwise this would have totally given her away and I would be the "WORST SISTER EVER I HATE YOU!!!!" We started laughing pretty hard, my father out of the absurdity of the situation and me, out of embarrassment. "I just wanted her to google it. Can't you google it for me?"

And that's how I got advice about my alcohol selection from a former Mormon Bishop. Heh heh.

Homemade Happiness

Life is pretty good right now.

We're all homemade this time of year with the presents and the food and the decorations and the happiness (yes. I prefer my happiness homemade. Unless ice cream is involved) but I've become especially domestic lately. I blame pinterest. And having to sew my own curtains.

We threw away the remainder of our gross chemically cleaners and made some of our own (here).
We ran out of laundry detergent and I'm sick of paying so much for the HE stuff so we? maaaaaade our own (here). (And it works great with front load washers since it is low suds.)
We say "boo" to the gross premade spaghetti sauce and make our own. With three ingredients (and a little salt). And it is the best spaghetti sauce ever (here).
Ava and I are making some ornaments today. Maybe she won't destroy these (here)?

Yeah. I like stuff better when I make it.