Month: November 2020

Thanksgiving 2020

LaurenLeave a comment

If you know me in real life or have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I LOVE LOVE LOVE Thanksgiving. Christmas is great and all, but have you ever tried a holiday centered around food that doesn’t require you to buy any presents?? Wonderful!! This Thanksgiving was definitely not what we thought it would be. Back in June, we thought we’d finally finally be able to host (and put our dining table to use!), but Corona Virus had other plans. My parents were going to join us, but at the urging of my sister, a nurse who’s had first hand experience working with COVID patients, we came to our senses and decided to cancel. Still, we were able to do a quick food swap (and photo shoot), masked and distant in our back yard. We did a few FaceTime calls too, so we still got to “see” everyone.

I know we could not have the traditional Thanksgiving weekend we had hoped to have, but man does having a baby make up for any COVID disappointment. We still got to have our Thanksgiving Eve ramen, we still got to eat that big old T-Day meal, we still got to watch holiday movies and bust out the Christmas decorations. I wish we could have done all of that with our families, but baby cuddles more than made up for it!

I mean, we were probably going to get take out this year regardless of restaurants being open to indoor dining or not. Uncle doesn’t seem like the easiest place to bring a baby. And I could finally enjoy a bowl of ramen without having to fish out the egg and sprouts. My first full beer too!

Thanksgiving Day photo dump!! I picked up a pumpkin pie and breakfast treats on Wednesday and it made it feel so holiday-y to be running errands, even if it was in a mask. We ate our pastries and semi paid attention to the parade — mostly what we do now is stare at Dempsey and briefly glance up at the TV, ha ha — before heading into the kitchen to cook. We were in charge of turkey, gravy, rolls, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and vegan gravy. I think it all turned out really good!!! Mom brought stuffing, cranberry sauce, carrots and bacon and wine. Oh and a Baby Yoda hat! It was slightly too big so that it kept falling over Dempsey’s eyes and it was too funny. I hadn’t seen my sis in so long, so it was nice to finally see her face in person 🙂 Post-meal, we took a walk (I’ve always wanted that to be a T-Day tradition) and FaceTimed with Lori, then we settled onto the couch to watch Happiest Season (guys, I’m sure it had its faults, but I liked it!) and have dessert (Joey made use the best whipped cream!). Our two sleepy boys were OUT!

Friday involved couch cuddles and Christmas decorations. We ordered all new personalized stockings for the family and now I’m like “wait, do I have to fill these now??” We also ate lots of leftovers, watched so much TV (two episodes of the Amazing Race and the finale of Great British Bake Off) and topped it all off with Hillbilly Elegy, which Joey liked but I thought was just okay and I can’t really pinpoint why but it didn’t super excite me.

Saturday was super unproductive and I think I let the ennui get to me because I wasn’t in a great mood. We did break out and take a walk though and when I felt like I couldn’t eat yet another plate of leftovers, we took advantage of a gift card my friend Kate sent us and ordered a small feast from Mizu. I was trying to rev up the energy to make turkey soup and couldn’t find it, so this take out felt extra nice. Oh and earlier in the day, we watched The Family Stone which I’d seen pieces of but never the whole thing and good god was it sad and uncomfortable!!!

Sunday already?? As I write this, I’m sipping my second cup of coffee, watching the baby nap and listening to Joey work outside. We ordered Stowaway for breakfast and even though we were annoyed at having our order cancelled TWICE and then having to go pick it up, the crullers were amazing, the Colorful Colorado was perfect as always and they gave us a free coffee for our troubles. In other words, they got us again!!! I think I’ll spend the rest of the day with caffeine jitters fitting in shower for me, a bath for the baby, maybe some reading (but more likely, just watching crappy holiday movies) and we’re FaceTiming with my brother and fam later! I hope you have a great holiday weekend and the Sunday Scaries aren’t treating you too badly today!

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

Apologies if this post is all over the place but my brain is mush because I have a newborn and WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT!!!!!! I don’t think I can properly relay the explosion of emotions I have felt since Saturday morning when we saw CNN had projected Joe Biden as the President-Elect. I think part of me had already mentally prepared to be disappointed in the outcome of the election — I was SO blindsided in 2016 and I did not want to feel that way again — so when things started going our way, I was shocked in the happiest of ways and seeing that announcement was the biggest feeling of relief and happiness and still a little bit of disbelief. I fully realized how stressful and heavy the past four years have felt and knowing it was over was EUPHORIC. This little baby won’t have to watch our president bully or name-call or lie or tweet insanity. We’ll have decency back in the White House. And dogs! We’ll have dogs in the White House again. I’m just so happy!

I have no idea what my posting schedule will be like in this unpredictable but wonderful newborn/maternity leave stage, but since it happened to be Sunday when I wrote this — I definitely thought Saturday was Friday and was bewildered when I realized I was wrong — I’ll go with a Weekend Things post for now. We loaded up Dempsey and walked to the coffee shop late Friday morning and… I hated it. There were so many people out and about and I felt very weird about it. Don’t worry, the baby didn’t go inside and we kept him away from everyone but still. Later that night, we supported the Denver Film Fest, by ordering up a movie called The Killing of Two Lovers. I really liked it! Joey was unsure about the ending but enjoyed the rest.

Saturday morning, Dempsey wasn’t interested in going back to bed after his 5 AM feeding, so Joey graciously got up with him and let me sleep in a bit longer. When I got up, I made us some blueberry pancakes, so I think we’re even :). They were really good and it’d been a few weeks since we’d made pancakes, so it felt like a luxury to eat them. And Andi was excited for the return of his Puppy Pancake.

Well I wish I could say we did anything productive on Saturday but mainly, we watched the news, scrolled celebration videos on Twitter and held the baby. We whipped out the Solly wrap and I’m not sure about it. I’m sure I’ll get better at it, but I can’t get it tight enough to feel like it’s actually supporting him and not just hanging off my body in a way that makes me feel like I have to lean backward to counterbalance him. Joey fared better and also sent me pictures of Dempsey’s sweet face from the other end of the couch.

My parents came over for dinner and we picked up food from Ginger Pig, a new restaurant just a few blocks from us. I thought it was all really good, but everyone else seemed to be more critical, which is the opposite of how it usually is! We all watched Kamala and Joe speak and can you believe we have a female Vice President??? I cannot tell you how much this means to me. My mom and I definitely teared up afterward :).

Sunday was semi-lazy too. For me, at least :). We ate breakfast and watched SNL because there was no way we were making it till 11:30 when it aired on Saturday and I thought the cold open was lame but Chapelle’s monologue was great and I loved that performance of “Times Like These” the Foo Fighters did. We have not done a lot of cooking in the past three weeks (thanks to everyone who has brought food!), but before Dempsey was born, Joey cleared out our garden and picked a TON of green cherry tomatoes. Did you know tomatoes will ripen on the counter?? They were finally all ready, so Joey made up some cream of tomato soup and I made two grilled cheeses and it felt like such a indulgence to have a fresh cooked lunch, especially one that tasted so good! The rest of the day included a Cowboys lose game, me writing this post, a fussy baby and a few episodes of Breaking Bad which we’d been talking about re-watching and finally pulled the trigger on. How was your weekend??