{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
- See more at: http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.ca/2013/12/pretty-happy-funny-real-christmas.html#sthash.cEobHUO1.dpuf

 ~capturing the context and contentment in everyday life~

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
- See more at: http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.ca/2013/12/pretty-happy-funny-real-christmas.html#sthash.cEobHUO1.dpuf

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
- See more at: http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.ca/2013/12/pretty-happy-funny-real-christmas.html#sthash.cEobHUO1.dpuf

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
- See more at: http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.ca/2013/12/pretty-happy-funny-real-christmas.html#sthash.cEobHUO1.dpuf

I'm linking up with one of my favorite blogs, Like Mother, Like Daugher today.

{pretty}

        The top of our new living room dresser is the prettiest part of the house right now, especially with the low morning winter sunshine on it.

{happy}

        In a fit of Pinterest inspiration and preemptive Christmas planning, I made all forty of my Christmas cards in November.  Alas, they have still not made it into the mail.  Next year I'll have to make them in October so I can get them in the mail on time to actually reach their recipients BEFORE Christmas.  Thankfully Christmas does not end on Boxing Day as most people these days think, and the cards will get to their people before the 12 days of Christmas are over.  Grandma's vintage buttons made super cute Christmas balls on some of the cards, and my thrifty genius led me to cut up all our Christmas gift bags to make the other two sets.

{funny}

Rowan pulled a cream pie (which wasn't any good anyways) down off the counter.  Chris mourned the loss of the pie and I rejoiced at a great photo op.  Rowan was a bit shocked and perhaps worried that he'd done something bad, but when he saw how much it made me laugh, he gave a little chuckle too. 

{real}

   Somebody let Rowan have a moment's access to the Advent wreath, and he got his daily dose of beeswax.

 

Sweet Potato Parsnip Lentil Soup with Warming Spices & Sage

        Last night I made the best soup I think I've ever made.  I have no pictures because it didn't last long enough to get any!  Plus it wasn't the most beautiful colour, but it was the most beautiful taste!  I used homemade chicken broth from a home-grown chicken we got from my in-laws.  I only had about half the carcass and it made about 12 cups of broth which I froze in 4 cup portions.  I didn't use a recipe, but here's roughly what I did:

2 med. onions, chopped
1 tbsp butter
1 large sweet potatoes, chopped into bit-size pieces
4-5 parsnips, chopped
4-8 cups broth (I used 4 c broth and added 4 c water to stretch out my tiny broth stash)
2 cups red lentils
2 tbsp dried sage
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves

1. Sautee onions in butter till translucent.
2. Add sweet potatoes and parsnips.
3. Cover with broth.
4. Add lentils and spices & sage, bring to a boil and then simmer till veggies and lentils are soft, about 25 mins, longer if you want a thicker, stew-like consistency.

        We just ate this by itself, mainly because I didn't get my act together far enough ahead of time to make anything to go with it, but it was definitely hearty enough to stand on it's own as a main course.  We each had a second helping, though not because were still hungry, but because it was so good!

        Usually my food turns out pretty well when I just "wing it," but the patron saint of soup makers must have been praying for me yesterday because it turned out better than I ever could have hoped for!

Our newest furniture installation.  We found this beauty on the side of the road, but it was not so pretty till Chris scraped several layers of ugly varnish and paint off it.  He finished it with an olive oil & beeswax mix.  The bottom drawer is for Rowan's toys, and the others are home (finally) for our table cloths, napkins, crafting supplies and board games.  It's also where we keep the Advent wreath during non-dinner time so Rowan can't dismantle it.

Sunday Traditions

        In the last couple weeks I've really been trying to make Sundays a day for R&R and family time.  We've had an insanely busy spring/summer/fall this year and were feeling like we hadn't had a weekend just for us, with no obligations or events in months (because we hadn't!)

At the wedding of friends.  One of our many weekend adventures this summer.  Rowan got his fancy clothes all messy at dinner, so we changed into more casual attire for the dancing.

        So after reading this post on one of my favorite blogs, I started making more of an effort to get projects done and the house cleaned during the week, if not by Saturday night in order that we could actually make the Sabbath a day of rest.  In the past, it seems that we were burned out from our week, so Saturday was laze around day, and then Sunday would be the day we frantically tried to get weekend projects done and have the house cleaned to some semblance of order to start the week.

        One of the things I'm starting to do to make Sunday special is to bake some kind of treat for us to have Sunday morning for breakfast/brunch.  I don't normally bake anything during the week other than healthy muffins and very, very rarely, bread.  This Sunday I didn't bake anything the night before, I make a pineapple upside down cake from my Mennonite Community Cookbook for a church potluck we were going to in the afternoon.  It was delicious and everyone there enjoyed it.

       Last Sunday I made this:

Ugh, my camera is so crappy.  We are getting a new one, that's all there is to it!

Lemon pound cake!  I'd never made a pound cake before, and my first attempt turned out nothing short of amazing!  I used this recipe which was easy and quick to make. It was delicious, moist, and had the perfect hint of lemon.  I made a blueberry sauce to go with it out of frozen wild blueberries.  It was heavenly.  Here are some of my other inspirations for future Sundays.

       The other new Sunday tradition we started yesterday was playing a board game and drinking tea before bed instead of watching a TV episode or movie.  Chris actually drank some of his homemade apple wine/cider.  We played snakes a ladders with a board I picked up at a thrift shop a while back.  It was the first time we'd used it and I was pleased to find it had cute little vintage looking illustrations of children doing good things getting rewards at the top of the ladders and ones doing bad things having bad repercussions at the bottoms of the snakes.  For example, the child saving money in her piggy bank at the bottom of the ladder got to buy a toy at the top, and a child who pulled a cat's tail at one of a snake got scratched at the other end.  Neither Chris nor I had played the game since we were children, and it took longer than we thought, but I won!  Maybe he'll win next week when we play Scrabble.