family + food + feelings
Today! I want to start planning our Christmas menu because we have less than two weeks to go, AND start thinking of some items that would be good to have kind of…around…for snacking and random meals and something to prevent eating sugar cookies for breakfast. 
Instead, breakfast cookies! And Beck in her jammies. Makes sense. 
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Omg Baby It’s Cold Outside and also the controversy about that song. Currently not ok and also historically fine because that’s how people used to be/talk/sing, I think. I’ve noticed that people have a really hard time with two emotions coexisting, probably will be a theme of mine in 2019, talking about that more. 
So how are you? We had an awesome-but rainy birthday weekend for Beck, and then the snow wrecked havoc on our little city because we aren’t really equipped to manage it. Lots of people lost power for over 24 hours and we are on day three of no internet, which is NOT IDEAL for 1. TV watching and 2. working from home, which we both do. But we are managing, thanks to severely reduced expectations and mobile hotspots.
Tonight, though, we are GOING TO SEE HAMILTON. And also it is going to be 50 degrees and we are going to have a fabulous dinner beforehand. I have been looking forward to this night for so very long, and I’ve already heard great things about the tour we’re seeing. It feels like an awesome time of year to get to see such a special show – chilly and decorated downtown and everything feeling so very festive. Festive like these! French Onion Fillo Bites, and get off me about how to spell it. There are three (maybe more) spellings used interchangeably on the internet and the box of pastry cups I used say Fillo, so that’s what we’re going with. These are super simple and involve a wildly delicious caramelized onion filling topped with sharp cheese. That is stuffed into premade pastry cups (that I love using this time of year) and baked, and everything gets ooey gooey and just makes the most delicious one-bite snack. I love these for parties or as a starter to a fancier meal, and honestly keeping some of the onion mixture around to spread on crostini wouldn’t be a terrible idea at all. …
The birthdays are always the most nostalgic and the most fun all at the same time, I think. I wonder, were my parents ever sad or weepy on our birthdays? I don’t remember them talking about it, but maybe they just didn’t tell us. All day on Beck’s birthday (and the day before at her party) I felt so nostalgic for the present and the last three years. HOW is she so big! Jay was talking to her about her vocabulary the other day and asked her how many she knew, and I was thinking….all of them. She can’t really talk about engineering with much finesse, but she’s fluent in English, which is strange and obviously a good thing.
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