the bright side: December 10th??

To my dismay, this month is already flying by! Miss Claire and I are staying busy packing (trying to get rid of things we don't need) and working on quite a bit of stuff at church in prep for Faceplant and the new Spring Series.

We move in 20 days and I'm almost out of empty boxes. As far as Claire's growth goes, the timing couldn't be any better. It seems that just this week she officially has outgrown our apartment. Counting down until we have a playroom and yard to run in. Ethan and I look forward to hammocks in the trees, a fire pit and twinkle lights to enjoy the evenings outside. I am particularly pumped to have a grill again - reopens a tremendous amount of dinner ideas.

Little brother is growing strong. He's really active and I'm feeling ginormous these days. If we ask Claire where her little brother is she tries to pull up my shirt and point to my belly. So sweet.

I've bought very few Christmas gifts and in terms of decor we only put up the family tree and little tree in Claire's room. It's a strange Christmas for sure. My parents are coming down for Christmas and we are excited for that. Moving during the holidays makes things crazy.

We had another great Youth Leader Christmas Party last week. Ethan came home with a brand new record player! The same record playing we've been eyeing for two years!! He was the first person to receive it during "dirty Santa" and almost cried when he got it. Tears of sadness because we just knew someone would steal it. God was looking out for Ethan and thankfully we have a lot of great friends at the party who knew that it was the perfect gift for Ethan. He's in absolute heaven and bought his first vinyl copy of Abbey Road - we all love listening to it.

We have my staff Christmas party this week and a couple of Christmas lunches with co-workers. Although we are living among boxes, we are really enjoying the holiday festivities. Love this time of year.

Baby brain is my arch nemesis right now. For some reason, making a grocery list was planning meals was an unusually daunting task. So I just went to the Pioneer Woman's cooking page and picked a few things before heading to the store.

Thanks to her genius, I made this masterpiece tonight: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/10/three-cheese-stuffed-shells-with-meaty-tomato-sauce/
Make it right now, you won't be sorry. The sauce is to die for. I swore off the jarred sauce this year and have been searching for the "perfect" pasta sauce recipe. This comes close, however I have a good friend who comes from an Italian family and she gave me her grandmother's recipe! I can't wait to try it. I'm waiting until we move so that I can make a large batch and freeze servings for several meals. (I'm an avid make-double-and-freeze-half cook)

We have been enjoying some beautiful weather. It's cooled off but we've only had a couple of "cold" days. Most afternoons we are fine to play outside or go to the park in a light jacket.

Here are some pics I've snapped with my phone lately. Say what you will about the iPhone, but being a busy Mom it's incredible to have a decent camera and HD video capable device on me at all times. Love it.

She loves the mannequin dog at Old Navy ... always goes nuts for it.