Wendi {at random}

We have a new tradition here at Cleveland Street. I mean Somerset Drive. I heard about this on the news. Yes, I still watch the news because apparently it still happens even in Connecticut. You wrap up a bunch of Christmas books and open one a day in the nights before Christmas. I started this a few nights ago after wrapping more than a dozen books in craft paper and using a roll of tape to make the dang stuff stick.

Each night the boys choose one package to open and we read it together. Some books are oldies we have treasured for years - The Polar Express, The Grinch, The Shining. (Um, kidding about that last one. I'd never read that to myself, much less to my offspring.) Some reads are new, like the Phineas and Ferb Christmas book I found at my heaven-on-earth superstore, Barnes and Noble. Junie B. Jones First Grader - Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, P.S. So Does May
is my FAVORITE so far. And plus also I feel like I'm teaching again reading it aloud. The other night Camden made noises and I had to give him the Mean Teacher Look. I didn't even have to send him to Principal's. Cause he completely got it, I tell you! We'll finish it tomorrow night, so I'm likely to be in mourning for a bit. Till I find a new Junie B. to subject my children to.

So this little countdown to Christmas has gone swimmingly, I must say. Don't you love that word? Swimmingly? It means nothing about floating in a pool of water in this context. But it sounds just swimmingly in a sentence.

Which brings us to my next topic.

Check out these veggies. They are fixing to swim with some other stuff in a casserole of Pioneer Woman proportions. The M&Ms did not make the Olympic team and, therefore, didn't swim with us.

They went swimming with this.

It's a whole chicken.

It was whole when I dumped it in a pot of boiling water and let it cook and cook and cook and smell up my kitchen with its chickenness. Might have been that bag of innards that I forgot to remove that smelled the most....

But, it turned out worth the trouble. Even if I had to pick it apart with my bare hands which clearly weren't meant for such labor.
Still, I persevered. And I must say that after my little bits of chicken went swimming with the veggies and the spaghetti 3 cups of sharp cheddar cheese and this and that and the other, it turned out pretty daggone tasty.

I was so shocked that I survived the rawness of the chicken that I forgot to take a picture of the finished casserole, but trust me. It was gooooooooood. I served it with a delightful salad and fresh-baked bread which used to be fresh frozen.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, I present you with Pistachio. Thanks, Mom. I can't wait to learn how to use this baby!

Also for your viewing pleasure, one of my favorite pictures of Mom and Dad, snapped at Mom's surprise birthday party a few years ago.