Quick Stay-Cation Pics

This is actually last Wednesday's post that never got published because I was having internet troubles uploading pictures... so, enjoy this news a week late, and with some extra time today I may have a second post for you this week!  Stay tuned!

Hi all!  A very quick update is coming your way today... I have some work on our taxes plus budgeting to do today during my Wednesday free time here, so I'm splitting the blogging time in half.  Here goes, quickly!

We are on school vacation this week, meaning M and I are not teaching.  Sometimes we continue homeschool over the public school vacations, but I felt we were in good enough shape this year to take the time off.  We had originally hoped to travel and see family during this break, but because M just started a new job (more on that later!) and as a result we are also house hunting (more on that later too!) we kind of needed to stay local.  As it usually happens, it has felt AMAZING to have nothing to do.  Some families get sick of being with each other and staying home, and although we have our occasional moments of stir-craziness or bickering, mostly everyone in this family just wants to lounge around and do not much of anything, so I'm glad we're all on the same page about that.  I don't know if it's Zoom Fatigue or COVID Fatigue or whatever, but the idea of planning a trip and packing a suitcase just doesn't seem that appealing right now.  Funny.  You would think we would be dying to get out of the house after a year of little travel, but... well... we're just tired.

The weather has not been great for traveling either, with a snow or ice or rain storm about every two days.  So it's probably better that we have no plans to go anywhere!

The week has filled in with little tasks that we need to do, however-- M had some homework to do for a few grad credits he has been working on, I'm trying to plan the next six weeks of homeschool, we are getting our taxes filed, I have a few recording projects for my students, I'm singing a couple of extra masses for Ash Wednesday... you know how the empty time tends to fill up quickly.  But we are having our share of fun as well!

On Valentine's Eve, M and I had the most lovely "date night"... N baby-sat the other girls (a.k.a they had pizza and a movie in the living room, and N just watched the clock and put everyone in pjs for us) while we enjoyed some homemade margaritas along with chips and guac and empanadas ordered out from our favorite local place.

It was soooooo nice to just talk for a few hours and enjoy our meal.  I had on my oh-so-sexy fuzzy heart pajamas as you can see in the picture above, lol.  But it was pretty nice to be comfy cozy at home!  Many thanks to N and also L who helped with the little girls to make this possible!

A snowy run outside!  It's a little tough dodging all the slippery spots on the sidewalks right now, but I still love love love being outside in that cold, clean fresh air.

A lot of cozy cooking was done over the vacation week... blender crepes as pictured above...

...pumpkin pie steel cut oats, drowning in maple syrup and topped with walnuts (YUM)!  Kind of made up my own recipe on this one.  It was about 7 cups cashew milk, 2 cups steel cut oats, a can of pumpkin puree, a couple of teaspoons of pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg & cloves), and two tablespoons flaxseed meal.

Many, many hours of Legos and Barbies!

Not the greatest picture above, but I took it because I wanted to remember the recipe for these carrot muffins I made... SO GOOD.  I've been having them for dessert all week.  If you, like me, bought an extra bag of carrots at the store by accident, I highly recommend this recipe as a great way to use them up.

Because the girls aren't doing school they have had lots of extra time to practice violin and dance-- we move all the chairs out of the way in the living room and they put on shows for us!  It's very fun to watch them... makes my Mama heart very proud.

That's about it!  See you again soon :)