1. We rang in the new year with a little day field trip on New Year’s Eve – we took the kids to the Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad Museum and the boys LOVED it! Dominic, especially, hasn’t stopped talking about the “choo choo trains” and, bonus, Isabelle hung out like a champ.

We came home and relaxed, then made homemade pizzas for dinner, which the boys really enjoyed. Everyone was asleep well before midnight here!

2. I am still knee-deep in the holiday fog of not having the slightest idea what day it is and being all out of sorts. Joseph went back to school on Wednesday, but his regular activities on Thursday aren’t back yet, so we’re still sort of in routine limbo. I’m sure this coming Monday will have us all back in the groove!

3. Last Saturday, I sat and went through all of my grandma’s old recipes that my mom had brought over MONTHS ago. It was such a treasure trove of old gems – recipes written in her handwriting on the back of stationary from 1958… a booklet from Frigidaire on “The New Thrills of Freezing with your Frigidaire Food Freezer”… mixed in with the recipes were also receipts from my mom’s wedding gown, a bill from the hospital when she had my mom, my great-grandfather’s obituary… it was such a great time going through all of them. I saved a ton of my favorites and am excited to share them with you!

4. I’ve started taking showers in the evening again to try to expedite my mornings, but boy, sometimes if I wait until right before bed to take one, I lose track of time just standing under that hot water and I swear I could just fall asleep standing up, it’s SO relaxing.

5. I got the new iPhone xR a month or so ago, and am so bummed about portrait mode on the camera! It takes brilliant photos if you are in super bright light, but just regular inside-your-house lighting? The photos are SO pixelated. I just assumed I must be doing something wrong, but when I did some research, I found that the camera processing was built so that you could take pictures in lower light and have them exposed well, but that means a higher ISO is necessary, which creates noise/pixelation in the photos. I really, really hope they make an adjustment to the software, gah!

6. I am in the market for a new Dutch oven, and would love to hear your thoughts on Le Creuset vs Staub. When I got my first (and only!) Dutch oven about 12 years ago, Le Creuset was the only brand on my radar; I’ve since found that many people swear by Staub, as well. If you have used both, or Staub, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

7. Who uses Instacart? I wouldn’t use it for our everyday groceries, since our grocery store offers curbside pickup and delivery if we ever need it, but I am SO tempted to use it for Costco! Our Costco is about 15-20 minutes from our house and ALWAYS busy, but is it worth the $8.99 delivery fee?? That seems so high, BUT time is money, right?!

8. This might be totally new to me, but I started buying the “fresh stacks” packages of saltine crackers and graham crackers, where they package smaller amounts of crackers in multiple little stacks inside the box. Ummm… they are a million times better than the regular ones! They almost have more of a toasted/fresh flavor? Totally sold on them.

9. We binged The Innocent Man on Netflix over the last week, and just, wow. I initially wanted to watch it just because I was obsessed with everything John Grisham when I was a young teenager, thinking about wanting to go to law school, but once we got into the first episode, my husband and I were hooked. Such a crazy, insane, and disturbing story.

10. TGIF! This old married couple wishes you a wonderful weekend!