This family needs to come up with some different nighttime activities

I don't know why I've never posted about this pork tenderloin with olive mustard tapenade before, since it's a go-to recipe for me. I also don't know why I dumped it on top of a bunch of salad greens. I DO know why I added some fingerling potatoes, and that is because potatoes make salad awesome.

Okay, this is clearly one of the grosser-looking things I've ever put together. But olives taste good.

I wouldn't say this game of Naked Toddler Hides Under A Chair To Avoid Diapering was fun exactly, but it was a big improvement over the previous round of Naked Toddler Hides Under A Chair To Avoid Diapering While Wailing Like A Banshee.

Also the subsequent game of Screaming Toddler Seems To Think That Going To Bed Involves Waterboarding Or Something.

Anyway. Here are some Christmas card outtakes for you.

Note: every single picture is an outtake.

Extra note: if you're expecting a card from us and don't get one it's just because I didn't actually bother putting them together because these might actually be the two best pictures.

And some behind-the-scenes antics.

I guess if I were going to plug my baby into something it would probably be via her ear...not much to critique here.

You know I had nothing to work with when I go heavy on the Matt Foley style

Confronted with both kale and butternut squash in the Local Box this week, I again attempted to turn these winter challenges into "lasagna," because that's what everyone thinks when they see a massive pile of greens, right? Looks like lasagna! Or when you see any foodstuff? Guys? Just me?

LOOKS LIKE LASAGNA, I SAY.

Anyway, we recovered with some pot roast from the freezer.

I didn't even try to turn these vegetables into anything.

So, Anna has been doing this thing where she "eats actual food"

...and "doesn't look miserable throughout fun activities"

...and "gives positive attention to her baby sister."

I don't know, I'm a little weirded out.

It's probably just a phase.

Sulk and cookies

It's cold outside! Soup for dinner! My favorite thing about 101 Cookbooks is that the recipes always seem virtuous, even when they contain half a stick of butter.

Red Lentil Soup with Lemon (AND BUTTER)

Speaking of nutritional virtue, I have invited an old frenemy back into the house.

Just getting warmed up for January, the traditional season of health-torture.

On the other end of the food spectrum, I guess Anna got tired of waiting for me to start the holiday baking and decided to do it herself. One gets the sense that she was feeling rather put-upon.

"I have to do every freaking thing around here."

"Seriously."

It's been a long time since we had an Anna's Fashion Corner update! Today, holiday gift bags as unique seasonal footwear.

I feel like you need the air of defiance to really sell this look.

In other-daughter news, Ivy is also totally surprised that she's already been here an entire month.

She'll be sullenly making gingerbread men in no time!

I barely made a chicken salad, I think Christmas crafts are out this year

I had a little burst of ambition the other day and decided it was time to actually put a meal together all by myself while dealing with both girls. I went with Chicken Salad with Tahini-Yogurt Dressing, and it was good! So that was a success.

Ignore where the recipe says "active time 30 minutes," though. I found it to be about four hours.

We've recently had a run of camera-avoidance in these parts.

She's employing some impressive tactics. Camoflage:

Sur La Table's packaging is strangely giggly.

And bribery:

Sorry honey, it's going to take more than the $8 in my wallet.

Anyway, I will persist at least until Ivy starts making more interesting faces.

Several of the people I follow have posted Christmas plans/Advent activities, and I was starting to get inspired to the point of almost considering maybe buying an Advent calendar and stealing some of their ideas for it, and then my friend Lauren posted a picture of the Advent calendar she made and I gave up on ever accomplishing anything, because, seriously:

I'm just going to print out a picture of this and tape things to the back of it.

Plastic happiness

More from the I Totally Planned Ahead For This Baby Files: ratatouille (with huge gobs of brie, on toast) and lasagna.

I find that tomatoes need a great deal of salt and saturated fat to reach their full potential.

Just like me!

If any of you remember the live (/evil) Christmas tree saga of last December, you know that all of that effort and grief and actual physical pain is about to pay off, because we totally have an eco-friendly tree all ready to go another year! Let's go check on our investment.

Whooooooooops!

Um. What about the heaviest pot in the universe? Aww. It's like the empty chair where Tiny Tim used to sit.

In the dark reboot of the franchise where Tiny Tim is really pointy and vindictive.

So, yeah, we bought a fake tree this year. It's soft and symmetrical and a normally-strengthed human can move it from one place to another and it's covered in pine cones, which Anna calls "pine tones." (Or, rather, "PINETONES!!!") I love my fake tree. I'm sorry, earth.

Despite the tree's artificial nature, Anna remembers how important it is to check for squirrels.

Make sure you really get in there.

Can't be too careful.

Hey, remember when I got diabetes? So weird.

Everybody ate a disgusting amount yesterday, right? The extra weight won't count if we're all in it together. This year was exciting for me because for once there was a gap in the dessert menu so I got to experiment with some seasonal recipes (read: things I bookmarked during my cardboard period with a single tear in my eye).

Pumpkin gingerbread: win.

Apple cider cream pie: mega win.

Pumpkin spice rice krispie treats: fail. Super soggy.

I still ate four of them.

So, anyone who has (very kindly) told me that I don't look like I just had a baby, don't worry:

By Christmas I definitely will.

So will Dan.

I joke about the downside of overindulgence, but the important thing is that everyone really savor and appreciate such a bounty when it's available.

IT'S JUST GINGERBREAD HONEY, DON'T OVER-THINK IT.

Maybe she was just getting a glimpse of her future, wherein we dressed her as a pioneer pilgrim flapper.

Festive!

Almost saved this one for the Christmas card

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Hope you're enjoying this special time of togetherness as much as we are.

The long-awaited return of tortillas to my diet

After multiple (2) days without tortillas in the house I broke down and made some with my recently ignored but still-magnificent tortilla press. It helped that my brother was in town, since he's always up for a food project and is pretty handy around the kitchen. Look at this lovely plate he assembled:

Pretty colors! Toasted seeds! He is straight up gourmet, you guys.

Technically we were trying to make Zucchini and Red Pepper Enchiladas, but we substituted the cheese and halved the oil and used a grill pan and...decided not to bother rolling them into enchiladas. So, you're never going to believe this, but what we ended up making was...piles. Happy ones, though. Fancy ones. (Fancy Piles will be my upscale gastropub.)

I also made him braise some cabbage.

My culinary whims are mysterious indeed.

Normally, dinnertime with Anna consists of her kicking her chair away from the table and repeatedly declaring "Want-need crackers! WANT-NEED CRACKERS!" (I'm giving her the linguistic benefit of the doubt with that hyphen, I'm actually pretty sure she thinks "want" and "need" are one compound demand.) She generally whimpers a lot. Sometimes she throws things. It's pretty great, all around.

BUT there seems to be a chance that she has inherited her mother's slavish devotion to observing holidays as thoroughly as possible, because being at her grandparents' house for Thanksgiving week has awakened her dormant eater.

"This is for the pilgrims."

No strand left behind.

Don't know why we never thought to set her to "Food: DESTROY" mode before now.

Like a true American.

Now I'm going to spend all day thinking of a motto for my new venture

Having run out of tortillas, we have recently moved on to eating eggs at every meal. Remember when I warned you this might happen?

Random Stuff From the Fridge Omelet

Random Stuff From the Fridge Frittata

I guess when we run out of eggs I'll just form the Random Stuff From the Fridge into sad piles. Incidentally, a quick peek at the archives indicates that if I ever write a cookbook, "Sad Piles" will probably be the subtitle at the very least. (Fast-casual restaurant chain? Hey, did America's Next Great Restaurant get canceled or what? I'd like to make this happen. Someone please forward this to Bobby Flay. You know, the blog. Forward the whole blog.) (I think I might need an assistant.)

Anyway, as happy as I am to sit in my house and eat eggs (very happy), we were starting to get a little stir crazy so we ventured out to Black Star last night to check up on our investment.

I went to a restaurant and ordered beer like a grown up because I'm not pregnant anymore yaaaaaaaaay!

I also had a big bowl of chicken curry that I didn't have to cook double-yaaaaaaaaay!

The curry was perfect for the fairly chilly weather we're having here at the moment. It's one of those exciting times when the temperature actually lines up with the calendar. If only I could figure out how Anna feels about the cold...

Inscrutable as always.

Once we got her jacketed, she regained her strength and started commanding airplanes to come HERE.

I don't think she's messing around, airplane.

Happy Due Date, little Ivy! It was all bonus time up until now, but today you're officially on the clock.

Ready set FULL TERM GO!