sing along with me: all i want for christmas is a cuisinart, a kitchenaid, a blow dryer, a freezer...

in the last few weeks, my new years resolution of one new recipe a week has busted my stand mixer (from brian's grandmother, so arguably, it may have been 30+ years old) and done something very bad to the cuisinart. i think the cuisinart may be saved with a new workbowl, but i have to inspect it more carefully to know for sure.

the freezer we got for free from brian's former employer pooped out sometime in the last few months (?). luckily, we had not put tons of stuff in it and we only lost some eggplant parmesan and a couple of containers of spaghetti sauce. but unfortunately i had just purchased a bunch of stew meat to freeze and when brian went to the garage to put it away, he opened the door of the freezer and WARM air came out. never a good thing from a freezer. i had to scramble this weekend to make room in our regular kitchen freezer for three 3-lb packages of stew meat.

and to top it all off, my blowdryer smells like it's on its last legs. yes, smells. luckily, it's not quite as costly to replace a blow dryer as it is some of the items above.

in other news, rory has been riding a scooter we inherited from some friends and loves it. she's been using the potty AND sleeping in her big girl bed with some regularity. alix was sleeping through the night last week, but seems to have given it up for the moment and is back to the 3 or 3:30 am wake up and nurse schedule. also, she is doing a lot of smiling, laughing and thumb-sucking. i took about a million pictures of the girls this weekend and hope to have some of them posted by next weekend. we're also going to print a bunch out to send to non-web-connected friends and family.

michael and laurie are taking us out on a double date sunday night-dinner and a movie from the telluride film fest at dartmouth. plus babysitting! i'm so excited! now-a-days, we get to see a movie in a theatre maybe once a year. i can't even remember the last time we actually went out to see a movie, let alone dinner without kids.