The New Year, 8 Days In

French Laundry

Happy 2015!! Ignore the fact that I’m 8 days late with that salutation. We had an amazing kick off to the new year with Nick and our friend David cooking a 14 course tasting menu from the French Laundry cookbook. It was a very ambitious undertaking for the boys, but they did an absolutely incredible job. (Don’t believe me check instagram. It doesn’t tell lies.)

This is typically the time of year where people tell their goals and recap the previous year. I’m not ready to share my goals with you because I haven’t shared them with Nick yet. Most of them wouldn’t interest you anyway, so don’t feel jipped. I just felt like talking with you today. Just a little chat to catch up like friends do.

margaritasource

I’ll start with a confession. We spent Monday night cuddling and watching Celeste and Jesse Forever. We thought it would be super romantic and etc. I cried several tears and was completely depressed by the movie. It was nothing like I expected and just so sad. To top it off Nick made us margaritas which were delicious, but we woke up with a hangover. On a Tuesday. After 1 margarita. Way to go Wills.

cityofbones

I decided I should read again since I really love to read. I picked up City of Bones which is a pretty popular YA series. I’m really good at reading series especially YA ones. It’s a weakness or something. It’s meh. I feel like every book now is trying to recreate Harry Potter with some Twilight thrown in the mix. There was a big twist that was disturbing and kinda sad but nothing like the magic of Harry Potter or as Ramona calls him Harry Potterson. I will probably still finish out the series because that’s how I roll read.

Land-of-Nod-Tent

The kids and I (really just me but they kept their destruction to minimum while I worked) have been cleaning up their play room to make room for the ginormous teepee Santa brought them. I purged a huge box of toys and another box of trash. You can actually walk up there. It’s a New Year’s miracle. How adorable are the Wills kids though? I mean come on.

Hoping the year has started out just as well with each of you. Happy Thursday y’all!

*This post contains affiliate links and my top 3 moments in 2015.
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COMMENTS

26 Responses to The New Year, 8 Days In
  1. Wow, you are spoiled…that food! I want in!
    Harry Potterson is awesome too 😉
    Love the last photo too. Looks like a little wild man attack and yes the Wills kids are adorable!

    • Amber says:

      I am incredibly spoiled. Nick can whip up delicious food on a whim.

      Beckett is a total wild man. I think it’s 2nd child syndrome + being a boy. He’s hilarious and such a handful!

  2. Gretchen says:

    This is just ridiculous. Beckett is NOT that big already. Stop with your lies. (But they’re both ridiculously adorable, even if they are aging at an alarming and unnatural pace :)).

    • Amber says:

      Yeah it’s been really shocking to me lately. He’s getting out of that baby stage and looking so big. It give me all the sads.

  3. cassie says:

    i was so jealous of your new year’s eve food! i want to come eat petit french bites with you!
    and i won’t pick up that book- i like YA series, too, but meh doesn’t sell me. just finished all the light we cannot see- intense about WW2, but really really good!

    • Amber says:

      Oooo I’ll have to check that out. I was obsessed with WW2 books in school. I hate to soft sell that book. Maybe it’s just because so many fantasy/other worldy characters can only change so much in literature. I mean a vampire operates under typical restraints -can’t be in the sun, etc. I can’t expect that formula to change much. I guess when I look at it that way the book had different enough approach to make it original. It’s just hard not to see Harry Potter and the love story part of Twilight shine through. YA is super predictable though, so I can’t fault it for that.

  4. Hooray for the new teepee! That’s awesome!! xoxo

  5. Love the photo of the kids playing with their campfire. Everyone is so color-coordinated! And Beckett is getting so big.

    • Amber says:

      He’s still small of his age, but I can’t get over how big he is. After I took that photo, I was laughing at how coordinated everything was. Crazy how sometimes I try to hard to get a great shot, and then sometimes it just happens.

  6. I really want to watch Celeste and Jesse Forever. I’ve heard of the emotional wave it brings though, so I’ve been waiting til I’m in just the right mood to do it. It took me weeks until I could watch The Skeleton Twins, and now I’m just barely making my recovery from that.
    I think you should turn that teepee into a guest room for me so I can come and visit. It looks perfect, and your kids are the most adorable beings I’ve ever seen! And Beckett has hair! That should tell you it has been too long in between Beckett pictures! I need more!

    • Amber says:

      He barely has hair. A few frizzy blonde curls that are sure to drive the ladies wild. Technically if you come stay as a guest you lay claim to everything upstairs, so the teepee will be included. So come on over.

      Not to be dramatic (she says right before she makes an insanely dramatic statement), but my life might have been better if I’d never watched Celeste and Jesse Forever. I can’t even explain it without giving it all away. It was an emotional watch for me when I just wanted to laugh and have a nice, clean, happy ending.

  7. Jessica says:

    I LOL’d at the hangover thing. That is totally me after one glass of wine these days. We’re old. Officially. Excited to see what 2015 has in store for you and dare I say that I might get to see you again this year? A trip to Dallas (mostly Austin with a Cowboys game thrown in) is still on our list of things to do soon. Take a bottle baby. Take a bottle already! See you soon friend!

  8. That tasting menu is insanity. I can’t even imagine where one would start to make those fancy things. Next year, I’m coming to your house. I went to bed at 8:30 this year and that’s just unreasonable.

    I love that picture of the kids with the teepee. Just too stinkin’ cute. And B is getting so big, it’s just impossible. Why do they grow so quickly?

    • Amber says:

      They didn’t stop cooking the last courses until 1:30. It is total insanity. You’re on next year.

      I don’t know why they grow so quickly, but it’s pretty frustrating. I tell him to stop growing but he’s not great at listening.

  9. Laurie says:

    I’ve had trouble getting into the Mortal Instruments series as well – I’m a sucker for a good YA, and I also usually finish to the end of the full series (how I ended up reading all the Fifty Shades books even though I hated them), but this one I keep picking up, reading a bit and putting it back down. One of these days I’ll get back to it and get through them. Interesting comparison to Harry Potter though – I believe the author got her start writing fan-fiction for HP, which is how she was discovered.

    • Amber says:

      I did not know that! Crazy! It totally makes sense though. There’s a definite HP feel to it. She calls the regular humans mundanes which a lot like muggles if you ask me…

  10. Nichole S. says:

    Love Beckett’s face in the last pic…he is like “where’s my 12-course campfire tasting menu…we only have s’mores!!!” And Nona the ever faithful fire tenderer (is that even a real word…bwhahahahaah) just patiently waiting for some truffle oil and foie gras…

  11. I’m VERY jealous of your New Year’s menu… We sat at home and ate frozen taquitos (I mean, they weren’t frozen when we ate them, but they weren’t remotely handmade) and Velveeta + Rotel queso and played The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii. I mean, we know how to party! 😉

    I love that teepee! I want one myself! I’m fairly certain that blog posts written in a teepee = the best blog posts.

    • Amber says:

      You definitely know how to party! You could actually fit quite comfortable in that teepee with your computer and blog away. Of course you’d probably have kids hanging all over you, so that might be a fail.

  12. Katie says:

    Just wanted to say, I really hope you all start blogging again soon. Wills Casa had become one of my favorite daily/weekly reads :)

    • Amber says:

      Thanks Katie!! We will soon! There hasn’t been much going on over here except lots of purging and cleaning. So nothing blog worthy but oh so necessary! Thanks for sticking around while we meddle around and figure out what we are doing around here!

  13. What a spectacular New Years menu. And I am in love with the toy fire that B and R have going on. I could use that over here today. It is a nippy 65 in my house. Seriously considering turning on the heat :)

    • Amber says:

      Haha don’t even! It’s been insanely cold here for a week. I’m ready for a real fire, summer, and probably a trip to CA! 😉