Friday Faves
Hi friends! Happy Friday and happy last weekend of 2018. I feel like I haven’t seen you in so long! We have so much catching up to do. I’ve spent the past week enjoying the holidays with the crew and each day has been incredibly full. There were many days that have blurred together – so often I can’t remember what we did yesterday – and this week, I’ve found myself constantly wondering what’s happening and what day of the week it is.
The girls are the best ages right now and it’s been my favorite winter break so far. We go to bed, and instead of feeling totally spent, I can’t wait to wake up and do it all over again. I also don’t miss school drop off AT ALL. We’ve slept until at least 8 or 8:30 every day (a Christmas miracle! Just don’t ask what time we go to sleep), and it’s such a treat to enjoy slow mornings instead of the usually before-school hustle. We’ve had such a blast together already and I’m already sad we only get one more week of break. Yesterday while I was putting Christmas stuff away, P said, “Why are you taking down the decorations?” I explained that Christmas was over so it was time to put things away and get ready for New Years. She said, “I’m so sad right now. I miss Christmas already.” Me too, girl.
Some fun pics from the past week:
Gingerbread decorating party with the cousins. I picked up these gingerbread sets at World Market on Black Friday and they were PRE-ASSEMBLED, which was clutch. We listened to Christmas music while we decorated, and the kiddos ate about 5 pieces for every one that went on their house. Doin’ it right.
Cheese board from our girls’ night gift exchange. My friend asked me to make a board, so I rolled up with my enormous paddle and all of the cheeses/toppings in a bag. It still came together pretty well and I added some festive touches (rosemary, pomegranate) along with the usual staples (different cheeses, charcuterie, Skinny Dipped almonds, Whisps, Simple Mills crackers, olives, jam, mustard, dried fruit, fresh fruit, etc.).
Holiday nails. I still love the dip powder! I found an awesome place in Tucson if any of my local friends want the info.
Christmas Eve, getting ready to head to my dad’s house. We feasted on tamales, enchiladas, beans, rice, and a festival of desserts before opening gifts with dad’s side of the fam. The weather was also gorgeous so all of the cousins could run around and play on their backyard playground.
Our favorite guy was missing the festivities, but we’re excited to see his face again soon. 😉 No egg nog was consumed in his honor. It just isn’t the same without him exploding it all over the kitchen.
Santa came!! The girls were pumped. They loved all of their gifts, but some of the hits were the melting snowman in their stocking, the enormous giraffe, this doll house, this ET book, and their Caboodles. They’ve absolutely loved filling them with little treasures. P also asked for “gym clothes” this year – I told you guys that she’s really into running right now – so she really enjoyed trying on all of her new outfits. She’s rocked athleisure every day this week.
My dad and stepmom got Liv a Hatchimal and watching that thing hatch was a hoot. We were all huddled around the Hatchimal intrigued and elated by everything that was happening. You’d think a live baby animal was being born at my dad’s house. No, it was an electronic bird pecking its way out of a giant toy egg. What is this life?
Cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. We had brunch here at the house, so I made nana’s famous egg dish, the best cinnamon rolls, mimosas, and coffee, and madre brought over tamales, rice, beans, grammies, and coffee cake. I also set out a cookie tray from all of the baking we did over the past couple of weeks. (It makes it so easy to freeze everything and they set it all out on xmas. It tastes totally fresh and you can have a better variety that way!) We spent the day eating, opening gifts, drinking mimosas, and watching Christmas Story before heading out to see the new Mary Poppins movie. (I LOVED Lin and Emily Blunt, but don’t hate me.. I found the music to be underwhelming. We still had a great time and let’s be real, if you put me in a dark room with an enormous vat of popcorn I’m going to be happy no matter what happens.)
Beauty/fashion:
This hair tie holder! This holds your hair ties so you don’t get weird dents in your arm.
Beautycounter is having a HUGE sale. Check it out here! (If you haven’t tried anything yet and need help with products, please let me know.)
They’re selling out of a lot of products quickly, but you can still get the Instant Awakening Trio (which has the peel — my very fave product), mini lipgloss vault (all of the colors are flattering ) and this gorgeous palette. If you have New Year’s goals so switch to safer skincare, now is a great time to try out some of these incredible staples.
Read, watch, listen:
Thank you so much to WebMD for featuring me in this article about the new exercise guidelines.
My latest post for the WebMD blog can be found here! This one is all about working out when you don’t really feel like it.
Hilarious tweets from parents.
Give me all of the scheduling and productivity hacks.
If you’re starting to plan for New Years, here are some of my most popular New Years-ish posts:
5 things to keep in mind for New Year’s resolutions
4 workouts everyone needs to try
Steps to accomplish your fitness goals
Back in the fitness game workout
Eats/ recipes:
This Pinch of Yum chicken, lemon, and asparagus recipe. It was so easy to put together, and we enjoyed it one evening with sweet potatoes from the Instant pot. Dinner was served in about 15 minutes.
This glorious plate of grammies on the table on Christmas morning.
Happy Friday, friends! I’ll see ya on Monday sharing my goals for 2019 and some tips for going after your fitness and health goals!
Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by the blog today. <3
xo
Gina
Random question: what was the best book you read in 2018? After finally finishing Eleanor Olliphant is Completely Fine (and feeling very down when it ended. No spoilers, but the ending just was rough/sad for me) I’m on the lookout for something new!
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Looks like you had an awesome Christmas! It’s so fun that the girls are at that age where everything is so magical! This is the first year I don’t have any Santa believers so it was a little different. Also my first year having a teenage daughter and she got makeup in her stocking and I swear grew up 5 years overnight (so scary!)
Have you shared the grammie recipe by chance? Those look amazing!
I just finished Educated and it was by far, the best book I read all year-highly recommend!
I needed that article about the good news in my life!
“Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng, “Small Great Things” by Jodi Picoult, and “Am American Marriage” by Tayari Jones were some of my faves from this year!
What are grammies?
‘The Hate you Give’ was wonderful and I listened to ‘The Secret in Her Eyes’ – super creepy & crazy ending.
WHAT?!?!? My back straitened when I saw that hair tie holder – LOL. It was in the ol’ Amazon cart in a flash! Love these posts, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family from snowy MN!
YESSSS you’ll love it!!
hope you have a happy new year!
That is so cute that P asked for gym clothes!!! <3 Adorable! She wants to be like her mama 🙂 And that's great news that you'll be seeing your favorite guy soon – I've been wondering about that; so happy to hear that news!
thank you- we’re so excited <3
and yes, it's so fun to see her running around in gym clothes
I would love to know where in Tucson you get your nails done. Can’t find somewhere I love.
go see tea at skyline nails!
P rocking athleisure sounds amazing. And YAYYYYY for your favorite guy returning so soon — that will be a belated and wonderful New Year gift. Also, I want a Caboodle — I can’t believe they are back, and I love that. Finally, I’ve been getting SNS dipped nails for more than a year now, and it’s addicting. I literally cannot have bare nails now, but boy it’s an investment of time to get it done hahaha — why can’t it be faster — my place takes no less than 90 minutes every single time?? Happy weekend, Gina! I got my beautiful mug you sent too — Thank you!! 🙂
yay, glad it made it there!!
i think of you when i get my dip nails! you’re right. they take SO LONG. the first time, it literally killed me. i felt so impatient hahaha
hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Girl with Seven Names was one of my favorite books of the year!
http://Www.themilestraveled.com
i haven’t heard of that one. thank you!
I’m in the middle of Where the Crawdads Sing and it’s pretty good so far! I have Educated to read next, which I heard was really good as well. My favorite book of the year by far was The Alice Network, if you like historical WW2 fiction/lady spy novels then you’ll like the book.
i’m loading up the kindle now. thank you!
The 7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Educated: a memoir
Glad y’all had a fun Christmas!
that was such a great one!!! i haven’t looked at educated yet!
Educated by Tara Westover
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
were a few of my fave books this year!
looooved crazy rich asians! checking out the others now 🙂
I just finished Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows – it was good and a quick read. Reese Witherspoon featured it as her book of the month a few months back.
i’ll check it out now! thank you!
The Crazy Rich Asians trilogy is so good! Complete fluff and fun, and the cultural footnotes the author includes make me want to travel to Singapore ASAP.
i LOVED the first one. trying to get into the second one. i’m sure once i give it more time i’ll be hooked
Have you read Pillars of the Earth? It’s super long but I could not put it down. Currently reading Bear Town which got rave reviews. Not sure if either of those are light/funny reads but just some ideas 🙂
no, but i’ll look at both of those! thank you!
You sound like me. I looove when my kids are off school! Party every day and no schedules 🙂
So hard to pick the best book I read but some I liked:
The Woman in the Window
How to Walk Away
Book of Essie
Before We Were Yours
From Sand and Ash
Little Fires Everywhere
So happy to hear you’ll get to see the pilot soon!!
yes, having them home is the best ever! thank you for all of the amazing suggestions. i’m loading up my kindle now!
Also, I meant to tell you the 5 kids’ books arrived. THANK YOU AGAIN!! 🙂
Happy holidays! I really enjoyed “the lost vintage” by Ann Mah. I originally downloaded it to read during holiday travels, but accidentally read the whole thing in one Sunday. Crocodile on the sandbank is a classic that I recommend to everyone. Do you recommend Eleanor oliphant is completely fine? I’ve heard it’s good, but also sad.
i’ll have to check those ones out!
it was WAY way too sad for me. i was already invested in the story by the time i learned about the sad part, so i finished it, but it was a hard one for me
okay, that’s good to know, i don’t think i can handle a sad book right now. crocodile on the sandbank is HYSTERICAL if you’re looking for a pick me up after a sad book 🙂
Not a 2018 book but I loved A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. It’s the first book of a trilogy; very well written novels involving witches, vampires, and daemons. It sounds like total fantasy but the books include current day science and great characters which totally draw you into the storyline.
that sounds fascinating!!
“Why We Sleep”. It has taught me a lot about the science of sleep and has scared me straight about getting 8 hours every night.
amazing! i’ll definitely be on the lookout
I’m a huge fan of the Michael Connelly Bosch Series. It’s not fluff reading though, it’s like reading law and order but better because of the characters. Looking forward to New Year fitness motivation on your site! (I had instagrammed you about getting my sister to Kyle’s restaurant the weekend before Christmas – they hit some gnarly traffic coming into Tucson and couldn’t make it. Boo.)
I just finished a collection of moth stories called “All These Wonders” – it was amazing! Also it’s low commitment since each story is 5ish pages so you can chip away at it without getting lost mid chapter. Highly recommend!
Those cinnamon rolls…. I have to have them. STAT! And I feel exactly the same way about movies (as long as they are not sic-fi/horror: Dark room + movie theatre treats = I’m happy irrespective of the movie itself.
The Alice Network
Little Fires Everywhere
Where the Crawdads Sing
The Hate U Give
I love reading about your fun Christmas festivities. I have a 3 year old girl, too, and this was by far the most fun Christmas.
My top 3 books of 2018 were Educated, The Hate U Give, and The Radium Girls.
I’m currently reading Matchmaking for Beginners and it is a super fun, cute, light read.
Side note: After seeing all these great book recommendations, I think you should start a book club on the blog!!
Happy New Year
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah was so fascinating/interesting/heartbreaking/hilarious/uplifting. It’s an excellent read. Also enjoyed Educated and am reading and enjoying Becoming right now.
I have been thinking about you this month! We are moving and my husband has already started work in another state, but he came home for Christmas. Glad your guy will be back soon.
I’ll echo a few of the previous books — Where the Crawdads Sing, Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and Crazy Rich Asians (trilogy). I also recommend Queen of Hearts, Next Year in Havana, Rush, and The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell. All of them are novels I couldn’t put down.
Little fires everywhere and this is how it always is were my faves from this year. I also just finished the new Liane Moriarty (nine perfect strangers) and it gets an honorable mention too 🙂
Tough call, but I think the Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner was my favorite. Non-fiction and not an easy read, but such a tremendous story.