around the house/happy new year

 { thank you for all the kind texts and messages of concern and support since my last post about Brett. He hasn't experienced any more heart palpitations since the ER visit. We are discussing ways to alleviate his stress }

Happy New Year from the Johnsons! We went to our neighbors' (Mark and Amanda) house for New Year's Eve and ate from a delicious spread of appetizers and treats with Mark's parents, brother, and sister-in-law. Stella and her friend played dress-up, played with dolls and other toys, and led us in a rousing Frozen soundtrack sing-along time. Stella had a toy microphone and was really getting into "Let it Go". She is usually so shy, but she was belting out the words and then she said, "Everyone, sing!" Grace tried to keep up with the bigger girls and would crawl after them wherever they went. She has been exclaiming "Wow" a lot lately. She said it a lot at the NYE get-together as well as today at Target whenever we rounded a corner into another aisle.

The girls were up early the next morning, and we were both so tired on New Year's Day. We tried to get a few things done around the house. We recently bought two new floor lamps from Room and Board, one of our favorite furniture stores. We rearranged some of the furniture - nothing drastic, but the layout seems to flow a little better. We are still lacking a new coffee table, artwork and window treatments for the main living area, and we really want to replace the leather Ikea couch with one or two armchairs for the fireplace annex room, not to mention lay down a 4x6 rug in front of the fireplace. Also requiring a makeover is the fireplace itself (we're not fans of the peachy-colored brick and the mantle needs to be refinished). We removed our two Billy Ikea bookshelves, and we hope to do a white wood built-in to the right of the fireplace.

My mom gave me two Rifle Paper Co. calendars for Christmas. I love them!

I've had fun getting Stella's arts and crafts area more organized. So far all I've done is buy a couple organizational bins for her stuff, but it's a good start.

She's been wanting to make goofy faces for pictures lately!

New favorite pre-chopped vegetable mix (8 different kinds of vegetables in one container) from Trader Joe's. The other night I sautéed the vegetables in Kerrygold butter; put some over-easy eggs on top, and served it as a side to baked salmon.

I received this cookbook for Christmas, and I can't wait to decide which recipes to make first. I've also been researching making bone broths, which are supposed to be incredibly nutritious.

Some of these salads and dressings sound pretty good to me!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! I have plans to go out with girlfriends Saturday night, and I can barely wait. I hope we can cross some more tasks off our to-do list, too. I am taking care of babies at church on Sunday at 9. Besides that, I hope some quality rest will be part of our weekend.

Can you spot Grace's little noggin?