December

Well the second November ended, I stopped blogging. I did so good everyday of November. I even told Dave I was going to see if I could post everyday in December too. But we went to Philadelphia last weekend and I never took my computer out of the bag.
We had an early birthday party for Elinor while we were there. It was so much fun! I will post the pictures soon but I have a couple of other pictures all ready to go and the ones for her party are still on the camera.
 

I check BostonMamas every Monday and Friday to see what's going on for each week and weekend. Sometimes I already know about things that are close to us but last Friday I saw Beverly (which is really close to us) was having a Christmas parade. We headed up there thinking it would just be really short but something to do. It ended up being a hour long! We were freezing and should have brought blankets but we had so much fun. We started losing Elinor at the end but I took her out of the Ergo to wake her up and see Santa. She half waved as he went by.  She loved all the music and people waving at her. I will have to load the video I took of her dancing to one of the bands.

 Almost every one of these cars tried to get Elinor to wave to them

 She would wave after they went by

 getting sleepy and cold

 There were kids walking around with shopping card collecting canned goods and the post office workers were collecting letters to Santa

 dancing...

 to this band

Dave's favorite. He had never seen Shriners in real life

Small business saturday

Some friends of ours have recently opened the coolest shop. Diamonds and Rust is full with amazing vintage and repurposed items. In the couple of times I've been, there has been a whole new stock. I could go every week just to check out what's new. Elinor loves to run laps and make me nervous by grabbing everything.

Our purchase from our last visit

Today is Small Business Saturday. We plan on going to the shop today to pick up some things for Elinor's birthday party. We would do this anyway but I hope some people get out to their local small businesses and support them.

Here are some pictures from the Diamonds and Rust instagram..

picnic date

A couple of weeks ago we went back to our old neighborhood Salem. We aren't far but we miss all the little shops and parks that were walking distance so much. We picked up lunch at life alive and then headed to Salem Common to have a picnic. Elinor loved people watching, it's her favorite! We also went on the swings for a bit.

segways rolling through our picnic

After our picnic we stopped at the beach. Elinor zoned out looking at the water for so long. This is before she realized she can try to eat sand (which now she does). 

 always sucking her middle finger upside down

I like food

Here are a couple of pictures we took at the Vegetarian Food Fest

 treats from vegan treats. We were really excited they were there and got a couple of donuts

 Uncle Eddie's vegan cookies. They were so soft and chewy. We should've picked up a bag. 

Daiya cheese! They made samples of grilled cheese with the cheddar and quesadillas with the pepperjack...sooo good

Yea, not too many pics. It is a little hard because it was so crowded and people get pushy. I waited on a bench while Dave went around one more time to see if we missed anything. He came back with some chocolates. 

I've had a couple of these go max go candy bars before but I've never seen this one before the fest. It tastes exactly what I remember a reeses cup tasting like. MIlky chocolate and peanut butter! and still vegan!

kale chips from the organic cafe in Beverly

black bean bowl from the organic cafe in Beverly 

homemade donuts recipe from peas and thank you. We didn't have coconut oil to make the glaze so we just used chocolate chips alone. It made a thicker glaze but Dave got the idea if we put them in the fridge the next morning they would taste like entenmann's with the thick chocolate. They did and were delicious!

Happy Friday!