Since It Seems Still To Be Winter...

...they're just gonna keep rocking the holiday pajamas!

It rained and rained and rained this weekend....until yesterday afternoon when it inexplicably turned into a blizzard.  (Um, we had been told winter was over...?)  The roads got really bad really quickly and we even missed out on our evening plans because our friends had to turn around almost immediately and go back home instead of coming to hang out.   

It is possible that the raspberry buttermilk cake I baked yesterday afternoon for the occasion now has only 3 pieces (of 16) remaining.

 Here's to a more productive day!

Friday Food

I think it's pretty well-known that I adore a good bread.    I also enjoy the flavors of tomato/basil/mozzarella and, upon seeing all three of them presented nicely at Trader Joe's recently, decided to get 'em for lunch fixings even though it's a bit ahead of their peak season.  Obviously, what I REALLY want is a big ole piece of crusty bread with melted t/b/m on it but I managed to avoid that this week with the following invention:

I decided that I could keep the general taste profile but just needed a different kind of "base."  So I cooked up some quinoa and then mixed in the t/b/m...along with some "a" I also had lying around.  I added a bit of olive oil and a splash of some peach balsamic vinegar and it was delightful!  I actually had it 3 days this week.

(Please note that I ate like a fiend at dinner so the "lack of crusty bread" thing was quickly negated. But hey-- it's better than eating like a fiend at ALL meals, right??!)

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Can't Beat A Bargain!

Quite the find on the Kohl's clearance racks yesterday:

It's totally a FOUR-PIECE pj set, too!  So, with a 20% coupon, I got 2 complete pairs of long-sleeved pajamas for $3.20.  aaahhhhhhhhh, the rush of a good deal!

But even $3.20 isn't as good as FREE.   I was recently the recipient of one of my favorite aspects of parenthood:  the recycling of toys and clothes.  It truly is a manifestation of the adage about trash and treasure-- I know this friend just wanted to rid her house of a giant box of dress-up clothes but, to me, it's so much money I didn't have to spend on fun costumes!   AWESOME.

Behold the pensive Ariel:

(When we first went through the box over the weekend, her older brother donned the Ariel costume and it was quite the sight to see!!   There also are two different Tinkerbell outfits so the sibs made the fashionable pair in those, too!  HA HA HA!)

Change of Life

The kiddos and I hit up a thrift store on Monday and ended up perusing the game section.  When I saw LIFE (as in "The Game Of..."), I remembered that it had crossed my mind previously as a good option to add to our game collection.   I could tell it was an old version but that's kinda fun so I pulled it off the shelf to open it and assess its completeness.  Unfortunately, I was immediately hit by a not-so-pleasant musty smell so back on the shelf it went.   And then I saw another version just below it!

I was intrigued by the covers of the two versions:  the top box is from 1977 and the bottom, from 2002:

I don't think either of these is the version Geoff & I grew up playing.  So, just for grins, I looked up some other images.

1981:

1985:

1991:

Do any of these look familiar to any of you?!

And, by the way, here's what the current game box looks like:

Unintentional Breakfast Picture Trend

The sun was coming in the back door at just the wrong angle for Mr. B's breakfast-eating, so he grabbed some shades:

And on a completely different topic, I bought these flowers ELEVEN days ago and they still look this good!! I haven't changed the water or anything. What in the world?  (Is it because we keep our house pretty cool?)

Dressed for Breakfast

Here's how C arrived for her Sunday pancakes:

Later, I realized the backpack (B's for school) was full of ponies!  Because, of course!

A Rule of Childhood

While the littles play...

...the big kids roll carpet up a hill:

We trekked out to visit our friends who just moved into a new (to them) house.  It's got lots of room and is situated on lots of land so, even though there were workmen everywhere ripping up carpet and laying down new floors, the kids still managed to have a *little bit* of fun!!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

These Days

I had the idea of trying to re-create the pic I posted yesterday.   It didn't go exactly as I hoped:

But we'll take it:

Wayback Wednesday

Since the most exciting thing I did yesterday was finish my local city's monthly glossy magazine while doing 30 minutes on a bike at the gym, I don't have much to show for it.  Oh wait-- that wasn't the end of the story.   There was an article about the best places to get baguettes in this entire region and I realized one of them wasn't too far away.  Obviously, I was then tracking it down within 2 hours so I could bring home a sample of the authentic French pastries/bread (and a roast beef sandwich for lunch to boot!).  

{Let me apologize now to a certain silent reader:  I am sorry that I ate all the almond filling out of the crossiant!  xoxo}   

I didn't take any pics because I know food photos are probably already overdone around here but suffice it to say, such an adventure pretty much makes a perfect morning in my book!!

We'll just have to settle for a photo from exactly three years ago,  March 2011:

Hot and Cold

While it is more common that blog posts pulled in through my Feedly feed (RIP Google Reader) influence me to take advantage of the online sales they are advertising, sometimes they make me do some cookin'.   (So I think I can blame Feedly for weight gain, right?!)    Yesterday morning, this recipe for Cheesy Green Chile and Bacon Buttermilk Biscuits popped up and I basically just felt called to make them.

So I did.   

(I also concocted a really tasty bean soup-ish dish, as you can see.   Yum all around.)

I stayed inside all day long where it was nice and toasty.  The BG (on his TENTH snow day) was trying to burn as much wood as he could so we had a lovely fire the entire time.   He also took the kids out not once but twice during the day to play.  He's the best.

And there was a lot of the white stuff for playing....or sitting!

Once More, With Feeling

So this happened overnight:

A storm over-performing during the 2013-2014 snow season?  SHOCKER.

Update: Here's a slightly-more-daylight-shot taken at 7:30 am.  Ten inches on the table:

 Because it got up to 70 degrees on Saturday (!!!), the roads were warm enough that the snow didn't stick to them for hours.   Our driveway actually has only a couple of inches accumulation on it, which is good since the snow shovel has seen better days!!

A Full House

After moving away almost 3 years ago, our friends Kerry and Travis, who were part of the "young adult" group at our former church, came to town for the week.  (Fun fact:  they now live just down the road from Opa & Grammie and have also been known to hang out with loyal reader Paula, with whom Kerry grew up.  Small worlds are AWESOME.)   Anyway-- we decided to get the old (in more ways than one....oof) gang back together last night!!

I'm sad to say I didn't really take any pictures because I was busy chatting but here are the kiddies pre-party adding cuteness to my proof that I can now seat 12 easily when neccessary:

The Texans arrived first so we could visit and these girls became instantly bonded through the joy that is dressing up:

The guys had an awesome time playing, too, but I didn't get any pics of that...

We did manage to get all the kids together for a pic.  These are the progeny of six couples, none of whom had kids when we started said "young adult group" back in 2005.   Now there are 11:

Do these babies look familiar?

The original "BabyFest2007" crew in June 2008!!   (Now the crew in the back row of the group shot!)

We had such a wonderful time catching up with everybody.  We moved just far enough away into this house that we don't see even the "local" people very much and, in fact, two of those couples hadn't even been here yet.  Hooray for reuniting!!

PS: On a totally different note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LINDSAY, my favorite non-tall/dark/hairy roommate!   :-)

Push/Pull

The Meelie-bug and I escaped to run a couple of errands yesterday and ended up driving by a children's consignment store I'd been wanting to visit...so of course we had to stop!   It looks like from the (national franchise) company's website that a lot of their stores have these cute little pink kid doors but, pray tell, do they have kids unknowingly emulating a famous cartoon?

I just realized the cartoon kid is even wearing a green-and-white striped shirt!  FREAKY!

Once we got inside, C had a ball checking out everything.  THANK GOODNESS these yellow monstrosities didn't fit!

From there, I just felt like going even crazier with our by-the-seat-of-our-pants adventuring so we got a recommendation to go up the road to a Middle Eastern restaurant for lunch.  The decor was way fancier than I expected but Miss C gave it a thumbs-up:

 Even better-- they had yummy, well-priced lunch specials.  This entire meal (that we shared) was only $8.99!

That little hand you see on the right in the pic above?   It was grabbing for her new favorite thing, "teeny tiny limes":

The owners of the restaurant own a market next door, too, and they sell these Key Limes 5/$1.   I know where I'm gonna stock up if/when I ever decide to make some pie!

And I gotta say-- having a kid who eats everything and is EXCITED about it makes these adventures all the better!!  I look forward to many more in the years to come!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Sunshine!

Today should be day 4 in a row of temps in the 50s/60s.   We had lots of sunshine yesterday, too, so after her nap, Miss C and I drove over to the elementary school and walked around that neighborhood for about half an hour before picking B up from his weekly after-school Mad Science "class."  It felt so wonderful to be wandering around sans coat!

She clearly doesn't see Darth Vader approaching from the bottom of the pic or she wouldn't be smiling so big!!

Even with "warm" weather for this many days, there are still traces of snow piled up.  Kinda bizarre:

 

And don't even get me started on the fact that a lot of neighborhoods don't have sidewalks.  If you're gonna pay that much money to live somewhere, you SHOULD GET A SIDEWALK! :-)

A Fruitacular Mystery

We decided to order from a new-to-us Asian place Saturday night.  Turned out we lived within the free delivery radius, too, so that was an unexpected bonus.  The food was perfectly fine and I appreciate the fact they have 3 separate menus (Japanese, Malaysian, Chinese) from which we sampled one dish each:

The bizarre part, however, was what else I found in the bag:

Was it intentional?  An accidental fruit-overboard?   Maybe it's just savvy marketing because now I want to order from them again to see if we get another orange!

Olé!*

There actually was one additional stop on our Afternoon O' Adventure Wednesday.  When we pulled into the shopping center with the restaurant, we popped into the local Humane Society thrift store down the way since there were still 15 minutes before closing.   I had no idea that the storefront expanded in the back to be a giant open room so I look forward to going back and poking around more!   In our quick perusing, however, we found this book on display and just had to get it to add to our collection:

*This blog post title was chosen especially for my dear brother, the giver of our first Toot & Puddle book.   (Obviously, I have my arms in perfect Olé position right now, Boy!)

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Busy Day

C's college appointment wasn't until 12:30 yesterday so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to go a little early and wind our way to the new Aldi that is in the sorta-vicinity of campus. 

The local paper recently ran an article about Aldi treasures and not-so-much-treasures and I had taken a pic of it to send to my parents since they have been known to pop in there for odds and ends:

I'm glad I did a little bit of research ahead of time to know that they don't take credit cards and also that the shopping carts require a 25 cent deposit so Miss C and I could just breeze in like we were experts and not the neophytes that we are!!     Shopping there is a little mind-bending because so many of the packages look just like they do in "regular" stores but with a different brand name.   While I've heard from several of you that it's a great place to buy maple syrup (which is SO $$$$), I actually had just bought some recently so wasn't able to take advantage of that deal.   I might have still found some very inexpensive treats, though!

After that excursion, we bopped down the road to the Linguistics Department.  I watched through a two-way mirror for a little bit-- pretty sure Miss C had lots of fun playing with Lambchop!

We then headed to the just-off-campus bubble tea eatery.  Peach green tea and coconut milk tea-- both YUMMMM:

The basketball team at the BG's school is in the playoffs so he is working those games as Assistant AD.  Since I knew he wouldn't be home until late last night, I cooked up a plan to take the kids to a local bounce place when B got home from school.  We've never been there but B won some free passes back during the Read-A-Thon in the fall.   I kept it a surprise until we turned into the parking lot....which was pretty much the exact same moment I realized I left the free passes at home.  UGH.

I didn't want to go all the way back so I depressingly paid $22 (??!!!??!!) for Open Bounce.   We went in and found the room to be very small with only a few bouncies and C was really having trouble managing the big one.   I was starting to think this was the biggest waste of money ever when it all fell into place by 1) finding out I could go on the inflatables too, leading to lots of extra exercise and giggles, and 2) finding out that an hour into it, they move everyone into the next room where there is a whole set of new contraptions!   B spent about 15 minutes ascending the "Spider-Climb" which required all kinds of huffing and puffing (and help from an older girl that guided him through it) and he was sooooo sweaty when he finally made it down the big slide:

I then decided to just REALLY GO CRAZY and take the kids to the next shopping center down the road where there's a local Italian restaurant about which I've recently heard compliments.  I did a quick internet search and saw that it had been rated "kid-friendly" so we went.........but was a little taken-aback to find legit "fancy" place settings and quiet, business-like groups of patrons decidedly not even in my age realm, let alone the kids.    I was feeling daring, though, so we stayed and the kids did wonderfully.   They were SO hungry from all their activity that the bread and then cheese ravioli and then the ice cream were "THE BEST" things they'd ever eaten!

Right before we left, the couple sitting near us gave me the scoop about an amazing early-bird dinner deal that explained why so many people had been streaming in while we were there.  We are definitely going back to take advantage of the deal-- maybe this time, we'll take the BG with us.

But not tonight because there's another basketball game.   Sigh.    How will we entertain ourselves after school today??!  ;-)

Wait, I Have To Leave The House?

I haven't stepped outside in more than 60 hours.  In previous snow events, I did some of the shoveling for exercise but the whole 9 degrees thing wasn't really inspiring me to do that this time!  (I also hope we're done because apparently our shovel is not doing so well!)

I didn't take a single picture yesterday but I did manage to do the treadmill and take a bath so hooray for meeting goals.  Also, I am lying because I just remembered that I tried to photo-document the Great Weasel Incident of 2014.  I know many of you saw/read about this on FB, but yesterday morning, the BG got soooo excited that he saw a weasel run into the neighbor's yard.  He has amazingly perceptive eyes-- how he even saw the thing let alone recognize its shape boggles my mind.  I finally saw it and it looked like a fat, lumbering squirrel to me but apparently it was BIG NEWS since he'd never seen one in the wild before.   He then did some research and determined that, based on its dark color, it might actually have been a mink but, in any case, SO EXCITING. 

In other news, since we finished the Oscars brownies, I decided I needed to make some chocolate chip cookies last night.  I used this recipe for soft cookies (which, to me, are the only kind worth eating) and they were AMAZING. 

I'm kinda sad I have to leave the house but Miss C has an appointment in the Linguistics department at "College" today.  Here's the description they sent me:

"Camille's study looks at how children understand other people's beliefs and the way we use words like "think" and "know" in sentences. She will play a game while a puppet watches. Then the puppet will say something about what is happening in the game, and Camille will be asked to say whether the puppet was right in describing the game."

Nothing like a good game with a puppet....and maybe some bubble tea for dessert!

Photographic Randomness

Well, it's 7:24 and I've gotten up and pulled on the same pj pants and sweatshirt I wore all day yesterday.  My goal today is to exercise and take a shower.   It's a lofty one, I know!  ;-)

They cancelled today's school last evening.  It hasn't snowed for hours but the roads are incredibly icy and it's currently 9 degrees.

Sunday night, I made the King Arthur "Best Fudge Brownies Ever" for our Oscars-viewing and we managed to clean that dish by last night.  The two boxes of SNOnuts are almost gone, as well.   Good thing we made some Apple Spice muffins yesterday (although, frankly, they're almost gone)-- here's Applejack the Pony enjoyed bonding with her peeps:

Apparently all the sugar got to me and I accidentally put the candy thermometer into the roasting pork tenderloin.  Oops.  Glad I happened to look in before the big blob of goo landed on the meat:

And I'd like to give a hearty welcome to this new delicious tea treat!  I've been mourning the loss of Candy Cane Lane (vanilla/mint) but know that, as good as all the fruity ones sound, I don't like fruity tea.   I picked up this combo on a whim the other day and found it delightful!

While we might still be attending school in July, I sure am not going to complain about bonus days with my fam.   I think the BG is planning to venture out later today after the roads clear.  As long as he brings me a big ole sammich, I won't complain!   :-)

(It is possible I am an emotional eater who believes snow days = food treats!)

Competition and Companionship

While the weekend days were filled with classic family laziness, our evenings actually kept pretty busy.  Friday night, the BG worked the girls basketball playoff game so we went and hung out for the first half.   And then........we went back the next night, too, although for a very different kind of game:

Look at that tall drink of water!!    The BG played in the elementary school's Parents vs. Staff game (held at the high school with filled stands!) and it was quite the event.   After what we understand has been a years-long dominance by the staff team, the parents this year won handily.  A disproportionate number of the parents were from B's Kindergarten class-- not sure how we ended up in the super-involved group but it's kinda fun!!

Last night, we took the kids over to play with their friend Joe and a babysitter who watched all 3 while the two couples went to dinner with another couple from the church where we've been going.  The five of us who weren't coaching football in the fall all spent time together in a small group and this was the first opportunity to bring the BG into the fold.   Lots of laughs were shared so I think it was a success.  And, bringing it full circle, Joe's dad is the AD at the BG's school so we also saw him Friday night at that basketball game.   Safe to say our life is becoming more and more school-centric which I think is super fun.

Also super fun-- these two nuggets:

I know a large portion of you are home today with bad weather just as we are, although you Texans already got the white stuff, I think.  The snow is falling here but I kinda get a sense we might not get as much as was predicted--but we'll just have to wait and see!