Snow thaws hearts

In getting to know a lot of people from other countries and cultures, it's become very obvious to me over the past few years that America is NOT a communal culture. As a general rule we don't do things for each other, with each other, or even with others in mind the way people in other countries do. There's a sense of isolation, competition, and pride that pervades our society. Of course there are the occasional Good Samaritans and many people who try to put others first but the way we live our lives is very separate. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now and show you why I even mention this.

During this insane week of snow, numerous times I have heard people comment and seen with my own eyes an unusual amount of connecting between neighbors and even strangers while helping each other get unstuck from the snow. Here's a visual for you. I can guarantee that many of these people had never spoken before this day, yet in the face of a trial (no one had come to plow their street 3 days into the storm) somehow, over 20 people bonded together and did this in about an hour. Awesome.



Before



After

Doughnuts!!

So much snow means so much opportunity to do things we'd never normally have time for! Like making doughnuts! The idea had never even crossed my mind but my sister-in-law Stacy made them on the first day of the snow (did I mention we've had 2 Blizzards within a week and have about 3 1/2 feet of snow on the ground and 6 foot drifts right now?) and her pictures on Facebook looked so good! Plus, it seemed like such a cool thing to try-I've never deep-fried anything in my life! It was kind of surreal to make something I didn't really think I could make!

We used a Food Network Alton Brown Recipe but per Stacy's suggestion used vanilla instead of the nutmeg. We also did a half batch.

Step 1: Leave dough mixture to rest in the bowl for an hour


Step 2: Roll out dough with lots of flour and make 2 1/2 inch circles. We used the top of a Pam cooking spray container :-)


Step 3: Make the inner holes-we used the cap of the vanilla extract :-) Gotta get creative when you don't have fancy baking tools.


Step 4: Let the dough rest (we ended up letting it rest then storing it in the fridge overnight because we ran out of time/energy to finish)

Step 5: Fry 'em up!




(I LOVE this picture!)

Step 6: Toppings!

Cinnamon Sugar


Vanilla glaze


And of course, with a 4 year old girl in the house, pink sprinkles

VARIATION: Fry up the no-hole variety for some Jelly donuts


Fill those by 1)making a hole with a toothpick
2)filling a ziploc bag with strawberry preserves
3)filled 'em up!



Step 7: Dig in! They were all really tasty :-)

Blizzard Sleepover!

2 Blizzards in one week required some getting out of the house (my extrovertedness required it). so, last Sunday around lunch time we headed out to my SIL's house. The roads were pretty bad so after making the trip once I did not want to make it again that night so we spent the night and the entire next day there! Ella, Hannah, and Christopher were ECSTATIC to have their first sleepover together and fought over whose room Ella would sleep in. We had a great time watching the super bowl, playing games, eating yummy food, sledding, and relaxing. So glad to have family who are also friends close by!

Valentine's Card Project

Step 1: Obtain 1 excited kid and supplies


Step 2: Have kid cut out names of kids in her class while you cut out hearts and daddy cuts out leaves. Let kid tape names to back of hearts


Step 3: Give in when kid begs to make one for herself too.


Step 4: Attach leaves to lollipops. Let kid ride her trike around the house and sing for awhile cause this takes a while and is too hard for the kid (at least this was the way it happened in our house).


Step 5: Let kid tape lollipops to front side of hearts


Step 6: Repeat 16 times




Step 7: Lollipop break!


Step 8: Clean up :-)

The Blizzard Begins...

We had a very well predicted Blizzard this weekend on top of 6 inches of snow from Wednesday and another 6 inches from a week ago. INSANE amounts of snow for this area but I'll take it! I've always loved snow (thanks Dad for passing that on!) and it's extra fun with a kid/family/house of my own. No more begging my dad to go pick up friends every time in snowed. But thanks dad for all the times you hauled us out in treacherous conditions so we could have friends over and wreck your house for days on end :-) Love you!

But, I digress. Friday afternoon it was already snowing and we decided to go for a walk and play outside for while since we knew it'd be harder to do that in 2ft of snow the next day. We had a blast!











This morning-18 inches and still snowing hard!

Announcement time...

Most of you know this since I have a relatively small blog-reading audience but for those who do not...I'm PREGNANT!!! We are THRILLED!!! It was a LONG time coming. Maybe I'll share that story at some point but suffice it to say, I am now very knowledgable about fertility treatments and thankful for how God can use them!

I'm 14 weeks today which means I am offically in my second trimester! Thanks to 4 years of praying against a pregnancy like my first one (I threw up for 7 months) God has answered! I have had normal pregnancy symptoms but not sick like last time AT ALL!! Praise the Lord! We've seen ultrasounds, heard the heart beat, and I swear I've felt movement since about week 11. I'm not showing yet but I'm sure that will change in the next month :-)

So, that's all for now, just wanted to put it out there so when it relates to our lives now I can share openly. We covet any prayers for a healthy baby and pregnancy!

Wee Chefs!

Since our dance class disaster last year (Ella screamed and cried and wouldn't go in) we haven't tried another class but Ella said she was ready. This time when given some options, she chose cooking which thrilled me! We started this week and it was so much fun! She was really shy at the beginning but warmed up by the end (it's a 1hr and 45min long class!)

Decorating their Chef hats


gotta have just the right color...


the teacher said Ella looked more like the Pope than a chef ;-)

After reading a story about Pizza, we made Pizza! I was helping a lot so I didn't get any pics of the process but here's the final product...




The kids read another cooking related story while the pizzas baked and cooled





Ella's new buddy from class (Ella's very excited that her friend is 5 oooOOOoooo!)

Looking forward to next week!

Ben stole the show!

I'm rather behind but I'd be remiss if I didn't post pics and video from Ella's preschool Christmas Show. SO cute. Ella knew all of the songs and motions really well (we sang them at home for a month!) but she isn't a "showman" when it comes to getting on stage at school. No big deal-still super fun to see her all dressed up with her friends and whispering to them and hugging them in the middle of a song. She's getting so grown up!

Oh, and don't miss the kid in the bottom left of the video. He talked loudly to his mom in the audience the whole time and was HILARIOUS. When he loudly announced he didn't like Rudolph and wanted to sing Jingle Bells again while pulling parts of the garland in front of him apart Chris whispered to me "what's that kid's name?" and I told him "that's Ben" and Chris said "Ben's my new favorite kid."


Getting ready to go on stage

The whole crew

out of the mouths of babes....

There are a number of words Ella uses that mean other things. These are getting fewer and fewer since she can talk since a lot of them came out of her not being able to say certain words when she was little. My favorites though are the ones that are just her sheer creativity :-)

Ella-isms

her "hair dresser"-the drawer in her dresser where we keep hair stuff

"map"-any kind of menu or directions or actual map that you read to decide the next step

"standing holder"-her wooden stool from ikea. she named it this a LONG time ago because that's what it does, it's for standing and holding :-) Now we all refer to it that way.

"happy time"-morning. Not anymore but for a good year Ella would come into our room in the morning and hold open the curtains and say "You have to get up! It's Happy Time now!!"

"I spy"-any tool or toy you look through (binoculars, kaleidoscope-both are "i-spies")

"Hobo"-when Ella was tiny she couldn't say "pillow" so she called them "hobos." Chris decided this was now the word for pillows in our house and we all still use it a good 2 1/2 years later :-)
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Overheard Ella saying to Chris very matter of fact-ly and angrily "When I'm an adult I'm going to do whatever I want. And when I am an adult and I have kids, I'm going to let them do whatever they want!"


Ella (after taking her Tinkerbell vitamins): Mama! I just ate worm keeper!
Me: a what?
Ella: a worm keeper
Me (legitimately confused):a worm keeper? What is that?
Ella: you know, where worms stay until they're ready to come out and be beautiful butterflies!
Me (laughing): ahh! like a cocoon?
Ella:No mom. Like a worm keeper.


We were talking about Snow White while reading the story and got to the page where she's laying in a coffin-type thing with her eyes closed
Me:oh no! Did she die?
Ella: No. Don't worry. She just went to sleep with some flowers for her hobo.

Beautiful Birthday!

We had 3 birthday parties for 4 year olds last weekend and I forgot my camera at all of them. Craziness. So, I'm 100% stealing these pics from my SIL Amy from one of the parties because they're SO good! Happy Birthday Lexi, Hanna, and Sophie!