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!