Super Snow Day

Hello there! How are you and yours doing this chilly time of year? I thought I'd share some photos of our recent snow day. This first picture is of the ice "awning" hanging from our roof that morning. We've got to find a way to prevent this from happening next year because this is pretty dangerous. We are so very grateful that it decided to fall late in the evening when no one was outside. 

It started to snow later in the afternoon. I mean it REALLY started to snow! We could barely see the trees across the yard. (Yes, our outside Christmas tree is still up. Don't judge me, I think it's frozen to the ground. It will probably be up till sometime in April--or later.)

This is what we woke up to the next morning. The arrow is pointing to one of our vans. Thankfully it's one we don't use right now so we didn't have to dig it out. :o)

Our car is under there somewhere!

We have an awesome neighbor who stops by and plows our driveway for us. Glad we didn't have to do THAT by hand.

Handsome Hubby was a bit concerned about the amount of snow on the garage roof, so we got up there and did a bit of shoveling. We soon realized that the easiest way to get off the roof was to jump. Yeah, that was fun!

Thumbs up for a soft landing.

Even Michelle got up there and jumped a half dozen times or so.

Two thumbs up! She didn't even need help to get out of the pile this time. :o)

After shoveling a path to the gas tank, we made a path for Michelle to play in and build a fort later. We tried digging a fort under the HUGE snow pile at the end of the drive, but it was too soft and started to collapse. Not safe, so she will have to have an open fort for now. I was going to go for a walk in the woods to take pictures, but as you can tell by this photo, I'd need snow shoes for that, so it didn't happen. :o(

This is our sidewalk leading to the house. I wonder how my flowers are doing under their very large blanket of snow? I'm grateful for the entryway cover my Handsome Hubby built for me several years ago over the laundry room door. If not for that, I'm not sure how we would have gotten out of the house, and, by the looks of the amount of snow on top of it, he built it pretty sturdy!

Well, I've got to help the little one with her school work and then work on a fun cake for church, so I'm going to close this here.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

Valentine's Party

Our home school group does a fun get-together in February for Valentine's Day. I saw this cute idea to use with my Silhouette and Michelle's Rainbow Loom bracelets, but I put that project off until the night before thinking it would be super simple to print and cut. Uh...no. My program didn't want to cooperate.  I tried and tried for an hour or so, but it just wasn't going to work. It was getting late and I was getting frustrated and sighing and mumbling when Michelle said, "Don't worry, Mom. We can just cut out some cardstock and I'll write Happy Valentine's Day on it." Her positive, it's-going-to-be-fine, there's-nothing-to-stress-about attitude is always there to put me back in the right frame of mind. So, at 10pm, we got busy cutting and stamping paper for her valentines...and we had more fun doing it together. :o)

At the party the kids are invited to give a presentation if they'd like. There's usually quite a variety--poetry, music, skits, verse recitals and puppets. It's always fun to see what the kids come up with. Michelle didn't do one this year, but she's already thinking of ideas for next.

After the presentations, the kid's exchange Valentines and have snacks. Michelle and I did make the Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow which was quite yummy. We also made some heart shaped cake pops.

Going through her valentines to find all the "goodies".

After snacks the kids move off to various activities. The older kids go down to the game room while most of the rest head outside to the sledding hill. These aren't the greatest shots since I took them from quite a distance. I wasn't dressed to trudge through the snow, so I stayed up on the porch.

I didn't get any pictures of Valentine's Day except this one of Michelle enjoying her breakfast in bed. I need to learn to use my camera phone more so I would have thought to get a picture of my handsome hubby and I out on our date. I guess he'll have to take me out again so I can get a picture. ;o)

Hope you had a super week this week. Remember, even if you are not married, or have a special someone in your life, you will always have a Valentine who loves you more than you can imagine.
"For God so loved the world (that means you!) that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

I have no title for this post. :o)

Hello there! How are you? Us? We're fine. A bit on the chilly side still, and busy, as usual, but fine. I wanted to pop in earlier last week, but I realized that other than cakes and crafts, which I have other blogs for, I didn't get my camera out much and didn't have any fun photos to share. Not that I can't share without photos, but it's not nearly as fun. So, with that in mind, I tried to be more intentional about getting the camera out and taking photos of our every day. I didn't do a very good job. :o( I always forgot to do it when the boys got home, but I did get a few of Michelle.

I think there are many moms out there who can relate to this photo.

These seem to be everywhere, especially right now with it being too cold to do anything outside. Thankfully, she's doing a pretty good job of keeping the rubber bands up off the floor, (or maybe Layla just eats them before I find them. ;o) I don't particularly like the ones made as necklaces as I have nightmares of trying to untangle them from her hair, but so far they've been fine. Most of these she's watched videos online to learn how to make, but the orange/purple/green/yellow one closest to her fingers is her own design. I like it, I just wish they made these bands in brown, gold and silver so she could make some for me. 

I also had to get some photos of the newest members of our family. Freddie the beta died last week, so we got these little guys. This is Rose, Neon, Ocean and Kim. I know the photo isn't super sharp, but I love that they seemed to be posing for the picture.

This week will be a busy one for me. I'm doing a Parent/child Valentine Cake Class on Tuesday and then making tiramisu for 100 for our church's Friendship Banquet this weekend. I did a trial run last night---YUM! Homemade mascarpone cheese is delicious and oh so easy to make. I've never tried it before, but I see some awesome recipes coming up in the near future. Our home school group has a Valentine's get-together this week as well, so we need to make some goodies for that too. I think we're going to make Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow. It looks yummy and simple. Even with the busy schedule, I'm still going to do my best to get my camera out and document more of our days so maybe I'll have some fun things to share next time. Not to mention, having a photo really helps this old memory of mine. :o)

Well, I need to get into the kitchen and start baking little heart shaped cakes.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!