Killian decided to teach Ellie some ballet last night, after she put on her tutu.  It was sooo precious!

However, as cute as that was, it could not even compare to this sweetness:

In other news, I got a haircut this week!  Nothing major, just a trim and layers… but my hair feels so smooth and pretty now.

So, the last couple of years I’ve gone all out and done a Mardi Gras dinner each year: red beans and rice and King Cake.  The King Cake has been good – and huge! – I’ve used this recipe using my bread machine.

This year, though, I totally forgot it was Mardi Gras!  I’d already started baked beans in the crockpot when I remembered, so we had brats and baked beans for dinner.  Not very traditional!  I decided, though, that we had to have King Cake.  There wasn’t time to make a full King Cake, so I improvised a bit – I used Bisquick!  I added a few cups of bisquick to a bowl, mixed in a tablespoon or so of nutmeg, an egg yolk, and enough milk to make a stiff dough.  I pressed the dough into greased mini-bundt pans (adding a pecan half in each one since I didn’t have any baby figures as would traditionally be placed in King Cake) and baked for about 10 minutes at 4oo degrees.  While they were baking I made the icing, but I realized I didn’t have any lemon juice or confectioners sugar… so I made a glaze out of cane sugar and margarita mix, heating the two together in a saucepan until the sugar dissolved. After the cakes were done, I removed them from the pans and drizzled the glaze over them, topping with colored sugar.  Ta-da!

Because I make truffles every Valentines Day!

Ellie helped me make the truffles this year, Killian will help decorate the bags they’ll go into.  We make truffles for grandparents and teachers and friends. And then I get to eat the leftovers because the kids don’t especially like them!

This year we made coconut truffles:

And dark chocolate truffles with sea salt:

I know that sounds a little weird, but trust me, its amazing.  The combination of bitter, sweet, and salty is phenomenal!

Ellie and I had fun making them tonight – she told me it was her favorite part of the day!

1.5 cups bran flake cereal

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp brewers yeast

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup white sugar (or splenda, if you’re evil like me)

1 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup peanut butter

1 stick butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Mix dry ingredients, then mix in wet ingredients until its fairly homogeneous. This will make about one dozen big breakfast cookies, bake them on a lightly greased cookie sheet at 350 for about 10 minutes – but watch them closely! The bottoms brown up quite easily.

We’ve had very few days since Dec 18th that the ground hasn’t been covered. This is the view from David’s desk:

And this is what our house has looked like for the last couple months:

Yep, our Christmas lights are still up, we forgot about taking them down the one week that it was warm enough they weren’t frozen onto the house.  We still have candy-cane decorations in the raised garden bed – but the snow’s been drifted over it since before Christmas with the exception of only a few days!

Its nice to have a “real” winter again, but we are starting to suffer from cabin fever a bit!  Neither of the kids has had school since last Thursday, when schools are closed I don’t have to go to work, and David’s been very busy with work so its been just me and the kids all day every day a lot so far this winter.  Its been fun, though, to take a little trip back in time to when the kids and I were home together every day (before they were in school and before I worked part-time).  We’ve done a lot of cool stuff the last few weeks!

Science experiements:

Art work:

Playing in the snow, of course:

And lots of just hanging out and cuddling!

By the way, Killy’s smile is not going to look like this for much longer — he has his first loose tooth!  I’m trying not to totally freak out about it – I hate wiggly teeth!  I could hardly handle it when I lost my teeth, and now I’m facing the next several years of dealing with my kids loosing their baby teeth.  Of course, a lot of things that used to totally freak me out don’t bother me so much anymore – I can deal better when the kids throw up or have accidents than I ever thought I would.  I also used to freak out about going to the dentist and having small procedures like getting moles removed and such, but after having natural childbirth that stuff just doesn’t bother me like it used to!

Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

DRY INGREDIENTS:

1 c. old fashioned oatmeal
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. chocolate chips
1 c. unsweetened flaked coconut
1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c. equivalent sweetener (splenda or other, or you can use 1/2 c. of sugar)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

LIQUID INGREDIENTS:

1 stick butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 med. sized egg
1 tbsp. milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Soften butter at room temperature (or in microwave) until very
soft, but not melted.

3. Measure and place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, starting
with the dry ingredients and finishing with the liquid ingredients on
top.

4. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until dry ingredients are all
completely moistened.

5. For easier handling, dough may be chilled for 20 minutes prior to
shaping, but this is not necessary.

6. Form into walnut-sized balls (approximately 1 heaping tablespoon).

7. Place on ungreased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.

8. Bake at 355 degrees for 9 minutes on top rack of oven.

9. Remove immediately from oven and place sheet on wire rack.

10. After 5 minutes, remove cookies from sheet with metal spatula and
place directly on wire racks to finish cooling.

Cookies will be very soft when hot. They will break if removed from
sheet immediately. Do not bake until firm or they will be hard when
cooled.

(I found a recipe online and altered it to come up with the above.)

David changed our server hosting and thus photogrove was down for a few days.  The transfer is now complete – yay! – and so I’m posting some new pictures! The snow-day pictures are actually from the snow last weekend, we’re currently getting another snowstorm now.  And, we may get another one on Tuesday.  Its been quite a winter!!

Since we’ve had so much time at home, I’ve been sewing!  I have two quilts that are about halfway done for the Etsy shop, and I finally pulled out the famous Walkaway dress pattern from Butterick and made it.  I love it! I got the fabric to make another one, and I will be offering them as custom-order pieces in the Etsy shop.