First off, happy, happy birthday to my grandson Frederick!!
He's 7 today and so far is the only grandkidlet to share my birthday month.
He is curious about animals and is a fun boy to have around. Love you, Sweetie!
He and his brothers came over last weekend for some run-around time. Since they were coming and since I had leftover Valentine M&M's, I decided this might be a way to both treat the boys, and use up the candy. I found the recipe here and it qualifies as both Mom Food and in this case, Gramma Honey food because it's really quick to throw together and tasty enough to satisfy all those who partook.
Lazy Cookie Bars
1 (15.25 ounce) box yellow cake mix 2 eggs ½ cup butter, melted 2 cups M&M's (or any chopped candy you prefer)
Preheat your oven to 350°. In a large bowl combine the cake mix, eggs and butter. Stir until smooth. Stir in the M&M's and spread the batter into a sprayed 9x13 pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden at the edges. Don't over bake them...watch that last 5 minutes. Allow the bars to cool completely before cutting into squares.
I have been seeing more and more of this. These are daffodils coming up in one of the back flower beds.
Until this happened. Snow started to fall late Wednesday afternoon. I honestly thought it wouldn't stick around or last....
But I was wrong. We had a winter storm warning for Thursday and into Friday morning. My husband had plans to go into the cabin Friday, but the weather is being singularly uncooperative this winter. We haven't made it in yet this winter at all, because every time we are able to go, this happens and the avalanche danger goes up. My husband is chomping at the bit to go check on things out up there.
The temperature has dropped a good 20° and I'm OK with that. I know the lizard people aren't, but summer will be here soon enough...and it IS February, which qualifies as winter still.
Before the snow came, I found this out by the mailbox. We have a small herd of itinerant deer that wander around this neck of the woods, through the yards and pastures of our neighbors. Several of my neighbors have trouble with them in their gardens and yards, but this is as close as I've ever seen them to our actual house. I'm thinking that's because we have dogs that keep them away.
This also happened. The semi-annual scrape-y, scrape-y session at the dentist. Not my favorite, unlike my daughter, who loves getting her teeth cleaned.
My husband went to fetch the boys for some play time last weekend. In the 5 minute drive to our house, Roger fell asleep. It didn't last long, but it was pretty cute.
Sent to me from the kids and grandkids this week, was this video of Roger making Quincy laugh. There is just nothing cuter than the sound of baby giggles, is there?
The snow that came this week brought with it a snow day for the boys.
They headed to a park to spend part of the afternoon on Friday.
And had a lot of fun despite the chilly weather that also came with the snow.
Collin's family made a trip to an aquarium...
....where they apparently have an amazing selection of jellyfish.
David is starting to lift his head up.
And back east, Isaac has started potty training, big boy that he is. I got this picture from Marc telling me that Isaac said he didn't much like the big boy swing. When my DIL asked why, he said, "It's way dangerous!"
An apology to Marc & Rachelle that I didn't get these Valentine pictures into the Valentine summary post. For whatever reason, I didn't see them until I got a text yesterday and then I felt badly that they didn't get into the post. So here are their cute boys on Valentine's Day.
Levi....
Then both the boys together.
:)
From my daughter, one of her favorite places to go is called the Puppy Barn, where you can hold and pet puppies of various sizes and shapes. This one looks suspiciously like Ollie.
For whatever reason, it was a little easier to keep my hands busy with things I wanted to keep them busy with, rather than things I either needed to do, or other people wanted me to do.
I had a few more pictures than usual to use, which made me happy.
The craft room tends to be the dumping ground during the holidays. I did a little straightening in there and found several UFO's staring at me. Finding them made me feel like a slacker, so I grabbed this table runner I started last fall before the holidays got crazy and bound it off.
Here's a close up of the awesome quilting my quilter did. The project actually came straight out of a quilting magazine and I tore the picture out and handed it to the quilter and said, "I really like this. Maybe you can make it look kind of like this?" She duplicated it almost exactly. Her name is Cathy Dahl for anyone local here who wants quilting done. She's amazing.
The fabric for the project came as a kit...here's the back.
I also am making an effort not to get to the end of the year with no Christmas cards to mail, so I made some multiples of this card. I used this as the idea for it.
Over the past couple of weeks I've also taken a January, snow-themed card kit to make post-Christmas thank you notes. It came with some cute snowy papers that I combined with a few die cuts and sequins in multiples of this design.
It also came with the blue vellum seen here and the snowflake stamps and sequins used on this card.
I saved the shaker card window cut outs and used them for these last 2 cards.
Holidays are a little different when all the kidlets have left the nest. That said, there are some traditions that are so ingrained that they just have to happen, even if it's just my husband and I here.
So here was breakfast for my husband. Love him.
He apparently loves me, too, because I got these later in the day.
I put together some little bags for Evan's family. They came over for heart-shaped pizza, because that's how we roll for V-Day dinner. My husband's family tradition for Valentine's Day is to doorbell ditch a treat. His grandpa used to do it for him when he was little, and we did it for our kids. We're on the 3rd generation now and he had a lot of fun running from one door to another. Evan's boys thought they had everything figured out, until I sneaked out of the house and rang the doorbell with something for my husband. Then they weren't so sure.
I solicited pictures from my kids and these came from Eric's wife, Elisa. At their house, there were bubbles to hand out to classes.
It was a family affair as Eric helped tie the strings.
Emmett was sure that all the red ones belonged to him.
Gwen has become interested in origami and we got a heart from her, along with little love bugs from the other kiddos.
We got these cute valentines from Isaac and Levi.
James and David took a very sweet picture together...
...and I'm so glad Alison included this picture. She says James was trying to be sweet with David...and not quite succeeding. LOL!
As I mentioned yesterday, Roger and I had a Honey Day this week. While gingersnaps might be my boys' cookie of choice, these are a close second. In fact, snickerdoodle-flavored anything is ok in our family....Snickerdoodle Blondies, Pumpkin Snickerdoodles, and Snickerdoodle Scones have all been well-received. I got this recipe from my sister ages ago, and it's Mom Food because I can't count the number of times I've made it over the years. I have it on good authority that after I sent these home with Roger, they were inhaled by Evan's family and gone in about 24 hours.
Snickerdoodles
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tarter
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 Tablespoons sugar (I usually use more than this...1/4 cup sugar at least)
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. Add all the dry ingredients EXCEPT the cinnamon and sugar, and mix well.
Combine the cinnamon and sugar and put it in a flat container of some kind...a pie plate works really well. Roll dough into 1" balls and then roll in roll in the cinnamon-sugar. Place 2" apart on greased cookie sheets and bake at 375° for 12 minutes. I don't bake them nearly this long for a couple of reasons. First, I have a convection oven and things bake a little faster using that feature, and my family likes their cookies soft and chewy rather than crispy, so I underbake them a little...about 8 minutes. You'll have to go by what you like and what your oven does. Cool on wire racks.
It's been warm enough that the snow has almost totally disappeared except in a few north-facing places by the barn. I wandered out to get the mail one day about about fell over when I saw this...
...and this. I just wasn't expecting them to appear so soon after we had so much cold and snow.
One morning later in the week I heard all kinds of bird chirping on the back patio and there was a whole flock of robins going after the dropped crabapples. I know we're in for more cold weather (yay!), but the approach of spring is inevitable.
It was kind of a run-around week with Valentine's stuck in there, too, so while my hands were busy, there wasn't a whole lot to show for it. Last week's Project Life pages.
The sentiment on the bottom picture is totally true. I'm not ready for yard maintenance and hot weather.
I am in the process of catching up my journal. I use an app to journal several times a week. It's the Day One app and I really love using it. I can dictate my entries, add a picture if I want, and set reminders in my phone to nudge me to do it. At the end of the month I email the entries to myself, print them off and put them in a binder. I have filled one binder already and have started on a second. I don't include the pictures in my printed entries because they are almost always on the Project Life page for the week. In all honesty, there's nothing earth-shattering about what I write. It's mostly a day-to-day recap, but when I think about my ancestors that's what I want to know most about them....what their lives were like, what they did every day. Sing with me now...."Family history, I am doing it...." I got really behind in the printing of the entries last year and I am slowly getting them caught up.
OK, so I had a birthday this week. Birthdays are kind of a mixed bag for me. Most of me wishes I could just slither through the day and get it over with, and a little bit of me waits to see if anyone will remember. My husband sent this really pretty bouquet. He and Evan went to Salt Lake for the big Sportsmen Expo for the day, so this was a pretty good move. All of my kidlets also checked in, so that was nice.
Sent to me from the kids and grands this week, Evan sent these pictures of Roger doing his best to give Quincy some toys to keep him occupied.
What a helpful big brother! I had a Honey Day with this boy earlier in the week and we made some cookies he took home to his brothers.
James' mom, Alison, sent me this picture of how he helped her with the groceries. Apparently the oatmeal packets are not meant to stay in the box.
And there was the this one of James and his lunch. His mama was feeding David at the time and she said, "There was just nothing I could do...." Nope, not when you have a 2-year old.
And finally, a little video I took of David while he was here. He's a pretty happy kiddo.
It's always fun to have the kids and grands come visit, especially if they live far away and we don't get to see them as often.
While Collin's family was here, I didn't take a lot of pictures, which I find frustrating when I get to the end of the time and wonder, "Why didn't I do that??"
There was evidence of a good time, though. Evan's boys came over for some cousin time off and on, and as you can see there were plenty toys out for adventures.
I don't often get my big camera out any more, which in a way is kind of sad, but the convenience of phone photography can't be beat. Baby blessings are an occasion worth the effort, though. We drove to Utah last weekend for David's baby blessing. In LDS culture, a baby blessing is most similar to a christening, I guess. Here's Collin's cute family.
And my husband I joined them for a picture.
David is named for both his grandpas.
And we were lucky enough to be able to get a four-generation picture of all these men...my father-in-law, my husband, my Collin and baby David.
This is my cute daughter-in-law with David and her parents.
It was a very sweet few days and it was really hard to say good-bye to my boy. It's always hard to say good-bye to my kids who live far away, but I won't see him again until sometime in the fall, and when time stretches out like that, it's hard on a mama. Those feelings don't change when your kids are big and living their own lives, just in case you're wondering, but I'm grateful for the time I do get to have with family, especially when they're coupled with special occasions.
My DIL sent me the following pictures of Isaac and Levi. The story behind them is just too cute not to share.
They had been to the grocery store and at this particular store, there are free cookies offered for the kids. When they got home, Isaac fell asleep on the floor with his cookie next to him.
When Marc sent the same pictures out to his brothers, he sent this caption with it, "Levi is starting to understand his role as little brother. When Big Brother falls asleep, you snatch his cookie right out from under him."
It's always a surprise.....yet not.....when the Rule of 13 rears its ugly head. Those who know me well know that I like a plan. While my husband constantly tells me I need to be flexible, it does not affect the eternal truth that my basic personality doesn't change and....I like a plan. And because I like a plan, it makes sense that I would use a planner. It also makes sense that I might put things in my planner like, say....what we're going to eat that day. Which I did. But my planner doesn't have unlimited space in the little spots for every day and sometimes I have to abbreviate things.
So when my son, Collin, was here last week, he took a shot of my planner and sent it out to all his siblings.
Buttermilk wouldn't fit in the space I had, so I abbreviated, much to the delight of my all-over-24-year-old-and-mostly-advance-degreed sons. I've long since given up trying to change this aspect of the males in my family. All it does is egg them on.
Butt pancakes anyone? We had them this morning with berries on top.
Here is the recipe I made with the grandboys. I found it here, and it's so, so easy and fun for the kids to do. They set out the pretzels on the cookie sheet. There was a little discussion on how many rows and how many would fit, but we made it work. Part of the problem was that I decided to double the recipe and that made it just a bit of a tight fit on the cookie sheet. They also unwrapped the chocolate hugs and put them on top of the pretzels, and then they pushed the oversized M&M's in when the Hugs were soft. It was perfect for the age they're at, which makes them amazing Gramma Honey Food.
Valentine Pretzel Hugs
25 pretzel twists
25 Hershey's Hugs 25 Cupid Messages M&M's
Cover a pan in parchment paper and preheat oven to 200.° Place pretzels on the parchment lined pan and then top each pretzel with a hug. Bake for 4-5 minutes or until chocolate is shiny and shape is retained. (We did ours for 5 minutes and they were just a little on the soft side. The M&M's were trying to slide off completely.) Immediately press an M&M onto each hug. Allow to cool completely. You can help this along by putting them in the fridge.
Then take a picture of your adorable grandchildren showing off their accomplishment.
