Spring is Coming!

While most of the winter, our view has looked like this,

 a few days ago, the view out my kitchen window looked like this.  Unseasonably warm weather had melted most of the snow and visitors flocked to our yard.  (Can you see them?)

The apple tree was obviously open for business. 

The apples I hadn't harvested seemed to excite the robins...I'd never seen so many of them before.

Weren't they beautiful?  Look at the bright red chests.  (The photos aren't great...they're taken through glass and plastic insulator.)

The robins obviously knew what they were about picking the apple tree clean, because the next day the yard looked like this again.

Still, I wasn't devastated...my feathered friends let me know spring is definitely right around the corner.

If I need a reminder that the snow is not forever, I'll just look at these photos.  They definitely make me smile.  Any signs of spring in your neck of the woods?

Look What We Saw Today!

Sunshine!!!

 After weeks of snowy (read: cloudy) days, Mr. Sun came out today.  It felt glorious and looked beautiful reflecting off the icy snow.

The cat was happy.

The kids were happy.  Even with all the melt off we've had the past few days, the kids have plenty of snow for sledding fun.

A bonus?  The snow plows finally reached our street...no more four-wheel-drive to get to the main road!  Woot!  The sun melted the last of the snow-turned-to-ice off the driveway, too.

The plows follow our lead and dump all the extra snow in the middle of the cul de sac, making an awesome hill for the kids.  Pretty cool, isn't it?

Oh, I love the sunshine, don't you?

My Bologna has a first name...

My Bologna has a first name, it's O S C A R!
My Bologna has a second name, it's M A Y E R!
Oh, I love to eat it everyday and if you ask me why I'll say...
'cause Oscar Mayer has a way with B O L O G N A!!!!

Can you believe it?  Despite the record-breaking snow we've had in the past week (more snow than we've had here in more than 100 years!), the Oscar Mayer Weiner-Mobile showed up in our town.

I knew the kids would be so excited to see it, so I asked my neighbor to give us a ride to the grocery store where I'd noticed the iconic vehicle in the parking lot.  (The roads were terrible and I've been doing so much driving and felt myself crossing the line to too tired...I wasn't safe to do it...his big truck did just fine and I think he now knows we're insane...hearing us singing the bologna song had to convince him.)

I know he thought we were nuts, right up until he saw cars rolling up to do exactly what we were doing...snapping photos with the giant hot dog!

Did you know that the dash was made up of hot dogs in buns?  I didn't.

No one was in the Weiner-Mobile, so we didn't get any weinie whistles (darn it!), but it was still so cool to see the remnant from my childhood!

So, what happens when 80 inches of snow meets an ambient temperature of, say, 40 degrees?

It melts! Quickly! It comes off the roof in torrents and, to make things extra fun, it floods your basement because it is melting so quickly there is no place for it to go. So, here I sit at 1:00 a.m. in a furious battle to stem the flow of water from spread across my basement floor. Valiant has finally been sent to bed under duress. He waged battle outside with Superman for two hours, but he's got to get to bed. Superman is asleep on the couch behind me, hoping that I'll report that the flow has diminished. Every towel in our home has been used and is in the rotation from floor to mop up water to washer to spin out excess to dryer to get a little bit dry and back to floor again. It is never ending...grrrr.... and I am just waiting for towels to dry so we can do yet another switch. This is what grown-ups do for fun...I remember when being up at 1:00 a.m. meant I was out dancing, or going for a bit to eat after a movie, or taking a drive along the coast.

Instead of snow, let's talk about coffee cake!

I'm not talking about snow...I'm not! I'm not going to mention that we got 8 inches yesterday and it is still snowing... I'm not going to mention that my car (a Suburban, for goodness sakes!) got STUCK in the grocery store parking lot this morning and the manager had to hook me up to his truck to pull me out. (Nor will I mention that I wasn't the only one stuck and that he was just driving around the parking lot pulling people out!) I just can't talk about the never-ending snow anymore, so don't ask me!

So, let's talk about something fun, instead. Every Saturday night we host Game Night, where the neighbors and their kids are invited to come in and sit down, play some games, talk and laugh, and generally have a very inexpensive good time. We've played Pictionary, Five Crowns, Quiddler, and Trivial Pursuit. We immediately got rid of Trivial Pursuit. Why? Because with all the useless information we collectively had, we couldn't get the darned answers! And we were even concentrating! So, bye-bye, Trivial Pursuit...

Anyway, an important part of Game Night is snacking. I make our friends be our guinea pigs for new recipes or just treat them to old favorites. This past Game Night, however, fell on our dear friend's birthday, so I wanted a good treat. I was after something that wasn't too sweet, because, Lord knows, we are all sweeted out. I also needed flexibility because I wasn't sure how many people would show up. (Lots of people love S, so I needed to be ready for a crowd!) Finally, S's daughter has allergies, so lots of possibilties had to be eliminated.

I finally settled on this Fast Coffee Cake from Amy at The Mother Load and it was awesome!

Fast Coffee Cake

1 package vanilla instant pudding*
1 package yellow cake mix
½ cup oil
4 eggs
1 cup orange juice

Mix these ingredients together and then swirl the following through the cake batter 1/3 c. sugar, 4 t. cinnamon, 4 t. sesame seeds (optional). Bake for 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees in a well-greased and floured bundt pan. Allow cake to cool for 45-60 minutes in pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

*She didn't clarify, but I use the small one.

UPDATED** I leave out the sesame seeds and instead of swirling the sugar and cinnamon in, I put half the cake mix in the pan, then pour the sugar/cinnamon in all around, then put in the other half of the cake mix. It turns out beautifully.


How easy is that?! Isn't it terrific and it presents so beautifully. Depending upon how many people you serve, you can slice a bundt cake very thinly or have big, huge slices. Best of all, it can be really inexpensive. I wait until cake mixes are on sale for $1 and the Albertson's pudding mix was $.50 and I always have everything else on hand. What can I say, I'm trying to be frugal.

Superman takes treat to his team every Friday and this one is a hit. You should definitely try it.

I cannot believe it is snowing AGAIN!

So, rather than show you yet another picture of my house being buried in snow (I had a concrete walkway and driveway yesterday, seriously!), I decided to bake! These are just tried and true peanut butter recipes that I used to make with my mom when I was little. I've tried other recipes, but none seem quite as good (or easy), so I always go back to my old stand-by. It has never let me down. This recipe will always give you the perfect peanut butter cookie. You want crisp cookies? Cook them the full ten minutes. You like chewy? Pull them out as soon as the edges begin to brown. They are always, always awesome.

I did a little experiment with one of the batches this time, because I'd always been curious about the whole smashing-with-a-floured-fork procedure, so I cooked one batch without smashing them. Quite the risk-taker, aren't I? (Okay, not really...I forgot the whole flatten-with-fork step for one batch.) Well, low and behold, they became cookies anyway, just without the quintessential peanut butter checkerboard. So, if you forget to smoosh the cookies, you'll be fine!

Peanut Butter Cookies – 10 min @ 350°


Cream: 1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla*

Then add in:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Roll into large, walnut-sized balls and place on ungreased cookies sheet. (I used my Pampered Chef cookie scoop - I think it is the medium one. I don't roll them anymore, just plop them on the cookie sheet.) Flatten with flour-dipped fork and cook at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Recipe note: I always cook with butter, but my mom was a margarine girl. This recipe turns out well either way.

* Disclaimer: I have never in my life only put in one teaspoon of vanilla, so I just wrote what the recipe calls for. We always use closer to a tablespoon of vanilla, but this is up to you.

Happy Baking!

So, What does a mom do when everyone is outside shoveling snow?

She keeps warm inside by making cookies! These cookies were intended for Buttercup's gymnastics Christmas party, but the record snows caused everything to be cancelled! Four wheel drive would have gotten us there, but we're happy to stay at home instead. So, this is what you can do when there is two feet of snow outside your door: Turn on the Christmas music and break out the mixer! The house smells wonderful and you can say you did something worthwhile. Since gymnastics won't be meeting up again until after the new year, guess what people will be eating during a rousing game of Quiddler tonight?

Snow Day!

Record setting snows in Eastern Washington gave us the free time to play around with getting our blog started. No place to go and nothing much we can do between trips outside to shovel. What will we do with it? We're not sure...definitely share news with friends and family, maybe add some information about some of the fun things we've been doing, or are learning to do. Only time will tell! Thanks for sharing your time with us.

So, today we're sharing pictures of why we love Eastern Washington! Our banner has a picture of our home taken this morning and Buttercup is having a ball playing in the middle of the street! We know everyone grumbles about the snow, but as transplants who grew up in a place with only two seasons: rain and summer, we love the four seasons. Winter came with style this week!