Out like a lion, in like a lamb, isn't that what they say? If this weather keeps up, March will definitely be in like a lion. My oldest daughter and I caught the hail on video tonight, when it was coming down like gangbusters. I'm just glad it wasn't really big enough to dent my car, so we could just marvel at the wonder of it all. I love the sound of hail on the rooftop!
When my kids and I think of hail, we think of 2006, when we were at their soccer practice, at the furthest possible place from our car, sitting on metal bleachers (which of course, you can't get under due to the possibility of lightning) and golf ball sized hail started raining out of nowhere! I don't think I have ever seen a field full of parents and kids run that fast, ever!!! I was carrying my middle daughter (then, 4) because she still couldn't walk, and I would never have believed I could have covered that much ground so quickly, while cradling a 35 pound child and trying to make sure she didn't get pelted with mega-hail!! What I marvel at, in retrospect, is that the hailstones were fairly far apart and not very many actually hit me. Thank goodness!

Surviving Snowpocalypse

Last night, the weather forecast went something like this:

In other words, cloudy with a 100% chance of snowpocalypse. We live in the far southwest part of the "these people should hit the liquor stores" swath. I already knew before I went to bed that both school and work were cancelled for the day, and so I slept in until the kids woke me up at about 7:30, then went downstairs to check the weather (the upstairs windows always cloud up and I can't see out). There was only about an inch of snow, but I noticed it was really, really COLD. Then one of the kids yelled from the back room, where our pets and downstairs bathroom are, that the lights wouldn't go on. I checked the breaker box and the lights went on. Took another 10 minutes or so for my brain to register that the heater had not also come on. Hmm... I checked the temp on the thermostat and it read that it was 10 degrees colder than it ought to be. And still not kicking on. 

I called the heating and cooling service, and they sent a tech out fairly quickly. He poked through the heater unit, made a call, then gave me both the good and bad news. Good news is that it's only the panel with all the wires that needs replacing, not the whole thing. So it will cost a few hundred, not a few thousand. Whew! Then, the wires had burned and melted, and it tripped the breaker and didn't burn the house down. Also good news. Bad news- the parts I need have to be ordered from out of area (he called all the other local heating service places just to make sure), and no freight is going through, so it'll be at least Friday before I get my heater working again. :( 

So, that was not great news but... there was only about 3" of snow at the time (we have about 10" now) so I was able to run to walmart and get a couple of space heaters so I can keep my pets warm, and the area in the living room where we most often hang out. And, my house has a separate heating/cooling system for upstairs and downstairs,. so my upstairs is toasty warm. So, it may not be the way I'd have had things go if I ran the universe, but we are inconvenienced rather than devastated, and the kids will have a story to tell their grandkids about how we weathered snowpocalypse 2010 with out heater deciding this was its time to crap out.

Funny thing, though. I discovered puppies make great space heaters. My computer is not in an area that's heated, and it's about 58F in here (people who know me well know I am always cold and prefer my house about 72 in winter, 80 in summer... so I am COLD!). I am wearing a long sweater, and rather than curl up in my lap, Dove the puppy crawled  under my sweater and behind me, and he's keeping my back all nice and toasty warm. My oldest daughter said it looks like I have a living bustle. Ah well, that is a WARM living bustle and a very nice thing to have.

Invasion of the toast people...

It's been cold this month, so we've mostly been indoors, trying to find things to do to keep ourselves amused. The kids have been watching old classics on netflix (it was the original Karate Kid movies this weekend), reading, and drawing. Today they requested eggs for dinner, so I did it a little differently... and tada... the toast people invaded...

Magical Christmas

This year, we decided to do something a little different for Christmas. Back in late summer, a friend of ours suggested that we join their family in renting cabins by a lake about 40 minutes drive from here, at one of the state parks, for Christmas weekend. It sounded like fun, so in early October, we made our reservation, and before we knew it, Christmas was here, and we were discovering our weekend getaway...

The cabin sleeps 8 and there are 6 of us, so it was plenty spacious, and our friends even brought us a live tree they cut down on their property, that went all the way to the rafters! Christmas Eve, the two families settled in and we made ornaments for our trees, and enjoyed a great feast of Wham! (vegetarian "ham"; not that 80's band!), sweet potatoes with apples, and tons of other delicious goodies!

Christmas morning, after the boys woke the whole cabin several times clambering downstairs to look for their stockings (Santa hid theirs under my bed; imagine that), we finally got up with the sun and started our day. We read the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew, then opened our presents to each other. Then we had a breakfast of leftovers and opened our presents from grandma and grandpa. Here, the kids peer into the grandma and grandpa box...

We enjoyed playing with our stuff all day, then in the evening, the families got back together after dinner for hot cocoa around the campfire. My 8 year old read us a children's storybook of Christ's birth. What an awesome way to spend Christmas!

Christmas is almost here!

Seems like the last few weeks have been rush, rush, rush! Thankfully, we've had nice weather to make it easier on us, but the kids keep wanting snow. We might get a white Christmas eve; we shall see! Two Sundays ago, the kids had their church Christmas play, and they were sure tickled with that. My oldest is now officially a "big kid" so she got to watch (and man a second camera) with me. The play was simple this year. One group of children took turns reading the story of the nativity from Matthew, and the other children joined the stage as the players in His birth. Then they had the audience join them in singing Christmas songs. Simple, but beautiful.

Cookie Trays, Stockings, and Scarves!

Been busily at work, getting things ready for Christmas! I took a picture of our cookie trays (from the recipes I posted last weekend) before we started taking them to their new homes. We had 12 families to deliver to, and got some humongously wonderful smiles in return! Here is how the cookies looked:

The next project I worked on was a set of 8 Christmas stockings; 5 for my kids and 3 for another family we'll be sharing part of Christmas with. I made 3 green, 3 red, and 2 white stars on white. They turned out super cute, and they'll be so fun to fill with goodies!

My next project, which I finished today, was scarves. I was given a wonderful scarf last year and have absolutely loved it. So, I used it as inspiration for the ones I'm giving as gifts this year. To make two scarves, I started by getting 1/2 yard each of dark pink, light pink, and black fleece (on sale at Hancock Fabrics for $3.99 per yard, usually $8.99- I love a good deal!). I cut each half yard in half lengthwise and stacked them, then sewed a zigzag stitch down the middle to hold it together. Like this:

Next, I cut fringe on both sides of the zigzag stitch, leaving about 1/2" of uncut fabric on each side. Then, I shook them out so they'd be all fringey, and voila, now they are nice, warm fluffy scarves- like this:

Snickerdoodles

The kids loved that this recipe bears the same name as a favorite 3rd grade teacher... LOL. It makes great snickerdoodles! Click here for the original recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.