What a weather day

Goodness seems like the last day of January is going out with quite the commotion! I seem to remember the last day of December being a busy weather day too...let's hope this isn't a sign of what is to come at the end of February. We are stocked up on all the necessities, and have a tasty menu planned for all our days home together. I love cooking so it works out great for me! I have a few new recipes that I am going to be trying and am thinking about making homemade monkey bread again. It was time consuming, but now that I have made it from scratch I doubt I will ever make it from store bought biscuits. It's that good, promise! Just ask my hubby, or my baby boy, or my baby girl for that matter. We all gobbled it up, won't you join us next time?

Monkey bread waiting to be baked, doesn't this dough look scrumptious?!

Heavenly!

Kisses!

Lovely Sunday

We try very hard in our house not to make any plans for Sunday's. I love waking up knowing that the only thing that we are going to do is, go to Church and enjoy the day together. That is exactly what is on the agenda for today :) After lunch we will all indulge in a nap and a yummy Sunday supper is in the works for tonight followed by homemade chocolate cake with my whipped chocolate butter cream frosting. I love Sunday's!

Here is the cake I am making today, Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake.

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
   
   
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
   
   
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

They have a recipe for chocolate frosting to go with it on the side of the cocoa container and also on their website. My frosting recipe is under lock and key, HAHAHA, just kidding!

Sun, and fun with friends

What an absolutely beautiful Saturday! We are starting off the day with some much needed playtime outside! Jack asked for, and received, a fantastic big wheel from Santa and today was the perfect day to do some riding. He caught on pretty quickly to the silliness of this big wheel and I can only imagine all the cool tricks he will be doing with it when we are able to spend some more time outside. Josephine LOVED being outside! She explored, and pushed her baby stroller around, but her most favorite thing to do was to say "Momma" and grab my hand and walk down the sidewalk to the neighbors house, then turn around and walk right back to our driveway. We did this about 20 times and I loved it! I sure do hope we have a few more of these days where the temperature is mild and we can get outside again and enjoy the sun!

Josephine checking out the snow, and stomping her feet in the little bit that is left.

Later today we are meeting some friends and their children at the Auto Show downtown and grabbing a bite to eat after wards. I can't wait to catch up with them, it has been far too long since we have gotten together, we are really looking forward to it!

Edited to add this picture: At the Auto Show there was a Cars 2 area set up!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Hugs!

Snow much fun!

We sure did get a lot of snow, and it's beautiful. When the sun comes out, it looks like someone just threw a handful of glitter across my yard, so sparkly. Thankfully after a few days of bitter cold temperatures, we warmed back up into the 30's and were able to spend some time outside enjoying the fluffy stuff. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be in the upper 40's so I am guessing the snow will soon be gone. So thankful we made some fun memories while it was here! Until the next big snow fall...

Jack and a few neighbor friends had a great time sledding!

I can almost hear his giggle! He was having a BALL!

Me and my boy! We played tackle tag in the snow! This was after he got me a few times!

Our snow man, or should I say snow girl ;) Here the kids are saying "ta da!"

Love this picture! We bulit a little snow wall and the kiddos hid behind it when we were having our snow ball fight. Check out the snow ball coming right at me HA!

Autumn girl LOVED the snow as always!

My hubby and me!

Kisses!

Hello January

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season. Ours was very nice and what made it so nice is that it was relaxing. My homemade goodies were done by the beginning of November (I made homemade vanilla extract this year), we only had a few people to shop for and our Christmas cards were designed, stuffed, stamped and in the mail the first week of December. It was a lovely feeling to not have to rush around with last minute details and it left lots of time to really enjoy the season. Ginger bread house decorating, cookie baking, hot cocoa sipping, and lots of listening to Christmas music and stories about the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. This was the first year that Jack really understood the whole reason for celebrating Christmas and he wanted a Birthday cake for Jesus. We loved the idea so much and now a new tradition has been added to our December, we will always bake a cake for Jesus! Love it!

The end of the year found us home with the flu. Everyone caught the bug except Josephine, thank goodness! Jack and I enjoyed a New Years Eve picnic on the living room floor and finished our evening with some games. Jeff and Josephine were tucked in bed by 8 and Jack and I weren't far behind them. So glad the sickness has left our house, all that lingers is some sinus thing for me, yuck! Even though 2011 came with out much celebrating, it has started off being a very nice New Year for us :) Lots of lazy days home together, homemade soups and chili, comfort food galore and lots of baking to keep our home (and bellies) cozy and warm.

One thing I really enjoyed about the beginning of this month is the morning that I paired up with a few girlfriends and prepared breakfast for the guests staying at the Ronald McDonald House. It was such an honor and a wonderful way to spend our Sunday morning. We will be volunteering there several more times this year and I am really looking forward to it!

The snow is falling outside and it is beautiful! So glittery, I can't wait to see how much is out there when we wake up in the morning. We went to the library and have lots of new books and a few movies to keep us entertained over the coming days...I don't plan on leaving the house if I don't have too! Hope your New year is off to a great start and here's hoping I can get back to this blogging thing to keep everyone updated on our simple life. Until my next post, here are a few pictures from the last few months of twenty-ten!

Our sweet little girl! Wearing her pumpkin outfit for Thanksgiving!

Josephine and I, dancing around the living room!

The kiddos after a candy cane hunt with our playgroup friends! Brrrr!

The first snow fall of the season and Jack woke us up at a little after 7 in the morning with his coat already on! He was eager to get out there and enjoy the fluffy snow!

Jack lost his first tooth (bottom on his right)!!! And the darling tooth fairy left him 8 quarters and one golden dollar coin!

Kisses!