SNOMG make it stop!

We're iced/snowed in again today...no school.  There was rain/sleet at about 5am followed by snow that will continue until noon they say.  They snow amounts are much less the predicted though, which is good and bad....it'll be gone sooner, but there's nothing to sled on.  Not that Parker would last long in 14 degrees and 25mph winds.  Brrrrrr.  

Some random pictures for your amusement:  

Buddy's fish tank setup - We settled on the name Buddy.  His color really shows up will with the camera flash...he's really not quite that brilliant in person.  He seems to love having plants, so I got him lots.  I cleaned/rearranged his tank yesterday and he had a busy day checking it all out.  Note to Paula - he won't eat the Betta burgers (pellets), they're too big for him.  He's medium on the fish flakes too unless we really crumble them up, but as of yesterday, he's been enjoying freeze dried bloodworms. 

Good snow day activity:  Making each Valentine's Day card by hand.  I do have a few packages of the little preprinted kind (shhh, don't tell), but I'm not getting those out until we've milked this for all the time killing it's worth.

My first double layer cake - made for Bob's birthday.  The cake part is a Devil's Food mix...I had no room for error so I used a mix, but I made the chocolate ganache frosting from scratch.  I'm not excited about trapped indoors with this big yummy cake today.

Snow Fun

Once again, last night at bedtime we were expecting an inch or so of snow.  We got 6 or 7.  I'm sure it's quite a blessing for a lot of folks who have had kids stuck in the house since Monday.  Parker's had a blast sledding and building her snowman.

Gigi is still stuck here.  Luckily she brought a ton of craft project with her, like Harvey here.  You see a bunny too, right?

Warming up under the electric blanket after being outside

 

Snowman on top of the mailbox

Ok, now we have a snow picture

Ice pics

My sister request that I post snow pics, so here are some.  Although actually, there isn't really much snow.  Our issue is the inch of ice that's covering most of the roadways and the parking lots.
This is the ice on the patio.  The driveway looks the same, but our neighborhood roads are mainly dry.

Parker's keeping herself amused with unlimited computer. I just saw on the news website that her school is closed again tomorrow.  If this means summer will be shorter, I'm ok with it. 

Claudette is cross stitching.  She's stuck here until the roads are a little safer.

Bob is on a conference call.  He's such a professional that he dresses up just to talk on the phone.

First pet

(ack!  I meant to post this before we went skiing.  I guess I goofed up scheduling it after the tooth-losing.  Right now we have a new square tank for him, but it sure does get cloudy fast. How often does the cloudiness usually happen?  I thought Betas were low maintenance.  Hmph. )

Another first.
Meet our new family member, Crystal (far left, in the vase).  He's a point of purchase Beta Fish that we got at the Science Store at Parker's school. Actually, Parker is still deciding on his name-  she's between Petunia, Crystal and Freddy.  She really wants a girl name, but the fancy Betas are boys, so we might just give him a girl name and try not to say it too loudly around him.
Up until now, I had been against any pets.  My motto was "nothing that sheds or poops" except sometimes I changed that last word. I had hoped to start Parker out caring for something more low stakes...like sea monkeys or sourdough starter, but he was too cute and I just couldn't resist.  
When we told Bob what kind he was (Beta), he said "shouldn't we wait for the final release?"  haha, computer geek humor.

In case you're wondering....

...here's an update on us.  Bob and I went skiing to Steamboat Springs CO earlier this week.  It was super nice, but the last 2 days were super super cold there.  Tuesday we skied in sub-zero temps, and it was 20 below yesterday when we left.
Miraculously our flight wasn't canceled with all the weather drama in the rest of the country, so we made it back, just delayed a bit.
But then, we had to make it back from the airport with the roads covered in ice.  Luckily, we rode with Bob's boss, who has a big 4wheel drive truck, and grew up in Iowa, but it was still pretty dicey.  There is literally a thick thick layer of ice on every paved surface, and we saw very little sand/salt.  I guess they're saving it all to coat the path to the Cowboy's stadium?

Ski pic.  I'm honestly not sure if this is from this year, or 2 years ago.  Ski pictures all look the same unless you get a new outfit.  We had 3 great days of skiing...there was a ton of snow and 2 of the days were sunny and beautiful, although cold. 

Parker is on day 3 of no school.  Her district shuts down fairly quickly, but even the Dallas isd is closed for the 3rd day, which has never happened before.  She doesn't seem too terribly stir crazy....her Gigi has been her entertaining her.  She was very happy to see us and the gifts we brought her.  All along she's been asking "how awesome is my present?". 

Breaking news

Parker has finally lost her first tooth!  It has been very loose since before Christmas.  For the last couple weeks at nearly every meal, she'd forget about it and bite into her food and chomp her tooth and scream and have to spit out her bite.  Fun times. 
This morning when her alarm when off, she sat up and felt that it was basically hanging out of her mouth and cried "I can't go to school like this!!"...she was OVER IT.  So she grabbed it and turned it one way, then the other and it came out. I'm sure she was basically unteachable at school today, she was so excited.
So tonight the tooth fairy comes.  Luckily I'm going up to school right now, so I'll have a chance to see what the going rate is these days for a first tooth. 

Doing chores

snowy day!

Last night when I went up to check on Parker, she was all snuggled up underneath all her covers - VERY strange for her.  Normally her donkey feet would have kicked everything off.  I told Bob about it and he said "yes, she was very concerned about the cold front coming in". 

She was right to be concerned.  The temps have been dropping and dropping and this morning's rain finally turned to snow around noon.  It didn't take long at all to cover the ground - big thick wet flakes.

After I took this picture, Parker's friend made a snowball too, and it took me nearly too long to figure out who they were going to throw them at.....I got out of the way just in time. 

She files, she files

I'm interrupting Christmas pictures to post this because it's too cute and I'm afraid I'll forget about it before I share it.  

When we remodeled the kitchen/laundry room, I redesigned the laundry room cabinets to include 2 file drawers.  I have a file cabinet in another room, but I really wanted a drawer for mail and and the top things that seem to pile up on my desk.  So far it's working pretty well.  The bottom drawer is mine, and the top is for Parker's papers that accumulate.  Stuff from school, artwork, etc etc.  I put file folders in there and had starting adding to it when she discovered it and has taken it over.  She sorted everything into categories that made sense to her, and had me make labels and the best part, she actually FILES THINGS.  I'll pull stuff out of her folder from school and remind her "you need to file your stuff" and SHE DOES!  How great is that? 

So if you're keeping score on which side of the family she takes after, put a point my mom's column. 

Back to school outfit

 

 Here's Parker's back to school outfit for today, she put a lot of thought into it, and how she could get the most mileage out of what she got for Christmas.  It looks wackier in person.  

She's wearing: a bejeweled headband, Hello Kitty shirt (old), ruffly vest, ruffly skirt, leggings underneath, tall black boots that look like fireman galoshes on her skinny legs, her latest Color Me book bag which is adorned with a bejeweled glow-in-the-dark hand sanitizer holder.  I think I got it all. 

Christmas Morning

I'm going to attempt to get caught up on posting pictures and blogging.  I have quite a backlog, but my pictures are in several different cameras and phones so it's tough to get them all downloaded at once.

We went to Bob's folks house for Christmas this year.  Parker actually went 3 days earlier to spend some extra time with her Gigi and Papa and her cousin Peyton.  That worked out REALLY well for me...it's amazing how much (holiday errand-wise) you can accomplish without 'help'. 

By all reports, they had a great time.  Gigi got them matching hats, and Christmas morning, they set their alarms on their itouches so they didn't oversleep, put on their hats and came out to check out the gifts that santa had left. 

Parker is showing off her 'Mazing Hamster dressed like Santa.  A very specific request that was on her Christmas list.  She also got an Easy Bake Oven, a woven bracelet kit, Bendaroos, puzzles, a cheapie lap desk she had her eye on forever,a new art set, a new bathrobe and more stuff I can't remember.  The biggest hit of all may be the new robe (not pictured)....she wears it as often as possible, like Fred Sanford.

More pics coming soon.....

Silent night

Is it bad manners to take pictures in church?

More Christmas party

We've partied a lot today, and it's only 3pm.
Today was the neighborhood Breakfast With Santa, which Bob and Parker attended, and immediately afterward, we headed to Addison for Bob's work Christmas party.  It's always a pretty fun time as Christmas parties go.  Parker enjoys herself more and more each year.  They have great face painters...she got snowflakes.  There's also a polar bear on her cheek from the first party.  Glad she stuck with a theme.

 

Bowling is always our favorite part of the party.  This is the first time in a couple years that we've bowled though...usually we have a marathon/half marathon to run the next day and  we are too worried that we'll tire out our legs.  Parker manages to do pretty well (there are bumpers for her) despite pretty slow ball speed.

 I'm sure Bob will hack into this and delete the scoreboard pic.  The last 3 scores are Parker's, mine and his respectively.  He finally caught up at the very end to win by just a couple points....picking up a spare on the last frame I think.  I'm sure next year he'll do a little more training.

 

Facepainting at the Christmas party

Artwork on display

Happy Thanksgiving

This was my first year to try cooking the Thanksgiving meal. I did a ton of prep work and Bob handled the turkey situation, and it all turned out quite nicely. The way we reconfigured the counter tops (moving the cooktop off the island) really give me a lot more functional counter space for time like this.

Last minute preparations

Turkey breast carving lessons

The finished spread. (I put everything in the bar next to the dining room for easy access to seconds)

The menu was:

Herb Roasted Turkey Breast and Gravy
A spicy and a traditional Cornbread Dressing (store bought)
Green Beans w/ bacon and shallots
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Sweet Potatoes with Streusel Topping
Roasted Root Veggies with Orange Maple Glaze
Mashed Potatoes
Cranberry Relish (regular and chipotle, both store bought)
Homemade Sourdough Rosemary Focciaca bread.

Luckily , we got a head start on Christmas, because we're going to use the rest of the weekend for napping.

Oldie but goodie

I can't believe they were ever this litte!

Learning to focus

 

Bob got me a new camera for my birthday a while back.  It's the kind where you can focus it yourself....I'm still learning how to do that.  Notice Parker in the background wearing the Happy Meal box upside down on her head. 

Links for Norma

Parker's aunt Norma asked for the recipe for the tarts.  Since she's far away, and it's unlikely we'll show up at the same bake sale, I'll go ahead and share my recipes.  :-)

For the little tarts, I basically followed what this gal did on her blog (the underlined words are the links to the websites).  I added some little dot of butter before baking and some sanding sugar and brushed them with melted apricot jam when they came out....it seals it and give it a golden color.  I've also tried it with apples, cinnamon, etc and it was great.  Pears are good too.  A fancy variation I haven't had a chance to try yet would be to add some cheese under the filling....gorgonzola w/ pears or sharp cheddar or brie with apples.  I found it easier to form the tarts and then add the filling.  If you put too much filling and don't fold the edges over enough, they fall apart in the oven.  Bob is the happy consumer of the 'ugly tarts'.
I've also gotten ooh and aaah over using Ina Garten's French Apple Tart recipe too...I've done it full size and half size. I think it needs a bit of an edge to it though, so keep everything from running all over the baking pan.
I like to spread out the labor....make the dough and roll and cut one day, and then make the filling, form tarts and bake the next day....so it's about an hour each day, minus the baking time.

Here's the link for the Pumpkin Pie Bites.  The filling shrinks down quite a bit after they bake.  I had the same pumpkin cookie cutter she did, but I'm sure you can get away with just using a circle.  I used store bought pie dough and I thought it needed something to make it more brown/shiny....maybe brush with egg wash?  In the link, the gal piped chocolate on hers for the faces, but I used cream cheese frosting, chocolate didn't sound good to me. 

Happy baking!!

Fall baking

 

I hosted book club recently and made some fall treats.  I think the pumpkins are the cutest...but I got more compliments on the peach tarts. 

Reading log request

Attn: teacher types

I'm in need of a printable reading log for Parker to chart how much she reads per week. I think we are going to do it by minutes per day....and have a goal of x minutes per week. Her teacher says she should be doing 15-20 minutes/day of reading. I can whip something up on Excel easy enough, but if anyone has a handy link to one, send it on. My plan B will be to just have her write her minutes down on a sticker and put it on the calendar, then add up the minutes each week, but that's sort of boring.

Thanks in advance. Here's a quick picture to enjoy. Bob and Parker both playing their favorite game, Angry Birds.

Fall Foliage

 

Aren't the trees pretty this year?  Ours are some of the first to begin to turn.  I think the stress of the dry summer helps their color. 

No interesting news around here.  We made it through the busy Halloween weekend and now we're gearing up for the rest of the holidays.

Parker funny:  she was at a friends house yesterday and when she came home, she mentioned that the neighbor had given them some M&M's.  I know the neighbor, so it's no big deal, but I took the opportunity for a 'teachable moment' and told Parker if we're not with her, she should not take candy from anyone, even neighbors, blah blah blah.

Without missing a beat Parker said "ok.  I need to go write myself a note that says "no trick or treating next year."  When Bob and I closed our jaws, we reminded her that technically, we go with her to trick or treat, so that doesn't count.  Little smarty pants.