Got Snow?

In case you don't have any snow and you forgot what it looked like I'd like to share what we woke up to yesterday morning. Now newly fallen snow is pretty. At least it is pretty until you
have to spend hours moving it out of the way just so you can leave the house. I estimate we
prpbably got at least 16+ inches. It was blowing around a bit so it was hard to tell. Anyway enjoy the pictures and be grateful it's not you!

Poor birds had a little trouble getting to the feeder. I still haven't got the snow out of the way

to get to the feeders yet. I usually snowblow a path but with all the drifting of snow it won't go through, which means I'll be shoveling it. Hopefully the birds will be patient with me today.

Mr. Snowman

We have a two hour delay for the second day in a row. No Kindergarten for Kenzie and Becca woke up with a fever so it will be a quiet day round here.

But yesterday the girls and I had fun making a snowman after Becca got home from school. The girls wanted to name him but couldn't agree on a name. Kenzie wanted Joe. Becca wanted Diego Santiago Carquez, quite an imaginative name for a snowman in the middle of New England.

After trying to get them to compromise with Jose, I remained neutral and will call him Mr. Snowman.

Mr. Snowman is a great photography subject. He doesn't move around, or complain when I want to fool around with camera settings. Actually I didn't really want to fool around with setting but I had changed the exposure compensation when I was taking pictures inside and forgot to change it back and it took me a little while to realize it, hence my first pictures were coming out too dark. Always good to check your settings before you start taking pictures!

Close-up.

Here Mr. Snowman watches the kids playing in the distance.

Here is a facial shot, He's starting to crack a little smile here I think.

Yes, a definite smile!

And before you think I am totally cracking up, Kenzie was the one who said he looked bored and replaced his mouth with a smile. But yeah, I am definitely ready for Spring.

Sweet

I do not know what happened to the past week but it just flew by even though it was not anymore busy than usual and I know that if my mother had not been out of town for the past several days she probably would have sent me an email about why I haven't updated this blog!

I did manage to keep up on my project 365 though!

One thing I did do last week was make cupcakes for Dom to take to work. I made the coconut cream filled ones and according to him they got rave reviews so I thought I would share the recipe. I used a regular boxed cake mix, but I do always doctor them up. I always use milk instead of water and I always add a box of pudding mix even if the mix claims to already have pudding added. These two things never fail to make a super moist cake. Now the cream filling is super easy too. It is the same ingredients as buttercream frosting with coconut extract instead of vanilla.

1/4 Cup unsalted butter softened

1/4 Cup shortening

2 Cups confectioners sugar

2 Tablespoons milk

1 Tablespoon coconut extract

Mix all ingredients together with electric mixer.

Now to fill the cupcakes you need a pastry bag and a long cake tip. I used Wilton #230.

Insert the tip into the top of the cupcake and fill with cream until the top starts to bulge. Then frost the cupcakes. I actually doubled the filling recipe and frosted the cupcakes with it,

But you could frost with regular buttercream or chocolate.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope that everyone had a Sweet Valentine's Day!

Mission Accomplished

I finished painting the kitchen and I realized as I was doing it that it is never just as simple as buying the paint and painting . You have to remove the things from the wall and fill in holes. It's like the in book If you give a mouse a cookie he's going to want a glass of milk to go with it and if you give him glass of milk etc...
If you give a Cyndi a can of paint she's going to want to paint the kitchen and if she wants to paint the kitchen she is going to have to move the big hutch away from the wall. And if she is going to move the hutch away from the wall she's going to need help because the hutch weighs about as much as a baby elephant. And if she is going to need help she is going to have to ask her husband to help her. Once the hutch is moved she will discover a multitude of dust bunnies and then she will have to pull out the vacuum to vacuum them up and once the vacuum is out she'll realize the whole house needs to be vacuumed but she'll say "screw that I just want to paint the kitchen!"
So yes, the kitchen got painted and the dust bunnies behind the hutch and refrigerator got vacuumed up but no, the rest of house did not.

How NOT to have a mini photo shoot with 2 kids and a dog

I wanted to get a couple pictures of the girls to make valentines cards for relatives. Nothing special just a couple of shots with some cute lollipops I got at Walmart. I did get several good pictures but you won' t see those until Valentine's day so as not to spoil the suprise for anyone. But the out takes are quite amusing especially when Boomer decided that he wanted to join in.

Kenzie always the comedian.

Becca doing her best Calvin and Hobbes face. Also known as the "this tastes funny" face.

This is where Boomer wormed his way into the picture because he could smell food. This one would have been pretty good if he was looking up. He is of course sniffing around for food.

At least he's looking at the camera or maybe Kenzie's lollipop.

Definitely looking at the lollipop which isn't even in the frame anymore.

Boy does that lollipop look good. You know where this is headed, right?

Yummy!

Shameless Plug

Becca is participating in a fund raiser for the american heart association. She will be jumping rope. If you would like to help her out and donate please visit her webpage. You can donate right online by following the link below. Thanks!

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=284638&lis=1&kntae284638=E0299F2EE1BE4A21B7E586B7B9FE3994&supId=246369430

Extra Playtime

I dropped the girls off at school today, hit the grocery store and got back home in time to get a phone call telling me they were closing the school at 10:00am because the boiler wasn't working and several pipes had burst, flooding several classrooms. So the girls had a short day of school.

The weather here was in the upper 40's which felt warm. The girls played outside for hours and I joined them for awhile with only a sweatshirt on. Becca had no desire to have her picture taken but Kenzie was willing. Sorta.