The Dog Days of the Blizzard?

Being snowed in was made enjoyable by my Christmas gift.  I was delighted to receive a prime lens for my Nikon camera.  It is a Nikkor 35 mm 1.8 lens and I already LOVE it! Here are a few pics I snapped over the holiday of all the dogs that were in the house. 

Jack spent most of his time at my feet in the kitchen as I was cooking.

Very carefully watching for dropped food and giving me "the look". 

Rocky spent a fair amount of time there also.

He also has "a look".

Doc, on the other hand, prefers the bed.

Occasionally, he will raise his head, but mostly, he lazes about and tries to avoid being forced outside.  Snow is not his friend, especially drifts which are over his head.

Maggie, who was visiting, took right to the indoors and nestled her way right into my bed both nights... But hey, there was another girl in the house, so I was happy for the estrogen boost!

Digging out...

After three days of being snowed in with five adults, two rambunctious children and five (yes, you read that right) five dogs, today we ventured outside to survey the damage.  After a frustrating trial run getting the snow blower started (during which someone, who will remain anonymous, forgot to turn on the fuel line), we were successful and trudged out. 

We had some substantial drifts...

But none bigger than the route to the front door through which we carved a narrow path in the 4 ft snow drift.

Our front door is looking rather short these days, but at least now the dogs can be coaxed out.

We've spend the last two and a half days enjoying being locked in the house.  We opened presents...

We played with our new toys...

We engaged in some very serious games of "Go Fish"...

We gave each other lots of hugs...

We cooked and consumed an obscene amount of food.

Sometimes,

it was almost painful

to try and get it into our mouths all at once...

But mostly we just sat around in our jammies and had fun...

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and enjoyed the season as much as our family.

Herbs in the house

My Aerogrow has been out of control lately, shooting herbs right up into its lights, but I'm always loath to waste any fresh produce in winter, so this morning I pruned the plants and then placed them in tiny bud vases. Not only is it nice to have a little green in the house, but I'm hoping the herbs stay healthy for the next few days so I can use them in my Christmas cooking.

 

I've also been working on propagating some rosemary cuttings I took off my mom's rosemary plant at Thanksgiving. I think the little baby plants are putting down roots, but I've been covering them with a plastic bag to keep them moist. Yesterday I was shopping and saw this vase in the floral section for $3! I turned it upside down over the plant and made a poor woman's cloche. Love it! Since using a cloche seems to be just about the only way I can keep any plants alive, I might be investing in more of these very soon.

 

Reindeer cookies

Bakerella posted some absolutely adorable "Cowgirl Cookies" last August and I've been dying to try them ever since I saw the pictures. However, being the holiday season, I figured I needed to do a Christmas theme and that they would make very nice teacher gifts at school.  Here is the basic recipe

Reindeer Cookies

• 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cooking oats
• 3/4 cup m&ms
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup white sugar

I began by hunting down the 1 quart smooth Ball jars at my local Hobby Lobby.

The first layer was the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Bakerella warned me to pack or it wouldn't all fit in, so I grabbed the tool I usually use to pack the grinds in my espresso machine and had my 5 year old put it to a new use.

The second layer was the oats

Followed by the m&ms

and chocolate chips

And now we are in trouble. Clearly, my 5 year old wasn't packing as much as he could have been. I reprimanded him and after I got the brown sugar into the jar, I pushed with all my might.

I had just enough room to squeeze in the white sugar.

But, you will notice that Bakerella was able to fit some pecans in the top. That did not happen at our house!  Once we had in all the ingredients (except the pecans), I cut a 6" x 6" piece of holiday fabric for the top and secured it with ribbon.

As a final step, I made some labels for the front and the back which I printed on cardstock, cut out with a 1 7/8" stamp and affixed to the far with double stick tape. Enjoy!

Old Fashioned Ginger Creams

This was the first cookie my mom always made at Christmas time and it just isn't the Christmas at our house without them. When you bake them, the whole house will smell like the holidays are supposed to!

Christmas Ginger Cookies
makes: 100 very small cookies

• 3/4 c butter or shortening
• 1 c sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 T Brer Rabbit molasses
• 2 c flour
• 2 t baking soda
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1 t ginger
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/2 t cloves 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  

Cream the butter (or shortening) and sugar.  Add the egg and molasses and mix well.  Add the dry ingredients and chill, preferably overnight.  

Shape the dough into 3/4" balls (these should be small), roll in sugar and place on a silpat covered cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 to 12 min and cool on a wire rack.  Enjoy a couple (or a dozen) right out of the oven and then store the remainder in an airtight container.

Wrapping it all up...

Every year, I like my Christmas presents to match. I'm a little OCD. This year, I wanted to go very simple. My thought was to wrap all the boxes in plane matte white paper and then to adorn them with construction paper. I got the idea from Real Simple, one of my favorite magazines. The other advantage is once the presents are wrapped the kids can help with the "adornment". Here is a gift we wrapped as a trial run. I basically used one color of construction paper, in this case green, made the bow and scattered dots and "flowers" around the paper with the glue stick (gotta love raiding your kids pencil box to complete projects!)

 

On this side, I "split" on of the flowers across the construction paper ribbon and added one little red dot, just because I could.

 

And finally, threw a red flower on top so it looked "Christmasy". (I don't actually think that is a word, but I'm gonna use it anyway)

 

I'm still waiting for the UPS man to deliver a few more boxes and then we will sit down and attack them all at once. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Life with lots of boys

I'm not sure I have anything worthwhile to share, but I wanted to give this a try. I haven't actively blogged since we finished building our new home, a little over a year ago.  

 

It was a huge project for our family and one I really enjoyed. Once we were done, I stopped because I didn't have any else interesting to say. However, I've been so inspired by reading the blogs of countless talented souls lately, that I thought I'd give this another shot. I'm a "work-at-home" mom, if such a thing exists, with one husband, two active boys, and currently, three male dogs all living under the a fore mentioned roof. They have me surrounded.

This is our oldest son, just before he lost his second upper tooth. He lost the first several years earlier, falling off a booster seat when we were out to eat. We never asked for a booster again. 

 

And this is our baby. He will start kindergarten in eight months. I'm continually shocked and saddened by this. 

 

Our family has one dog, one dog that I consider mine, that is. Rocky is an eight year old boxer that I love with all my heart. He is the best dog ever! 

 

The other two numskulls are my husband's hunting dogs. Jack is a German Shorthair Pointer  

 

and Doc is an English Pointer. (He does not have raw hamburger in his mouth. It is a gross looking dog toy.) Either dog taken in isolation would be wonderful. They all have sweet dispositions and are great hunters, but three dogs is two too many. No one seems to listen to me when I say this...  

 

So, begins my little experiment. I'm not so sure I have anything worth posting, but I'm going to give it a try... If you've read this, thanks for your attention!