Gelatinous mass of corn

Here is a picture of Leigh chopping the polenta from last night into slices to fry for dinner tonight. MMMMM. We had fried polenta with ham slices. Leigh also made two different syrups, an apple one and a brown sugar one. Dinner was great.



Leigh has been complaining at me that I need to make a post to this blog since I am the one that originally set it up and now she is the one that has to maintain it. I suppose that I understand her point, to bad I am a bum.

Liam has been playing around with an art program called Gimp. Making some cool images with light blurs and other cool effects. He has been learning about Photoshop at school and this is the best freeware option that I know of. Here is an example that he made that is similar to a lunar solar eclipse.

Finally

Lots of laundry and not much else on my to-do list today, finally a day to relax! I also caught up on the blogs I read regularly. I thought I would share a few of my favorite with you:
Foodgawker An excellent place to look for a new recipe, or just some inspiration. Mine for today: kettle corn in my microwave!
Craftzine Directions and inspiration for most any craft you can think of.
One Pretty Thing A nice way to look at a lot of different crafts all at once and a good way to discover new blogs.
Sew Mama Sew A blog from a fabric store, they have great theme posts. This month is a new pillow every day.
Lillyella An etsy finds blog, crafts and shopping! (If you haven't heard of etsy it is a storefront for lots of different handmade craft/art sellers.)
The Crafty Crow A kids crafting blog, I have found lots of fun stuff for my kids and also to do with a class here.
I have a lot more on my blog-roll but these get read often. Hope you like them too :)
(PS All the names are clickable to take you to the homepage of each site.)

A full day

This is how our day began:

Just a small portion of the 130 cases of Girl Scout cookies we hauled and sorted today for delivery by our troop. The ones in this picture are for booth sales at the mall next week.
And this was the end:

Paella for Dad's birthday dinner! There was some naan making in the middle and some lunch at the coffee shop too. All in all a busy but tasty day!

Hockey night

Nooks last home game for Dad's birthday...minus Kyle, but they won!! 5-1 against the UAA Sea-wolves.

We now return to.....

Our regularly scheduled program. I had to take a sick day yesterday, but luckily I wrote myself a note :) I missed my first day helping the Artist-in-residence at Weller too, I was there today though. I am helping wrangle kids while they break up pottery to make two big mosaic mural panels for the commons. Unfortunately my tummy is much better, but my back is killing me from bending over 8000000000 times today! Oh well, I can stretch it out tomorrow....I wanted to share with you what happens when you send your darling husband to the grocery store:

So sweet, I guess I will keep him :)

Japanese dinner

Tonight for dinner I made home made udon noodles, based on this recipe. With a good broth including dashi, chicken stock, soy and miso. Also some broiled chicken marinated in this. It was very good and everybody slurped it up! I think their favorite part was stomping the noodles though :)

Snow was an understatement

Kyle had to plow the driveway about midnight (while getting Lily out of the ditch) but there was another 8 inches when he went to finish up this morning!

Snow!!

On a date :)

The Phantom

Phantom

A cape needing final fitting and buttons tomorrow for Liam's masquerade social. The color is a deep red instead of the orange you see here, I blame the lighting as it is dark. More pictures tomorrow on the phantom..........

Awesome

I asked Rose what I should post about today. She said that it was awesome.....no reason, just that it was awesome.
When I asked her about a picture for an awesome day, she picked this one from camping last summer:

She says: "Hack, cough, it sure is smoky around this camp fire! You better stay away!"

Brrrrr

This pretty much sums up today:

Gloriously sunny, really cold.

How to

How to re-toast meringue:

(Leftover baked Alaska for dessert, just be careful of the wax paper!)

How to dance the flamenco:

We had a quiet Valentines, a few cards and goodies. The kiddos went to school, and Kyle and I went to lunch at Zachs....just side-to-side (as AR says, as in: so-so??) but still, they did the dishes! But I made a really great dinner: the Portuguese chicken from the new Bon Appetit, fresh pasta and bread. It was madly good, I recommend it (with one or two changes...mostly skinning the chicken pieces. Braised chicken skin/fat?? Gross!) Such fun for me to cook something new that I am really interested in. Liam's birthday usually gives me lots of opportunity for this but this year was more about the long cooking things he loves. Except the baked Alaska, that was great fun :)

soft warm buns

The last of the birthday treats requested by Liam-the-teenager:


My favorite recipe for cinnamon rolls, fresh and warm from the oven with lots of vanilla frosting!

13!

old boy

Just some party highlights.....

Spaghetti dinner, and then some present time:


On to dessert!! Very good, this one is going on the make again list :)

Behind.......

Sigh, I forgot yesterday.....so and am and pm post today! Liam is having two parties this year, one for family tonight and a couple of friends over for a trip to the movies on Saturday. Tonight will be a spaghetti dinner and baked alaska for dessert! I have never made one of those before so this will be an experiment. Saturday we will be having grilled burgers and he says a dessert of candies at the movies, with cinnamon rolls the next morning for breakfast. That boy is going to need to learn to cook so he can eat up to his standards when he moves out!

Wordless Wednesday

Breakfast for dinner

Kyle is working nights and Rose had Girl Scouts tonight so we needed a quick dinner. That doesn't mean it won't be a good one though! Really great sausage from Homegrown Market made into gravy, farm fresh eggs, homemade biscuits and fruit that isn't oranges/naners/apples! Yum!!

crafty swapping

I received my crafty swap around from facebook! The lovely scarf and flower clipie was made by my wonderful sister-in-law, Amy, Thank you!! I had lots of fun getting it arranged today before heading out to the store for some birthday shopping.

I wear a scarf all the time and this one is soft and warm AND my favorite color *love*
Now I just have to figure out what I want to send to all the people on my list........

New shoes

Today I had to buy new gym shoes for Rose, he old ones were pinching the back of her ankle.

Very nice new silver and hot pink ones were found after perusing several stores.....please note the size. Yes, that is a WOMENS size 8! This girl might be tall ;)

Chinese New Year

We celebrated Chinese new year with a feast of Asian dishes!

Lo mein salad, shrimp in spicy sauce, general tso chicken, stir fried veggies, and some nibbles: dumplings and barbecued pork and to top it all off tangerines and egg tarts!

And this is what happens when the kids take pictures for you, photo courtesy Abbie Rose:

Science Fair 2.0

We went to the school yesterday to view the science fair, Rose got a red 2nd place ribbon!

She did indeed do experiments on River....and Coco and Allie (Zara's dogs). Rose designed a test for the dogs using plastic cups and dog treats. She lined up 5 cups upside down, placed a treat under the center cup, then timed how long each dog to find the treats. We also looked up online and consulted with Zara (who is a licensed vet tech) Rose concluded that dogs can only remember for 15 seconds and our dog's brain is about the size of 1/2 a stick of butter. She worked really hard and did a great job!

I had to post 2 pics of the kids' current game, they are assassins. Evidently you must have a cape and lots of gear...

Fail

Day 3 and already I forgot to post! An early morning one now and I will post about the science fair with Rose later this evening......

A blast from the past for you, they are just a little bigger now!!

Mad scientist Rose

Can dogs remember things?

Rose is entering the science fair this year! She had lots of fun finding out how dogs brains work and doing experiments on doggies. I will post a better picture of her finished project when we go to the school to see it. In the meantime I want you to know, Rose wanted me to 'blog this' and be sure I said she was a mad scientist! :)

A bowl of nostalgia

I have set myself a challenge, I will post SOMETHING every day for the next two months. We have a lot of celebrating coming up and I feel like this gets pushed to the side all the time so, we will see how well I do!

Today I want to tell you about dinner, I made chicken noodle soup using my Gram's recipe for noodles.

I don't really like them, they are too thick and gummy for my taste, but I sure like to make them. I remember watching my Gramma roll them out on the kitchen counter to put in the soup for my Dad. Liam and Kyle both love them too....maybe it is a guy thing??
Unfortunately the soup doesn't photograph well so I will give you a bowl of River instead:

I made this for her the other day, I think she looks so cute rolled up in it!