Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Sunday was our first "big" snow....only 3 or 4 inches, but still enough to give me the Christmas bug even more! It was the perfect snow, coating the trees and bushes, heavy enough to make a good snow ball, a beautiful blanket that kept people snuggled up at home. The kids were chomping at the bit to go outside....then we realized that hmmm, J had grown since last year! Corey now wears J's stuff and Riley Corey's, but there was no one to pass down last years' snow pants and boots to the 1st born! (yep, that's one more nomination for Mother of the Year for me!!!!) Not to worry poor child, this won't be the last snow and by February you'll be whining about when it will all be gone!

The dogs love it when it snows~well...Sawyer, our Golden, loves it when it snows...Max, our Rot mutt, is more annoyed by the fact that 10 year old Sawyer turns into a spastic puppy when the white stuff appears!

You might remember from my last post that we've been on a bread making kick. I've gone through 4 things of rapid rise yeast in the last month! Jamie is really getting into it~ the other day I made him make some Honey Wheat Bread as his math. We doubled the batch and I only gave him 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup measuring cups (mean mom!) so then he had to figure out that if the recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of wheat flour, what would it be doubled and then how many times would we fill the 1/4 cup. He did great and actually caught me once! (don't blame me...I went to a public school...snicker...snicker!)

These turned out to be crazy big loaves. Next time when we double the batch, I'm going to do 3 loaves or else free form some rolls. There is nothing like hot bread and fresh soup on a cold day! I've discovered that if I put it in soup, the boys will pretty much eat anything: I made a minestrone soup the other day and all three of them ate 2 bowls full! Little did they know that they were eating a bag of spinach and a zucchini...ok, so maybe I'll make up for "the wrong sized snow boots" with "the I make my kids eat a ton of veggies)

Oh, I have gotten a few leads on things to do for community service....I'll let you know when I get some details nailed down, but here are a couple of suggestions if you're interested:

-making and delivering Christmas Cards to a nursing home

-making cookies for the troops

-adopting a solider

-bringing snacks and love to our local airport when troops have a lay over

-do a card drive or something to send to our troops

-anything that will get the boys' focus off the "Toys For Us" flyer!

(seems to be a lot of troop centered ideas, but my boys are obsessed with the armed forces so I think that they will really connect with this one!)