Snow in February

I do not naturally take pictures very often...leaving you with wordy posts to read.  I am making up for it with this post- enjoy!

Tip: If you click on the image, you can see it larger.

At the beginning of the month, Daniel came home to an added "decoration" to the wall.  I had fun adding a new note each day (though not always keeping up with it as I had hoped) to my Valentine to add to the excitement and anticipation of the coming holiday.

I received my inspiration from The Ruche Blog.

This past week brought snow!  It made my weekend, and possibly even my winter.  This Vermont raised gal was missing snow.  Believe it or not, but some people do love the snow...me being one of those.  

School let out early on Tuesday for the storm.  We then had three days off from school!

An added blessing to these snow days was that the mister and I both had Wednesday and Thursday off.  We haven't had the same day (not to mention days [plural]) off in months.  We loved the extra time it gave us with each other.

We had agreed early on to celebrate Valentines day on Saturday.  The mister went to work, and I got busy baking and cooking.  For anyone who knows the slightest about me, knows that I love to bake and cook.  This is one way I love to show love!  I made it my personal challenge to make as many things into a heart shape as possible.  

Side Note:  Daniel and I had decided to not use hearts before we were officially dating.  We officially started dating a few days after Valentines day (five years ago) and that is when we exchanged Valentines cards.  I remember so clearly how excited I was to finally be able to use hearts!  That being said, hearts are fun.

I enjoyed the challenge. 

For breakfast, I made what was supposed to be heart shaped Egg in a Basket.  The heart in the toast didn't look too much like a heart afterwards. Oh well.  For dinner we had salad (with heart shaped carrots), and pizza.  My favorite part about the pizza was the heart shaped pepperoni!  For dessert, we had Red Velvet Oreo Truffle Brownie Bars.  All was yummy!  I had so much fun planning this out and doing my best to take advantage of an excuse to make a day over-the-top special for my Valentine.

We chose to keep a tight budget on Valentines "gifts" which ended up being a lot of fun.  We both stayed "within budget" and had a blast doing it.  My man loves cookie dough.  He also loves peanut butter, so it was a done deal when I discovered this recipe.  I made peanut butter cookie dough truffles.  Again, I love to show my love through baking!

He was incredibly selfless in his gift for me.  You see, my husband does not like coffee- the taste, or the smell.  I love coffee!  My sweet mister bought me a french press and coffee!  As one of my friends said when I told her about it, "he's a keeper!".  I couldn't agree more, even though I already knew that.

Our first Valentines Day together as a married couple proved to be a lot of fun.  We enjoyed celebrating each other and the love the Lord has given us for each other.

We were reminded of the most perfect example of love provided to us through Jesus' work on the cross.  We are able to love, because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

So....

from our family, to yours...

we wish you a belated

How did you celebrate Valentines Day?

'Tis the Season...for wonderful traditions

I love the holiday season....Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, etc.  I love the baking, aromas, family time, and most of all traditions.

Thanksgiving:  This was my first Thanksgiving away from my parents and siblings.  While I missed them immensely, I enjoyed celebrating with my husband and his side of the family.  We are only a couple of hours from his parents, so we made a day trip out of it.  We drove north with his sister and enjoyed the time of visiting.  There were twenty-three of us gathered for food and fellowship.  I continue to enjoy getting to know his side of the family.

Friday:  My sweet mister was wonderful and allowed us to start Christmas once Thanksgiving was over.  This is our first Christmas together and so we are enjoying our time creating traditions.

I had been planning Friday to be a relaxing Christmas day.  It wasn't quite as relaxing as we had hoped, but we began some traditions.  After sleeping in, we woke up to make cinnamon roll pancakes [stay tuned for some tweaks on this recipe].  We went back out to finish some black Friday shopping.  We came back to hang some Christmas lights and make my mom's caramel popcorn....of course while listening to Christmas music.  We went out to pick our Christmas tree, and brought it back to decorate.  For our first Christmas together, we have several Christmas ornaments and decorations [thanks to our aunt who gave a Christmas themed bridal shower gift].  

After got things cleaned up from the excitement of Christmas, we made homemade pizza and enjoyed it with some sparkling cider.

We were thankful for two of the same days off this week, which hasn't happened for months!

And so on...  Daniel was back to work on Saturday, and life goes back to normal, with the addition of some extra baking, Christmas aromas filling our home, and a few extra social events.

I do love the added scenery to our living room while having my date with Jesus in the morning.

We are open to ideas of other Christmas traditions.  What does your family look forward to doing each Christmas together?

Soups, Successes, and Cranberry Sauce

Don't you love being able to stay inside on a cold, rainy day?  The temperatures have been dropping lately, and today the rain came.  Thankfully though....I am still inside, under a warm blanket and hot corn pack [thanks, Beth!].  I have already had a cup of tea, and a cup of hot chocolate.  I cannot get warm [doesn't help that our heater seems to be messed up, and therefore is turned off].

This cooler weather has increased our cravings for soup and baking [standing in front of a hot oven is the only think that compares to standing in front of a wood stove].  Maybe one of these days I will do a post solely on soup recipes....hmmm.

#1) Broccoli Cheddar- It claims to be just like Panera's, but [besides knowing we love it] we don't have it enough to be able to give an accurate comparison.  Regardless of whether it is like Panera's or not, it is delish!  I had never used gouda cheese before, but made this my first time.  We liked it a lot, but it is expensive, so I think next time we will try replacing it with a sharp cheddar maybe.
#2) Pumpkin Coffee Cake- We try to set aside at least one day a week that becomes our Saturday.  Because we don't share any days off, we make sure to take a morning where we enjoy sleeping in, having an out-of-the-ordinary tasty breakfast, and relax.  This was the results of one of our Saturdays.  I would make it every day if we wouldn't gain ten pounds each.
#3) Pumpkin Chicken Soup- This was surprisingly yummy.  Neither the mister nor I were too sure about it.  We love pumpkin but had never had it in a savory recipe before.  We were both pleasently surprised.  We added too much red pepper so it was quite spicey, but when we dipped some homemade bread in it, there was no problem.

For Thanksgiving, our plan is to make a day trip north with the mister's sister to our grandparents.  Almost the entire family will be there.  I plan to make homemade cranberry sauce.  This recipe first entered into our family from my aunt.  Since then, my mom makes it every Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We love it so much that she makes extra that stays in the refrigerator to ensure we have leftovers [she told me yesterday that she is making a triple batch this year, haha].  I made it the other night for a Thanksgiving party with some friends of ours and it was agreed upon that this recipe is wonderful [which is saying a lot, considering the mister and I usually do not like cranberry sauce at all].

Okay. Enough talking about it....here is the recipe:

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

1 c whole cranberries

1 fresh orange, pealed

1 3 oz lemon jello

1/2 c sugar

3/4 c boiling water

8 oz crushed pineapple, don't drain

grind orange first then grind cranberries in with it. Set aside. In small bowl combine jello, sugar and water. Stir to dissolve jello and sugar and cool slightly. Add cranberries and oranges and pineapple. Fold together and pour into bowl. Chill

What are your responsible for this Thanksgiving?

Menu Madness: Fall Favorites

The mister and I had a busy week.  I ended up doing a bit of subbing and he was keeping busy working on our vehicles (have I mentioned how thankful I am for his being willing and able to do that sort of stuff?  I am!).  Our house was a wreck, and I was not anticipating being home on Saturday, my regular "catch up" day.  I had planned to do this housework on Thursday but was then called in to sub in the preschool.  This left Friday morning to do our cleaning and baking...before noon.  We got a lot accomplished working together, and our home smelled wonderful.  While the different things were baking, we would work on the next recipe, or clean for a bit.

In those short four hours, we...

Menu Madness

Last week had many successes (I took a few more pictures this week).  I am thankful for a patient husband who is willing to be the guinea pig to my new recipes.  This week has me trying a new ingredient...sweet potatoes.  Growing up, we really didn't ever eat sweet potatoes.  I can count on one hand the times I remember having sweet potatoes and they were always in a delicious, yet extra sugary casserole.  I think this scared me, leading me to believe that they were a very bitter root that need all the help it could get.  I posted on facebook asking for people's favorite recipes using sweet potatoes and got an overwhelmingly positive response.  They were cheaper then potatoes this week at Aldis and it is my understanding that they are by far more nutritious.  I am very eager to experiment.

So hear you have it...this week's menu.

Meal Madness

Don't you just love rainy days?  I know I do.  I had an abundance of dishes to wash and other housework to do, and there is something wonderful about staying indoors when there is a cool drizzle going on outside.

Last week had some adjustments made, so you may see some repeats from last week.

What are your fall favorites?

Planning to make this deliciousness this week, found over at the Budget Savvy Diva blog.

Menu Madness

I am thankful for health...and medication!  This week has had me a bit under the weather.  I mentioned before learning that I was not feeling well due to allergies.  I had been working on that when I woke up Tuesday morning with a scratchy throat.  This progressed into a stuffy nose, dry eyes, and intense pain with the breathing.  As I told my mister, "I used to think a stuffy nose was the worse thing ever, then I thought it was the hardship to get a deep breath (experienced with the allergies), and now both of those seem so small compared to both of those, with pain in the chest whenever you took a breath or exhaled".  Long story short, I was at the doctor's getting tested for tuberculosis (a common thing when working with children), and I mentioned this to the doctor.  Come to find out, my enjoying the gorgeous weather was simply making my allergies exponentially worse.

full freezer

Bo-Berry Biscuits from Somethings Swanky

Blueberry Streusel Pie from art&lemons

My husband and I love blueberries...I mean we love them!  This being said, we were so happy to be able to go to some nearby relatives' home and pick some blueberries.  We figure we picked just shy of four gallons.  We froze the majority of them, but kept some our fresh for enjoyment, and then baked a blueberry streusel pie....together (everything is better when done together).  We also made bo-berry biscuits later on in the week.