Baby, it's cold outside...

We got snowed out of church today, so we are having a quiet day around the house. Lots of couch fort building, bread baking, sock knitting (see previous entry... woo hoo!), napping, reading and other unexpected-day-off-fun!

It poured all night long and then started snowing early in the morning, then warmed up again, so we have a bog in the backyard right now. The picture isn't necessarily that informative, but suffice it to say that all of the dark patches are really, really, really soggy ground. Practically a pond, in fact.

The bread I'm baking is called granola bread from the King Arthur Whole Grain cookbook, and if it's any good, I'll post the recipe. I made a different granola bread a couple of weeks ago, made from a flawed recipe in The Soup and Bread Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon (yes, that's really the author's name...). The recipe had WILDLY too much liquid for the amount of dry ingredients, so I had to add a lot more flour to make a viable dough, but it was very tasty. This is a much leaner dough (the other was enriched with butter, eggs, whole milk, etc.) and the I worry that the recipe might go too far in the other direction because the dough seems a bit dry, and is rising really S-L-O-W-L-Y but I'm hoping for the best!

In the meantime, I'll share my new favorite granola recipe, from the same King Arthur cookbook:

Maple Granola

In a large bowl, mix together:

7 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (I subbed a couple of couple of cups of rolled wheat and barley for some of the oats this last time, and it was good)

1 cup wheat germ

1 cup sunflower seeds

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

1 cup chopped almonds

1 cup coconut

salt

In a smaller bowl, whisk

1 cup real maple syrup

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

Pour over dry mixture and mix thoroughly (your hands are the best bet here)

Pour onto two rimmed cookie sheets and bake in a 250 degree oven for two hours, stirring twice.

Let cool thoroughly, then mix in up to 3 cups of dried fruit (I've used raisins, cherries, craisins and apricots). Store in an airtight container or freeze.

Easy, easy, easy, and it's a breakfast cereal that I KNOW is wholesome. Oh, this last time I made it, I had a serving or two of grapenuts left and I tossed that into the cooled mix, just for another crunchy element.

Well, I was going to post a photo of the Daddyman napping, but the computer downloading really slowly, so I'll have mercy! Later!

My first socks!

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Originally uploaded by BethK3

Details on ravelry...

Here's Little Miss' new birthday "leo-tired" from Grampy:

Gratuitous baby shot:

Miss G's school has a big Valentine's Party each year, where they do a little concert for parents:



The sweater she is wearing is mine. The details will soon be on ravelry. I stupidly stayed up until 3am the night before to finish it. Everything except the sleeves have been done for months, and I was just dragging my feet. Monday night I finally sat down to do it, and realized that if I got it done that night, she could wear it to Pre-K discovery day at TCS and her Valentine's party the next morning. Seven hours later I stumbled into bed...




Miss G (and a small helper, as you can see in the corner) having a tea party with water. Lots of pouring and re-pouring, hence the tray and tea towel to contain it all!

The last couple of posts have been pretty daughter-intensive. We'll try to get some good photo ops for the boys soon!

Playhouse

The TCS annual fundraising auction was on Saturday night, and we got this in the silent auction:




It was sitting in the hallway at school for about a week to advertise the auction, and Miss G was completely ga-ga over it... every time we went down the hallway, she would open it and sit in it and open all the little drawers, etc. She had no idea that getting it was even an option, so we had great fun surprising her on Monday. The surprise came a little earlier than expected, while it was still in the garage, because it is HEAVY and Daddyman had to go rent an appliance dolly to get it up the stairs to her room.


I really have to restrain myself from "suggesting" that she only put the pretty, girly, matchy-matchy stuffed animals and dolls in there and let her play with it how she wants!


In other news, we had a big snow storm last night and so had a snow day today. Very nice to just snuggle in for the day in pjs with laundry, house cleaning, naps, movies, toys, etc. But BOY was I ready for Daddy to get home tonight! Even with a little bit of time for Big Guy and Miss G to play out in the snow, they were really getting on each others' (and my) nerves by the end of the day!



Finally, 101 in 1001 has not been forgotten! I have made progress on 11, 12, 14, 17, 27, 32, and I checked 16 and 60 off the list. Yippee!

I have a plan for 19, which is to do with chores and responsibility for the bigger kids. There is a fun looking site called chore wars, where you assign experience point values for a fantasy game to household chores. I'm hoping it will catch their imaginations!

Oh, and I've added:

73. Visit Tracy!
74. Start planning my Primary lesson each week BEFORE Saturday
75. Follow along with the adult Sunday School readings for the year

Wax Museum

An annual fourth grade project at TCS is called the Wax Museum, where the students research and create personas for themselves of famous explorers (T was Coronado) and an audience (parents, other students, etc.) come and hear the exhibits "come to life". A good time was had by all.

101 in 1001

Inspired by the ravelry group of the same name, I have decided to take myself in hand and think about what I want to be accomplishing, now and in the future. In a particularly (pms-inspired) blue mood the other day I told David that I wasn't excelling at anything besides sitting on my behind, watching too much TV and eating too much junk. While this is obviously an exaggeration, it's not as much of one as I could wish, so I've sat down and tried to figure out some goals, tasks and aspirations for the next couple of years. If the 1001 days begins today, I think my ending date is October 28, 2010.

So here we go!
EDITED
It's harder than I thought to come up with 101 things! More to come! Perhaps most central to the success of this project, however, is #33: review this at least once a week!

"Up, up, up" and away!

Words, words, words! Finally Little Mister has decided to use some language! He's had the occasional sounds that resemble "hi", "Daddy" and "uh 0h", but he has finally, undeniably added a word to his repertoire! The other morning in the crib he looked at me and said "UP" and it pretty much hasn't stopped saying it since, since he's having his first example of the power of language ("hey, I say this, and people do what I want! Cool!").


And in other news, Miss G has ceased to be a three year old girl! The big day was Sunday, and since it ended up being her first real day in Primary, it was doubly exciting since they sing to the birthday kids. We had a family birthday party that night, then a daytime "pj party" with a couple of friends Monday afternoon.

Ah, a moment of tenderness as big brother reads little sis' birthday card to her!





Here are Miss G's new pjs for her pajama party! Grampy, these are part of your birthday gift! The new "leo-tired" as she calls it, will be photographed at gymnastics tomorrow! The next post will be more Big Guy-centric... we've got pictures of the 4th grade wax museum and the lower school art show to post, but since our high speed internet is out of commision, it takes FOREVER to download photos right now!