Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Day that Ruined a Visit from Grandparents

My parents were set to come and visit us for the weekend. I had great food planned, a few good western movies to watch (my Dad's favorite), the kids had basketball games to play, and we had grand thoughts of playing Rook all day and night......until.......Southwest felt it needed to cancel all their flights into Philly. All flights were canceled Friday and the snow didn't start coming until 9 pm. LAME! Way to be overly cautious and mess up our great weekend plans. When the snow finally DID come, it came fast and furious. It piled everywhere and looked beautiful!
Lilly hated her sled rides.

But loved to be held by Dad.

We found this cool windblown overhang on the front of our house. The kids stood under it while Jim went to knock it down.
I put the camera on picture and not video, so I missed the whole thing. But here is the after shot. Not the same, I know.

My kids love the snow!

But not as much as they love their grandparents.......

But playing in the snow is an OK second.

Layered Lemon Cake with Lemon Flavored Buttercream Frosting

I had a friend pay me a great compliment the other day. She said she would love to come and cook with me and try and learn something. I was completely flattered, although I am not a REAL chef, or a master of anything. I can follow any recipe and love to search the web for delicious recipes, but I don't invent things on my own. It is kind of like if I did awesome paint by number pictures, you couldn't really say I was a great artist. Anyway, the compliment was paid and it made my day and so we went to planning and chose two delicious cakes to make. One was a maple, apple, carrot cake with maple flavored frosting. The ingredients made you think it was meant to be a "healthy" dessert. But it didn't come out muffin like or anything. It was like a moist spice cake with a delectable maple cream cheese topping. I'd post a picture, but none of the pictures I took would do it justice. So just let your mouth water and think moist, cream cheese with a hint of real maple flavor. I do have pictures of the layered lemon cake. We made a homemade white cake that was thick and creamy. The batter tasted better than anything from a box. I always make sure I taste the batter of everything I make.

Amanda made the lemon curd filling. We both thought the name lacked in description. This filling was so lemony, it was delicious. There was freshly squeezed lemon juice and grated zest with enough sugar to thicken the glaze.

The lemon filling seemed to be a little thin so we poked holes in the cake so the lemon flavor soaked into the whole cake. Then we frosted it with twice as much buttercream frosting as it suggested. As we frosted, the lemon filling mixed in with the frosting so you could see little specks of yellow on top. It looked delicious.......

And it was delicious......just ask me, I know.





Strawberry

We thought this strawberry was super cool.We thought this little Strawberry eater was pretty cute.



Skipping School and Going to the Farm Show

My friend called and asked if we wanted to skip school and go to the farm show in the great capital of Pennsyvania. We were all up for this educational field trip. This cow's name is Val.

Arielle spent forever watching the baby chicks peck out of their eggs.

We got to eat all sorts of fried dairy food......mmmmm, so delicious.

Lilly wasn't afraid of the animals.

We saw the sheep just after they got sheared.

Lilly enjoyed the chocolate milkshake the best....as you can see by the brown mess on her shirt.

These were 4 of the little farm girls.

Here is Shannon and I self portraiting with Kiley and Jake poking their heads in. We had a great time driving, chatting, seeing the animals and of course eating the food. Good Times!








Happy Birthday Lilly!

For Lilly's birthday we gave her a three tiered cake expecting her to tear into it with all the vigor of a one year old. The kids even helped show her how to do it.
However, she wanted to do it her way, one dainty finger at a time.

Later, the kids had a little fun with the leftovers.

Nothing like getting cake in your face.