Snowed In

I have cabin fever.   Days of snow, combined with my first ever Ice Storm.  Interesting stuff.   I nervously watched a tree across the street full of snow and ice hang in the power lines most of the day, just waiting for it to collapse.  Thankfully it has held so far.  There are several large limbs off of other trees in my yard and the neighbors.

Snow in Seattle is different than anywhere else I've lived.  I went out to shovel the drive today.  I got 10 feet in 25 minutes of hard work.  My driveway in only one car wide! The top layer was a mix of the snow that was still falling, and the ice storm we had for an hour or two this morning.  It was a powdery ice.  The middle layer was heavy wet snow/slush.  The bottom inch was pure ice.  Forget shoveling, I was chipping the drive today.
I have learned a few things with this storm.

•    I do not have enough honey on hand.  My husband has been sick for over a week and has been drinking tea and honey consistently.  I also use honey in my bread recipes and needed to bake a few loaves this week.  We are down to scraping the honey bear.
•   When expecting snow, park at the very beginning of your drive way, just off the street.  If you really want to try to go out against all warnings of extremely dangerous conditions, you'll have less driveway to shovel.  Considering how many times this week I've shoveled our long drive way, you would think this would have occured to me earlier than today.

For those of you who need some help to understand why Seattle can indeed shut down in a few inches of snow, this man writes it all so well. 

Snow in Seattle
There are hills in Seattle that I have had a very hard time climbing when they are covering in leaves, let alone ice.  

Also, if you're in the mood for some humor.  I think these are a few of my favorite Seattle winter storm videos.  I could be entertained for hours if I lived on any of these hills.  

2 inches of Snow - The streets really do turn into a skating rink.

Car Pinball -  This would constitute as a very bad day in my book

Vehicle Sledding -This hill is famous for being shut down in the winter.  It is then quickly covered with sleds, skis and boards.  The video here is taken from the winter storm two years ago.  My husband was working in Seattle when it hit.  He left work around 2 in the afternoon and didnt' get home till 7.  Some friends that lived in our area took over 9 hours to traverse from Seattle to Lynnwood (11 miles).  

I'm hoping that rain will come in tomorrow and clear out our frozen tundra.  Tonight I have three kids with fevers, and I am not sure I'm mentally stable enough to take care of 4 sickies after being snows in since Sunday!   

Lovely Birthday Flowers and Cake

I am one lucky girl.  For my birthday my husband got me a Silhouette Craft cutter, sent this beautiful bouquet of flowers to me during the day, and then took me out to Sushi for dinner.

After dinner we came home to eat my Chocolate Cake with Caramel Frosting that I had made earlier in the day using my brand new Cookie Paddles that my wonderful Mother-in-Law sent me.  I have heard many wonderful things about the uses of these paddles, and I am so very happy to have my very own!

Caramel Frosting

2/3 cup Butter
1 cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/3 Cup Milk  (though any cream will make this even better)
4+ Cups Powdered Sugar

Melt butter over medium-low heat.  Once melted stir in Brown Sugar until well combined and continue to cook for 2 minutes.  Add Milk and bring to boil.  This may happen very quickly so watch closely!   Turn off heat immediately and let this mixture cool.  Once cool, use a hand mixer or whisk to slowly add powdered sugar until you have a nice thick frosting consistency.   If you start to add the Powdered Sugar before your butter mixture is completely cool, be careful you do not add too much sugar.

**As you can see in my picture, I wasn't patient enough and added a bit too much powdered sugar making my frosting very hard to spread on my cake.   It tastes delicious either way, but if you're going for a beautiful even frosting, wait for the butter mixture to come to room temperature, and add the powdered sugar slowly.  I had a few little hands helping to pour in the sugar as fast as they could...

The next time I make this cake, which has been requested by the older two for their birthday, I may try to sprinkle a bit of high quality sea salt over the top.  It might not be kid friendly, but I'm betting it would taste Delicious!

Fireworks extravaganza

Our family was able to enjoy a wonderful weekend! We took the kids out to an Indian Buffet for lunch on Saturday and as soon as they were full we hopped into the car and drove north to the Tulalip Indian Reservation to buy Fireworks! Despite the fact that its only 10-15 miles north, of course it takes over half an hour to drive to. Apparently every other family had also procrastinated buying their fireworks until the last day, because there were entire lanes filtering off the interstate at our exit, and we drove in the same line of traffic all the way to the makeshift parking lots behind the casino. Once we parked in the field, Kolton took the older three kids over to buy fireworks. Now, if you are like me, you are niavely expecting that there will be a large firework tent set up, maybe 2 or 3 since everyone told you to make the drive North. Instead, there is an entire city of different people who have bought fireworks wholesale and now have their own table/shack/area to resell these fireworks to the public. I'm sure many people paid whatever the seller was asking, but not my Dear Darling. He haggled and got a good price and had a bunch of things thrown into the deal. Bottle Rockets and Firecrackers were heard intermittently throughout the entire weekend from our home! Sometimes with children's knowledge off the porch, on the patio, in a sand volcano the kids had erected. Other times, it came from behind the corner of the house, or out the garage door when no one was expecting it. Abigail cried quite a few tears and yelled 'noisy' at her father many times.
We had invited a family friend over to set off some fireworks while we were at church, which was great fun when they got here around 8:30. We did some sparklers and some spinning flowers on the driveway and quite a few bottle rockets as we waited for it to get darker. Another friend called and told us they had a nice flat cult-e-sac to set off fireworks with another family. While our home is the perfect setting to see the entire horizon lit up with everyones fireworks, we lack flat area, so we packed up the 8 kids into the 2 vans and headed over. Everyone had such a great time blowing up the fireworks for a good hour, and watching the neighbors doing the same. When we had blown up the majority of our fireworks, we headed to our friends backyard where they had just built out a new brick patio! Comfy chairs, a warm fire which had settled down to mostly coals, and a large trampoline entertained everyone for another good hour, while we roasted marshmallows for smores and chatted through the noise of the explosions. I've never been to war, but that is how I'd imagine it would sound. Constant explosions.
Thankfully Kolton had the good sense to save a few fireworks for when we got back home, so back into the car we loaded! Abigail has such a great time running around with all the other kids, 15 in total, and watching the pretty colors she happily was carried up to her bed from the car and fell asleep on her comfy pillow. She went from scared of every explosion to numb to the noise in swift evening! The big kids settled down on the trampoline with pillows and blankets to watch the rest of the fireworks that we had and then watch the horizon for another hour. Porter had the good sense at 11:30 that it was past his bedtime and he went to his room. The little girls fell asleep outside and needed to be carried to their beds. The fireworks started to dwindle a bit around that point in the evening but had a resurgence at midnight as many people sent off their last fireworks for a Finale. It was a great time to sit with Kolton and watch them. Of course, Kolton wasn't sitting for most of the time since I kept complaining that the ash from the firecrackers and bottle rockets kept getting on my blanket. It was such a great night filled with friendship, laughter, family, love and a lot of black powder. I went to sleep soon after midnight watching out my bedroom windows as the fireworks still lit up the sky.

Organizing Benefits

We took a few days off last week once the workshops were over. It was a much needed break so everyone, including me, could decompress. This morning, despite both the little girls are fevering and not feeling well in general, we're starting little by little back into a home routine. Can I just say, I LOVE being home with the kids and not needing to go anywhere?

As you can see, all of the kids like their book holders. Their books are all at the table so we can switch between subjects quickly without loosing a child's attention, and they can also be used as dividers for those children who really just wish they were an only child.

Cordinated?

As many people have pointed out to me, we are behind on our family portraits. Even my own walls are adorned with pictures from 2 years ago. But as every mother knows, there is a large stress that comes with picture day! What in the world are you going to dress everyone in? I have read many articles that suggest avoiding a loud print as it will forever scream from the wall in its loud voice. The same writings also state that polka dots and stripes should never be considered for a family group picture for the same reasons.
Armed with that knowledge, these are the clothes that I've put together for family pictures. All three little girls have princess seaming on their tops. The older two girls shirts are identical prints in different colors, where the baby is wearing a solid color dress cut in the same shape. Kolton and I would both be repeating a child's color but in a darker, muted hue. My shirt also mirrors the princess seaming while being a V neck which is said to be the most flattering neckline for pictures. Then we come to our precious little boy. I had originally gone looking for a green polo so he could be in the same style shirt as dad. The shirt in the picture is all I could find at the first two stores. Do you think he needs a different shirt?

Look!

Abby found the toys that turn around the top of her swing today! She was well entertained while I prepped this soup for dinners.

Family Reunion

The quiet that has seemed so odd for the past week has now been broke. Grammy and Papa brought the kiddo's back home tonight. One by one they ran in the door. Khali was the first in and couldn't wait to see Abby. She delivered a kiss and a giggle before running up to see her room. Porter was through the front door next. He cooed at his little sister and had to be told it was ok if he wanted to kiss her. He's such a sweetie, he whispered to her since she was asleep. Isabella was the last through the door, demanding to see the baby. She was very excited to see that now we are both moms. She has a baby doll (from Christmas) and I now have a baby Abby.
Grammy and Papa stayed for dinner and a short visit before heading back out to brave the winter weather.
As happy as it made me to see each of my children, and have them back home; I couldn't help but to let out a big ole sigh once we had the kiddo's in bed. The few hours of all 6 of our family home was a nice little insight to how life will be for a while. Noisy, Chaotic, Stressful but full of fun I'm sure. How all of this would work without such a wonderful husband and father, I haven't a clue! Thank you darling. :)