Another week gone by.....

As I mentioned in my last post, after much deliberation, I've decided to pull the boys out of the e-school and go back to eclectic homeschooling/unschooling.  YAY!!!!!!!  Sean says he still wants to go to high school---which is fine with me, he's got a year and a half before that happens but we can do some fun learning again instead of regimented learning to pass proficiency tests!!!  The funny thing is, he came downstairs today as I was cooking breakfast and said to me that he had been looking up stuff about spiders because he saw one in his room.  He kept reading more and more and going to science pages and learning about all sorts of spiders and now he wanted to study spiders!  I was so happy, already he's figuring out how to learn in a relaxed, fun manner--now that the pressure is off, he wants to learn again.  That's awesome!

It's been real snowy that last few days---we had a snow day on Friday and we've gotten at good 18 to 24 inches of new stuff in the last 2 days.  Jeremy, Jaret and I had the task of shoveling the driveway, it was fun!  I actually like shoveling--something about working so hard outside, in the cold but I am warm from exertion, and the payoff is so obvious!  Click on the pictures for a larger version, if you want to see it better!

I'm looking like a crazy woman in the first picture, my hat had fallen off and the wind was blowing my hat head hair all over!                                               

     Jaret and I after a job well done!  It took us 2 hours to get the whole driveway and the path up to the house---that's a lot of snow!  Our snow hills are at least 3-4 feet tall!

 

Here is the path that Jeremy shoveled up to the house, there was a good 15 inches of snow on the hill and the deck!

You can barely see our snow hills in the background along the driveway.

After, Sean felt compelled to flip and dive into the snow.

 

 

How fun, I wish I could do that without killing my back or breaking a leg, LOL!

I've been cooking up a storm since we've been snowed in!  Friday I decided to make Shredded beef sandwiches with Au Jus.  We didn't have any rolls and since I had to bake bread anyway, I decided to make rolls as well.  I used a recipe for french rolls---it was the perfect bread for these sandwiches!

Before:

And after:

I had pictures of the total finished meal but they disappeared or were accidentally deleted.  I'll assure you it was beautiful and delicious!

Here is what I was up to today!

What is it, you ask???  I found this recipe on Bakerella's site

Chocolate chip cookie dough brownies

Here they are cooked--now to cool so I can frost them with Chocolate Ganache

 YUM

Is it chocolate heaven or chocolate hell??

I made homemade pizza for dinner---A pepperoni and sausage, a chicken alfredo with sausage and a pepperoni calzone for Jaret:

 It's been snowing for days.  After we were done with the driveway, we figured the major snow was done.  Our area was taken off the storm warning so we figured a few flakes here and there but now big deal.  Were we wrong!

Big fat flakes coming down

Tama is starting to blend in!

Our grill snow gauge is getting over full!

The planter is over full, LOL!

This snow drift is on a hill and it's 2 feet taller than our deck!

This is the view out my living room window, beautiful!

Our pine is heavily flocked!

Time for sleep, time to gather energy for shoveling tomorrow!

We've got a nice fire going in the woodburner:

We've got some yummy brownies:

Some hot chocolate (not this but nearly as good!)

And we've got each other!

Life is good!

Winter is here, again....

In the past, before taking my kids out of school to homeschool, I have watched the crawl early mornings to see if school would be closed due to the horrific winter weather outside. Time and time again our wonderful school district (NOT) has kept them open, even when every single district around us was closing left and right. This year, we actually had two--TWO! cold days last week (when they have stayed open in the past for the same type of temps) and tomorrow (or really, today) they are closed again due to the blizzard going on outside. I guess they really couldn't be foolish enough to stay open, we'll be lucky to get the service truck out of the drive tomorrow so DH can get to work, let alone the tons of school buses that go up and down our street all day.

We are getting TONS of snow right now! My 10 yo and I went out around 4pm to shovel and there was probably a good 6-8 inches on the ground. My wonderful neighbor came over with his snowblower and did the majority of our long drive for us--so I reciprocated and baked him a batch of chocolate chip cookies! Here is the snow level on our table in the backyard (we use this to gauge our snowfall)at 4 pm. Click on pictures for a larger view.


Here is our table now, at midnight:


We've gotten a foot at least with up to 8-10 more inches possible by morning! Pretty cool, huh? I love snow!

Here is the snow fall as of 10 am this morning! Now the drift against the fence is due to the neighbors snow blower, the rest of the huge drifts are all real!
With the blizzard-like winds, there is major drifting--some areas of the backyard are 3-4 feet, some 3 inches. The dogs are loving it, although when they first ran outside, the snow right outside the door is an almost 3 foot drift! They jumped up and found an area that was less deep---but hopped around the yard in the drifts, LOL!









As you can see, the dogs are lovin' it!



Here are pics of our drive and the street. It's really hard to get a sense of how deep it is--of course, it's nothing like what they have up in Oswego, NY but it's our worst storm since 1993 they are saying. I'm thinking it's almost as bad as the storm of '78, I was twelve and we got HAMMERED with a major blizzard. Too bad it's so cold out, the kids would love to be playing in the snow!


My poor baby is sick still. This started yesterday with a bad tummy and everything coming out from both ends. We kept him hydrated and loaded with pedialyte. Today he woke up all flush, now he has a temp and a high one at that! So, I've been keeping him dosed with motrin and continue to keep him fed with motrin and water and some of my homemade chicken and rice soup and more pedialyte, of course. I'm hoping this will go through him by tomorrow because the roads are gonna be worse than today and the doctor suggested that we not take him out since it will be so cold. If he still has a fever tomorrow, I'm gonna assume it's an infection and he'll have to be seen by someone for a possibly antibiotic. Unless it is a virus, of course. I'm just hoping for his sake, he's better---poor thing!

Well, the baby was up all night, I think he finally fell asleep around 5, although DH was up with him at 6:30, changing him and giving him a pedialyte bottle before he had to leave for work (poor guy, heating and cooling guys have to be out in all weather!). It's 11:30 and the baby is still sleeping, I'm just gonna let him sleep, hopefully he'll feel better when he wakes. Of course, with him up all night, I got nothing done with my WIP. I'm gonna go up and make hot chocolate with marshmallows for the boys, throw some laundry in the washer, mix up a couple of loaves of bread and try to get a little sewing done on my WIP before he wakes up. But, as we all know, the best laid plans..........

It's not like I'm going anywhere, LOL!