When Life Gives You Lemons...Make Lemon Bars!

...or when Dad sees Mom's Southern Living cover and gets a craving for Lemon Bars, make them then too. Hope is quite the little chef. Anyone know where I can get a miniature apron? I need one! Here she is doing her specialty: stirring! Everything looks quite under control, but soon after this shot, lemon filling was all over the kitchen. Part of the fun, eh? After she'd help me squeeze the lemons she decided to just give one of them a taste.

I thought her reaction would be more like this one: (here she's trying mango for the first time- her first taste of fruits ever back in May...oh I miss that warm sunlight. Everything looked happier then, but I promised NOT to complain about winter, right?)

But instead, it was just this: "What's the big deal? Why don't you give me these with my breakfast instead of all those bananas?" And she kept right on chewing on it: rind and all.

Ta Da! The finished product. We had a great time and for the record: they are awesome! If you like lemon bars, try these! This month's S.L do the "Mama's Way". See those two ladies in the top corner: they are mom and daughter cooks. This is totally going to be Hope and me in 20 years!

Still having nightmares

Boy meets girl. Boy woos girl. Boy proposes to girl. Girl says yes. Boy takes girl on fabulous Valentines Day date where the restaurant gives a rose to every lady and the menu is special just for Valentine's Day. Boy and girl marry. Next Valentine's Day, boy barely remembers to celebrate, then next year they get Chinese take out. Boy and girl have baby girl. Boy and girl do nothing on Valentine's Day. Next year, girl's parents intervene and give gift card and offer to keep baby girl while boy and girl go out! Boy shaves his face like this: girl cries. Just like last time he shaved his face like this.

Seriously, can you imagine any worse look for Woody? Maybe if he'd parted his hair right down the middle to go with this....this mustache?!

I actually had a great Valentine's Day! Boy finally took off the mustache and we went to dinner then watched UK beat UT. Children are great fun at holidays. My resolution to enjoy winter brought me to celebrating Valentine's Day (one of winter's holidays, of course) with fun things for Hope and Mom. We baked cookies! Hope is showing you how she stirs. These are not actual action shots as you can imagine that got a little hairy at times. I had managed to find a recipe that did not use eggs which was good as Hope ate lots of the dough. Her job was to press out the cookie hearts and also to stir the icing. Fun times.

We also decorated our Valentine's cards which we made all by ourselves of course!

She's pleased with her work. Good job Hope! Mommy is so proud.

Snow Days

Well, it snowed again. This time, Hope wasn't sick so....I bundled her up, greased her face and put bags on her shoes. Yes, bags. Why didn't I just buy snow boots for her? Mainly because I never found any in her size. I guess her feet are small? Need a closer look at those feet? Don't worry, none of the neighborhood kids saw.

It was so deep, I had to help her walk. Yes, I know, the bags didn't help the walking either.

Cute little Eskimo!

Don't know about you, but in my family snow angels are a tradition. Here's Hope making her very first.

Nothing is sweeter than this tiny thing!

GRADD was on a 2 hour delay so Dad could play, too. I guess in his family miniature snow people are a tradition.

And true to why I married him, Woody makes all things more fun. Here he's making our snow day more fun. We rigged up a little sled! By the end of play time, we'd really gotten this down and it was a blast.

This is not why I married him, but Woody has a bad habit of teasing small children. He's always hiding their toys somewhere on them where they just can't reach. It makes me sad.

I love all things miniature (except dogs, I like big dogs). I love all the travel sized toiletries at Walmart. I love those perfectly replicated furniture things that go in doll houses, I love fun sized candy bars and I especially love baby/toddler things that are miniature. It was that love and a quest for a bag that Hope and I could use to carry the essentials without lugging around the whole diaper bag that caused me to purchase this miniature back pack. It is absolutely too much. Hope...she's not so sure about it yet.

Doesn't she look ready for school? Hopefully by the time we're ready for school, I'll have those fingers permanently out of her mouth!

See, it's too cute. Has her name and everything!

And, a totally unflattering picture of both of us! But, it's the only picture where we look anything alike! See those crazy eyes? When we both make crazy eye faces you can see Woody's right. She has his eye sockets and my eye balls. Terrible picture of us both, but I'll treasure it always!

Lunch with Dad: Woody is able to come home most days for lunch which Hope looks forward to. Normally, she's a little beggar, but not when she's sick. When she's sick we can barely get her to eat. Here she is feeding Dad some chips. Yes, chips: the real kind, not the baked kind, not even pretzels. See, it's not THAT bad being married to a dietitian! Unfortunately Hope also got her first taste of Dr. Pepper this day. Dad was sure she wouldn't like it. She did. Now, I would have a baby on steroids AND her first taste of caffeine! Along the food note: Hope and I made Dad some 'Morning Glory Muffins'. We were trying to out-do Kohler's which I'm sure we would have had I not totally forgotten to add the raisins. (Woody's favorite part.) I was too preoccupied with trying to keep Hope from falling off the stool. She loves cooking. I let her stir. Nothing is sweeter than her telling Dad "stir" when he asks her if she helped make the food. Turns out, the little chick likes muffins! Hooray! This is the day she wouldn't eat anything.

And, for the winter "Where's the fun?" post: We made our first tunnel/fort. She really enjoyed it.