Lookin' for something to do at 10:38p.m. on a Sunday . . .

Secondarily titled: I should get out of my seat to double check my calendar and sign up for my first swim meet of the year in preparation for "States," but I'm a little afraid to!

Yikes!

My goal for the year is to swim the 100IM (all four strokes in 100 meters) respectably at the State Meet in late March (and maybe even beat Jennifer Pope, whoever she is...she beat me in a few events last year, I remember her name, HA!). I think I should probably go to at least one meet before the State Meet (should that even be capped???), I love my training regiment....anyway, I'm definitely swimming more this year than I did before my 1st State Meet ever last year, but in saying that, I don't think my "training" process is something my coach would recommend.

Well, anywhoo...I do think I'll sign up for the Brighton Meet this coming Sunday to see where I stand and, most importantly, see if I can get off the blocks without my goggles flying off my head! But first, let's take a look at what's been hanging around on my desktop:

Yep, the last time we had a day of snow, the kids DID actually make forts.

I was elated to say the least! (-:

This is B & H's fort.

This is the start of L and W's fort.

By all reports, W. is an expert at making blocks with our Christmas ice block makers.

"Thanks" Texas Mansells!

Getting the ammo ready and everything.

Of course, the next day it started raining again and all of this was for naught!

One way I've noticed that everyone stays outside longer is if I'm out there too. Even if I'm not directly involved in what they're doing, they stay out if I'm out. Well, on this particular day I wanted to be outside too, so it worked for everyone. I threw logs out of the middle of the woods next to the path for easy reaching come spring/summer. I'm still working on eradicating poison ivy in the middle of the woods so best to do it now.

Lots of logs to go still. These ones are in my heaviest poison ivy area so I've been a little afraid to go in there, even in winter. Oh...why am I throwing the logs out to begin with? Just for the firepit, you wonder? Why of course not. You do remember I'm having a sauna built...SOMEDAY, don't you?? (-: Always thinking ahead my friends, always thinking ahead!

AND...

I think this is hanging out on my desktop because I liked how this gal is thinking ahead too:

Have a great week, All!

Oh.My.Gosh!!!!! . . .

Yes, as matter of fact this is a double post kind of day...back to back within seconds as a matter of fact! Why is that you ask? What could possibly be that exciting in the realm of Pierceadventure Land? Well, let me tell you.

I spent many a hour in December trying to figure out iMovie to move my family Christmas CD up a notch by producing a video (I still have grand plans for that so I'll refrain from describing the exciting venture...oy...). Well, tonight, while simultaneously writing up the previous post about boots and muck, I figured out iMovie in about 15 minutes.

Say what?

I'm going to chalk it up as the fact that my brain was just all over the place scattered back in December trying to cover all the details of the season. Now, this is not a polished production by any means. My main goal was to finally get video into iMovie, make clips and attach them. These results are a quick attempt to achieve those objectives:

This was supposed to be the year of the ice rink . . .

Plan B!

You see, with the absurd amount of rain we got in December I spent a good bit of time sloshing around a flooded area in our woods, prepping for the cold of January and February in hopes of having a "rink" to skate on. And yes, those boots were two sizes to small for me (but they were better than the size 3 waders that I tried to shove myself into...yeah "these waders", and I only got about three soakers).

I donned a mismatched pair of rubber gloves and hauled out logs and small branches. Then I got a rake to pull out loads of leaves and muck. Finally I broke out the dollar store butterfly net to bring the project home.

(Man, I crack myself up)

(So funny, I just noticed on my link above I also cracked myself up, I need to socialize more often!)

Yep, I spent a good few hours over a couple days skimming off miscellaneous debris.

(Remember, anything to avoid cleaning the bathroom)

AND

(I'm quite sure my neighbors think I'm NUTS!!!)

And now...January 26th...

IT WON'T STOP RAINING!!!

Thirteen! . . .

What a delightful beauty she is!

This year's cake was a Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Cake

And I must say, it was absolutely amazing!

Very rich but melt in your mouth amazing.

I'm going to post the entire recipe here because the lady that writes the blog I found it on is a bit of a potty mouth. I posted her picture a few days ago if you'd like to see how hers turned out. I altered her recipe by choosing to make two 9" rounds instead of all the small ones she made, plus I would recommend doubling (or 1.5 times) the peanut butter mouse filling/topping. I didn't for this cake and would have liked more. I also just used a Ghiradelli dark chocolate brownie mix instead of making homemade brownies (I had LOTS of baking/cooking this week already...p.s. dinner tonight was PIZZA CASSEROLE, WOW, I followed a mix of ideas from all the comments, not the original recipe) and some commenters even just did pre made hot fudge instead of making the chocolate ganache (but it's really easy to make the ganache...just, I need to learn how to be fancier with my ganache dripping). Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Torte

6 brownie rounds (recipe follows)

peanut butter cream cheese mousse (recipe follows)

lots and lots of peanut butter cup pieces (I chopped up about 15 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups)

chocolate ganache (recipe follows)

Brownie Rounds

7 TBSP unsalted butter, melted

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

½ tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup cocoa powder ( I used Green and Blacks)

½ cup all-purpose flour

¼ tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

½ semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325F.

Butter and flour Six 4 ½ -inch Diameter Spring Form Pans. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together butter and sugar, about 2 minutes.

Add in egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Beat another minute.

Pour in cocoa, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix on low speed until fully incorporated.

Fold in chocolate chips until completely distributed throughout the brownie batter.

Using measuring cups, pour a heaping 1/3 of a cup into each of the 6 prepared pans. If there is any batter left over, try to as evenly as possible, add to the prepared pans.

Bake for 20-23 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool.

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Mousse

½ cup whipping cream, chilled

5 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

1/3 cup plus 2 TBSP powdered sugar

1/3 cup peanut butter (I used Jif…duh)

Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whisk the whipped cream on high until stiff peaks form.

Place into a bowl and set aside.

Add the cream cheese and peanut butter and whisk on medium speed, until fully incorporated. Add powdered sugar and mix until combined.

Add whipped cream back into bowl and whisk on medium high until peanut butter mixture and whipped cream are fully incorporated and the texture is light and fluffy.

Place into a medium sized bowl and set in fridge while brownies fully cool. At least 30 minutes.

Chocolate Ganache

4 ½ ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped finely

½ cup heavy whipping cream

Place chocolate in a medium bowl.

In a small saucepan bring cream to a boil. Once the boil starts, pour over chocolate.

Let sit 5 minutes.

Whisk until mixture is smooth and glossy.

To Assemble the Torte:

Remove brownie from spring form pans. If still too warm, place in freezer for about 10 minutes.

Place one brownie circle on a plate. Add about a 1/8 cup of peanut butter mousse (I added much more to mine and actually doubled the recipe…but for photo reasons only. That much filling would be too much).

Scatter a handful of peanut butter cups.

Place another brownie round on top of the that. Then add another 1/8 cup peanut butter mousse. Then peanut butter cups.

Place third and final brownie round on top of second layer. Add a ¼ cup for the top layer of peanut butter mousse. And more peanut butter cups.

Pour ½ the ganache over the top of the torte. It might take some peanut butter cup pieces with it down the side. Just add more on top, you know you wanted to anyway.

When I was 16 . . .

Someone told me not to wish your years away hoping to be older, or to quickly get to the next big "growing up" milestone. He said, "Try to enjoy the age you are because you'll never be that age again." And that really struck me and stuck with me all this time. Since then I've really had that view of my years as both precious yet fleeting and as best as possible tried to enjoy and savor them.

Why all this introspective thought you ask?

(-:

Well, I'm a mother who's firstborn will be turning 13 tomorrow!!!

Wow!

And, what I learned tonight was...

time to start scanning photos!

I have nothing of Lara in my iPhoto library between birth and age four evidently. Graduation party is right around the corner now (-: better get moving!

Savor every moment my friends, every moment!

When you're out grocery shopping till 11:30p.m. . . .

Then you need time to wind down which means throwing a post up on the ol blog around 12:47a.m. (had to unload all those groceries and see if anyone had anything astounding to say on facebook first...hahahahaha!). But, I digress. Let's take a look at the latest, shall we?

Yes, as a matter of fact, she was the one that INSISTED on wearing this!

She has a huge tub full of tutus, high heals, purses, hats...if it's pink and frilly she has it, but what does she gravitate towards? The Spidey mask!

"This is my web shooter. Want me to show you how it works?"

Gonna be a long, day tomorrow...

Might be more than just Liv taking a nap at nap time!

Still having fun checking in on Pinterest . . .

So true my friends, so true!

(Well, two days a week at least. Was going to contemplate swimming three days a week for 2012...how's that for goal setting, ha...anyway, I'm still contemplating)

Lawn Jenga, looks like fun to me!

(Well, I guess until it falls on a kid...might have to rethink this one)

Lara's soon to be 13th birthday cake!

Peanut butter cup brownie tort.

Wow!

Finally, no pics, but if you're ever interested and have the ingredients handy, you too might like to try making Bacon Banana Cookies as Lara and I did tonight. Or, you might not!

(-:

In all honesty, while being quite different (they have the texture of a muffin top and the taste of...well, bacon and banana), they would actually make an interesting accompaniment to a brunch.

Think about it!

Paint, Play doh, and Popcorn . . .

When the weather gets a little wintery, it's time to pull out some indoor fun.

Some people's fun is often different than other people's fun!

See now, painting an airplane assembled with dad.

That's fun!

This boy has been a great half-day kindergartner if I do say so myself.

Love, love, love his multi-color choices in most of his projects.

And that he loves to do these projects when he comes home from school.

Previous half-day kindergartners went right to the computers (and I let them as I was usually tired and pregnant with another one)...although those ones are now computer programers (so to speak)!

Wow-we-wow-wow! A total aside here...O.K., the words directly above were typing in underlined and in my blog template here I have NO options for underlining. So (now don't laugh Bridget if you're reading this), I went to the "Edit Html" section where all these pics and text are represented by a bunch of crazy signs like (oh wow, even more fascinating...I keep trying to type a "less than" sign then a "u" then a "great than" sign to signify the Html code for underlining and blogger keeps deleting it and then underlining all my text, I just discovered this after hitting publish a couple times...bored yet?) and div. and stuff. Well, remember those words were UNDERLINED for no apparent reason and I didn't like it...so, I went to the Html and noticed on each side of my sentence...well, I thusly (hee hee) figured, "get rid of the on both sides of the sentence and you'll get rid of the underline." Oh my gosh, I was RIGHT!!! Hey, I quit computer science 101 in college while dating a COMPUTER ENGINEER, so that's a big deal for me! Ha!

O.K., on we go...

Oh my gosh...how embarrassing...forget EVERYTHING I just typed up there...I can NOT get rid of the underlining now and,in addition, I managed to underline half of my gloating monologue above. Oy! O.k., enough of this, let's move on...

So (yeah, I know...ignore the underlining, it's here to stay evidently), I found this cool idea on Pinterest, some more good FUN!

Pretty cool, eh? Small motor skills, check!

Now, on to what some people find fun, and others don't:

Some people think it's fun to transfer their mini bag of popcorn to another container.

"Oh, high (I meant "Hi", thanks Lara) there...what seems to be the problem?"

While, some people don't!

I'll tell you what about this underlining deal. Yes, while I've wasted over 30 minutes of my life experimenting with and investigating it (of course, I could have been sitting in front of a t.v. watching a ridiculous show filled in with absurd commercials...so glad to be off t.v...haven't watched a show since "Lost" had it's finale), it's been kind of interesting. I've been over in Html deleting tons of 's, hitting "save" and then I'd come back over to my "compose" area of blog design and tons more (here's another place I typed three of those less than/greater than and a "U" for underlining and they were deleted...I guess you can't type "code" into your regular text, hmmmm...) 's would pop back into the script (or whatever it's called) of the Html. Bizarre. I think tomorrow I'll go check in with Harrison!!! (-:

Our Little . . .

Sous Chef!

"A Sous Chef is second in command after the Executive Chef in a professional kitchen. This means he or she answers to the chef, but also has some authority over the other kitchen staff. Many of the terms that relate to cooking and cuisine in a professional setting are French. Sous is French for under, so you can see how the sous chef would work directly under the leader of the kitchen."

"It’s important that a sous chef be intimately familiar with all the activities of the kitchen and be prepared to do them in a pinch. He or she will prepare and cook food, and know all styles of cooking done in that kitchen, including such skills as French, Italian, and Fusion cooking. The Sous Chef is also responsible for overseeing the kitchen staff, which may involve scheduling or dealing with personnel conflict."

"To succeed, a Sous Chef should lead by example, keeping stations clean, preparing foods properly, and cooperating with others. He or she should make decisions that get the best out of every situation, and ignore his or her ego if it arises. A Sous Chef should have respect for the Executive Chef, and value the Chef’s decisions at all times. That being said, the Sous Chef should not be afraid to offer suggestions or creative ideas that can improve upon the kitchen’s performance."

Awwww...

Oh.My.Gosh. this is the sweetest thing EVER!

Let me tell you, these two can have a great time together but there are also times that involve a lot of screaming (no...not from me!). Since W. is often the underdog of two older brothers, there are times that he really prods Liv. Yet, ev.er.y. single time he gets off the bus after his half day at school, she runs up, arms stretched out for a BIG OL' HUG!

It is the sweetest thing ever!

(I'm trying to focus on how sweet it is and not think that she's like, "Thank goodness you're home, it's just been me and mom for four hours straight!!!").

And now, to TOTALLY digress...

Many years ago...(-:...I posted a tip about draining the fat from your pan by covering the pan with a grease splatter shield thing and letting it strain through. It's way too late to go searching through the archives to find the link to my other post (but since you're probably fresh and awake on Tues. morning, maybe you'd like to take the time to search....Haha!)...anywho...I came up with an even easier solution within the past few months. Dump your meat right into a colander over a bowl, wow, that's been a great discovery for me. Hope it works for you!

chow!

FINE, UHL . . .

LEE!

Welcome, Winter!

Caught the boys by surprise though, frozen net!

They'd been enjoying winter basketball.

Got a nice little blanket Friday and Saturday, nothing to write home about, but enough for the big three to go sledding for a couple hours Saturday.

Enough for snow blowing and fort making.

Well, an attempt at fort making, the neighbor boys rocked an awesome one out in their front yard. I'm jealous, but my kids couldn't give a hoot. I'm not sure whose kids my kids are sometimes!!!

This boy was just pumped to get his first go on the ol' snow throwing machine.

He did an AWESOME job!

(While under total supervision mind you)

So, I'll sum it up as this...fun weekend with snow and twenty degree weather...now, when's Spring???

Ha!

(kidding...kinda)

Almost Mid-January . . .

And hanging out on a sunny day in the sandbox, wearing a little fleece.

Wow!

"I found an arrow," said William.

"Cool," said Mom.

(-:

My sources tell me this odd winter weather pattern might be coming to an end. It's strange, this warm winter. Part of me loves that we can still easily enjoy the outdoors and part of me feels incomplete without our winter snow. Even our 50 degree weather feels strange to me. When we hit 50 in late March, early April it has an invigorating "AHHhhhhhhh" effect when you breath it in after a long, cold winter. Fifty degrees in January just kind of hangs in the air, without effect at all. Interesting.

Well, looky what we have here. . .

I mean, really take a good, good look!

Now, the funny thing is, there is absolutely NO QUESTION that this could very well be a picture from any one of my days. BUT, Lo and behold, some one out there is living my life, right down to the very same kitchen!!!

Thanks for sending the picture, Aunt K. AMAZING!!

"Who unhooked William?"

Uncanny, eh?

Change a couple cupboard widths and hook a kid to the drawer knob and we've got a match!!

(-:

"Helloooooooooo...Winter???? Anyone, there???? . . .

Excuse me, Winter...this is what you're supposed to look like:

Check here for real winter

(January 2009)

No pictures today. I refuse to post pictures of SP and the boys hanging 'round the fire pit with cokes and orange pops in their hand while burning the Christmas tree (is that wrong? (-:) with no coats on. I mean it's January 8th for goodness sake!!

Over Christmas Break . . .

Three lucky boys got to play with toys.

Big Boy Toys!

Yes, in fact those are computers they're dissecting.

Thanks again, Uncle J. They had an absolute BLAST!

One of 'em even scored some drumsticks.

AND, he even got permission from the mom to bring them home!!!

(She let her guard down during the quiet, calm of their overnight absence. (-:)