So you are probably wondering what I have been up to since I have not been posting...well nothing really. I've just had several meeting I have had to attend and there was that whole blizzard thing. Plus I have just been really lazy the past two weeks. Yeah I know, I know, shame on me!
Okay so with a recap let me tell you what I have actually been doing while away! First of all I survived 24 hours of this which amounted to 16 inches of snow or 20 it really just depended on where you stood.
This picture was taken form my bay window looking out onto the street that passes by the side of our house.
This was looking out our back door at the neighbors house.
Whew I need to clean that door! This was at our back door not long after it started. There is usually about a five inch step from our back porch to the sidewalk below but I was pushing snow with the door when I opened it. Notice my cute purple stripped socks...so warm and cozy!!
Tanner running over to get the mail in snow that almost came to his needs granted I think he was standing in a snow bank.
SO...with that Tanner didn't go to school all week and Ryan and I missed two days because well we couldn't leave town. It was a mess but with the city workers, state workers and local farmers all pitching in the city is in great shape now.
With all that behind us I decided to spend some time with little P (my niece) on Friday, sorry no pictures of that I forgot to take my camera with me but she was a pistol. She yelled at my dad for trying to steal her pacifier, yelled at me for not paying attention to her, yelled at Tanner to come get her and just randomly poo-ed her pants which we graciously let grandma change. Who knew someone so little could be so full of poo?
Saturday Tanner and I went grocery shopping in a small local town and let me tell you we will not be doing that again any time soon. That experience just rubbed me the wrong way and their sale items were more expensive than normal priced items at our local Gerbes (which I consider one of the more expensive stores). Ryan did some more work on the car and trying to figure out where the oil leak is coming from. We think we now have that under control. With all that done we decided to cook ourselves silly since the Superbowl was the next day and we wanted no problems or complications to arise. We made the famous "Mama's Chili" and man did it turn out good. I put everything in there but the kitchen sink...it goes in sweet and goes down hot. YUM, YUM, YUM!!
After the chili was consumed we settled on making a dip we affectionately refer to as the "Chicken dip". Now I am sure it has an actual name somewhere but when I found this recipe years ago I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would have caught on so well with my friends and family. It seems now that every family function I go to the "Chicken dip" is requested and if I show up without it man do I hear about it. Oh and let me tell you the recipe is so freaking hard that apparently no one can follow it. Are you ready...equal amounts of cream cheese and canned chicken then onion to taste. YEAH I KNOW, super hard! Since I have to make it in massive quantities around my house and we love onion I have come to realize that I can use four bars of cream cheese, four cans of chicken and one onion and everything comes out great. See now where is that caveman when you need him? Serve with Ritz and you are all good.
We didn't stop there we decided to go ahead and make some pre-packaged peanut butter cookies and shove some PB cups in them! Yes I know I am a terrible person *pre-packaged* what was a I thinking. Well they were bought on the terrible shopping trip and I was thinking man I am lazy let's take a short cut here! Oddly enough it worked out nicely. The cookies were a big hit with the PB King that lives in my house and he kept stealing the warm ones...little or should I say big thief :)
Moving on then. I only managed to get half of this weeks task completed and it was DAH DAH DAH..DAH!! COASTERS!! I did them in a bunch of random colors and plan on making some photo ones although I ordered my pictures through Shutterly and have not received them yet. So basically with these they are just off white four inch tiles that a woman graciously gave me...AN ENTIRE BOX OF THEM, because she had no need for them she had ordered to many. Then I used scrap booking paper and or stationary and just cut it to size. I glued it on with my hand dandy glue and matte Mod Pogged over it. I still need to coat them with a sealant to keep the paper protected from water damage and then I need to adhere the felt to the back. All in due time. Today was mostly about the Superbowl since both teams playing today were Tanners teams it was a day of conflict. It didn't really matter who won but it was still fun to watch and after all that cooking the food was YUM YUM!! :)
Tanner even got his own special coaster since he is our musical prodigy and lives for ice cold anything!