northwest fourth

hey mama

super bowl sunday

No big party. No junk food. Just one kid working on her origami valentines, the other making some rubber band bracelets, the Seahawks trampling the Broncos, and a healthy dinner. It was a quiet, pleasant Sunday at our house.

happy new year!

Happy new year! Do you have any new year's eve traditions? We don't really. . . but we're usually hanging out, playing newly received games and writing thank you notes. There's always some kind of tasty treat involved in the evening—an antipasto tray and baguette or a celebratory steak.

This morning we had a Lego Heroica Fortaan tournament. Three rounds and I won them all! Beginner's luck.

My Hero Pack at the beginning was pretty slim. It filled up quickly with monsters, a staff, potions, extra health, and gold. Mwahaha.

Me, the barbarian, victoriously standing atop the Goblin King.

This is in focus—it's just a cheap plastic ball instead of a fragile, truly mirrored one. Note Sweetpea waving in the back.

In the afternoon, Sweetpea and I played Bananagrams. It was a long, drawn out game because she's nine and has trouble thinking of words sometimes. I'm hoping she'll get faster with more practice, since she's my best bet for a regular opponent around here!

May your new year be grapey and wonderful!

happy thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! I am so thankful to be enjoying this day with my family, with tasty food in a warm home. I am so thankful for having this space to cast my thoughts out into the internet. And I am so thankful for you, who took time out of your day to see me. I hope you have a wonderful, heart-filling day. ♥

homemade butterfingers

Recipes for turning candy corn into homemade Butterfingers have been around for years. After staring at a jar of candy corn for two weeks, I finally tried transforming them from something I would never eat (I have never liked candy corn), into something that I would probably eat.

Imagine my surprise after I made them and had the urge to eat them all in one sitting.

There are a million recipes out there; I used this one from Tasty Kitchen, because it suckered me in with “3 Ingredients” in the title. I'm lazy, but I can handle three ingredients.

Ingredient number one: candy corn. Now, I told you I don't like this stuff. Honestly, I avoid it like Frankenstein's monster avoids fire. Candy corn, bad! Corn syrup, bad! Yellow #5, bad! Watching it melt was a little nauseating. But I sucked it up and kept on because I really wanted to see if the end result tasted like Butterfingers.

Once the candy corn was melted, I mixed in peanut butter. I spread that disgusting mixture that looked like puke into a parchment lined pan and let it cool and harden in the fridge. After an hour, I pulled it out, cut it into mini bars, and covered each one with chocolate.

Ok, you got me. I “covered” two with chocolate, for pictures. I'm lazy and I didn't want to waste two cups of chocolate chips on something that might not taste good, so I skimped and only half covered the rest.

Silly, silly me. They're delicious! They taste very close to Butterfingers and even have that crispy crunch if you eat them right out of the freezer. I thought keeping them in the freezer would help limit the amount I ate, but no such luck. I do have my husband to keep me accountable, though. He comes home from work and asks how many I ate, so he can be sure to eat the same amount. Gotta be fairsies, you know. We did not, however, tell the children about these new treats. They have buckets full of trick or treat candy and certainly don't need any more.

If you've still got candy corn sitting on your counter, you should definitely try them. They were easy and pretty quick to make. The chocolate dipping took a while, but I've seen some floating around online that were just covered on the top and bottom like layered bars. I would totally do that next time.

If I make them again, that is. I still look at that impossibly orange filling when I'm eating one and remind myself that I'm eating little bits of candy corn. I'm pretty amazed that those yucky little things can be turned into something I actually like.

sparkly

happy independence day!

Happy 4th, everyone! 

I hope you all have a fun and safe holiday.

april fool's day

This morning I held a foil-covered baking dish and asked my kids if they wanted some “brown Es” with breakfast. They cheered and jumped up and said that, of course, they would love some brown Es with breakfast. I don't know why they were getting so excited. They must have thought I said “brownies”. Silly kids. Don't they know it's April Fool's Day?

Ha! They do, actually. Ever since I pulled the jello juice prank (like this), Sweetpea asks me to do something good for April Fool's Day. Oh, the pressure of topping the jello juice. That was a really good trick.

I came close this year. The brown Es were ok, but the disappointment of not having brownies to eat took it down a few notches. No, my real prank was sneaking into the kids' rooms after they were asleep and painting their toe nails green. (Green was the only quick-drying color we had.) They were awake for almost an hour before they noticed. It was awesome.

I also changed the language on Hub's phone to German. I'm confident he would have appreciated it more if he hadn't been late for work. I appreciated the hell out of it. It was hilarious! That is, of course, until he came home and made me change it back. Finding the appropriate language menus in German was not as easy as finding them in English.

The apple cinnamon pancakes I made for breakfast (partially to make up for the brownie trick) were no joke, though. They were delicious!

Are you pulling any pranks today? What's your favorite?

bunuelos

Hubs and I spent four years at the beginning of our marriage in El Paso, Texas. Living my entire life in the green, wet northwest, El Paso was far from my comfort zone. But it was a good character-building, strong marriage-building time, and I have many fond memories of El Paso.

One of those fond memories is buñuelos. I received some homemade buñuelos from a client's mother one Christmas, and immediately fell in love. Light and crispy, cinnamon sugar in every bite. . . what's not to love?

I recently found a recipe for buñuelos on Muy Bueno, and decided to give it a whirl. They took some time and were a little messy, but not nearly as messy or labor-intensive as doughnuts. They soaked up a lot less oil, too.

I broke out a brand new stainless steel saucepan for the frying. It was hard to put anything into that perfect shiny steel.

I had to test the first few to make sure I was frying them long enough. It was rough, but I've accepted that these sacrifices are necessary for quality control.

The verdict? We loved them! Crispy, cinnamony sweet, perfect with vanilla ice cream and strawberries. Yum. A great finishing touch to a Mexican fiesta.

class valentines

Sweetpea decided to start reading the Harry Potter series last December. She's eight, and was a bit concerned that they would be too scary for her (as was I, because she's a delicate little flower), so I've been reading each one first before handing them over to her. It's been great to be able to talk with her about them as she reads.

On a hunch, I looked on Amazon to see if the Jelly Belly version of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans were still around. (They're probably the same batch from ten years ago, right? Ew.) I thought they'd be fun for Sweetpea's class valentines, and perfect this year because she's reading the series. We ordered them, printed up some quick wrap-around labels, taped them on, and were done. I think it took us thirty minutes. Quickest valentines ever!

They did cost a little more than we usually spend—about $1.50 per valentine—but it was worth it for the novelty. And Little Mister's valentines cost nothing more than some paper and a box of Goldfish, so it evened out.

I got the idea for Little Mister's fishbowl valentines from the Backless Shirt blog. I had the cellophane bags leftover from a baby shower (or actually from the leftover cocoa from the baby shower favors), and I bought a big box of Goldfish crackers. For the fishbowl, I set out to make my own. 

I'm teaching myself to use Adobe Illustrator, one little project at a time. This was a great lesson for me. It was the first time I added and subtracted shapes to create something new.

We printed the fishbowls on card stock, and Little Mister wrote the names of his kindergarten classmates on them, four at a time over several days. (He has very little patience for writing.) Then we gently rolled them to fit them in the bags, added a big spoonful of Goldfish to each, and closed with a twist tie. It was pretty fun, and he got to help every step of the way.

 Did you make your own class valentines this year? Leave me a link—I'd love to see them!

valentine decorations

I watched her meticulously cut out each individual heart of this little garland. I told her that when she was done, I'd show her a faster way. I know part of her growth is finding her own way, and it's hard for me to watch her struggle with something when I could make it easier. But how will she learn to be independent if I come to her rescue every time? Ah, the joys of parenting.

Once I folded her scrap paper, accordion style, and showed her how to cut the heart so they'd stay attached, she went on to make garland after garland.

 And then she invited her little brother to help her tape them up around the house.

Such a sweet girl.

cleaning up

I told myself I'd take a break from the camera for a week, to break myself of the daily habit.

I lasted three days. 

Yeah, not surprised.

*     *     *     * 

I took down all the holiday decorations on Tuesday.

I have a pile of our regular, non-holiday decorations that are supposed to go back up.

But I kind of like the breathing room that the blank spots create.

I'm thinking of taking even more things down.

*     *     *     *

We cleared off the coffee table to work on this 500-piece peacock puzzle.

Sweetpea and I got the border and the body of the peacock done,

but the feathers are hard, man.

If we work on it long enough, do you think my kids and husband 

will get out of the habit of piling things on the coffee table?

I'm cleaning up my food choices this week.

After two weeks of splurging on food and slacking on exercise,

and feeling irritable because of it,

I'm doing a bit of a detox.

Fruit, veggie, and protein smoothies for breakfast.

(Easy as can be since I bought Hubs a new blending toy for Christmas. He has to test it out, you know.)

Lunches like this quinoa, sweet potato and grilled onion bowl.

And a sensible dinner. (Ha!)

I can't really call it a detox, though.

I'm still eating chocolate.

I'm not completely crazy.

And it's too icy here to do my normal outdoor five miles safely,

so I invited my long-neglected friend Jillian over this morning.

She kicked my ass, as a good friend should.

I'm going to be sore tomorrow.