Snow Icecream

As I sit at my desk not working but blogging instead, my kids are giggling behind me while they watch AFV with my husband. I love hearing them laugh.

The sky decided to open up this weekend and take a dump, literally. We have SO much snow from this "storm". The roads are really bad because they had a good coating of water last week from the melt off then froze, then it snowed, making things very slick. There have been countless numbers of crashes out there, I'm staying home.

To those that say it shouldn't snow in April? I say, "then you shouldn't live in Alaska...it ALWAYS snows in April". Learn like I had to that March is "fake spring" and end of April-May is "real spring".

My 9-year-old asked at 9:30pm if she could make snow ice-cream and papa wanted to say no since it was late but really? How many more great large fluffy snowfalls will we get this year? Here's how we make ours.

Sorry no pictures, my phone is in the shop after last weeks phone-death-by-dog incident.

Snow Ice-cream: serving 6 children

Fresh snow
Vanilla extract (I typically save my gallon of fake vanilla extract for this recipe since we use so much making this and I'm not eating it, the kids are)
Sugar
Milk, any kind (almond, soy, real, we end up usually making this with vanilla almond milk)

Scoop up a LARGE bowl of snow, heaping if you can - (don't scrape it off the ground, gross).
Quickly swirl on one large circle of vanilla, we don't measure.
Scoop on a scoop of sugar over the top, we don't measure.
Swirl on some milk. Stir, mush down chunks of vanilla and milk, keep adding more milk as needed. You want it to be almost mushy but not quite. There should not be any bright white snowy spots yet, you want all the vanilla mixed in. Taste to be sure you have enough sugar, add more if needed.

Serve in bowls, not cones, it melts fast.

Enjoy!

Winter is here, let's buy furniture, cook chickens & dream of sewing!

It snowed yesterday right as I was leaving to run errands in Wasilla.  It inspired me to buy a desk at Fred Meyer so that I can hopefully set up my sewing machine and get back into sewing this winter.  I know I won't have as much time as I'd like, but something is definitely better than nothing.



Children outside before the snow melts.

 After the kids convinced me (not hard to do) that they REALLY wanted to play in the snow, out they went instead of doing math.  Fran, in the meantime, convinced me that she REALLY wanted some pound cake with cream cheese and powdered sugar on it (her idea not mine) this idea sounded pretty awesome, so I made myself two pieces and her one before I got busy in the kitchen.

Fran modeling our snack.

I'd decided yesterday that I would bake some chickens today.  We have a huge freezer now, but it can only hold so much.  We had 20something birds from this summers chicken harvest, so that takes up a lot of room and I need to use more chicken!  My friend, Steph inspired me to do bake them this way couple months ago...roast 4-6 chickens all at once, then eat chicken for dinner and then shred the rest and freeze it for future dinners (like chicken pot pie!) and make chicken stock.  I forgot that it's time consuming to stand there shredding, but I think it's worth it in the end.  Here are my somewhat frozen birds going into the oven for a couple of hours.

Then I got busy on my new sewing area.  I have had plenty of sewing areas in the past, but ever since my business took over the school room and office last fall, I decided that it had to be my "hobby" for the winter so that I could get it back-on-track.  Well, it's in good shape, and I still work more than I'd like, but my paychecks pay for the kids music, art, and various sports.  I'm happy to be able to pay for those things with out flinching and thinking "well maybe we can't afford it"...that's why I work, to pay for those classes that I don't know or give a hoot about.  Anyway, K cleared out the corner by the piano for me and then I could get busy assembling the new desk while their Papa taught them some history.



My littlest ones enjoying the peace & quiet during history. 

In the meantime we had a brief visit from Steph (from Up North, Over Yonder & Out of my mind.) & her DH when they came drop something off and then their car decided not to start.  It was quite enjoyable since we don't get to visit that often.  They were eventually rescued by their daughter but I do believe I have inherited a pretty sweet non-running Volvo with many Libertarian, Republican and Progressive crazy person bumper stickers on the rear.  Sometimes I wish I didn't care what others thought as much as Steph...I'm working on it.  While they visited the 4-yr-old was invited to her friends to enjoy the snow and then my 4 older ones made their way over to their new music lessons that they adore.  I am stupid for not starting these sooner...but I'm spoiled that I have a music teacher as a next-door-neighbor, so she's ready to give my kids private lessons this year.  (Yay me!)  I got the sewing area somewhat set up, but not enough where I have to dive in just yet.  Still have chickens to de-bone.

While de-boning the birds we played the "what now mama game...with M&Ms"  This is the version with actual treats added so that there is not as much whining and moaning.  It's much more enjoyable.  They have to say, "What now mama?" and I give them a job and when they come back and say "What now mama?" they get a treat and and another job.  The house went from utter disaster to somewhat picked up & K went and milked the goats.  We also started clearing out a corner in the school room for the book case and table I got last night too.  Em's desk this year has been 3 boxes stacked up next to a bunch of other boxes...um, so, yeah.  Needed something there. 



Chicken stock.



I thought about doing the bookcase tonight but I'm so tired!  The chicken stock is cooking and Papa is watching a VERY LATE "coy boy night" with the kids.  My sewing area is all pretty and waiting for me now.  Don't worry, be patient.  I'll be there eventually.

My wonderful old machine on my new desk.

*Pictures taken with my new Blackberry phone that GCI "gave" me (along with a 2 year contract).  Picture quality isn't bad for a cell phone and it's so handy to get pics onto the internet.