Month: January 2012

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Lovely Things…

to contemplate on this chilly winter morning.

~A new batch of crocheting in the works with just the right combination of brights and softness to sooth my heart. And you know, in my medieval soul, it’s only truly beautiful if there’s some pink in it…somewhere.

~A crisp apple, some Christmas pistachios and a bowl of heavenly Greek yogurt. Thank you Greek yogurt people, you know, for inventing this stuff. Unbelievable.

~A ton more inspirational patterns to dream about and find yarn for– all jumping around in my silly little head just waiting to leap out. And it will, very soon…you’ll see.

~The warmest, most ridiculous, fleecy socks in the universe. Now all I need is to buy about 19 more pairs. It’s a whopin’ 18 degrees outside and I’m a huge fan of toasty feet and these do it. I LOVE them.

~The lovely little sweetheart’s birthday that we just barely had and the one that we may celebrate today if our 4-year-old darlings can get past the sniffles and coughing enough to have their  party. I hope…I hope…I hope.

~The age old dilemma–what to spread on the toast when there are too many incredible choices? Flip a coin.

Chokecherry Honey prevailed…for the first round.  :}

~Discovering the many ways you can photograph a basket of bananas. Currently, I’ve found 9, thank you, very much.

~A little dolly who knows how to share some of her most prized possessions with Grammy.

~And the little gray kitty who sleeps through it all.

What’s lovely in your world today?

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Smoothie Packs

Now, I ask you…

Smoothie Packs 2

who doesn’t positively LOVE smoothies? Nobody–that’s who!

Around here, it’s getting to where every time I sit down, one of my little sweeties says, “Hey mom–wanna make us some smoothies?” Of course, I don’t mind one little bit–but here’s the thing…it’s kind of a pain to lug all the frozen fruit bags and the yogurt and the juice and whatever else we want in them out all the time. What to do…what to do…

Then, after a quick trip around the Pinterest page I found several clever ways to solve the problem. With a quick little tweak, we came up with this hit.

Load a muffin tin with yogurt–I used peach and strawberry and  put about 4 Tablespoons in each cup. Next freeze them overnight–or until they are frozen solid.

Choose your conglomeration of frozen fruit. You really can make any combination you want–it’s all fabulous. We had raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, blueberries and peaches. Yum-mo.

If you have fresh fruit that you’d like to freeze–like bananas* or canned pineapple, cut it up and spread it, single layer on a cookie sheet, then pop it in the freezer.

*If you dip the banana slices in orange, lemon or pineapple juice–they won’t turn brown.

Scoop 2 cups of frozen fruit into a Ziploc bag.

After the yogurt is frozen, just poke a spoon or table knife in one side and pop them out.

Drop one big or two half sized yogurt “pucks” in each bag and seal them up.

Label the the bags if you like, but we didn’t feel the need. Seriously, any of them are heavenly and you can pretty much see what is in each pack. So it seemed silly to worry about it.

Store in the freezer until someone says, “Hey, wanna make a smoothie?” Then all you have to do is pour a pack in the blender, add 1-2 cups juice or milk and whirl them up.

Best of all, nothing to clean…

except all the empty cups.

Heh.

5.0 from 1 reviews
Smoothie Packs
 
Print
Ingredients
  • 2 cups frozen fruit
  • ¼ frozen yogurt "pucks"
  • 1-2 cups milk or juice
Instructions
  1. Whirl in blender.
  2. Drink. It. Up.
  3. :}
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One Brief Moment

It may have been 1:30 in the morning–yes, yes, we were still up–when we noticed that after weeks and weeks of waiting…

it was actually snowing. Not a blizzard or anything, but a light, gentle, determined snow that sent sparking crystals floating every which way.

It reminded me of teeny tiny pearl white fairies flitting about in the dark. So naturally I stood all alone on the porch in my nippy bare feet snapping the camera like a crazy woman. That way, I figured that if, in the morning every trace of snow was completely gone, I could still prove to the world that it had happened in the first place.

Frosty hair. Chattering teeth. Frozen toes. Lovely snow.

Totally worth it.

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Breaking Dawn–The Party!

I realize that the last post that I wrote about our Breaking Dawn Premier was clear back on November 19 and I showed you the photos of setting up for the big party.

Well, now that the holidays are behind us–

I’ve finally had a minute to post the actual party photos–which I forgot about and when I realized that I forgot I shrieked right out loud and sat right down to show you all the doings of the day…

and the fun people who joined us.

Like for instance–this cute little couple who wandered in to see what was going on, and decided to stay for cake and prizes!

It was great fun…

just being able to sit around and nibble and enjoy each others company before heading over to the show.

If you’d like to see the rest of the photos and all the winners, check out the “Events” tab– or, because I like you, you have my permission to …click HERE.

 PS–I’m still working on all the photo captions–so, be patient. :}