Cake & Winter Wonderland

Tonight, BH helped out by making a cake. You can see how proud and happy he was about his work.

It was a simple cake, only one ingredient: Ground Malabar Black Pepper from Costco, approximately 1/3 of a cup. Take several spoons, a large bowl, and a baby bottle lid, and voila! Cake!

Earlier today, he prepared three strawberries using a dull steak knife, a popcorn-popping pot, and a muffin tin. Clearly, we have an aspiring chef or baker in the house.

The kids and their interests and passions are so funny and delightful and unique! It makes me happy to watch them wonder and create and make messes and learn.

Take this evening, for instance: it's been raining all day, and at dusk it was about 31 degrees. LC is my outside explorer. Once I pointed out to everyone that the trees were starting to coat with ice, she was out there with shoes (and fleece housecoat) on, investigating the branches and leaves. I love her zest for this and her seeming imperviousness to the cold or the rain when she's so excited to check things out.

In the foreground of the above photo is LC's "outdoor cooking" setup. She makes different recipes using backyard stuff like bark and leaves, dirt and twigs. It's one of her creative outlets. CA and CJ join in with her all the time, the three of them cooking up backyard goodness together.

You can faintly see the ice coating the thin branches above LC's head. The rain has continued all evening, and the temperature has dropped. Even as I write, we keep hearing branches crack and shatter on the ground. Thankfully, none have actually fallen on the house, nor have they been large enough to do damage. But there's a giant mess of them all over the back yard. It's strange and kind of exciting.

Here's CJ enjoying an ice-coated branch. An all-natural, organic, no-sugar popsicle!

Extra thankful for a warm, snug house tonight. Hopefully, we'll not experience any power-outage drama. The world around us will be all glittering and icy in the morning. I've promised the kids cinnamon toast for breakfast, in celebration of our big winter weather.