asteroid B612

We played outside for a solid two hours.

And built a snow Daddy and a snow horse.

And enjoyed some drinking hot chocolate and watching a little monkey when we came back in.

FUN SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It looks like we may have our one real snow. And it's still coming down.

It started snowing in the middle of the night. When I got home from book study last night there was a deer in the driveway. It just ambled around. When I got out of the car, it just looked at me. We stared at each other, about 100 ft apart, and then it wandered around a bit more eating grass. No white flags of alarm for me, just passive coexistence. I've never been around a deer so calm before. A few times this winter there's been a veritable herd out back, like 8 or so at a time, that will go bounding away when I pull up. Hmm. It was kind of cool.

I'll be back later after I take E outside for the complete snow experience.

I love Val Day. I think it's fun. I love the homemade valentines, cookies (because usually I never got around to decorating C'mas cookies, so it's my time to redeem myself), and a yummy dinner with hubby. We don't make a big, expensive holiday. But I like the opportunity to do something a little extra special. We actually ended up celebrating the day after this year, because it was more convenient.

We had some little kids over yesterday for a little Valentine's party.

I laid out crayons, paper, glue, and glitter glue, and they made valentines for their mommies. Some kids needed a little more help than others. But the craft went well, and made me really happy.

I cut out PB&J hearts for lunch for the kids. And after the moms ate (no hearts for us: with 3 pregnant and 1 nursing mom, we were just concerned about FOOD), they decorated a few cookies. for Ellis the cookie merely served as a platter from which to eat frosting.

In the evening for our Valentine's Dinner, I tried to recreate our favorite meal from our favorite Lebanese restaurant in New Orleans. It's simple and dippy. But I don't have a lot of experience with Mediterranean cooking, so I had to look around a bit and consult with a friend for what to do. It turned out pretty near perfect. Trader Joe's helped a lot, too. I got the hummus, baba ganoush, and tzatiki sauce from there, and a preseasoned, boneless leg of lamb. For the lamb, I didn't do a real kebab on a spit. I cut it up into cubes, pan-seared the chunks with red onion and then baked it for a little with tomatoes. And then stirred in a yogurt-tahini sauce. SO GOOD!!!! And so tender! We ate everything with pitas "al fresco" (in the living room). Pretty much perfect. Afterwards we watched Paris, Je t'aime. So everything went as planned and was a lot of fun. I love dippy meals. We're going to have to do this more often.

It started snowing tiny, small, annoying snowflakes this morning. I picked up Ellis from school and ran a quick errand, stocking up on hot chocolate. When we got home I knew we had a limited window of opportunity to play outside. While we were outside the "snow" turned to sleet. I'm not really sure what it is doing now. It's apparently going to be rain by the morning. I wish we could get one solid snow, you know?

But, my boy got a chance to use his snowpants!! There was snow on the picnic table. The grass looked like frosted miniwheats. E swished the snow off the tables, and I dragged him around on a blue Ikea bag on the pathetic dusting of snow. We played outside for a long time, and he came in rosy-cheeked and happy. So the snowpants got one wear. I think we'll be able to get another season out of them, though. There's plenty of room in the straps. I really doubt we'll have opportunity to use them again.

My brothers are here. Where else to go if you're in the area and it's wintry-mixing? They played with E, got a warm meal, and are watching American Idol. Punctuated by constant banter. Glad I have hot chocolate and cookies.

It was snowing all evening. I think it's stopped now. It snowed my whole way home from speech therapy at CHOP; it took twice as long to get home. But it was really pretty, since most of my drive was through Fairmount Park.