Cold Winter Days

We are going a bit stir-crazy at our house, what with the cold weather and not being able to get out and run around as we would like.  We have been out driving the "green vehicle," bundled up with coats, hats, and gloves, but we don't last long when it it only 22 degrees outside.

I'm not one of those moms that doesn't believe in watching TV, but even I can only watch so much Phineas and Ferb before I'm ready to shriek and throw something at the TV screen.  So we have been trying to let the creative juices flow and find interesting ways to entertain ourselves.

Brandt emptied Blythe's book shelves and put the contents in her crib.  He told me he was driving "the library truck."  I am fairly certain Brandt has no idea there is such a thing as a book mobile, but maybe he does.  Either way, here he is in his library truck.  As you can see, there is a fairly broad variety of books to choose from.

We have recommenced our alphabet weeks, and this week is L week.  My friend Kristi posted a recipe on her blog for bird seed bread (Thank you!), so I thought it would be fun to make a "loaf" of bread.  I had the children help measure ingredients and prepare the dough.  I do not have a great track record when it comes to bread making.  I just don't seem to have the knack and almost always "brick it," as Kent says.  This year I am wanting to change that (I suppose this is a new year's resolution), and I was hopeful that this try would be better than my past efforts.  

My dough helpers.

As it turned out, I was completely unsuccessful.  I bricked it big time.  The loaf did not rise at all, and by "at all" I mean that the cooked loaf of bread was not a bit larger than the raw dough I plopped in the bread pan.  It was completely inedible.  Hard, dense, and weighing in at nearly two pounds though only an inch high, I think it probably could be used in construction.  As a result, what I hoped would be delicious bird seed bread (packed with lots of small but tasty seeds), became simply bird food.  I'm not even sure the birds will be able to peck through it.

  

Our bird food brick.

Sigh.

While the bread was hardening in the oven, I suggested to the children that we build a secret lair (L week you know).  We gathered lots of blankets, turned the couches around, and built a rather large and comfortable but not very secret lair.  Brandt and Blythe both loved it.  We padded the floor, piled in blankets and pillows, and then read stories and had snacks inside.  When Kent got home, Brandt and Blythe were so excited to show him the lair, including both the front and back doors (front under the near patchwork blanket, back under the far green one).  I had hoped part of our snack would be bird seed bread, but oh well.  (Another sigh) 

The not-so-secret secret lair filled the whole living room.  

The blankets are being held up on the mantle by my large and heavy art books.

I knew they would come in handy some day.

They probably could have been held up by the bread.

Blythe and Brandt inside the lair.

We all three snuggled together and read stories while eating fruit snacks.