Friday 5

Remember back in the olden days of blogging when people would post their favorite 5 pictures from the week??  I'm doing that today.  It was a busy week and I didn't take many pictures.  We are all ready for the weekend.  The best parts of our week were:

1. Would you believe that we are still digging out from the 10+ inches of snow and several inches of ice we got last week??  The temps have been frigid so many things are still icy and frozen.  We were driving in to school one morning and the temp was 8.  That means a week of indoor recess at school and not much playing outside because ice is hard to play on.  The kids tried to sled one last time and got rocket launched off some hills at a local golf course.  They pivoted and came home for hot chocolate instead.

2. Real gold hoops!  Kevin surprised me with real gold hoops for Christmas and I love them!  I don't think I've ever owned nice hoops so this was a really fun surprise.  They are so light and add a fun statement to any outfit.

3. Penny loves Leo.  It's been so sweet to see the cats learn to love Leo.  He is so proud.  He was watching one of the Hotel Transylvanias this week and look who jumped up to snuggle him.  He smiled the whole time and kept saying PENNY LOVES ME.  Now if Penny and Pearl would just learn to love Mr. Mittens we'd be set. 

4. Bundt cakes!  I made a yellow with chocolate icing bundt cake last week and a funfetti with vanilla buttercream this week.  Maybe I should make a bundt cake every week.

5. It's tricky to keep our house running smoothly with both of us working full time now.  We are doing it with some team work and taking life one week at a time.  I snapped this picture last night after the busy dinner rush and everyone was trying to get stuff done.  Olive called in Fletcher for some coding help.  Leo was watching a show and I was trying to get lunches made.  A real life moment of enjoying being together after a busy day. 

A recap:  

-We had to call in grandparent help one morning thanks to early meetings (Kevin), early start at school (Me, Fletcher and Leo) and a 2 hour weather delay for Olive.  My parents came over to hang out with her and that was so nice.

-Icy roads meant bus delays for Olive.  That meant changing up our regular routine so that Kevin could take her to school to keep her from waiting at an icy bus stop.

-I scheduled our kid pick ups for the week then had to make some changes due to last minute meetings.

-I had groceries delivered and the boys put everything away on my night to work late.  Mom win!

-I gave all the guys haircuts.

-Work drama meant extra meetings for both of us.

-Olive joined a new club at school so we have a new early morning drop off.

-I'm ready to sleep in tomorrow and enjoy a weekend with very few plans.

I hope you have a great weekend!!  See you back here next week :)

Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish

I had a blueberry danish at Notre Dame this past Summer that I still dream about today.  

Does that ever happen to you when you travel?  You try a new food and have to recreate it at home.

I have been determined to recreate the recipe at home.  This danish recipe truned out so yummy.  Not quite as fancy as the pastry I had, but it was close.

You just need 5 ingredients.

1 can of crescent rolls

1 egg white for an egg wash

blueberry preserves

whipped cream cheese

zest of 1 lemon

Directions:

Press crescent rolls out onto a greased baking sheet.  Make sure they over lap.  You can make them in a line or in a circle.  Spread out whipped cream cheese, add a strip of blueberry preserves, mix together with a knife and add lemon zest on top.  Wrap the triangle side of the crescent rolls over the overlapped side.  Egg wash the top of the danish before you put it in the oven.  

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Let cool.  Slice and serve.

Best served warm right out of the oven.

**You'll easily have enough filling to make this 2-3 times if you want to buy 2-3 cans of crescent rolls.

Swirl everything around to make sure you get a mix of cream cheese and blueberries in every bite.  I loved the blueberry preserves with the whole blueberries in it.

No one at my house appreciates cream cheese so I delivered some to Kevin's Nana.  We both loved it.

This would be perfect for any breakfast or brunch you've got planned in the new year.  And you could easily customize the blueberry preserves for any flavor you love!

Christmas Break Recap

We had a great Christmas Break!  It ended up being 3 weeks instead of 2 which was a fun surprise that no one saw coming.  We stuck close to home and did all of our favorite things.

Mr. Mittens seemed to enjoy having us around more.  He was a menace to our Christmas decorations so I'm hopeful he'll outgrow that by the time next Christmas rolls around.

We picked up fun lunches and had van picnics.  Culvers and Chick-Fil-A were favorites.

I made some big meals and shared them with Kevin's Grandma.

We watched several movies and ate candy corn (popcorn topped with candy!).

My 2025 treat to myself was buying a Walmart delivery subscription.  I love grocery pick up, but I don't love spending my weekends doing that.  I'm hoping grocery delivery will mean more time to do what I want with my family.

Leo has been really into writing words lately.  He's always asking us to spell out words for him.  He wanted more Doritos last week so he grabbed my grocery list and asked me to spell out Doritos for him.  Haha.  Then he's been practicing writing his full name.

We made a couple of bundt cakes.  Delicious boxed cake with extras and homemade frosting.

We got to go to some friend Christmas gatherings.

Olive and I went thrifting and found some treasures.

Kevin had a fun trip with his Dad and brother to Las Vegas.  We were sad to see him go, but made sure to fill our days with extra fun things.

We stocked up on favorite foods at our favorite grocery store.  I will be sad when Leo outgrows riding in the cart while we shop.

We love Schnucks donuts!  I let the kids pick out a favorite donut + a new one to try.  They loved it and it only cost a couple of dollars to make their morning.

I don't decorate a ton for Valentine's Day, however, I had to have this garland from Target!  I loved the details and mixed fabric.  Now I can't wait to do a Valentine's Day mantle.

The house was looking a little bare after the kids helped me take down all the Christmas decor.  I trimmed some things from the yard to make a free bouquet.  That was a good idea, but these two rascals kept attacking my stems making a big mess.  I found the pefect spot to keep the cats away and am enjoying a free bouquet.

Cute chaos.

You know I LOVE bundt cakes, but the pans are a little hard to store.  I saw an idea to hang them and got the supplies at Lowes.  I love having them hanging up in my pantry.  They're pretty and so easy to use.  Two are vintage - from my grandma and Kevin's and two are just ones that I've collected.  I can't wait to watch my collection grow.

We tried these Sister Schuert's cinnamon rolls.  They were delicious!  The closest to homemade cinnamon rolls I've found.  I used homemade butter cream frosting instead of the cream cheese frosting.  They would be so fun to deliver to a new mom, a grandma or anyone who would enjoy a sweet treat.

I aslo had time to try some new recipes over the break!  These cheesey bread was so good.  It felt good to have a little extra time to try out recipes.

And lots of kitty cuddles + late night shows for this night owl.  I watched some documentaries and got caught up on a few new series.  Penny was thrilled.  I was thrilled.  It felt good to do so many of our favorite things over break.

Now onto good things in 2025 with a fresh start to the year!  We're all going to head to bed early tonight after our first day back to school this year.

Snowy Friday Favorites

Happy Friday!  This week has not gone as planned (except for Notre Dame winning last night :)! We got 5 inches of snow, several inches of ice in the middle of the snow storms, no power for 52 hours in the freezing temps and 5 snow days for all of us.  We knew snow was coming to Southern Indiana, but it ended up being a major storm.  And we're projected to add another 5 inches of snow today.  Nothing has melted  What a week!

We love the snow and were really prepared.  I'd gotten groceries and got all caught up on house chores just in case we lost power.  Kevin had us all set up with charging stations, generator, camping stoves and he learned how to run our gas fireplace without power.  What a guy!  We were as warm and toasty as possible all week long.  Lots of our neighbors left, but we didn't want to leave the cats in the cold or risk our pipes freezing.  

It was nice to have a bonus week off to make our Christmas break 3 weeks long.  That's got to be a record!  I remember getting a week off of school for snow in 6th grade (and now Olive's in 6th grade!), but that was a long time ago.  I'm thankful to be on the same schedule as the kids so we could enjoy our days together.  I got lots of projects done around the house.  Even though almost nothing went as planned this week, we still had fun together.  The kids had slumber parties in our room to keep us all warm as possible and we put to good use the camping gear the boys have been collecting.

Some highlights from our week:

Snowmen for breakfast!  The kids loved making their own snowman pancakes on the griddle.

It's always exciting when you wake up to a big snow!

Kevin woke up at 3:30am so excited for now.  It came down fast!  We ate snowmen for breakfast and headed outsdie to play.  We were prepared with snow gear for everyone after the snow we got a few weeks ago.  That always feels like a good mom win.

Fletcher got some really fun snow toys for Christmas.  We all enjoyed playing with them.

They love to check on the neighborhood lakes when it is freezing out.

The snowboard he bought in hopes of snow got some good use this week!  Our driveway has just the right slope to be a fun spot in the snow.

And Fletcher was so sweet to share it with everyone.

Mr. Mittens loved taking naps in the piles of warm snow gear.  Mom hack: Pop every bit of wet snow gear in the dryer when you come inside.  Then it'll be dry and ready for the next time you want to go out and play.  It takes forever to dry on its own so this will keep everyone happy.

Bible stories at bedtime.

The ice is so pretty, but we are praying hard for all of our baby trees to survive a week of ice and snow.

3 kids who LOVE the snow!

Our yard looked so pretty!

I snapped a new picture every day to send to my students.  We kept thinking we'd go back to school after one more day and then it turned into a week out.

Kevin busted us out of the house after days of no power for a hot drink at Starbucks & a recharge/work session at his office.  The kids played, all of our devices/charging stations/generators recharged and Kevin and I got some work done.

And since we were already out of the house, we landed at Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  Best decision and pick me up ever.  We were all so happy to have a warm meal and one of our favorite spots.

Dessert and games by lamp and candle light.  We had to get creative and were super thankful for all of Kevin's charging stations.

Whole family slumber party.  We did a good job of staying warm despite the freezing temps.

Extra thankful when you wake up to your neighborhood friend group chat blowing up with POWER IS BACK messages!

Leo loved walking through the icy snow.  He'd see how many steps he could take until he fell through the ice layer.  I'm thankful for the snow - ice - snow mix so it wasn't too slippery out.

Iced covered everything!!

We played silly games - who canf ind the biggest ice chunk, name the state that this ice chunk looks like, etc. as the kids went sledding down our driveway.

I laughed to find Mr. Mittens smiling while laying on a warm quilt.  Even he seemed happy to have a warm house again.

I introduced the kids to the original Wizard of Oz and Leo is obsessed.

Here's to hoping our next big round of snow brings lots of fun and no power outages for the weekend.

Stay warm and safe wherever you live this weekend!!  We're freezing in the Midwest and thinking of our California friends with their terrible wildfire devastation.  Praying for everyone this weekend.

Linking up with Momfessionals