We'll make it SNOW up in here!!!

Last year while staying at the 1905 Victorian House at Acorn Hill in Gruene, TX, I found a photo in a magazine showing a stack of snowballs in the window box of an old house and I stole it.  The idea, not the magazine!!  I took a photo of the photo so we could reference it in case we didn't find instructions online (oh ye of little faith; you can find EVERYTHING online!!).  Then, when we were hit with such a devastatingly hot summer, I wasn't sure even fake snowballs could survive, so I filed the idea away and promptly forgot about it.  Until last week.
So yesterday, Sister and I scoured the Walmarts from Waxahachie to Cedar Hill in search of Styrofoam balls and bags of fake snow.  We found what we needed at JoAnns; apparently there are other fake snowball makers out there and they all shop at Wallyworld.

We assembled our supplies on a table near the back door and opened a window to provide the ventilation needed to keep us from getting loopy on the spray adhesive.  If you're going to try this yourself, you need:
Styrofoam balls in assorted sizes
Wooden skewers
Spray adhesive (we had several kinds, but all were ok to use on foam)
A large bag for dredging the balls in the snow
Artificial snow (we had two kinds, but the smaller the pieces the better)
GLOVES
Good lighting and even better ventilation

An extra pair of hands (optional, but recommended!)

Dump the snow into the large bag and shake to distribute evenly.  Make sure you put the gloves on FIRST or you'll figure out you need them as soon as you start spraying adhesive and by then it's a bit too late!!

      







You want to stick the pointy end of the skewer into the ball, but not so far that you have to do anything more than tap it to get it back out.  This keeps you from actually touching the adhesive-coated ball and totally screwing up your nice clean gloves!!
Also, it helps if you have several balls skewered and ready to spray, then you just drop the wet ones into the snow and shake the bag till they disappear to the bottom.
  This is where the extra hands come in.  If one person does all the spraying and the other person skewers and shakes, you get six balls done in a small amount of time.
You may also need to pack your snowballs to help the fake snow stick.  We seemed to have great adhesion initially, but we were dealing with an incoming cold front and as the temperatures dropped the adhesive stopped sticking to the Styrofoam.  It clumped up the snow, so maybe the dredge technique was the problem.


And you will have a LOT of snow sticking to your gloves as you go, so best to leave trying to clean it off till you're finished.

We spread waxed paper on the table and let our snowballs dry there overnight.

Things I learned from this first attempt:

Work slowly.  We waited a bit late to start so we were rushing a bit.  Probably not the best results as a result...

Use the finest snow you can find.  We had the shredded plastic kind and our snowballs look like uncooked coconut macaroons.

And it's probably best to work in daylight, outside, when it's above 50 degrees.  Just sayin...

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Anyone who knows me knows all too well that cold weather will actually send me to the kitchen to cook.  Well, there's no need to fear that will happen anytime soon since it looks like summer will NEVER leave North Texas!!
This blog was intended as a place to showcase our efforts at creativity, in and out of the kitchen.  And in spite of the horrid summer heat, we have been creative in the months that have passed since we last put up a blog at My Sister's Kitchen.
So, I'll post a few pictures of my summer activities just to prove I've not been lazy.  And maybe now that Sister has a brand new stove she'll get to cooking!!

New "old" Kerr jars made by painting tinted Modge Podge onto glass jars.

The canning jar idea came from Pinterest, my new obsession.  If I did it again, I would try other colors, like maybe pink.  Right now my six blue jars are on my kitchen windowsill filled with leaves and pine cones.  But come December 1st, they'll be full of snow and snowballs!!

I hired a "handyman" to do some repairs around the house and it seemed like the more he repaired the more he destroyed!!  Lesson learned - do as much as you can yourself!!  So, this is my front bathroom wallpaper border after scoring and removal was started.  He made a complete mess of it by using it as his hand towel during a ceiling repair so the only choice I had was to replace it.  I ordered more rolls and Sister helped me take it down.

Then we put the new border up and I don't think it will EVER come off again!!  Once we were finished hanging the border and cleaning up the mess we made, I touched up the paint and repainted the doors, door frames, and trim.  The only thing left to replace is the light fixture...  guess it's time to learn to handle electricity!!  Won't it be cool when I can brag that I can make bolts of electricity fly from my fingertips??

I had a lot of paint left from my previous paint jobs, so I pulled it all out, stirred it all up real good, and commenced painting.  After the front bathroom was done, I moved out into the hallway and repainted the hall walls and trim.  Then I spent a good four days painting doors.  GOOD NIGHT NURSE we've got a lot of doors down that hall!!  But they look pretty good (except for the utility doors which still need another coat) and it's done.

Once the bathroom and hallway were back together, it was time to get to work on the guest room.   I knew from the beginning this would be a feminine room.  I have a collection of photos of family brides and wedding couples and wanted to incorporate those into the room.  The feel is that it is mostly a woman's room and the men are there by invitation only.  The wall color is "Possibly Pink" which contrasts well with the dark wood floors and is set off by the bright white trim and doors.  Sheli helped me with the painting job.  Sister, Sandra, and Sheli helped find the fabric for the toss pillows and sewed them up for me.  And they've all had input into the look and feel of the room, so it is most definitely a "feminine" room!!

With all the painting done for now (there's more to do, but other matters press me for time) I am focusing on projects to help organize and update and trying not to spend money in the process.  One project that is started and just waiting for a long rainy day to complete is making a quilt from all my Celtic Festival t-shirts.  I got the idea from Sandra and love it.  I've never been a fan of the way festival tees fit, so this gives me a chance to have them out of the storage box and still preserve them at the same time.

Sheli and Sandra cut the printed areas into 18" blocks.

The final quilt top will look something like this.

And of course, I've tried to spend as much time as I can with the Tater Tot.  He's growing so fast and can do so many things now it's hard to keep him busy.  But I've found that you can give him a chore and, if he's really into it, he'll do exactly what you tell him to and do his very best!!  Last week we made pizza.  He helped me use the cheese slicer on a block of mozzarella then I gave him the plate of cheese and told him to put it on the pizza dough so that every piece had its own spot.  When he was done, every single piece of cheese had a spot!!  Then he told me he wanted scrambled eggs for his dinner...  Well, you can't win 'em all.

So, you can see I haven't been completely comatose this hot, hot summer.  But I'm ready for the "Chili" days to arrive in North Texas and looking forward to some cold weather projects!!

Some people bake a ham...

Saturday before Easter, Sister and I got together in my kitchen and made holiday-themed cupcakes.  Admittedly, it was a bit late in the day to take on lambs and chicks, but I've seen her whip up a batch of fried pie dough in less than ten minutes so I am fully aware of what she's capable of creating when pushed for time.

THIS is what the lamb cupcakes look like if you start early and have all the right decorating ingredients...  Cute, huh?

This is what lamb cupcakes look like if you don't!!  I think if we'd maybe been drinking they would have been so much cuter.

You can bet I'll put wine on the shopping list next time.  And, now that we know what NOT to do, next year will be soooo much easier, right?  (Here I am assuming that we won't find anything even more creative to do by then.  What a sorry lack of faith!!)

I'll admit, the whole idea was mine.  And I'll even go so far as to say that, usually, the things that we end up doing that seem scatterbrained and far-fetched and ridiculous considering the resources we have are most often things I've suggested.  In my own defense, I always have pictures of what the end product needs to look like!!  In this case, I had actually even made the chick cupcakes all by myself a few Easters ago.  So I brought experience to the party.

I am a firm believer in taking the easy route whenever possible, so I had two boxes of ready-made cake mix and several tubs of ready-made frosting.  I suspect that my pictures came with recipes for a reason, at least where the frosting was concerned, as ours ended up a bit too soft for the project.

Live and learn.

We doubled the cake recipe so things would go faster and poured the entire batter into a large zip lock.  Snip one corner of the bag and the cups will fill quickly and with little mess!  The first shortage came when we filled the tins; I only had two and we really needed at least four.  Again, live and learn!!  Another shortcut that really helped was putting all the decorations out in small bowls to make them easy to see and to reach.  We separated by color and type.

I shopped several places in town looking for ready-made candy eyes for our sheep but nobody seems to stock them.  Michael's online shows them in the stores, but they are not.  Wal-Mart in Addison has a huge Wilton section, but no eyes!!  I could have spent the rest of the day looking for a "specialty" store that might have them, but I had other things to do, so we improvised and made them from mini-marshmallows and licorice bits.  Way too much cutting and snipping and placing and sticking to our fingers!!!  If ever we attempt lamb cupcakes again (or any other animal that requires eyes) I'll purchase them online well ahead of baking day.   Meanwhile,  the chick cupcakes require toasted coconut, so we took advantage of the warm oven to get that part done ahead as well.

Finally, we sat down to frost and assemble.  And quickly realized that, (1) it was way too late to be frosting and decorating cupcakes that required 35 mini-marshmallows, and (2), we were way too tired to really care all that much what something that was likely going to be eaten anyway looked like!!

Thankfully, the chicks ended up going really fast and looking really cute.

***SIGH***

The "F" word

Technically, Texas is located "in the South."  And in case you're not familiar with what goes on "in the South" or maybe you just think we make this stuff up to be considered interesting, EVERYTHING under the sun can be and probably has been fried, "in the South."  We fry our bacon (pork, not turkey), bologna, potatoes, fish, bread, broccoli, Mars bars, grits, and butter; the list is really quite long and covers pretty much anything edible.  Any child raised "in the South" has, at one time or another, consumed three meals in one day consisting entirely of fried food.  So imagine our dismay at the announcement that fried food isn't really all that good for you.  Rest assured there are some who changed doctors, repeatedly, to avoid giving up fried food.  Those health nuts were messin' with tradition!! 

However, while most of us have altered our diets to decrease, if not entirely eliminate, fried food, the one food that can't possibly be improved upon by preparing them any other way is our pies.  And it is quite possible that my sister makes the absolute tastiest fried pies in all the land!  Now, don't go thinking I'm about to put the crust recipe up here.  For one, I'm not sure how they do it in other parts of the country but "in the South" you have to be born into the family to ever get access to such a secret.  And two, having tried and failed miserably to cook those things for which my sister is famous, I'm just saving all y'all from being disappointed in your own sorry attempts at greatness.  Better to let Sister pick and choose her own apprentice in due time. 

Years of practice led Sister to her current fried pie recipe which she can double, triple, or halve, depending on whether they're being eaten by family, eaten at church, or sold in a raffle.  A platter of well-made fried pies can result in triple-digit bid wars at auction!!  And if you want to encourage a preacher to use the "short sermon" come Sunday, just tell him there's peach, cherry, and apple fried pies for the supper on the ground.

We've tested the competition and have discovered some interesting twists on the idea of what the innards of a fried pie can be.  Out at Canton there's a group of ladies who make a tasty pie (up for consideration as an ugly cousin, but certainly no real match to Sister).  From them we learned that pecan filling works really well.  And down toward Gruene there's a pie maker inside a Shell station that offered breakfast and lunch varieties.  I sampled the breakfast pie with eggs and bacon...  a bit runny and a whole lot salty; I'm pretty sure I know a woman who can make vast improvements on that!  Thus, and with no real surprise, the competition has been found lacking.  There is, after all, only one Sister!!

As yet, Sister hasn't ventured into the abyss of breakfast, lunch, and dinner pies; certainly that remains a possibility.  For now, fruit pies are her specialty.  Oh, and pecan.  Those sweet ladies in the bonnets at Canton are on to something good!!  So, after measuring and mixing her special crust recipe, Sister turns it out on a floured surface, in this case her ages-old Tupperware non-stick rolling sheet with the finished pie crust dimensions nicely measured and marked on it, and works the dough.  "You don't have to work it to death, but if you do it will come out really crispy.  I just like mine with a little chew to it."

Sister has a two-foot-long skinny rolling pin just right for rolling out pie crusts and biscuits, and for beatin' a stubbornly frozen bag of Sonic ice into submission.  With it she makes short work of turning plum-sized balls of fried pie dough into tortilla-sized flat circles ready to be filled with, in this case, Smucker's apricot jam (a Yankee company, but they do make really good jelly and jam) and Paula Deen's (a Southern girl all the way down to her "y'all") pecan filling.  The pies are then folded, sealed with the tines of a fork, and dropped into a deep pan of hot peanut oil.  

There's only enough room for two or three pies to cook properly (if you've made them big enough) so don't overcrowd the pot.  And since the filling is already cooked, all you're doing is browning up the crust and getting it crispy.  The pies will float to the top and need to be turned (just like frying a mess of crappie!!) to make sure both sides get that beautiful golden brown.  Then they'll need to drain for a few minutes since you don't want greasy pies (or clogged arteries).  By the time they're ready, you should have a goodly-sized crowd of family members who've already napkined their necks and seated themselves at the table.  All that remains is to sit down and join 'em!!

Paul Deen's Pecan Pie Pockets (http://www.pauladeenmagazine.com)

Ingredients

1. 1 cup sugar
2. 2/3 cup light corn syrup
3. 1/3 cup butter, melted
4. 2 large eggs
5. 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
6. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7. 1/8 teaspoon salt
8. 1 1/2 (15-ounce) boxes refrigerated pie crusts
9. 1 egg yolk, beaten
10. Vegetable oil for frying
11. Confectioners’ sugar (optional)

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, melted butter, and eggs. Stir in pecans, vanilla, and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes.
2. On a lightly floured surface, unroll 1 pie crust. Cut out rounds, using a 4 1/2-inch cutter. Re-roll dough as needed. Repeat procedure with remaining piecrusts.
3. Place 1 piecrust round on a clean, flat surface. Lightly brush edges of crust with beaten egg yolk. Place 1 heaping tablespoon of pecan mixture in center of the round. Fold dough over filling, pressing edges with a fork to seal. Repeat with remaining rounds and pecan mixture.
4. In a Dutch oven or deep fryer, heat oil over medium heat to 350F. Fry pies, in batches, 1 to 2 minutes per side, or until lightly browned. Drain on paper towels. Lightly dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

Italian Cream Cake

So, for some reason 2/3 of my children were born in March.  Aside from knowing that June must have been a busy month for me for a few years in the '70s, what that says about me is that I had to be pretty creative to make each kid feel like they were having their own special day.  Unfortunately, I did combine the birthdays a time or two (the first time being Sheli's 4th birthday when I gave her a little brother [she wanted a Barbie] as a gift then held her party a week late) most recently when they were teens and I offered to cook lasagna (Marc's favorite, not Sheli's) for their dinner.  Needless to say, I've learned from my mistakes and try a lot harder these days to acknowledge each person individually.  Marc got a carrot cake this year (from a box) and dinner out.  Sheli got an Italian cream cake made from scratch.  Even with the dinner, Marc came up at a loss this year.  That Italian cream was the bomb!!

So, here's the recipe and I would hope that all of you will let me know when you're pulling yours out of the oven so I'll have time to get us a cup of coffee on my way over!!

1 cup buttermilk
1tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups white sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour


Preheat oven to 350.  Grease and flour three 9" round cake pans and set aside.
In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in buttermilk and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy.  By hand, stir in eggs, buttermilk mixture, vanilla, coconut, baking powder and flour.  Stir until just combined.  Divide batter equally between pans.

Bake in preheated over for 30 to 35 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool before frosting.

To Make Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 TBSP light cream
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until mixed well.  Add confectioner's sugar, half a cup at a time, until light and fluffy.  Use caution making frosting too sweet.  Use cream to thin to spreadable consistency.  Stir in nuts and coconut.  Spread between layers and on top of cake.

Getting Gruene

Early last month Mits discovered that Raul Malo was coming to Gruene Hall so a plan was hatched for a girls trip down to south Texas to see him.  Unfortunately, there are so many more Raul Malo fans than we'd anticipated; the show sold out rather quickly and we missed the chance to actually see him.  Even so, Mits and B assured me we'd be able to hear him since he was playing the oldest dance hall in Texas and it wouldn't have been soundproofed when it was built.  Even considering the possibility of being arrested for dancing in public I was more than up for it!!  But then the ice storm hit and the roads were so bad we had to reschedule.  So, in spite of the possibility of unpredictable weather, we chose the last weekend in February; I took heart from the sight of B's quince in bloom and decided that even without Raul this was going to be a great getaway!! 

Always on the lookout for possible competition in her quest to be the BEST FRIED PIE MAKER IN THE NATION, as well as being the sort to consider we'd left home without breakfast, Sister spotted a billboard for "The Original Fried Pie Shop" located in an Exxon station right off IH35 just another exit or two down the road and pointed it out.  Of course we stopped!  The lady in the window looked familiar until I realized it was B with make-up, a bouffant, and glasses!!  But as I walked through the aisles of "Texas-sized" sunglasses and tools I truly had my doubts about what we'd gotten ourselves into; I decided to cut my losses and take a Zegrid before I even saw the pies.  I wish I could say they were awful.  I wish I could say they were rubbery and dry and tasteless.  I can't.  I opted for a bacon and egg breakfast pie.  Aside from being really salty (due, I decided, to the use of real salt-cured bacon) mine was delicious.  We left with plenty of ideas on new flavors of pies but we all agreed that B reigns supreme as the Fried Pie Queen.

We drove straight to our accommodations for the night; a beautiful 1905 Victorian House just outside of Gruene at Acorn Hill B&B.  The setting leaves a lot to be desired, but the house itself more than makes up for that.  Although our initial reaction wasn't all that great when we discovered wasps hosting a soiree in the front parlor!!  We called the innkeeper to deal with it and took off for town.

Having grown up in a small town, I have never become accustomed to big city living in spite of my 30 plus years of doing just that.  I don't walk the streets of my neighborhood alone and I certainly don't leave my doors unlocked.  But I long to do just those things and a town like Gruene would be ideal for someone like me!!  Except for the hoards of people who come to town on the weekends to shop and listen to music.  I suppose though, if I had a little house out away from town I could deal.  I'd like to try anyway.
Aside from the dance hall, Gruene has a number of shops, from antiques to gourmet food to music.  A "must stop" would be Lonestar Music where you can still purchase LPs!!  We went back on Sunday to get a Reckless Kelly CD after hearing them while we walked the streets Saturday night taking pictures.

We found an assortment of interesting items in the Gruene Antique Company, many of which were a bit too bizarre even for me!!  I did consider that the Civil War-era glass eyeballs would have been perfect for Hallowe'en, but at $45 an eye, I decided they would just have to stay in the display case.

We decided to lunch at The Grist Mill which serves unbelievably tasty meals inside an amazing building that rambles along the hillside above the Guadalupe River.  Our seats were not "riverside" but the view was gorgeous just the same and it was hard to decide if what was outside could even compare to what was inside!!  The glass windows seem to grow out of the brick walls and many trees and vines have been left to creep and tower as they will from the ground beneath the building (this picture was taken from our table, looking into another dining area through a hole in the wall).  It is what I imagine all old ruins should look like, but this one also provides tender juicy chicken in your salad, fresh al dente spinach for your quesadillas and onion rings as wide as a razor strap!!  Didn't order those, but they're on the list for next time.

Back at the house with a freshly uncorked bottle of wine, we kicked back and soaked in the ambiance of our beautiful little house secretly wishing it was really ours and discussing all the things we could do in it and to it and from it.  Most of all, we gained an appreciation for the effects of soft colors in large spaces and small accents well-placed.

We all found things to appreciate and make note of for future use.  For instance, I have finally figured out exactly what the built-ins in my living room should look like.  Now I just have to convince Daddio that they're perfect enough to warrant ditching the backless and unsteady, much too deep, freestanding shelves that have been a mainstay in our house longer than moi.  They are nothing more than dust-catchers and non-too-pretty to boot!!  Hopefully, he'll see the aesthetic functionality of this style instead of focusing on the green of the background wall.
All in all I think we had a successful trip.  We never had to break out Mr. Sock or the heavy headache drugs (oh, there are stories we all can tell!!) although another 100 miles of driving could have changed that.  But then, another 100 miles of driving would have had us in Port Aransas, so maybe not.  We were sad to leave and anxious to come again.  And I'm already planning at least one trip-related mini-scrapbook.  Guess that makes Gruene a keeper!!

Guest Services

Last night a bunch of us got together to meet my niece's good friend, Kat, from Iowa.  Normally, we don't need the excuse of a new family member to get together and eat, but we were being nice letting Kat think she was the reason for strappin' on the feedbags.

And what a feed it was!!!


I made some standard fare, queso dip and guacamole (which was AWESOME, if I do say so!!) but Sister outdid herself with cheese and onion enchiladas and build-your-own beef tostadas.  We had cake and banana nut bread and pralines too, but the BEST of the sweets was Sheli's Fruit Salsa!!  My girl introduced this incredible and quite versatile dish to the family a couple of years ago and it has become as big a standard for our family gatherings as Deviled Eggs.  So far I've tried the leftovers on toast and in my salad but I'm still debating if I think it will go well on a dish of Blue Bell.

Fruit Salsa

1 Fuji apple - peeled, cored and diced

1 cup diced fresh strawberries

2 kiwis - peeled and diced

2 bananas - peeled and diced

2 tbsp fresh lime juice

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl.  Cover and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hrs. 

Serve with cinnamon & sugar pita chips.

The big warm-up

The last few days have been really warm and sunny.  You'd almost think Spring is in the air, but it's just a bit too soon still.  However, it is nice to walk outside in shirtsleeves and no coat and not hear that little voice in your head (no, I don't know which little voice it is; there are far too many to name them all) saying "Hey stupid, you forgot your coat!!"
Even so, I'm not really looking forward to the warm up so much.  Last summer is still far too fresh in my mind (we weren't blogging then, but for those who were close enough to hear me screaming in frustration, it got up to 90 degrees INSIDE my house at one point... WITH the A/C on!!)

I did manage to venture outdoors a couple of times with camera in hand and it was nice to be out even though the landscape for the most part continues to look dead and my sinuses are telling me repeatedly and with conviction that I am foolish to assume there won't be anything worth sneezing over.  The best part was spending time with The Tater Tot in the park; I know he'd be outside all day every day if we'd only let him.  And knowing this makes me wish even more for a home with a boy-sized backyard!!
As I type, it's 81 degrees and the A/C is on...  I am in a state of rebellion.  I do not want it to be summertime.  I baked banana nut bread in protest.

Compounded problem

Sister and I have been talking for some time about the possibility of moving into a house together.  Me, Daddio, Sister, Mr. Lee, Mits, and possibly Mema all under one roof.  Or maybe two.  The idea has a lot of merit but the details may require a bit more gnawing on.

When we first started discussing it, we worked out in pretty short order what would happen in practical terms inside the house.  I clean, she cooks, 'nuf said.  But there's so much more to it than just the simple every day tasks that keep a house running.

Money, for instance.

Who will work and provide payment for the groceries and cleaning supplies?  The A/C and heat?  The feed for the donkey?

Oh yes, there WILL be a donkey!!

When I threw this idea out for my immediate family to dissect, it was met with some enthusiasm.  Which was a bit of a surprise but in hindsight makes a lot of sense.  After all, my kids aren't all that crazy about the idea of the old folks moving in with them when the time comes.  And too, we all loved the house on the lake when Mema and Papa lived there; it stands to reason we all want something in the way of that again.

I have no idea where or when or how.  There are far more unanswered questions right now than cemented plans.  But I'm having a good time dreaming about "some day" just the same...

 

Some beach...

This cold, cold, cold is making me wish for warm Gulf breezes!!!  But there's still a lot of winter left before we can even dream of flip-flops.  And Sister still has to get that hot air balloon ride in.  So, in the interest of chasing the chills away...

 The chairs are waiting for us.

Baby It's COLD outside!!!

Well, we've come a LONG way from the mid-70s of last week!!  Monday evening brought rain that moved right into sleet in the wee hours of Tuesday.  Our resident fireman reported back that the roads were horrid (he left for work at 4:00 a.m.) and things were getting worse as the morning came on.  I found out later they had a call that included one of the fire engines but had to make do without it when it was unable to stop going through the intersection!!
So, with rolling blackouts and frozen pipes, Sister made an executive decision to cancel this weekend's adventure in hopes of finding a warmer weekend somewhere down the road.  As much as I really wanted to see all the things Gruene has to offer, I'm good with waiting for walking weather.
Daddio has a fire going and I've been in the kitchen making cookies.  If it's too cold to antique, I guess we'll just have to EAT!!!

 

Hello Cupcake, part two!!

Here's a look at the finished product.  Sister added one more flavor to our cupcake tower then frosted them to match some of our favorite Scentsy scents!!  We ended up with Mochadoodle Hazelnut Latte (a combo of Mochadoodle and Hazelnut Latte), Peach Ginger (Just Peachy, Ginger!) and Praline (Central Park Praline).  They were very pretty and incredibly tasty!!  It'll be interesting to see if anyone else uses the idea and to see what flavors they end up with.

Next weekend we're off to Gruene, TX for a frolic!!  Should be a fun trip and I hope we find lots of interesting places to tell y'all all about when we get back.  We've also discovered that Wimberly is an antique-rich little spot as well and Sheli tells us there's a huge antique "festival" down in that area every year.  SWEET!!