An Icy Start

After that beautiful few days in the sunshine state, we came home to the reality of living up north!

The beginning of April brought with it quite a severe ice storm.

It gave us a few cozy days at home…but also a big mess outside!

We arrived home on Monday, and spent Wednesday running to appointments.

I need to hire someone to be in charge of our calendar!!

The person currently in charge (that’s me) is doing a terrible job!

We woke up to all the ice on Thursday.

It was NOT good!!

Just to be completey transparent – I was really enjoying being “stuck” at home though – which in my mind meant being home with no guilt that I should be elsewhere!!

As the ice came from the sky, I got busy in the kitchen and took the opportunity for a big kitchen day.

My favorite!!

It was not my favorite to see all the damage and stress to our beautiful trees though.

Some tree branches fell on our animal fence and broke it too!

Thankfully, even though we lost so many limbs, all of our trees survived that storm fairly well.

First thing on my agenda on an icy day was to bake bread.

I am not sure when I started doing it this way, but it has continued!

I make two loaves worth of bread dough at one time and split it three ways.

This is a bit of a stress on my 20 year old kitchen aid mixer, but it works!

I make two smaller loaves of bread and then just a few cinnamon rolls with the rest.

My family, of course, loves this brilliant change!!

Eliza headed off to practice music, but Tate jumped in and helped me in the kitchen.

They are both such good helpers!

We made many of our staples this day, some of which have been staples for years now.

Things like hard boiled eggs (that turned into egg salad), chicken bone broth, soaking raw cashews to ferment into dairy free sour cream, muffins, and of course chocolate peanut butter balls.

We cannot forget the chocolate!!

I enjoy watching a few You Tube channels that are specifically from scratch cooking channels.

I saw these souper cubes on one of them and decided to try them.

They are not cheap!

But I do enjoy having two of them!!

I put some of my homemade chicken bone broth into them.

They are one cup portions and pop out of the cube SO easily.

I find myself needing just a small amount of broth often!

I froze the rest in quart freezer containers, which I use a lot too.

Other ice storm day acitivities included deep cleaning Eliza’s room and closet.

Wow, was that needed!

A before photo would prove that last statement, but I do not have one!

So proud of Eliza for easily donating all of the things and clothes that she had out grown.

She keeps her room very tidy, and it is much easier now!

Her room is a bright, very sweet spot!!

We also had some rest time, of course!

Tate’s idea of rest was planting some more seeds.

You can see what Jazzy and Ruby’s idea of rest time was, ha, ha!

It was a very nice, quiet day.

Very rare around here!!

Eliza also had a piano assessment which passed her to the next level!

She is doing so well with her piano studies and I love hearing her practice!!

A nice ice storm evening activity was to have the guys switch our bedroom rug to Eliza’s room and lay a new rug in our room to match the newer colors.

Finishing everything after all the painting was completed last year has been a slow intentional process and I have enjoyed every minute of it!!

I also purchased a new basket to display a blanket that Chad’s finance, Kailey, made for me.

It looks so pretty with our bedroom!

Blake brought home flowers during the storm too, saying we needed a bit of spring on the inside even though it was the fiercest winter weather outside.

I love that man!

Please notice that after we arrived home from Florida, I never put my summer shoes away.

Take that, ice storm!