Robert + Betty

Today is my grandparents 55th wedding anniversary. 55 people! What is even crazier is that they have actually been together for 67 years. 67!! Which means that have been the cutest couple ever since they were ten.  What is the most amazing part is not how long they have been together, but how they still love each other. They are so sweet to one another and they have a great friendship. Their "fights" are even cute, and of course, my grandfather loves to get on her nerves just like he does with all of us.  They are amazing, and such a blessing to all of us. 

Spring/Summer Wreath

Our front door has been without a wreath since the end of February. Obviously this has been bugging Chris to death since he loves wreaths, and really, loves all types of decor. I think it is a waste of money, but I go along with him because I love him so much. I even agree to make the wreath for him and our house even though I do not think we need it. That is just the kind of self sacrificing wife I am.

I went to the local fabric store and selected three colors I thought would be great for spring and summer so I would not have to make another one in three months. I selected a leaf/chartreuse green, a pool/robin's egg blue, and a perfect shade of red to coordinate with our existing Adirondack chairs on our front deck. After  creating the front door wreath, I realized I had enough fabric left over for a second one, so I made another for our back deck to hang on the house, since we have a sliding glass door. Chris is just happy that we have a wreath on our front door again. You have no idea how upset he has been and the sleep he has been losing over our wreath-less front door. 

front door

backyard deck

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Obviously the Easter Bunny loves Oscar- a lot! The Easter Bunny gave him candy (thanks mom), lots of Cars socks (thanks mom), a badminton set, a water gun, a bubble wand, and other goodies. He was very excited about everything, especially his Cars socks. He would have to wait to dive into the candy until after mass. Church + sugar + toddler boy = chaos.
After mass we had several friends and their children over for Easter brunch/ Easter egg hunt. Our egg hunt is better than the one in town where parents are fighting parents for eggs that contain a five cent bracelet. Our Easter egg hunt is so cool two Buzz Lightyears stopped by to join in the festivities.
We  had brunch after the egg hunt which included some dishes as praline topped french toast, mini frittatas, lemon glazed poppy seed muffins, smoked salmon, and mimosas.  We were also blessed with the most fabulous Easter weather. We were able to eat brunch outside on the deck, and by 11:30 everyone was practically in short sleeves, which is a big deal for us mountain people. We could not have asked for a better Easter day.

How cute are Parker & Oscar!

Last Day of Skiing

As many of you know, we are training Oscar to be the next great skier, so we can retire at forty. Summer will soon be here and we will once again be training him to be a professional baseball player, so we can retire at forty. I feel for children whose parents place so much pressure on them, clearly we are not those parents. Lucky Oscar.

We took Oscar out on Saturday to get one more day of fun (training session) in before the village closes for the year. We met the Gotham's there, it is so much fun watching Parker and Oscar ski together. It will not be long before they are taking runs by themselves and pretending not to see us when we wave at them. 

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Hannah Banana

Eating breakfast together on Thursday morning, at a cafe, made me wish I did not live so far away from Hannah. Having breakfast with your sister and talking about life and nothing at the same time is a wonderful thing. Our visits home are usually a little crazy because of home many people and moments you are trying to compact into several days. It was lovely to have so much time with Hannah to just be and not have to worry about anything. 

Six days went by way too quickly, and we had to say goodbye to Hannah. We were all so sad, and it took Oscar two-three days to not ask where Hannah was in the mornings when he woke up. I am sure Hannah misses us, but does not miss the 7:30am wake up calls.......

Easter Egg Dyeing

Hannah was a super star during her trip because she stayed home with Oscar for three days. Oscar is great, and I could not love a person more, but......he talks.... A LOT. Picture a person who wakes up at 7:30am and begins talking and does not stop until 8:00pm. It is my fault, this is payback for all the years I talked non-stop and drove my own parents crazy. Some people lied, broke curfew, I talked and talked and talked. 

Hannah was a trooper. She did so many projects with Oscar and I wish that she would move in with me and be my nanny. 

One project we did was dye Easter eggs. Hannah and I were excited about the possibility of deviled eggs, and of course sharing a first with Oscar. I think dyeing Easter eggs is for girls. I can remember dyeing eggs and coming up with all kinds of designs, and being patient while they dyed. Boys drop the eggs in the dye and immediately want them to be ready. Then when they are not, they pretty much get over it and say they want to play Buzz Lightyear. 

Oh well, Hannah and I got our deviled eggs, and they were delicious. 

Hannah in Jackson!

Hannah came to see us for her Spring Break, and we were blessed with great weather her whole trip! Her first day here there was a concert at the village, so we packed up dinner and headed to the village. We rode the START bus, and met up with friends. Oscar brought his bike so he could keep himself occupied while we hung out with friends. It was a great start to Hannah's trip and we were so excited to have her all to ourselves!

Future X Games Winner

Oscar has been skiing a lot this winter and has continually improved, which is really great to see.  I love the ski trips where he is skiing with Parker and they are talking to each other as they ski. Flash froward five-seven years and they are going to be skiing Corbet's and doing serious jumps that I do not want to be witness to. A life saver has been the harness and his edgie wedgies as we have been teaching him. (Chris has really been teaching him. ) He has really come a long way. Now all we have to do is sit back, wait, and start collecting those endorsement checks that will surely be coming our way. 

Birthday Bark!

Matt's birthday was a couple of weeks ago and I made Cake Batter & Sprinkle Bark for his birthday present. Bark is a wonderful candy in that it is so simple to make, looks great, and makes wonderful gifts.

Recipe:
1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Melt dark chocolate in double boiler.
3. Pour melted dark chocolate onto your parchment and spread with a small offset spatula for ease until desired thickness is achieved. Freeze for 20 minutes to set.
4. Melt your white chocolate*. Whisk in cake mix slowly, stirring well until smooth. Let sit for approx three minutes until it slightly thickens.
5. Remove pan with set dark chocolate from the freezer and pour white chocolate repeating the same technique as you did with the dark chocolate. Toss sprinkles right away so they set in the white chocolate. Freeze for twenty minutes.
6. Once set, break into pieces. Can be eaten, placed in glass jars for gifts, placed on tiered platters for a party, etc.

*When buying white chocolate, make sure one of the first ingredients is cocoa butter.   White chocolate should be cocoa butter, milk solids, milk fat, and sugar. It makes a big difference in taste, texture, and flavor.

Snow Work

     Snow. It's beautiful, and it allows us to ski/snowboard, sled, make snowmen, and so many other things. It also collects in our driveway while we are at work, which means work when we get home. We have to shovel the decks, and Chris fires up our snow blower and clears our driveway. Our patron saint of snow clearing, Steve, gave us a snow blower last summer. We love Steve. Because of Steve we can get our whole driveway cleared and snow free in 30 minutes instead of the 2+ hours it would take to shovel everything.  We have spent many a winter shoveling, gazing at neighbors with their snow blowers, and dreaming of a day when we would not have sore backs from shoveling heavy snow. Now we can dream of the day when we have a heated driveway and decks, which will also be the day when we are multi-millionaires. So, you know, any day now.

Berenstain Bears

     I have loved books forever. When I was a child, Little Golden Books and The Berenstain Bears series were always on rotation. Jan and Stan Berenstain never failed to tell amazing stories accompanied by wonderful illustrations. Their stories were always insightful to childhood with stories about stage fright, bullying, fighting, and being scared. Tara' and I had a cassette recording of The Spooky Old Tree, and we listened to it probably 400 times. They did such a  good job with the recording, I don't think we ever listened to it at night without being scared the rest of the evening.  I love getting a second chance to read all their books again with Oscar. They are still as wonderful to me as they were when I was a child.

     Jan and Stan Berenstain gave us some of the most amazing children's books. They continue to inspire children and establish a love of reading, that is something that will live on forever, and I am so grateful for the love of reading they gave me. 

Roses are Purple

Happy Valentine's Day. I have no idea why, but if you ask my mom, this has been my favorite holiday since I was a little girl. Warning Pollyanna moment: I guess it comes down to the fact that I love the people I am blessed to have in my life, and I think it is wonderful that we are reminded every year that you should let them know.  I love reminding people how wonderful they are, and that I am so thankful for them. I do not love the 5' teddy bears and other crazy "displays of love". I love handmade valentines and simple notes. 

This year I made "celery rose" valentines. You cut a whole stalk of celery, paint the bottom, press gently on paper, and voila! I mixed my Golden acrylic paints to make a beautiful purple, and then I used my Golden metallic silver acrylic paint on 3-4 pieces for accent color. I applied the paint to the bottom with a brush so I could control the amount of paint. 

The design can be used for valentines, birthday, and just because cards. You can also make custom wrapping paper with this stamp. 

King Cakes & 200th Blog Post

 Happy 200th jauberry post! Time for cake- King Cake!

       Living in Wyoming can prove difficult when you are trying to find a King Cake during the Mardi Gras season. There are none, which makes the search very difficult indeed. They will ship them from Louisiana, if you are willing to pay $60 and settle for one that taste like a distant cousin of the ones you get at home. I decided I would bake my own, and solve my King Cake problems. I made one four years ago, but it is not something you just decide to make one afternoon, the whole process takes about six hours. My King Cake quest was almost foiled by the absence of purple sprinkles in Jackson, however, I decided to fill in the purple sections with purple icing. (Side note: India Tree Sparkling Sugars are the most divine sprinkles in the whole world. They are so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking them up.)

            I realize that most of you are not concerned with making your own King Cakes since you live in Louisiana, the south, or some civilized part of the country that has things like King Cakes and purple sprinkles, but if you are going to attempt to make this recipe, make it before a party since it feeds twenty people easily.

Ingredients

·         PASTRY:

·         1 cup milk

·         1/4 cup butter

·         2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast

·         2/3 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

·         1/2 cup white sugar

·         2 eggs

·         1 1/2 teaspoons salt

·         1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

·         5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

·          

·         FILLING:

·         1 cup packed brown sugar

·         1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

·         2/3 cup chopped pecans

·         1/2 cup all-purpose flour

·         1/2 cup melted butter

·          

·         FROSTING & DECOR

·         3 cup confectioners' sugar

·         3-5 tablespoon water

·         Purple, Gold, Green Sprinkles (India Tree Sparkling Sugar)

Directions

1.     Scald milk, remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup of butter. Allow mixture to cool to room temperature. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in the warm water with 1 tablespoon of the white sugar. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

2.     When yeast mixture is bubbling, add the cooled milk mixture. Whisk in the eggs. Stir in the remaining white sugar, salt and nutmeg. Beat the flour into the milk/egg mixture 1 cup at a time. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes.

3.     Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 2 hours. When risen, punch down and divide dough in half.

4.     Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 2 cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

5.     To Make Filling: Combine the brown sugar, ground cinnamon, chopped pecans, 1/2 cup flour. Pour 1/2 cup melted butter over the cinnamon mixture and mix until crumbly.

6.     Roll dough halves out into large rectangles (approximately 10x16 inches or so). Sprinkle the filling evenly over the dough and roll up each half tightly like a jelly roll, beginning at the wide side. Bring the ends of each roll together to form 2 oval shaped rings. Place each ring on a prepared cookie sheet. Let rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

7.      Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Push the doll into the bottom of the cake.

8.      When I frosted the king cakes, they were cooled. I placed the frosting in a Ziploc bag and cut the corner. Make sure this is a very small cut. I then used the Ziploc bag like a pastry bag to frost.

9.      Decorate with sprinkles immediately as the frosting still needs to be tacky in order for the sprinkles to stick.

10.  Eat. Especially wonderful for breakfast with a cup of Community Coffee. 

India Tree Sparkling Sugars

COCO Love

After taking Oscar skiing on Sunday, we warmed up with some hot chocolate at Atelier Ortega's new store in town called Coco Love. Chris & I had Mexican hot chocolate, while Oscar just likes his straight chocolate. Their store is so beautiful and well designed.  Oscar looked so sophisticated drinking out of his little cup. I loved his chocolate mustache- he looked just like a little Spanish Conquistador. 

Captain Oscar

On our returning flight from New Orleans, something I did not think was possible anymore happened-  the flight crew let Oscar go into the cock pit. The pilot adjusted the chair for Oscar and let him act like a pilot for a few minutes. He loved it so much and he was so cute. Captain Oscar, sounds pretty good. 

****2012****

We know how to party on New Years. Hannah made our family an amazing three course dinner, Tara' brought the champagne, and CJ & Billy were in charge of fireworks. It was a New Years miracle because Chris made it to the Louisiana New Years. Usually I cannot get him to stay awake until the New York New Years, so this was a momentous occasion. It was also a great New Years because our friends, the Taylors, came to hang out with us with their son Noah. Hannah got the kids some party poppers and they had a blast popping them into the yard. They also got to hold some sparklers under supervision and look at CJ & Billy's great display of fireworks. It was a great night and a great way to ring in 2012......even though we had to wake up at 4:30am for our flight home that morning. 

CJ . Hannah . Tara' . Jessica

Jauberts + Taylors

Van Vrancken Girls