A Dump Cake for Dump After Dump

We are in the midst of a 48-hour snowstorm here in New England, and it has been our first experience with snow in our new house!  On the news they have been calling this storm a "one-two punch" since we had an initial surge of snow Sunday evening into Monday, and then we had a "phase two" last night while we were sleeping that has been continuing through most of the day today.  In the Sugar and Spice household, we have been referring to this storm as "dump after dump"-- a little inside joke we share with the girls based on this video:

(I always cough loudly to drown out the bad word, FYI :)

The girls had a snow day yesterday but my school did not close, so M dug me out, I strapped on my boots, and traipsed off to work while everyone else stayed home.  The roads weren't bad in the direction I was going, so it worked out okay.  Plus we saved some $ on babysitting since M was home with J.

The girls spent most of the day outside, excited to explore any new slopes in our new yard, although the general consensus was that our new yard is decidedly less slope-y than our old house.  Despite this fact, they still managed to find plenty of hours of entertainment out there... in the form of snowball fights, fort building, snow "surfing" (standing on sleds and riding them down small slopes), and playing "Santa and his Elves" (basically pulling each other around the yard in our toboggan sled).

I took these twilight pictures of our big friendly pine trees yesterday evening when I got home from work... they were so beautiful and silent in their coats of snow:

Today both schools were cancelled, so we have all been home and again spent an active morning outside enjoying the snow (well, Daddy was shoveling, so not quite as enjoyable for him... but oh well).  A fresh 6 inches or so had fallen overnight!

Our yard is very Narnia-ish although I don't get the feeling that these trees are spies for any witches.  They seem quite friendly.  I have been enjoying some quiet peaceful walks among them as I head out to pick up stray mittens or stack sleds so they don't get buried.

It seemed an appropriate time to try baking my first dump cake in honor of "dump after dump", and in view of my family's tradition of baking during a blizzard.  We all decided that the word "cake" is a little misleading with a recipe like this one; it's more of a crumble, but still delicious!

Perfect to enjoy while blogging.

The afternoon has been spent playing some Nintendo Wii and enjoying our cake/crumble while keeping warm by the fire.

Have I mentioned how much we love our gas fireplace in this house?  What a treat!

In fact, in the wet and cold and raw of being outside, I'm finding myself very thankful that we have a warm house, warm beds to sleep in, and plenty of delicious food.  Our blessings are many.

Free family time is pretty nice, too!  The girls were saying they have now had a full week off from school, with two snow days on the heels of Thanksgiving break.  This will certainly refresh us for the whirlwind of holiday activity in the weeks to come!

If you are also weathering the storm, I hope you are staying safe and warm!