Baking, Bears, and Beauty

We're going for the alliteration in the blog titles lately.

It has been a lovely week-- I feel like I'm in a bit of a calm before the storm, work-wise... I am just finishing arranging lots of music for my string ensembles so that is off my plate, and I'm trying to squeeze in extra voice practice when I can for my Bach St. Matthew coming up in April, but I'm not into any kind of crazy rehearsal schedule yet.  Things feel manageable and there's a lot of fun stuff and weekend relaxing happening too!

This past weekend I did lots of baking, which as you may have guessed is my happy place.

Two loaves of regular bread, one gluten-free loaf, and the no-bake bars that I mentioned here.  Not pictured was some blueberry almond coffee cake that I made because I discovered that I had, inexplicably, a huge amount of almond extract in my cabinet, and that was all the excuse I needed to whip out the coffee cake recipe.  I remember making several batches of that cake before J was born and freezing them, and pulling them out and warming them up with my huge cup of coffee when she was a newborn... it's the little comforts that you appreciate big time when you're in zombie mode those first few weeks of baby's life.  Amiright???

I've been keeping up pretty well with my plan of making all of our bread rather than buying store-bought.  I think half the reason is that I am such a bread lover and there really is nothing like fresh bread for sandwiches, toast, and anything else your heart desires:

I have gotten better at resisting devouring the whole loaf as soon as it comes out of the oven.  But only slightly better.

These two were looking especially cute snuggling at dinner the other night:

L had been playing with J's hair and gave her this special 'do just for the picture.

These two have had a special bond since day one and L is the one I find most often snuggling J.  All the girls snuggle a lot, but these two especially.  Remember all the pictures like this one from back in the day?

It's pretty sweet and I try to capture it on camera when I can, even when there are homemade potholders, our messy veggie plate, and a tissue box in the foreground!

J got to take home her class pet "Honey Bear" over the weekend and it was pretty thrilling for her.  We took some pictures of J and Bear in action and put them in the class journal.  C was home from school with a low fever (that didn't develop into anything else, thank goodness) on Friday, so the two of them had lots of fun together just lounging, resting, and playing with Honey.  We had to take L to the orthodontist early that morning so everyone got donuts as a reward.  A fun day!

I have been able to run outside on all my run days since I last posted!  Woot!

In the early morning dark and cold, with my head lamp and my four layers, but still... outside!  I'm really appreciating this low-snow winter because the fresh air does such wonders for my soul!  Can I also give a shout out to my Old Navy leggings that come in a TALL??  Before I discovered these I always had that two inches of cold skin around my ankles, but no more!  Highly recommend if you are a tall lady like me!  Next time I have the extra $$ I'll spring for the ones with a pocket.  That would just put the icing on the cake.

This past Saturday I ran just over 8 miles with a mom friend (the miles always just fly by when you have someone to chat with!) and afterwards I was soooo chilly so it was a hot shower and this plate of comfort food:

Dipping your sweet potato fries in chipotle mayo is highly, highly highly recommended.  I was never a dip-fries-in-mayo person, but hubby introduced me to that concept and, although I don't usually do plain mayo as a dip, the chipotle... now that's a different story.

Also, making pulled pork out of boneless country-style ribs is so much easier than doing it with a pork roast, as I had been for many years.  I bought them because the supermarket was out of pork roast, but now I will do it this way every time!  The meat just falls apart by itself... minimal pulling needed.  Highly recommend that too.

We did do some healthier fare this week too, like this spaghetti squash... sooo good.  Don't have a pic, but you should try it.

Here's Honey Bear helping us buy the groceries:

And later on, this beauty decided to dress up.  She had been watching a few scenes from Sanditon over my shoulder one night, and decided that she wanted to wear a "long draggy dress" like the girls in the show.  She borrowed one of N's dresses and has been wearing it on repeat throughout the week... with a bun, "tappy shoes" and as much beautiful jewelry or hairpieces as she can find.

She's just as fancy as she can be, whenever she can be so.

That's it for now!

P.S.  I want to apologize that all my blog posts of late could fit into the jumbled up category-- just a gigantic mind dump of random things.  It's pretty much all I can manage right now, but hopefully there will come a time when I get back to blog posts that have a single topic, or at least a little more focus!  Thanks for putting up with my ramblings!  See you next Wednesday, if not before :)