Cookies, Snow, Cookies, Snow

Have I mentioned we have had a lot of snow around here lately? Oh, I did, right. Well, we got more last night. It's just amazing around here. I don't remember seeing this much snow in Washington before - I was probably too young to remember the last time. It's beautiful, but it makes a lot of things difficult. Like Andy going to work. The road that leads from our house up to the Speedway is pretty bad with snow and ice on it, so Andy walked the 1/2 mile up this morning, took a bus down to the train station, and the train into Seattle to work. He said there were cars parked in the middle of the road on his walk to the bus, and he walked past a jack-knifed accordion bus in downtown Seattle. Aaahhh, life with snow, hills, and no regular plowing!

Ailey and I spent the day today making sandbakkels (a Norwegian cookie). I don't suppose it should be a day-long project, but with Marin and Silje only taking one nap (today at least, we never know what they'll do from one day to the next!), laundry to be done (urgent ... again!), and a 3-year-old who loves to read ("But, Mom, let's just read this one book first"), making sandbakkels was a day-long project. Yesterday's day-long project was gingerbread cookies. I haven't made sandbakkels or gingerbread cookies before (what can I say? I love baking more now with a kid!), so both projects had some learning curves. Both cookies turned out great. I don't have pictures of the sandbakkel-making, but here are some of our gingerbread Christmas trees (I couldn't find a gingerbread man cookie cutter at the grocery store on Sunday, go figure).

We didn't think the molasses smelled very good. Phew!

Like I said, it was my first time making gingerbread cookies. I now know I should have added more flour before attempting to "knead" it.

We finally got the dough to a point where we could roll it and cut out the cookies. Ailey is very good with the rolling pin and cookie cutters.

Ailey and I had to taste test the first cookies!

Ailey's creation: a glob of frosting and a pile of M&Ms. What else?!

My attempt at making gingerbread man cookies:

After a day of baking and decorating yesterday - whew! - Ailey got to go outside in the snow again. Andy and I took turns getting out in the stuff too. Luckily, our neighbors had a spare snowsuit for Ailey to wear. It's a size 7, but it works! Here Ailey is wearing her rainboots. The same wonderful neighbors also called from Target saying they had kid's boots on sale and bought a pair for us. So no more rain boots in the snow for Ailey!

Today after a day of sandbakkel-making, Ailey and Andy went outside again as soon as Andy got home from work ... this time Ailey had good boots on. They borrowed the neighbor's sled and went up-hill to join in the fun for a while. Ailey didn't want to ride, she wanted to pull. :)

It has been an interesting week. Cookie baking. Snow. Cookie baking. Snow. All three kids have been sick too. Ailey had a cough, but it thankfully didn't get any worse than that and is better now. Marin and Silje have had faucets for noses and aren't sleeping well for it. So I think we're just thankful that we have a roof over our heads and working heat this week. And beautiful scenery out our picture window!