Yum, yum!

Kait was first to dig into these cookies she helped me whip up, that lazy, not so lazy Sunday last weekend. Yum, yum!

Our first cookies of the year!

Only because I am not springcleaning for Chinese New Year. Which is going to be a regular schoolday and workday for us here, that's my excuse ;p. If only I can muster the energy to go beyond the day-to-day cleaning -- and box away our messes! Oh well...

At least I've warmed up our oven -- hopefully for an occasional simple bake like this, that's always nice to have the help of the little one(s) :). Not just to cook meat and fish in, that's still what I use the oven for mostly. Christmas I got away with a no-bake choc fudge with peppermint candy that we were all quite happy with, and I never got round to baking those sugar cookies!

And no, these cranberry cookies are not for CNY either; we'd eaten them up by Tues! :D

Guess I have to be thankful my children don't pine for pineapple tarts, or those melt-in-your-mouth kuih bangkit I personally crave this time of the year!

Thanks to the Internet, I'm enjoying (vicariously) all the prep being shared in the countdown to the Rabbit Year. But minus the EXTRA hard work, hehe!

My friends in Singapore and Malaysia, and everyone everywhere gearing up for next week... I hope you are almost there!  I can smell those cookies -- whether they're storebought or you've made them fresh, batch by batch -- from way over here...
Mm mm!!!


Recipe for cranberry cookies...

I used this eggless, milkless, Raisin Puffs recipe by celebrity chef Paula Deen. Except I substituted cranberries for raisins and used the microwave to soften them in water to skip the stove-top boiling. 

The recipe yields 40+ cookies. When I got to the end in that final batch (in that second picture), I made two XL-size cookies out of the remaining dough -- just for the fun of it. 

When ice is not nice

Last Fri morning was sooo icy...

The husband slipped and fell on the driveway -- more than we had other times before on the sidewalks. Good thing he could pick himself up despite sliding like that, PHEW!

Separately, I skidded and rammed crashed into the kerb at the bend -- and thankfully nothing else, even before making it out of our street with the children!

Like a chain reaction, he did the same after that, at that same bend a little behind me! Imagine that!

For our safety, the boys stayed home from school that day.

As it turned out, our wheels, not the snow tyres per se, were more compromised than we thought.

I want so bad to go "Stupid ice!" over the repair$$$!

But I feel really bad too as it was also my bad partly! :(

Here goes my one. more. SSSIGHHH!!!

And I need to MOVE ON... after this...
Stoopid ice!

Just need to get that out of my system!

Learning to chill

Shovel, shovel, shovel!  Three rounds of shoveling on that first day of the snowstorm, wasn't exactly my idea of chilling. 

Boy was I knackered already on that first day the man of the house, also the much needed man(power) for the job with snow like this, was away last week!

Kait watched me work out in the driveway from the garage at first. Then she rode her trike, scaled the snowberms, and also gave me a hand!  

The third time was in the night after we'd come back from Jon's concert. The snowplow had just left, and it helped to have both Jon and Ben get to the new snow heaped onto the driveway. I went and worked on the sidewalk after most of the neighbours had got to theirs by then.

Really thankful for faraway friends...

- For praying for our safety, as I went about our usual business and more busyness over those five days with the children.

 - For caring about my sanity also, and talking with me on FB!

 Thank YOU, you gals are the best!

Also thankful for the light rain. And the unplowed side streets around school were not too slushy to drive in.  I used the shoveling break to try and catch up on housework.  

Food wise, I made more one-pot meals, like stew one day, and soup the next, and rolled over more soup for a noodle lunch on Sat. By Sat night it was fried chicken... from the supermarket, haha! And that was because there was no parking where we thought of eating, after one boy's activity and an errand waiting for him to be done, while we were already outside.

But look what else we brought home?  These pretty primroses the kids helped me pick out -- in the countdown to spring (too soon?) already, not just to their dad's return late the next night!

Chance to chill...


Of course the busyness wasn't without the crazyness. And you know how in the movie "Evan Almightly", it was explained to Evan that when he prayed for patience, God would not instantly make him patient? But rather, he can expect to have the opportunity (upon opportunity) to be patient?


In quite the same way, there were the opportunities for me to learn to chill, that I'd be lying through my teeth if I said, of course I kept my cool throughout!  From those "I-hate-school!" meltdowns first thing in the morning when at least some body would wake up on the wrong side, to the usual homework battles and more sibling squabbles during those afterschool hours when you really need the children to be cooperative, to all their delay tactics to fight bedtime.


These are still very real opportunities for me to learn to chill, whether or not the hubby is away or working late on a regular day. One part of me thought, I should really bare my fangs and RRROARRR like a TIGER MOTHER! A la Amy Chua, in that WSJ article a friend emailed me on Monday last week, and I also caught the Today interview the next day, same day it aired. The other part of me, who was trying not to feel like her extreme ways gave us Asian moms a bad rap, was imagining the parents at the school concert thinking this of me: "She's one of them!"!  That said, I have not stopped thinking it's important to teach our children discipline, diligence, and determination; and the how-to part to all that is part of what makes parenting so challenging, I tear my hair out!

On a lighter note...

The playing of cool music on the marimba by the fifth graders gave me the chance to sit back a little, never mind Kait was bobbing in my lap, and Ben and I joined others to sit on the floor because the seats were snapped up.

I was also excited for Jon as he was about his solo bit part in the singing of the songs to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr Day just over.

Back to chilling, there are also the other kind of opportunities we need to create for ourselves, that I am learning to do amidst the day-to-day busyness.  Those little moments we've got to steal, even if it's for a wee bit! 


Even though as moms, our children and their different needs and schedules, school and activities keep us on our feet -- more than we really get to sit down. Even though as housewives, the chores are constantly calling out to us -- to get to this floor and that toilet, this laundry and that meal, and it's time to go stock up on grocery and other household needs again. 

 

Yes, I'm learning to chill -- to catch my breath, if not to stay sane! For how fast each day rolls into another. There's more stuff I'd better just roll over to another time, another post to share!

Have a great weekend now... Cheers!

After the snow let up, I stole a break with Kait at the McDonald's near school after dropping off the boys -- to give her a more fun workout.

Try crawling into one of those playplaces though, it's not really kind to anyone's back either!

Was going to sit down to a cuppa and watch her play. But she wouldn't let me ;).