A Snow Day

Today and yesterday, I've spent some time thinking about the classic children's book, A Snowy Day. If you've never read it to your kids, you really must. Little guy heads out in his snowsuit on a snow day and has all sorts of great adventures. Written in a very simple but not boring way. I used to use it in first grade the first week back to school after Christmas break. It was a great way to start edging kids back into school without asking too much of them right away.

Seeing as we had no school today and about 12 inches of snow, today is our Snowy Day. I'm a little skeptical that we will have school tomorrow because we are supposed to get another 3 inches or so yet tonight and the winds are supposed to pick up.

Snow days mean cookies, right? I was going to have Kenson help me and then decided I'd just do them while he was napping. I was wanting to making something new so I opted for Almost Oreo Cookies with Peppermint Cream Frosting. I had seen recipes for homemade Oreos before but I've never made them. This once is super easy because it uses a cake mix. I didn't have the ingredients to make the frosting using gelatin or shortening, which was recommended in other recipes. And I didn't want a cream cheese frosting with a heavy cream cheese flavor. So I decided I'd make my own Peppermint Cream Frosting. (Beat together 2 T. butter and 2 oz. cream cheese. Add 2 T. half and half, cream, or milk. Add powdered sugar until desired consistency. Crush 2 candy canes into fine pieces/powder. Add to frosting. Add mint extract, if needed, to pump up the peppermint flavor.) Pretty yummy, I have to say.

Then D and Kenson and I went outside in the snow. D shoveled while Kenson and I played. Across the street from our house, we have a huge snow pile from city snowplows. The snow was too soft to really climb up it but Kenson slid down it a few times, made holes, yelled into the holes (he was checking to see if someone was in them) and filled the holes back in. We live next door to a lovely sledding hill so I'm hoping tomorrow we can go sledding.