Miss D's 7th birthday party

We are going low-key for Miss D's seventh birthday party this year.  Her birthday fell during spring break, so most of her friends were out of town.  We had a quiet family celebration at her favorite restaurant on her actual birthday.

This Friday, three of her girlfriends are coming over for a pajama party.  We will do dinner and movies, make tiaras, eat popcorn, and then head out for ice cream at about 10:00 p.m.  Yes, P.M.!  One of the girls is not staying all night, but two are going to attempt a sleepover!

Last time Miss D went to a (non-family) sleepover, I had to come get her at 1:00 a.m. because she couldn't sleep!  Yikes!  Hopefully, these two intrepid seven year olds who are spending the night will fare better than Miss D did!

I am looking forward to having some "girl" time with my big girl and her friends.

Two cooking victories this week!

These are so small in he scheme of things, but they have brought me such happiness...

Since I have lived at high altitude for 11+ years now, you would think I would be an expert at high-altitude baking by now, right? Nope, not so much. My cakes over-rise, collapse, and the texture is crummy and terrible. Pancakes come out like inch-thick hockey picks. Seriously!

So this week I made Jim's birthday cake (from a mix, of course) and before I made it I fired up my trusty internet and tried to learn something about high-altitude baking adjustments. From what I learned, I decided to simply add one extra egg to the mix and raise the baking temperature. Voila! Beautiful cake, not over-risen, no collapse, and decent texture!

Add to that success my mom's suggestions to make good pancakes from Krusteaz pancake mix. Add an egg and use half milk/half water instead of just water. Amazing! The pancakes came out fluffy and Yummy and light!

And so, I have two cooking victories this week! Score one for the stay-at-home mama!

Daddy-J's birthday.

Daddy's birthday was Wednesday, and we went out for pizza that night (his request) but we didn't find time to make his birthday cake until today. Lemon cake, raspberry filling, lemond frosting. Yummy! Happy 41st Daddy-J!

Ski season update.

Ok, so it was a busy ski season this year. Miss D ran two ski races, we had a lot of house guests, we skied a LOT of powder, M-moo and K-wiggles ripped it up in ski school for eight weeks, and Daddy-J blew his ACL skiing in March and had reconstructive surgery on March 24.

So maybe that is why I haven't updated the blog in a while? Life gets in the way of blogging about life. Somewhere there are pictures of lots of things we have done this winter, so tomorrow I will try to find them and put hem up here.