Elephant

Yesterday, 4 pm rolled around and I realized that I had accomplished very little that day. So I sat down and by 6, I had sewed Julia an elephant out of a felted sweater. (Meanwhile, Julia tore apart the bedroom.) He turned out rather well, I thought, especially as I made up the pattern. Sometimes making up patterns works really well for me and sometimes it is a disaster. I think I'll save him for Julia's birthday.

And how is Julia? We've both had lingering colds, but her spirit is not diminished. She was entertained for a surprisingly long time with my bra as we were folding laundry. For Christmas she got a stuffed hippo that she's really taken with. She gives him hugs and whips him around, and does her little "veloceraptor attack" cry and pounces on him, just like she does to Dave and I when we are wrestling with her. Hippo has been joined with a stuffed black bear that she's also a fan of. She likes biting black bear's nose.

a hug for black bear

contemplating hippo's tail

I finally found a granola recipe that I really like. This is from the Winterlake Lodge cookbook.

mix in a bowl:
1/2 cup each of walnuts, pecans and almonds
3 cups of oats
a scant 1 tsp allspice

in a small pot, melt:
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla and
2/3 cup honey (can also use part brown sugar if you ran out of honey like I did)
Pour the butter mixture over the oat mixture and stir. Spread out on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 for 30 minutes. scrape back into the bowl. Add 1/4 cup each dried cranberries, blueberries and cherries.
Put into a airtight container and enjoy.

My other favorite new recipe is for Cocoa Brownies. I like this one because it is cheap! No bar of expensive chocolate needed, and it is easy! I made it for the kids at school one day when the cook was gone. They liked it. 

In a pot, melt 1 cup of butter. 

Add to that 2 cups of sugar and then beat in 4 eggs and 2 tsp vanilla. 

On top of that, add 2/3 cup cocoa powder, 1 cup flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp baking powder. Give the top a little stir to sort of mix the salt and powder into the flour, then stir it all together and pour into a greased rectangle 9 x 13 pan and bake at 350 about 25 minutes, or until it doesn't look jiggly when you give it a shake. 

Frosting:

take 6 Tbsp soft butter 

6 Tbsp cocoa powder

2 Tbsp honey

2 tsp vanilla

and beat it all together until smooth. Add powdered sugar and beat until it looks like a good frosting consistency. Roughly 2 cups should do it. Frost the brownies while they are warm!