A snowy weekend

This weekend Abe was home! It was a real treat, especially considering he’s been in Memphis all week and will be traveling for the rest of January. Furthermore, when we woke up on Saturday, this is what we saw:

Huge snowflakes were falling! I should have ventured outside to get a closer pic, but I was too unwilling to get cold and wet…

So we decided to be hermits all day and stay inside. Abe made up a story with Lydia’s binkies called “Lord of the Binkies.” It involved a series of allusions to Occupy Wall Street, The Book of Mormon, Horton Hears a Who, Ron Paul-esque isolationism, and, of course, Lord of the Rings.  Here’s a scene from the elaborate plot:

Lydia kept stealing the binkies from all of her stuffed animals. Since there were many binkies required for the story, this activity kept her entertained for quit a while.

We took a lunch break to eat some Hungarian mushroom soup, recipe courtesy of one of the Moosewood cookbooks:

It was a little rich, but just the warm sensation of soup on a snowy day was lovely.

And then Abe had to leave for work again. Boo! But while he was gone, I made him a cake for his birthday celebration at the Miners’ (Suzanne’s family):

This was a lemon bundt cake from America's Test Kitchen. I think it would have tasted better with a citrus glaze, but I was hoarding my extra lemons for a different project.

Here’s Abe telling Lydia to look at the camera:

Lydia thought Abe was hilarious. The camera? Less so.

And then today we celebrated Sunday by eating a German pancake (and, of course, going to church and all of that good stuff):

My half of the pancake =)

My mom used to make these for me every Saturday and bring them to me in bed. I know, I know. I was spoiled beyond belief by the world’s greatest mom. When I told Abe about what my mom used to do for me, he said, ” Well, I don’t know how to make German pancakes, but if you want to make them, you can go back to bed and I’ll bring them to you.” Ummm….we ended up just eating them at the table instead. =)