Too Much Snow, Playing at Home, and Avocado Egg Toast

On the plate:  Avocado egg toast....seriously delicious!

Soundtrack to cook to:  Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing (version by John Legend) on repeat, because I can't get this song out of my head!  Sooooo good.  Plus, John Legend is just an incredible artist.

Ok...seriously...enough with this snow.  We have been repeatedly pounded with so much snow that my tears have turned into snowflakes.  Two weeks ago we got slammed with a blizzard and the boys missed two days of school.  That was fine because it was our first big snow of the year.  Then, last week, we got another two feet of snow and the boys missed another two days of school.  Okay...no big deal...it wasn't that bad.  This week....c'mon, we got more snow and have had another three day school week for the kiddos.  What.in.the.world??  I'm seriously mad at that groundhog for seeing his shadow.
Annnnnd, I'm done with my rant.  Thanks for listening.  Now on with the show.
After the first blizzard, the boys and I were dying to get out and about.  I picked up my sister one Friday morning and we met up with my friend Shikha and her darling son Rohan at the Children's Museum in Boston.

William and Alex, stacking up some giant checkers.

William, Rohan, and Shikha playing their version of
checkers at the Children's Museum.

 William playing with the musical chairs.

Alex and William in the green screen area so that
they can see themselves on television with Arthur.

We've all been battling a pretty nasty head cold and cough since late December.  My Dad had it while visiting, then Joseph's mother had it, then Joseph had it, I had it, Alex had it, and William finally ended up with it.  (Needless to say, I opened up all of the windows and disinfected all handles and light switches in the house.)
Poor little William Billiam had such a nasty cough that it kept waking him up at night (and everyone else for that matter).  So, we took him to the doctor's office and he was put on a nebulizer treatment every four hours.  Thankfully, we had a nebulizer at home (from another time one of the kiddos had to use it), so we were all set.  William actually liked the nebulizer because he got to watch episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine every time he had it.  (It was the only way he would sit still for twenty minutes straight.)

William wearing "Mr. Happy" as I referred to
the mask in order to make him feel comfortable.
He actually liked it!  :-)

Annnnd here's Alex being a little nutty with some
packing bubbles when we were having a dance party.

Our goofy guy!

Two weekends ago was the last weekend for Joseph to have off and be able to be with the family both days, so we tried to make the most of our time together.  One of those days, we went out to lunch and then took the boys to see the movie Paddington.  It was actually really good!  Plus, it was nice to see Paddington again.  I used to love Paddington when I was a little girl.

Joseph, Alex, and William, ready to watch the movie.
After the movie, all the boys wanted to eat was
orange marmalade (because Paddington really liked
marmalade sandwiches).

That night, I turned on the monitor and saw our
darling little Alex asleep like this.  I thought it was so sweet.

Oh my heavens!  Here's a quick recipe for my new breakfast jam and I'm soooooo addicted to it!  I've been in a food rut lately-especially breakfast - and craved something new but wanted it to be warm.  I was watching The Chew, and they were talking about avocado toast for the person on the go (which is me, always).  This is a quick and easy breakfast that I can prep very quickly and have enough left over for the next morning.

Ingredients:

• 1 piece whole wheat toast
• 1 egg (or 1 egg white)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 avocado
• 1/2 lime, juice and zest
• Salt and pepper
• Garlic powder
• 1 tbsp dried dill

Directions:

1. Put the toast in the toaster.
2. In a small pan, put 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (or oil of your choice), and turn the heat up to med/high (you want the pan hot so that the egg will get nice and crispy on the edges).
3. In a small mixing bowl (I use a small Tupperware so that not only do I mix the ingredients in it, but I can store the remaining avocado in it for the next day - I hate to dirty too many dishes), place the avocado that has been chopped into small pieces, zest and juice of the lime, salt, pepper, and dried dill.  Mix well, but not too much, because you want to maintain the shape of the avocado.
4. Cook the egg in the hot pan to your liking.  (I like mine with some salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and over medium because I looooove it when the yolk oozes out over the avocado and bread.  It adds a nice creaminess to the dish.)
5. Assemble your toast:  Toast on bottom, avocado mixture, and egg on top.

A nice change to your everyday breakfast.  It's such a treat
and cooks very quickly.  The brightness of the lime juice
with the creamy avocado, followed by the beautiful
umami taste that your palette gets from the yolk is
simply amazing.  Love this!

Silly William Billiam, being creative with containers
as "hats".  *Sigh*  I remember when Alex used to do this.  :-)

William with a smoothie mustache.

Doesn't he remind you of Ralph Fiennes' character
in The Grand Budapest Hotel?  Lol!!

Lol!!  Do you see the likeness??  :-)

Time for some Valentine's day crafts!  I had the boys do a little painting with some toilet paper rolls that I had folded into the shape of a heart.  They had a lot of fun stamping the paper.

Our little artists.

One of our favorite things to do after dinner is to run around the house (get out all of that energy so the little ones sleep well).  The boys love to hide in their pirate play house and run away from "Mommy monster" and "Daddy monster."  There's lots of high-pitched squealing and screaming but it's all in good fun.

Joseph, a.k.a. Daddy monster, after he triumphantly
surprised the boys.

William, running for his life, while Daddy monster
goes for the scare.  :-p

And now it's time to calm down...

Alex, working on some lacing cards that we got
from the Eric Carle museum.

Joseph and William, working on letter recognition.

So sweet! :-)

Alex was very proud of his hard work.

We got a lot of snow...so now it's time to do a little shoveling!

The boys were actually saying, "Yay!" but the picture
looks slightly miserable.

The boys on a snow mountain.  They mostly liked
eating the snow.  I told them to stay away from the
dirty snow and the yellow snow.  :-)

Our snow bunnies

The boys on the mountain of snow in front of our house.
(It's actually even higher now.)

Woo hoo!  Time for a date night with friends!  Joseph and I were able to get away one night and met our friends Peter and Liz out for dinner at an amazing restaurant called Boston Chops.  The food was delicious and the company was wonderful.  It was so nice to catch up with them and enjoy some amazing food as well.

The beautiful popovers that we got at the beginning of the meal.

One of our appetizers that we shared was beef heart
with mushrooms and a pesto.  It was delightfully moist
and tender.  Super yummy!
(I forgot to take pictures of the rest of our amazing food
that night because I was pretty hungry.  But trust me,
this place is definitely worth a visit!)

Joseph got a steak that had a large bone in it, and
decided to bring the bone back for Oscar that evening.

 Oscar, guarding the steak bone like his life depended on it.

He's dead, mon.

One relaxed pup.

Time for big brother to get a haircut!  Alex was looking
a little shaggy, so we got him cleaned up.  William
sat so nicely and enjoyed watching his brother get a haircut.
(William has yet to get his first haircut, as his hair hasn't
grown in until recently.)

Since it was so cold outside, and the snow was too high for the boys to walk around and play in, I decided to take the boys somewhere indoors.  I wanted to find a new place that we hadn't been to in a while, so I decided to take the boys to Chuck E. Cheese's.  It was definitely one of my favorite places to visit when I was a kid.

The boys in a helicopter.

Police man William.

 The boys playing at Chuck E. Cheese's.  I used to
LOVE coming here as a kid.

The next day while Alex was at school, I had to be out of the house so Joseph could sleep.  So, I took William to the Natick mall and he played in the indoor play place (while I did a little window shopping, of course).  Win win!  :-)

Our little rock climber!

William Billiam, just being silly.

"Look Mommy!  I give Elmo vitamins!"

He's a really funny kiddo.  :-)

One of my handsome dates for froyo one afternoon.

My other handsome date.  :-)

Although it's been really snowy and cold, it's been really nice to have this time with the boys.  We may drive each other crazy throughout the day, but all in all, it's really awesome to see the love they have for each other.  I love how they crack each other up, even when they're being naughty.
Until next time...

Love and kisses,
Nikki