York Peppermint Pattie Snow Ice Cream

Today is our third day of snow here in Portland, Oregon.

We don't get a lot of snow here, so the 8 inches I have in my yard is a TON of snow for us!

We have done all the typical stuff that we usually head to the mountains for...sledding, CHECK...snowball fight, CHECK...build snowman, CHECK...put the car in 4 wheel drive and see if it's really that slippery out there, CHECK...after 3 days, we were sort of running out of things to do.

Then I saw a recipe a friend of mine posted on Facebook for snow ice cream!

I don't remember seeing this before, so we were all pretty excited to try it.

The recipe called for snow, milk, sugar and vanilla.

Thinking we might be running low on milk and seeing freezing rain in the forecast, I decided to go my own way and make up my own snow ice cream recipe.  I used International Delight's York Peppermint Pattie Coffee Creamer to flavor my ice cream.  My husband, kids & I LOVED it and we can't wait to make it again!  Maybe we'll try it tomorrow, although we'll have to break off the piece of ice on top of our snow (the freezing rain is clinking against the windows now).  After that, it may be another five years before we get this much snow again, so we have to enjoy it while it lasts!

York Peppermint Pattie Snow Ice Cream

8 Cups Snow

1 Cup International Delight Peppermint Pattie Coffee Creamer

1 Cup Milk

1/3 Cup Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla

Scoop the snow into a large bowl, top with other ingredients, stir and enjoy!

As, I think of all the other wonderful flavors of International Delight Coffee Creamer, I would imagine they would all taste wonderful substituted in this recipe.  I'd love to try the Cold Stone Creamery Sweet Cream and Heath.  I'm sure you have your favorites!  I'd love to hear which ones you use to make your own Snow Ice Cream!  Leave me a comment!


Don't forget to stop by my friend Kim's link party for
all sorts of inspiration... Winter, Snow, Valentine & otherwise!

Find it over at Today's Creative Blog

Layout of the Week Big Sister...Little Brother...

I put this layout together using the Vita Bella collection from Little Yellow Bicycle. I love how well it matches the shirt Delaney was wearing to have her 2nd grade school pictures taken this day. I took the photos of her & Jake after she came home from school that day. Big sister and little brother, I love these pictures. I used 3 12 x 12 sheets to create this look. I cut the foiled page in half and placed each half over half of the other two pages. The green frames were created from the backside of a paper from this collection. I used foiled and fabric stickers with love & family sayings to complete the layout. The fabric stickers are tags and I added American Craft ribbon to each tag. I used an 8 x 8, a 5 x 7 and wallet size photos printed in a lustre finish from Costco for this layout. I was a little crooked in my picture taking, but I think you "get the picture".

Moments like these, frozen in time, are my favorite things to scrapbook. With close to 7 years between my kids, I am very well aware that the baby stage goes by so quickly. I leave my camera out on the table in the nook, so it's right where I can grab it to snap photos of Jake & Delaney every day, if I want. I used to have it on the nesting end table. But Jake tipped the little one over on himself yesterday and he clears off the big one every chance he gets. So I'm down to one end table with nothing on it. Every time I have to tell him, "NO!" and move him back to his toys, I take a deep breath and remember that I will miss this stage in 7 years. It even brings tears to my eyes just to type this. I try to live in the moment and soak up all of his "baby-ness" that I can everyday. Thank goodness he's a good cuddler, because Mommy wouldn't have it any other way!

When the snow began...

Now that the snow in Portland has been gone for a couple weeks, it's almost impossible to believe these pictures are for real. We woke up on a Sunday morning to discover it was snowing hard. It continued to snow all day long. We drove to our friends' house to pick Delaney up from a sleep over with her best friend and watched the kids sled down the street. After we returned home, we went sledding in the church driveway across the street. Delaney went all over the front yard making snow angels and Dave walked across the street to take this picture of our house. Look closely, you can see how hard it's snowing! We were very surprised when the weather forecast said the snow would be with us for a while. Our schools ended up being canceled all week, which made for a 3 week long Christmas break. It's nice that Dave is working at home now, so the four of us hung out at home together.


Just a few days into the "Arctic Blast," as the news people called it, the sun came out. Delaney & I headed into our backyard to build snowmen. It was so cold and dry, that the snow wouldn't stick together enough for snowmen. So we decided to go back across the street to sled. I took this picture at the end of our yard. The pond was a bit frozen and got more frozen as the cold lingered on for 10 more days after this. I'm sure everyone who lives where it snows and ponds freeze over every year think this is no big deal. But in the Portland area, we NEVER see anything like the storm we had in December. It cracked us up to look out at the Canadian Geese who winter in our pond and see them walking through drifts of snow on top of the pond.

During the time we were "snowed in," Jake got 4 teeth in one week! It was a tough week for him, but it was nice that we were more or less trapped. We did chain up our SUV and were able to get out to check out movies from the store up the street. But in our area, the roads aren't plowed or sanded until you get to the main roads, so it's better to stay at home than end up in a crash with someone who doesn't think they need chains. I do think we're weather wimps around here, but as long as I have the option to stay home, it's fine with me! Maybe next year Santa will bring more plows to Portland and then we'll have to join all those other places where snow doesn't close down whole cities. But until then, we'll hang out at home sledding and making hot chocolate!