It has literally been snowing here in Buffalo for weeks.  The temperature has not got about 20°.  We have pretty much just been hanging at home, shoveling, playing with the pets, and eating!  We have well above 3' of snow in the yard!  The weather is calling for some sunshine this week, although when it stays below 20° the snow just does not melt.  Here is a glimpse into the past couple of weeks.  Hope you are all safe and warm :)

​It was a busy weekend trying to get the porch completed.  It hasn’t been painted in 5 years so it was due!  The last time we picked a gray / blue color and it has held up very well.  This time we decided to go bold, like two tone purple bold :)  We spend a whole week scraping up all the loose old paint and preparing the floor.  Then it was time to paint.

​Painting is very exhausting work.  Okay so it looks as though just Tonia is painting but I was very supportive.  In fact, I made this delicious Coconut Pineapple almost Upside Down Cake!!  

​The porch turned out beautiful.  I love our color choices.  Hopefully we won’t have to paint it again for another 5 years, but if we do I may go deeper in color!  Here is the first coat.

After two coats, beautiful.

Now we can get back to sitting on the porch, enjoying our beautiful yard, listening to the birds, and eating my coconut pineapple almost upside down cake!

What a better way to bring in the New Year than being surrounded by family!  Happy New Year 2017 :)
This picture was taken before I made them all eat the Blind Robbin for good luck!

It was the first time the boys saw Niagara Falls and Snow!!

Then off to Buzzy's Pizza in the Falls, I have tried a lot of pizza but none compares to Buzzy's.

A few games before Mid-night, who doesn't like to doodle on their head.

And then a wonderful New Years Day Breakfast.  French toast, fresh fruit, bacon maple breakfast sausage, ham, and pastries, YUM!

There are so many beautiful places in Buffalo to picnic but the willow trees in Delaware Park have been calling my Aunt Linda's name.  So when she asked us if we wanted to have a picnic under the willows we didn't have to think about it.  I love picnicking, I have 5 picnic baskets, but knowing we had to walk a distance I went with the traditional basket.  

Aunt Linnie had it all planned out.  We played games, won prizes and even canoed!!  It was a beautiful day with family.  

I can't wait until our next picnic.  I will have Tonia make us her peanut butter pretzel bars!!

We recently took a vacation down to South Carolina to visit with our family.  The weather was beautiful down there.  It was nice to get out to the park with the grandkids and hang out outside.  And of course share dinners with the family!

We were not even out of the car and my brother was sweeping us off to the closest pizza place.  The wings were called "buffalo wings" but being from Buffalo, they were just okay :)

Fun at the park with the grandkids and Loki.

Dinner with my brother Dean.  The table is so big I could not get the whole thing in the shot.  Did I mention we have a lot of children in the family.

It was a beautiful day to visit the Reedy River.  Tonia was the only one who had her eyes open, the sun was a little bright.

I taught them how to play crazy eights so after showers we would play before bed each night.  They really enjoyed it!

My dad built this screened in porch.  He sat out there all day, well when we weren't making him go on day trips with us.

There are not many places that I will eat red sauce at.  (actually, only 2)  This is one of them.  Santaserios has been on the West Side of Buffalo for as long as I can remember.  It was the only place we ever went to have sauce if mom didn't make it.  Not that we went out very often as kids, there were 5 of us!!  But last night we had some running around to do and decided to pick up my sister Gina and go grab a bite to eat.  This is how it went.

First we had to have hot peppers.  Simple yet sooooo good.

Moving on, we shared some pasta fasoola and macaroni and peas. Yum.

And to finish it off, eggplant parmigiana.  One of my most favorite meals.

And I might need to mention that we stopped and got big as your face cookies from the Lexington Co-op Market and had them for dessert!!  It was a great!

Look how big Loki has grown.  He will be one year old this week!  Besides the fact that he is a plant killer (we learned after planting our garden) he is a good dog.  We even taught him to watch the Dog Whisperer :)

He loves Ceaser and the dogs.

But his favorite thing still is balls.  He loves any kind of balls, squeaky, tennis, squishy or hard.  And he can catch them too, he can play catch all day and all night.  He will just keep bringing you the ball and bringing it to you and bringing it to you.  He never gets tired :)

We always try to get to the Rochester Lilac Festival.  It is not only beautiful to walk the gardens and smell the lilacs but there are so many food vendors and the arts and crafts are amazing.

This year was nice because it was warm without the hot sun beating on your head.  We got there early so we were able to stroll around but by the time we left it was packed!!

I just love how the painted the crosswalk Lilac!!  And of course we had to stop for a picture in the fairy tree :)

 Here it is, our first gas grill!   Of course if you have your choice between a black grill or a colorful pink grill, who wouldn't choose pink?  

We are die hard charcoal grillers.  I love the smokey taste of the charcoal on my steaks and veggies but sometimes when we get home from work it takes a while to start the charcoal and wait for it to get hot. This is why we decided it was time.  Just go push a button and voila, there it is heat.

We started simple, mushroom and cheese stuffed burgers (except the one with nothing on it, that is Sos's burger, she likes them plain).  

After we get used to the temperature settings and hot to create hot and cool spots, I am going to get the rib-eyes!!