HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!...AND A GROUNDHOG DAY CAKE?

It's Valentine's Day! I hope everyone is having a wonderful day.  

Snow is sifting down outside my window.  The little snowbirds are blown around like dried leaves when the wind gusts..  A large chattering of starlings are scratching in the snow for food, gossiping as they work.  I suppose that is why the dictionary refers to a group of starlings as a "chattering". The robins never left our neighborhood this year.  They search under every leaf in their quest for something to eat, and hunker low to the ground with each gust of wind.  They look miserable.

Please, Mother Nature, enough with the snow sifting!  It's close to 2 inches deep now. That's enough decorative snow. For me, when it comes to snow, less is more.

My husband and I are staying in today.  There is chili cooking and it smells good.  It is way too cozy in here to get out today and go to a restaurant for dinner.  

OUR GRANDSON LOVES LITTLE ANIMALS

We babysat our grandson earlier this month.  It was so much fun.  He is at the age where he sometimes says such funny things.  He will be six in March. Our daughter, who is a nurse, was asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up.  "Maybe a doctor", she asked/suggested to him.  His reply was "When I grow up, I want to be a "plunger" like my daddy."  His daddy is a plumber. 

THE GROUNDHOG DAY CAKE LOOKING A BIT PRIMITIVE

I baked a cake for my grandson the day we watched him.  As the cake baked, I had a brainstorm to make it into a Groundhog Day cake, even though we were a couple of days past G. hog day.  Since it was all spur of the moment, I had to use what was in the cupboard for my Groundhog Day cake decorations.  I used some soft caramels rolled in Nestle's Quik powder for the groundhog. The Quik was supposed to look like the little creature's fur.  I crumbled up a cookie to make the dirt around the G. hog hole, sifted powdered sugar over the cake's chocolate icing for snow, and stuck a candle in it just for fun. 

The cake looks pretty primitive in the picture and doesn't look like the amazing, enchanting cake that I had pictured it to be in my mind's eye. 

I was busy being underwhelmed as I looked at the cake.....and then my Grandson came into the dining room.  He took one look and was was so tickled by it.  He was laughing, and grinning, and so excited by such a simple cake. He loved the little groundhog and couldn't wait to blow out the candle for that little groundhog.  

Suddenly, the primitive looking cake, morphed right back into that amazing, enchanting cake that I had first seen in my mind's eye.  There I was, seeing The Groundhog Day Cake, through the eyes of an almost-six-year old, and it was wonderful.

I hope you are all having a lovely Valentine's Day.