Blueberries in bloom

Blueberry Cake: Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.
2. Cream butter or margarine and 1/2 cup sugar until fluffy. Add salt and vanilla. Separate eggs and reserve the whites. Add egg yolks to the sugar mixture; beat until creamy.
3. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour and baking powder; add alternately with milk to egg yolk mixture. Coat berries with 1 tablespoon flour and add to batter.
4. In a separate bowl, beat whites until soft peaks form. Add 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle top with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.
5. Bake for 50 minutes, or until cake tests done.

We have been having family dinner at our house on Sunday evenings for about 6 weeks or so now, and really enjoying it as a mini-tradition. Right now it just involves my parents coming and the kids and me making something sweet. Tonight we will be having pot roast from our organic butcher (Meat Shop of Tacoma), accompanied by organic carrots, potatoes , and onion from Terry's Berries and this delicious blueberry cake, which is a much loved spin off of a blueberry muffin and is soooo good with real whipped cream (thanks mom for that kitchen aid stand mixer all those years ago).

Finn's church day hair. Doing Finnley's rapidly growing hair is another Sunday mini-tradition. We get on-line and look for something we both like and then give it a try, most work out but sometimes she picks something that doesn't work on her length of hair. Those we file away in the Rapunzel hair file for Sundays and school days in the future.

There was snow on the mountain tops outside Palmer Alaska this morning. There is nothing like the 1st bit of termination dust to hit the mountains back home. It bring Christmas to the forefront of your mind faster than you can imagine, and throws me into a crochet frenzy. We all need hats, gloves, sweaters and blankets of course. Though I'm hoping to begin working on a quilt soon, my newest challenge, well that and some school jumpers and skirts for Finn. I find a lot of store bought school clothes just too "grown-up" for my little girl. Sometimes I just want to stand there in the middle of the store, throw my hands up in the air and shout "SHE'S ONLY 6"!

Started a new project in crochet! So many projects going I have to keep a notebook by my bed to jot down ideas as they come to me, there have been so many lately. I wish I knew why or how this motivation happened so I could keep it going, it's fun!