Healthier Valentine Treats

I saw these recipes on Good Things Utah and wanted to put them somewhere to remember.  Sounds like I need a Pinterest account.  I think I've signed up for one...but I'm not sure, I haven't really jumped on that bandwagon yet.  Anyway, we're always looking for healthier alternatives to treats.  I would like to try these two.  These come from www.cafejanae.com

Healthy Valentines Day Fondue
Great for Healthy Kid’s Valentines Day Party

Ingredients

Dipping Chocolate
1 cup melted raw cacao butter¾ - 1 cup raw cacao powder (start with ¾ and add more as necessary)¼ - ½ cup agave nectar (to taste)
pinch salt
1 tsp. vanilla, almond extract, or flavor of choice (optional)

Fruit & Options
Strawberries
Apple slices
Banana slices
Orange slices
Pretzels
Raw Nuts

Sprinkles
Chopped Nuts
Shredded Coconut
Hemp Seeds
Cacao Nibs
Cacao powder

Directions

Grate raw cacao butter finely, and put in a bowl. Fill a larger bowl with warm water (less than 110 degrees) and put the smaller bowl into the larger bowl to make a double boiler. Stir the raw cacao butter until liquefied. Add agave, vanilla, and salt.  Mix gently.  Slowly add raw cacao powder and stir with a whisk until smooth.  Take care not to heat chocolate above 110 degrees. 

While chocolate is still warm, dip fruit into chocolate.  Place on parchment paper and sprinkle with topping of choice.  Refrigerate to set chocolate.  Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.  Eat within 24 hours.  (This recipe and many more featured in the Valentines Day Special Candy & Treats ebook).

Healthy Valentines Day Truffles
Ingredients

Truffles
1 ½ cup almond butter
½ cup honey (or more to taste)
½ cup raw cacao powder (or more to taste
2 Tbs. raw coconut oil or raw cacao butter, melted
2 tsp. vanilla, almond extract, or other flavor extract
1 tsp. salt

Toppings
Cacao nibs
Chopped nuts
Shredded coconut
Cacao powder

Directions
Mix all truffle ingredients together in a bowl until well combined.  Refrigerate several hours until mixture becomes solid.  Scoop out 1 teaspoon full at a time and roll into a ball.  Put topping of choice in a bowl.  Roll truffle in topping and coat well. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve. (This recipe and many more featured in the Valentines Day Special Candy & Treats ebook).

Snow!

We had a really good snowstorm the other day.  It felt like the first REAL snow of the season.  I must admit, that as long as driving conditions are safe, the snow is very pretty.  Joseph, Brynn, Isaac and I had fun shoveling snow together early one morning.  I'm thinking that with a driveway as long as our's we may need to invest in a snowblower.  

Deer Valley

Way back in the summer, when I was still living in California and Joe had already moved to Utah, he called to ask me if I wanted to go on a trip with his brother's family to Deer Valley.  When he told me the price, I thought it was a little steep and then said, "Maybe we'll do it as a Christmas gift, I'll think about it."  He misunderstood me and committed to the trip.  I was in the thick of it in terms of the move and taking care of the kids alone, so maybe it sounded a little different when I said it.  Anyway, writing the check for the trip this summer was a "what are we doing?" moment,  but now that it's all said and done, we're glad we did it.  It was a great time.  I LOVED Deer Valley.  It's a fabulous ski resort and I couldn't believe how many runs were open, even with our lack of snow this year.  Thank heaven for snow-making machines!

We thought about leaving Aaron and Isaac with my parents, but they were so excited to go to the "cabin" that we couldn't resist taking them along.  We had them in the ski school day-care during the day and then they were able to be with us in the evening.  We enrolled Brynn and Abby in all day ski school and so Joseph and I had 2 full days of ski dates.  It was lots of fun.  Joe has always snowboarded and I haven't skied for about 13 years.  I've snowboarded once during that time, but even that was 12 years ago.  I loved being with him on the slopes and chatting on the lift on the way up.  I also spent some time skiing with my sister-in-law and alone.  It was great to take a slower pace on my own and tackle some of the intermediate runs without worrying about being too slow.  We stayed from Thursday until Monday, but only skied on Friday and Saturday.  Aaron and Isaac started to get sick, and we didn't want them to spend another day in day care.  We bought 5 day passes, so we have 3 more passes to use this season.  We're really excited.

The girls loved their lessons and made some great progress.  We'll probably try to get Aaron skiing this winter too.

On Sunday, Joe and I took our family to the Family Tree Visitor Center, run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  We then went to the visitors church meeting.  The directors of the visitor center spoke about the history of the center and it's purpose.  It was really interesting.

Abby's Birthday Party

We finally got around to celebrating Abby's birthday with her friends.  This year she wanted to take some friends to Build-A-Bear.  I told her she could take a couple of friends and her list kept getting longer and longer.  A couple friends weren't able to make it, so it ended up smaller and it was perfect and manageable.  Abby has some great friends.  Wow, 8-year-old girls are full of enthusiasm and volume.