Winter's Last (& Hot Chocolate Recipe!)

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,

and when a good five inches of snow show up on your doorstep just a few hours before the first day of Spring, go sledding.  Equal motivation to my "make the most of it" attitude was some well deserved mommy guilt hearing that a friend took her 6 month old and 23 month old sledding this past winter.  Nolan?  He's approaching three and never been.  Inspired that she could pull it off, I added it to my mental "bucket list" for next year, thinking we were done with snow.  Well, I was obviously wrong.  Off to the snow hill we went. 

I dragged my camera through the snow, risked freezing fingers to try to take a blog-worthy shot, only to find out I was out of batteries.

So, the event now photo-less, I will let my boys retell you, in their own words, what sledding was like.  Let's just say, we didn't make it down the hill more than three times.  It was cold, windy, snowing, and somewhat miserable, albeit an accomplished we-did-it kind of fun miserable. 

But we made lemonade! (out of life, that is.)  In actuality, we made hot chocolate.  Never knew it was so simple!

         We used:

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup of cocoa
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 6 1/2 cups hot water

Just heat the first four  ingredients in a large saucepan and then slowly add in the water.  Wah-lah!

It was delicious and I'm hoping it's the last I will be making of it in quite awhile.

 

In a hopeful goodbye to Winter, along with a refusal to post any snow pictures following Spring's calendar arrival, here's a few overdue pics.  We did enjoy Winter, we are just ready to enjoy Spring.

 

 

 

 

SnowMAN turned into snowBAND the following day:

 

 

And with that, I officially wish Winter farewell...

Superheroes

For my brother, who excels as both a brother and a superhero

I can't say my season of mothering leaves room for me to accomplish much in the department of crafting or creating.  Which is why I am proud to say, thanks to my mom's help with her silhouette cutter, that I accomplished creating this:

 

My five year old's response:  "No it's not" as in "No it's not better to be a brother than a superhero."  Ha!  What can I say?  In his five year old world, nothing is better than being a superhero. 

 

Maybe his wisdom is better than mine and being a superhero does trump all.

 

This evening as I put him to bed he was off in superhero world again, doing the impossible.  Only this time it had something to do with making houses for the Guatemalans without homes and instead of being paid to build,  he would pay them (the Guatemalans).  I am not taking his words for granted.  Because to raise supermen is to raise my son to be this hero he currently dreams of being.

 

Oh, I know that last weekend when Grandpa asked him what he would do with a million dollars he said buy all the toys in the world.  And that's okay, he's five.  But later that same day, after viewing pictures of Grandpa's trip to the slums of Guatemala, my five year old declared that if he were a superhero he would give each of the people $100.  I want to grab that dream, grow it, water it.

 

"Grandpa is a real superhero because he really is giving his money to those people who don't have a home," I told him.

 

"And Uncle Steven is a superhero with his job trying to help the poor people find a job somewhere other than the garbage dumps."

 

I am not exactly sure what sank in but he announced tonight that:

"I told my class that my uncle lives in the garbage dump."  Weellll, not exactly.  But almost.

"Why do they live there," he wanted to know.  "Why did the dogs and birds want the garbage too?"  And on went his questions tonight.  (Which were actually easier to address than the ethics conversation we had early this evening surrounding the army tank we drove by and why people would kill other people. Yikes.  I think we have entered a new season of curiosity about how the world works).

 

Nolan, on the other hand, too innocent to need an ethics lesson, simply wanted to add to the conversation that "Me and Chuck and Uncle Steven live in superhero world and Uncle Steven flies."

 

That he does, Nolan, that he does.  Innocently spoken, profoundly true.

 

There might not be a red cape behind him, but he is soaring just the same.

 

And if my boys could catch just some of the vision of what it means to be a true superhero in the sense of serving the poor, I would consider my job as a momma well done. 

 

 "Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked" - Psalm 82:4

 

If that isn't a call and a chance to live out a boy's childhood dreams of fighting the bad guys and rescuing the downtrodden, I don't know what is.

If you want to "Follow" me

Yikes, I felt like I was stealing Jesus' words with that title for as second.

This is just for my peeps who are telling me they keep checking to see if I have written.  Which, no, I have not. 

But I added a "follow me by email button" so now you can submit your email just above and not have to wonder if I am blogging or painting my downstairs bathroom during my evenings instead.  It's been the latter lately, if you were still wondering.  It's blue.  And still not done.  So just don't have too high of expectations of my blogging production at this point.  Although, if you have any suggestions of how to get old wood paneling to stick to the wall, you may hear from me on my blog sooner rather than later.