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...