Sharing Family Recipes

I had been up most of the night last night feeling bad. Stomach upset along with dizziness that woke me up a couple of times. I moved out to the couch in the living room to sleep so that my tossing and turning wouldn't bother David. The phone rang at 5:30 a.m. and woke me up after only 2 hours of sleep. Not having snow (or dense fog) on my radar before bed, my mind of course went right down the list of all my loved ones could be on the other end of the phone call with bad news.

Looking at the number on the caller id, I sighed in relief when I saw the 558 number - school...awesome, a delay! Oh wait, no it isn't awesome...today is supposed to be the first day of our 1 John Bible study! Now that will be delayed a week and Matt and I will be staying home today. So, painting, napping and taxes are on the agenda today instead of cherished time with good friends.

All of that went through my head as I laid on the couch, because with a 5:30 phone call it is rare that I can go back to sleep once the early morning wake up call comes! One by one the children woke up and were informed that they would be home until 11. Joy and delight of course, were the emotions of the hour.

How wonderful it is when children wake up and ask "what is for breakfast"! I just wanted to crawl back in bed and leave them to their own devices. But, that isn't good parenting! So, I sat in my chair and told them that it is about time that nine-year-olds learn how to make the secret family pancake recipe! Squeals of delight went up and they began. (wanting no help of course) Adding chocolate chips as their "signature" ingredient, they spent the morning gaining very important life skills and making yummy pancakes!

Snow Sculputres

I was going through my pictures this morning and realized I didn't post the pictures of the great art that graced our front yard for a week before the January thaw. People were sending me messages telling me "hey, I drove by your house, cool snowmen!" It was a sight and I loved having their imaginations on display in the front yard, if only for a short time.

The snow had already started to melt when they went out to work on it but it made the snow more sticky and perfect for sculpting! It wasn't quite as cool as last year when the snowplow left a HUGE pile in the corner of the front yard, but they rolled the snow from every corner of the front yard to make the "fort". There were trails of grass all over when they were done for the night. The surprise came the next day when they got up and found that it had snowed over the top of everything so the front yard. It was much prettier once the new snow had covered the dry brown grass!

The kids have been pretty disappointed with the amount of snow so far this winter. January did bring some snow thankfully...December was snowless! Hopefully February and March will come through for them!