Digging Out Plus Two Free Recipes

We are in the midst of digging out of our second giant snow storm this week. MB is now fully aware of what snow is.

 

Thankfully we have a very nice neighbor with a snow plow.

(our driveway is somewhere underneath all that)

 

Four snow days meant lots of crock pot hot chocolate, snow ice cream, homemade snow cones, fires in the fireplace and board games. Mr. T and I and the three bigs are recently addicted to Settlers of Catan. I'm pretty sure this ups our nerd factor by 3.14.

 

Oh, and lots of this ...

(what's a snow man without snowman's best friend?)

(snow forts with cupholders)

 

 

And now your recipes ...

 

Snow cones:

To make your "syrup" just mix kool-aid double strength (or, if it makes you feel better to word it this way - just cut the water in half). Add to squeeze bottle. Next (this part is VERY important if you have a dog), find a clean spot in the yard with no foot prints. Overfill cups with clean snow. Give kids the squeeze bottle and voila ... their own snow cones.

 

Even my Ethiopian child who HATES anything cold was trying really, really hard to like these just because they were cool.

(it was rather cute how hard he tried to like these. but in the end, he puckered up that face and said "mom, it's too cold. I don't like")

One last warning ... red "syrup" in the hands of kids and it may look like you butchered a cow in your backyard.

 

Snow ice cream (sorry no pictures)

1 gallon clean snow

2 cups cold milk

1 cup sugar

1 tbs vanilla

(mix milk, sugar and vanilla together until sugar is dissolved. Stir into cold snow and serve immediately)

 

For the record, this post makes me look like an awesomely fun and patient mom when the truth of the matter is I've spent the majority of the last week being grumpy and yelling at kids for waking other kids and fighting over snow boots.