Oh Come Let Us Adore Him

This post is better late than never!


One day just before the Epiphany, I came across a rather unusual gathering at the manger of the Christ Child....no doubt the handy work of a certain 2 year old who also happens to be obsessed with Baby Jesus.

Sweet Success

If icicles were made of sugar, this is what they would taste like. Oooey-Gooey, cold and oh, so sweet....maple candy was a hit.

Nobody under the age of 6 delayed in mentioning the fresh blanket of snow on Thursday morning....a good covering, fresh, white and most important, clean snow, just right for the long awaited maple candy adventure. The morning started with excited calls from upstairs..."Snow! Fresh Snow!"...followed by a little "Maple Candy Day" song and dance.

Around here, everyone has a job to do. No freeloaders. So while I googled for a bit of maple candy know-how, the smaller hands were assigned the chore of finding the freshest, whitest snow and filling the pans. (a job Laura and Mary were responsible for as well)

Momma was in charge of the adult role of boiling the syrup. All the recipes I found were careful to remind to maintain the syrup boiling, being careful not to allow it to boil over. That's a very, very, very fine line. It might have been possible if I wasn't also dealing with 2 impatient confectioners, plus a baby who decided her nap time was over.

All eyes were anxious to see what would take place in our history lesson-turned-science experiment. The snow melted away and a chewy maple toffee formed.

It turned out to be disgustingly sweet. In fact, a webpage I read suggested eating it with sour pickles and coffee to cut the sweet. We opted against that and just produced a massive sugar high.
They want to try it again (no surprise) with the next fresh snow. Next time we will try making hard candy....requiring a mite bit more patience (and attention!) during the boiling process.

Interestingly, we saved little bits for DaddyHealy to try when he got home from work, but when we pulled the pans back inside in the evening, the syrup had all dissolved, making it more of a maple snow cone. All the more reason to try again.

Making a List, Checking it Twice

I don't like to label, but D is our rule follower, and M is definitely the one who tests the limits. She also, being 2 years old, pitches a fit or two. On any given day, she probably gets 4 or 5 check marks on ol' St. Nick's list. This month has been particularly interesting, though, as I hardly have to correct her. As soon as she misbehaves, D starts singing "You better watch out, you better not cry...." and "He knows if you've been bad or good...."

By the way, from the looks of things, tomorrow might be maple candy day, so check back soon to see if we succeeded. (And just for the record, I have NO idea what I am doing other than what Laura described in Little House in the Big Woods. )

A Season of Waiting

You might think we're patiently waiting for Christmas, maybe even a December birthday or two, but the buzz around here is waiting on a fresh blanket of snow.

We've been reading the Little House on the Prairie books, a wonderful memory I have of my own childhood. D & M want to try everything Laura and Mary do. Most recently our attention has been caught by the chapter on maple candy. Laura and Mary filled pans with snow and poured hot maple syrup into the snow in all sorts of shapes, hardening into maple candy. They are so eager to try it, but MommaHealy says we must wait for fresh snow. Every morning they check, and so far, just the same old 6" that has been here for a week now.

So the bottle of maple syrup sits, taunting us, waiting on snow. M asks me, "Can we do that thing Laura and Mary did?" Soon enough, sweet one.

Now, I wonder how excited they would be to have their Christmas stockings filled with only a peppermint stick, a brown sugar cake and a new pair of red mittens?

Flattery

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. That being the case, I know a certain apple farmer that should feel incredibly flattered.

We've been digging out all our winter gear, for I fear winter is making it's way. When we came across D's carhart coat and hat, he immediately put it all on and said "I'm Grandpa!" He proceeded to get his orchard tractor and load up boxes of apples on a trailer and haul them into his (cardboard box) packing house.

M, not to be outdone, borrowed the hat because she wanted to be Grandpa too! I love her take on what Grandpa does all day. :) Talking on the phone!

Shhhhhhh.....

It seems I spend a lot of time saying "Shhhhh..." I especially do it a lot during church. But when kids have as much to say as mine do, being totally quiet for an hour is a lost cause. I have resorted to teaching them to whisper.

We practice whispering A LOT! I found out sometimes they listen better when you whisper, so when I have something really important to say, I whisper it. Sometimes I pretend I can't hear them unless they whisper something to me. Sometimes mommy just needs a time out, so everyone has to whisper for 5 minutes.

Ready, Set, Read

Somewhere between DaddyHealy's MBA classes, my extreme morning sickness with H's pregnancy and moving to the Big River, at 4 years old D learned how to read. We have always read to him a lot, we have often pointed to words as we read them, but we had never, ever tried to "teach" him how to read on his own. Then one day in my hyperemesis oblivion, I noticed he picked up an Easter book he hadn't seen in a year and read it straight through. I was in awe. Ironically, a few days later when I dropped him off at preschool his teacher asked me if I knew he was reading. I asked if they'd been working on it at preschool and she laughed. They were still working on ABCs she told me.

He has a brilliant mind, just like his father. I like to bring home books from the library and see how much of them he can read the first time he sees them.

Here are a few examples of books he's read to me the first time through....at 4 years old!