We Love Receiving Holiday Cards

My family loves to get cards in the mail. Noah loves getting mail, especially cards. He recently turned nine years old and my sister and brother in law sent him a card. Unfortunately, there was a mishap at the post office and their card didn’t make it in the envelope to our house. I had to tell Noah what happened because he was expecting the card and looking forward to it. He was really sad about the card. It wasn’t like there was anything in the card. He just likes cards. We keep them. I have cards from my grandparents, letters from family when I was at camp, and even a birthday card I got in first grade signed by all the kids in my first grade class.  It’s fun to look back and share them with Noah. We don’t always save every card we get though. We keep the special ones and sometimes reuse them for different projects. Sometimes I will scrapbook with them or include a special card in a page. My grandma was notorious for recycling cards. My Grandma Rose had so many friends. She also was in many clubs and well my mom has over 50 first cousins on one side of the family.  The amount of cards my Grandma received at Christmas was always insane.  She would use them as bookmarks, cut the picture off and use it in a craft project among other things. She wanted to keep them all I am sure but in a few years her house would be covered in cards.  I think she even made placemats out of Christmas card pictures and contact paper to protect it. Every card made her smile and I loved looking through her huge basket of cards and asking her who each person was. I felt like I learned more about my family through the cards.

Here’s an awesome article about Recycled Holiday Cards

My Special Hot Chocolate

As it is starting to get colder, the summer is winding down. Fall is coming. It will soon be time for hoodies, bonfires and of course hot chocolate. I have many fond memories of drinking hot chocolate as a child.  I have made it the same way for as long as I can remember. It is the way my Grandma Rose used to make it. Well sometimes she would make it with real cocoa, I personally prefer the packaged kind.  I know that is a little silly because the homemade kind should be the best kind right? Even though I prefer the prepackaged kind with marshmallows, if you make it right it tastes homemade. I always “wet” the mix with a little hot water, then I add milk and microwave it and add more marshmallows. I also have a milk frother that I love, it makes it so creamy too. It really depends on how long I have to make it. Heating in the microwave is faster than waiting for the milk to heat in the frother. I use the frother more as a special treat or when I have company. I made hot chocolate for a friend last fall and she was amazed at how delicious it was. Sometimes a squirt of chocolate syrup can kick it up a notch. Noah is funny about hot chocolate. He likes it, but…. He likes it cold. He doesn’t really like it warm. He also doesn’t like chocolate milk. He will drink “cold chocolate” though. He’s silly like that. There is so many different things you can add to hot chocolate. I like to add Andes mints to mine to give it a crème de menthe flavor.  I never top it with whipped cream though. I knew a guy who would melt dark chocolate and use it for hot chocolate. I never tried it, so I am not sure how good it is. It’s fun to get creative and make new recipes and flavors of your hot chocolate.

Check out this great article about Hot Chocolate for Kids

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Grandpa's Advice for Getting More for your Trade in

My Grandpa was a diesel mechanic and he would always work on my cousin’s cars. He taught them and my other family member how to fix their cars. When it came time to trade in their cars, my grandpa would always help them fix them up.  He would enlist us to help wash the cars and dry them. We loved to do it on a hot day. I was still kind of young so I wasn’t able to do much but bring them a cold drink and a snack. I loved to clean when I was little so I loved to help vacuum out the cars while Gramps was under the hood. I remember my grandpa telling my older cousins how important it was to take a clean and fixed up car to trade in. He knew quite a few dealers and he would tell us stories about when people would bring broken down cars that weren’t worth much. A huge dealership owner went to school with my mom and my grandma was really good friends with his mom.  So they would come over from time to time to visit with her.  It’s always a good idea to have the best car you can for when you trade in for a used car. You don’t want to just receive junk value. Dealers also appreciate it when you take pride in your vehicle because it is less work for them. 

Check out my post about how to get more for your trade in.