How to drink hot chocolate in a clean kitchen

We are snowed in. Again. What you see on the car's review mirror was just collected from Sunday afternoon to Monday morning. 3 inches of Seattle snow= 2 feet of Colorado snow.

The kids are having the best winter break ever, as they get to slide on their bellies down the middle of the street WITH ADULT PERMISSION! Usually they get yelled at if they bike to close to the middle.

Our back yard fence tells the story. The snow is up to a foot in some places. The wind blew down most of it. Emily gleefully brought us solid squares of snow from between the fence posts. And we, my baby sister Stina and I, gleefully smiled as she was outside, and we were warm inside. In fact, we were very warm. Working up a sweat, cleaning the kitchen. I wish I had a decent before photo of the mess. But, I don't. I'll work on it.

Here is the shiny, hand cleaned breakfast nook (our only eating area). So clean. Look, it is free of jelly smears and puddles of coconut water. Yes, coconut water. Grant bought Emily a fresh coconut, and they opened it. On my side of the table. So when I sat down for Sunday dinner, I had a nice, damp and sticky surprise. I LOVE surprises, especially when they are damp and sticky.

Here is our table and chairs, pushed into the hallway/living room. AFTER they had been scrubbed. Ahh...clean table, free of dried on baby food and other unknown matter that collects only on the kids side of the table.

Here is my darling sister, Stina, on her break from college. Done with finals. On her hands and knees scrubbing her big sisters floor. It took her over an hour to get the before mentioned food grim free from under the kids side of the table. Why? Why kids? We clean after every meal. Yet, they eat against the wall, so my eyes don't see it until it multiplies and replenishes the floor. Ahh, at least the crumbs are keeping the commandments in our house. But we toil and preserver. Stina on the floors. Me on the counters. I can see my counters! My lentil container is back in the cupboard, where I took it from three months ago.

Ahh, clean kitchen. REALLY CLEAN kitchen, that I got to help clean. With my sister. While the big kids were out in the snow. And the babies were....sleeping? or being watched by Grant. I was in a cleaning zone, I can't be bothered to remember those details. Time to relax, Christmas style.

Hot Chocolate! (Oh and did you noticed Stina and I were wearing the same shirts? Our Eastman School of Music shirts, homage to our gifted opera sister, Annie)

Enjoying the clean kitchen lasted...hmm...it didn't. Before we got the table moved back in, Emily and one of the neighbors came in to warm up. My living room has been turned into a snow boot and coat drying zone. The girls wanted hot chocolate. Now? NOW? Don't they realize that the rare beauty, like finding a diamond in a mine, that is a clean kitchen? A floor they could eat off of? But why should I let THEM eat off of it. THEY messed it up.

Then I thought of a comprise. There was one place in the house I was willing to let them drink hot chocolate. It was something that I read in "Glimpses of Marjorie Hinckley"......

THE BATHTUB! I was willing to let them drink that hot cocoa with extra marshmallows, if they were willing to drink it in the once easy place to clean it up. Katelyn was told that there was hot chocolate in the bath, so she is in process of taking of her shirt. We assume she thinks that this is necessary to get the hot chocolate.

So back to the Hinckley book....President Hinckley was a loving grand (and great grand) father. He loved to spoil his grandkids. He loved giving them soda when they visited. But he also was practical. He had white carpet in his apartment. So they could have all the soda they wanted to drink, but they had to drink it in the bathtub.

Gotta love compromise!

Later that night (as I walked thru my still clean kitchen)....

Mark needed a bath. Every diaper for days is requiring a change of clothes. And often a bath. But the weather has most doctor's offices closed. We don't know if this is a bug, or an allergic reaction.....but I digress. The point is, hours after the girls had their hot chocolate, I looked in the bathtub


This is the bathtub...with the anti-slip ducks for safety...spattered with hot chocolate.

I'm so glad that I made them go in the bathtub. It took a few splashed of water to go way. Instead of the mess that a drop of hot chocolate could make in a kitchen....

Can't wait to here your messy or hot chocolate stories as the snow gets most of us