Chowder in the bitter cold with some candy on the side

 LJ, today's celebration is another one for you!  I alerted Mom to it yesterday so I hope that you enjoyed some New England Clam Chowder in Fremont today.  I tried my hand at making clam chowder for the first time ever for today's celebration and am thrilled to say it was enjoyed by all - including Noah and Mikayla.  The biggest benefit from this little 'project' of mine is that the kids are  trying all kinds of new things.

It is also National Hugging Day!  So whenever you are, wrap your arms around the nearest person (or yourself if you're reading this alone) and give a huge squeeze.  My kiddos and I have been hugging each other all day and I pretty much attacked Grant when he walked in the door.  Make it a point to hug at least three people today if you can and then make sure they hug three people and so on.  Everyone needs at LEAST one hug a day.

The temperature fell rapidly overnight and we woke up to a little more than a dusting of snow.  The kids of course HAD to go out and play in it.  I was a little hesitant at first given how cold it was outside.  I'm all for them experiencing the elements but it was almost too cold even for me!  But they wore me down so I bundled them up.  You'll have to see the pictures to see just how much :-p    But once we made it out there we had fun building some snow castles, playing with the bikes and Noah even got out his monster truck to test the tire traction.

After warming up and having some lunch (while I tackled laundry load 4 of 6) we set off for yet another celebration today.  As if New England Clam Chowder and hugging wasn't enough, I've been planning for quite some time to celebrate one of the "monthly" celebrations in style.  Today with no school and a bit of free time seemed like the perfect opportunity.  This month is National Candy Month!  And to celebrate the kiddos and I made  trip to Clawson (about 25 minutes) to check out Doc Sweets, which claims to be the largest candy store in Michigan.

We were like kids in a candy store!  They had a little bit of everything (or a lot bit) and we spent nearly an hour wandering through the store before deciding on our purchases.  Noah got a Finn McMissile pez dispenser, a very cool car (that actually moves!) filled with candy and a gummi hot dog.  Mikayla found a Tinkerbell pez dispense, a HUGE candy necklace and some sour gummi fries.  I couldn't pass up some new flavors of jelly bellys (chili mango, apple pie a la mode and candy corn!), some red hots (my personal fave) and chewy Runts.  I found a very cool atari joystick filled with gum for Grant that I figured would make an excellent conversation piece for his desk at work.  It was a good thing we set a $5 each limit because I think we could have gotten a little out of hand...  We did inform the staff that it was National Candy month and that we would definitely be coming back :)

Kid Kitchen tomorrow!  Until then...

You could literally only see their eyes by the time I was done bundling them up...

 Snow castles

 Noah could only get the monster truck to run in reverse

 Proof we were at the largest candy store in Michigan!

 Mom, I took this picture for you.  It's the pink mints - we have a Plan B from now on!

 The kiddos carrying our basket

 The stash

 This afternoon, after talking about our trip and what our favorite parts were Noah and Mikayla drew pictures of our visit to the candy store

 Noah's picture (Us 3 in the candy store.  The blue thing is our car outside)

Made from scratch New England clam chowder - go me!