Liquid Gold

 Two weekends ago,

we ate this breakfast,

smothered in maple syrup.

Which inspired us to go home and...

 ...tap two maple trees in our yard.

Which led to the collection of almost 40 gallons of sap over the next couple of days.

So on Saturday, we lit a fire at 10am,

 and fueled it until 7pm while we boiled down a mere 7 gallons of sap.

We brought what was left of the 7 gallons of sap inside.

And boiled it for another 1.5 hours.

 Which made the humidity in our house reach summer levels (69%).

But look at what we harvested!

A whole quart of home brewed maple syrup.

I used the think pure maple syrup was expensive.

But now I know better.

It is a steal!

And in case you were wondering, we are going to make some more next year.

We learned a lot this first go round.

Happy Birthday James

Dear James,

Happy Birthday!  My heart just melts when I see you!

You have the cutest little nose speckled with freckles.  Sometimes I just want to come up to you and rub my nose against yours.

Other times, I just want to squeeze you and hold you right next to me and feel your heart beating.  You have the most pure and good heart of anyone I have ever met.  You have no guile and you selflessly think of others first.  What an amazing gift and talent you share so freely. 

I am amazed by your brilliant mind.  You have such a sharp memory.  I've never met someone so able to memorize things so easily.  You love math.  You love music.  You love making people laugh and you hands down have the BEST giggle I've ever heard.

I love you James.  I want to watch you conquer and triumph in your world while always feeling the sunshine of life.  You help me feel the glorious sunshine.  I am so grateful I get to be your mom.

love,

Mom

Easter

Easter and 4th of July are my favorite holidays.

They are my favorite because they celebrate liberty and agency.

I didn't get a picture of our Easter dinner.

We had our usual, fish and honeycomb butter

(we're not huge fans of the waxy honeycomb).

The week before Easter,

I get out a little oil lamp for each kid.

During the week, as they do Christ-like acts, they get to add oil to their lamp.

Then we decorate our Easter table with the burning lamps.

They love it.

Did you know Easter and Passover were on the same day this year?

Did you hear about the blood moon?

We watched it...online,

it was too cloudy out to see the moon in our neck of the woods.

So fascinating.