Snow Day Fun! Snow Ice Cream!

I LOVED snow days as a kid.  And now, since I'm a teacher I get to enjoy them with my kids!  There's just something thrilling about getting that 5 am phone call.  I'm not even kidding.  It doesn't even make me mad to get woken up that early.  One of my favorite snow day traditions is snow ice cream.  Even if it's too cold to go outside to play, we still will go out long enough to fill a bag with snow so that we can make some delicious snow ice cream.

There are TONS of variations that you will find on the web, but this is our tried-and-true recipe.  I offered to add chocolate once and my son almost lost it on me.  We don't mess with the original snow ice cream!

You will need:

That's it, people!  No need for the sweetened condensed milk or any of the other crazy ingredients I've seen.  These are all things we always have on hand, just in case a snow day hits us by surprise!  Just kidding, we obviously have these things on hand for other reasons.  Like cookies.

So after you've gone outside to play in the snow, grab a gallon-sized bag.  Better yet, take it out with you so you don't have to traipse snow throughout the house and get everything wet.  There's nothing worse than wet socks.  Fill the bag with snow that you haven't touched yet and hasn't touched the ground, then come inside to warm up and get started on the ice cream.  After you're nice and toasty, fill the bag with the sugar, milk, and vanilla, then have fun mixing.  The kids love this part.  Shake, shimmy, turn on some music and dance.  Once you feel like it's well-mixed, you're done!  Serve in bowls or eat it right out of the bag!

Even baby girl got a taste!

Favorite App Friday-Evernote

Photo: "iPad2" by IntelFreePress CC by 2.0 added text

Ok, this one is for all you mommies out there.  Evernote is probably my most favorite app of all time!  I use it for everything!  If you're not familiar with this app, it is a notetaking and organizational app all rolled into one.  Within Evernote, you can create individual notes for anything you want.  You can then place those notes within a notebook, then place notebooks into stacks.  Think about it like this; an individual page ( note) within a spiral notebook, then you stack your notebooks together.

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I first downloaded Evernote to use in my classroom.  I created notebooks for each of my students.  Within the notebooks, I had different notes.  I had notes for discipline, reading conference notes, test scores, parent communication, etc.  If a student got a detention or a parent sent in a note, I snapped a picture of it and put it into the appropriate note for that student.  I also had notebooks set up for lesson plans.  It was so freeing to do away with all that paper!  It also made everything more accessible to me, because as long as I had my computer, iPhone, or iPad, I had everything at my fingertips.

I don't just use Evernote in my teaching life.  I have a "bills" notebook for any paper bills that I still receive.  After paying the bill, I snap a picture of it and upload it into the appropriate note within the bills notebook.  The paper bill gets shredded.  I also have a recipes notebook.  Evernote has a "web-clipper" functionality.  If I find a recipe I really like, I can clip it from the webpage and it automatically gets saved into my Evernote notebook.  It's more convenient than Pinterest because you do not need the Internet to access those recipes.  I was waiting at the ophthalmologist not too long ago and I was reading a Good Housekeeping.  There were cleaning tips and tricks, and one was how to clean your jetted tub.  I hate my jetted tub because it's so hard to clean.  I took a picture of that article and placed it into my "Household" notebook.  (Side note...I tried it and it worked.  I now have a clean jetted tub!).  I also have notebooks set up for each of my children.  My son comes home from school with all kinds of paperwork.  Anything that seems important, I scan in and put in his notebook. I know my kid cannot be the only one who goes through Target's toy section and wants everything in sight.  To appease him, I take a picture of what he wants and put it in his "wishlist" note.  If someone calls me wanting to know what kind of gift to get him, I have lots of ideas on hand.

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Can you see why Evernote is my favorite app?  The possibilities are endless!  The app is free, and there is a free download for your computer as well.  They all sync together seamlessly.  Do you Evernote?  In what ways do you use this amazing app?