snow day "fun"

The first snowfall of the year is always so pretty. It really gets old fast, though.

Even though we're not going to be in Indiana for Thanksgiving, I'm still the only noodle maker in my family, so I offered to make the noodles ahead of time so my mom could cook them on Thursday. Meanwhile, my cousin Jimmy was really disappointed that he didn't get to learn to make them while we were in Gatlinburg (he was still out on a long hike at the time), so I invited him over to learn, and he jumped at the chance. Which naturally meant that my boys, who until now had only participated in noodle making sporadically and mostly under duress, decided they just HAD to learn too. As you can imagine, four boys making noodles in one kitchen at the same time got pretty messy.

I'm not sure how we would have gotten through it if they had all stuck with it, but fortunately, Henry and Max soon lost interest. Max went off to play video games, and Henry headed outside to make the world's dirtiest snowman.

Surprisingly, Jimmy and Liam stayed invested until the very end. They brainstormed and tried to use the scientific method to improve efficiency, and they experimented with various process improvements. They took their jobs very seriously, and held solemn discussions in which they reminded each other of the instructions I had given them. For the last few batches, I even left the kitchen and got some work done while they soldiered on. (Of course, they left the cleaning for me, but that's to be expected from a pair of preteen boys.) The best part was that they came and asked me if they could make an extra batch so we could cook some noodles fresh today. I managed to rustle up the ingredients to make us a nice pot of chicken noodle soup -- the perfect afternoon snack on a cold, snowy day.