Chocolate

I think I've posted about this before, but I'm doing it again, just to let you know that the practice is still alive and kicking in my house.

So I feel the same way about Easter as I do Christmas, in all aspects! Too much stuff, and not enough Christ. Well this isn't a post about my gripes, not really. It's more what I do when Easter is over, with all the extra things my kids get.

It's well over a week now since the easter bunny graced our lounge room floor with all his/her Easter delights. And over these past days since, I would constantly walk by a chair that I have near the walk way, which has been harboring all this time, well used, brown Easter hunt bags. I would look down briefly to these bags sitting on it, knowing I was just biding my time. Inside, I knew, because mums know everything, were loads of un eaten chocolate Easter eggs. See, with five kids that equals a lot of not only given, but eaten and un eaten chocolate. And unlike Christmas where I can't really do much about all the extra 'stuff' they get, I can at Easter.

What I do is, I wait until I know the kids have eaten all the good kind of chocolate, you know, Cadbury, red tulip...well that's about it really. Then whats left is all the generic sort waiting for me in the long forgotten Easter bags. Which are thoughtlessly left in obscure places like the chair I have near the walk way!

I take these bags, and whatever else I find un eaten around the house, and I un wrap all those chocolate bits from their little foil confines, and put them away in the pantry.

For what? I hear you ask. Because they didn't eat them before! what makes me think they will eat them because I've taken the wrapper off?

For baking! Trust me, all those awful tasting, cheap, making it look like you got the kids loads of chocolate chocolate will be oooed and ahhhed over when you pull out a tray of hot choc berry muffins from the oven. Or told your the best mum in the world when they eat their portion of choc custard, or warmed their little bodies after an afternoon of playing hard with nice big mugs of hot chocolate. I just smile when this happens, add more whipped cream to the quickly disappearing mug of yumminess. Knowing that for one hour in my day today, I took the time to gather the unwanted, forgotten 'extras' we dish out to our kids, and made them into things that nourish their souls, and give them memories.

Well nourishing their soul may be pushing it, but who can pass a hot choc berry muffin hmm?