memories – Page 10 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Hot Cocoa for the win!

Published on December 8, 2022November 29, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog3 Comments

There’s nothing like snuggling up with a cup of hot cocoa after coming in from the cold… ok, ok, I know… it doesn’t really get that COLD here in Florida but I sure can remember some cold days from my

time further north and I still enjoy a nice cup of hot cocoa every now and then.

I can remember my mom making us a pot of cocoa on the old wood cookstove. We would sip as much as we could before we had to head out the door to catch the school bus… at one time we had to walk 1/2 mile uphill to get to the bus and in another place we lived it was an even further walk downhill… not much easier if the driveway was iced over.

Here are some of our All-Time Favorite cocoa recipes:

Cocoa In A Crockpot

Hot Cocoa (Powdered)

Single-Serve Hot Cocoa

The Best Hot Cocoa

Of course, you can always use the ready-made kind at the store too but there is just something a little extra special about whipping up some cocoa from scratch and the memories you make will be cherished for a lifetime!

You can also whip up some fresh cookies to go along with your cocoa for an extra special snack!

Keeping Memories

Published on January 30, 2019June 18, 2026 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

This past weekend I was helping to sort out some sheds with Mr. Awesome. There were a ton of items with a ton of memories attached. However some things were decided to go for Yard Sale items and a few were given to me like this photo album…

How often do we take photos and print them out anymore? Do you still clip newspaper articles to keep? I know that I many things saved in my Bible but nothing recent. I also have a few photo albums from when my older kids were little but over the past 10 years or so I haven’t had that many photos to keep.

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Time Out, Please Press Pause

Published on January 26, 2019June 18, 2026 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

This is another one of those posts that never made it to be Published so please forgive me as this is a little bit late…

Have you ever just wanted to find the remote for LIFE? Maybe just press the PAUSE button for a bit. We could fast forward through some parts and go back to others and replay them again and again. While this would be such a great idea it’s not possible.

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Happy St. Nicholas Day 2018!

Published on December 6, 2018 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

**This post may contain affiliate links to products we use.

Well the countdown to Christmas has officially started here. The kids are super excited after St. Nick stopped by sometime late last night. They had left their stockings on the table before bed and woke up to a big surprise!

They had been talking about our previous St. Nicholas Day celebrations and how they forgot to put their stockings out last year… Oops!

Don’t worry… that heater was not on ‘HEAT’ as we only have the flames going this morning but it has been doing great job at keeping us warm and cozy so far.

St. Nick did not disappoint with a variety of small toys, coloring books, and other holiday items plus a tiny bit of candy. He also left a couple of new books and a holiday music cd for them. They are looking forward to a midday snack of gingerbread cookies and hot cocoa too!

He didn’t forget about the grownups either and even left a small gift for Nanny J and Papa O. He left Momma some much needed kitchen items, some holiday jewelry, and CHOCOLATE!

Santa had even decorated a little bit and put these cute covers on the chairs.

And he must’ve met up with the UPS man at some point to grab our new Advent wreath for us. It had been stuck in delivery status as the driver couldn’t locate our house.

It is so much prettier than it looked on the internet! I had a hard time deciding what color to get but thought this was a good choice even though it isn’t the traditional Christmas colors. Now we are just waiting for the candles to arrive. After all this excitement it was time for breakfast:

This year I added the chocolate chips to the pancakes while on the griddle for our Santa Claus Pancakes. I forgot to pick up some fresh strawberries and blueberries so we made do with what we had here. I also didn’t realize that Mr. Jacob had added a couple of extra chocolate chips to Santa’s beard… lol!

The kids thought they were cute and very yummy. Later on we will be watching a few videos about St. Nick and taking a little about the history of Santa Claus.

If you want to check out some other activities please see St. Nicholas Day 2016 for some additional links.

Happy St. Nicholas Day everyone!

A Trip Down Memory Lane!

Published on August 10, 2018August 23, 2018 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog3 Comments

I survived my first plane trip and wanted to share a little bit about my trip down memory lane with all of you! Be prepared because as my Pop-pop would say, ‘This might take a while’.

Last week proved to be one of the most stressful weeks I can remember. I have been trying to refocus my life in so many areas. And on top of the everyday stresses of a large family and back to school worries I got the call that I really needed to head back to my childhood home.

While I call Florida home right now I was born in Pennsylvania. I grew up about an hour from Philadelphia in the mushroom capital of the world, Kennett Square.

Funny the things you didn’t know, huh? We were also very close to the Amish and Mennonite communities. In fact several of my siblings were delivered by an Amish midwife.