What do you do with a bowl full of slightly withered lemons? Why you make lemonade of course! Especially after returning from an almost mile long, uphill walk to the public library. My 4 year old son, LOVES lemonade and making a mess in the kitchen so this project was mostly for him. I will admit, I was pretty thirsty too, so maybe it was a little for me as well. First I cut all of the lemons in half and then let my son squeeze them into a small, plastic measuring cup.

I must warn you that 4 year old fingers cannot quite get all of the juice out of the lemons so you will have to get your fingers sticky on this one. Why not use a lemon juicer you might ask? Well, I despise my lemon-squeezer-juicer thing-a-ma-bob and I may have even thrown it away on the last clean out of my kitchen drawers. Plus it is much more fun and just as messy to squeeze by hand.

Okay, back to the lemonade. Notice the seeds in the bottom of the measuring cup? My son was very concerned too. Don't waste your time fishing those things out before squeezing. It is my experience that there is always one more seed left and it's extremely time consuming to try to fish them out one-by-one. After re-squeezing all of my sons pre-squeezed lemons, I let him pour the lemon juice through a strainer placed on top of the pitcher. Altogether 6 lemons gave us about a cup of lemon juice.

All the seeds were nicely separated from the juice and easy to then toss into the trash. Surely there is something I could have done with these seeds besides toss them, grow lemon trees perhaps? Hmmm, maybe not.

Next, I let my son add two cups of cold, filtered water to the pitcher. To be clear, I put the water into the measuring cup and let him pour it into the pitcher. He was insistent that I not help, but I really have a hard time letting him do things by himself, especially if there is an instance where he may make a potentially large mess. I guess water is relatively easy to clean up so, I reluctantly gave him full control of the measuring cup.

Now, I must tell you that I did not look up a recipe for Lemonade before beginning this process, which is something I usually don't do. I ALWAYS use a recipe. Even if I'm making something I've made 100 times before. I'm not sure why, but I like to double check my amounts, or something. However today it was trial and error.

Next we added the sugar. I'm a little hyper conscious about how much sugar I add to things. Sugar turns my son into a maniac sometimes and trust me he gets plenty of sugar from other things in his diet, so let's just say I'm hesitant about putting too much additional sugar into his body. So we added 1/4 cup of sugar to begin with.

Then my son stirred it up.

Then it was time for a taste test. Yowsers! It was super sour! So we added another cup of cold, filtered water and another 1/4 cup of sugar. Then of course there was more stirring and another taste test. Perfect! Last of all we poured the lemonade over ice.

In the words of my 4 year old son, "Ah, refreshing!" Need I say more? Isn't there a saying, "When life gives you a bowl of lemons, make lemonade?" Or something like that?

Amy's Lemonade

1 cup lemon juice ( about 6 lemons)

3 cups cold, filtered water

1/2 cup sugar

1. Cut lemons in half and squeeze them into a measuring cup.

2. Pour lemon juice through a strainer into a pitcher to remove the seeds and any pulp.

3. Add 3 cups cold, filtered water to the pitcher.

4. Add 1/2 cup of sugar to the pitcher.

5. Stir until mixed.

6. Pour over ice.

7. Enjoy!