Random Updates 4

Dave was away on business in Boston almost all of last week. Our daily random updates 1,2 and 3 were our way of keeping him pictorially updated on life back home. This is the last installment of random updates (for now), to report on life since he got back.


1 We consumed the last of our gigantic strawberries:

2 Jenna has been drawing and colouring A LOT. These four pictures remind me of that feature on Sesame Street which goes, "One of these things is not like the other, which one is different, do you know?" Incidentally, Jenna says these are "all photographs".

3 We finally finished that project we'd been showing WIP photos of in the previous random updates. More photos on the craft blog here.

4 Dave is sick (c'mon, you didn't expect a photo of that, surely?)

5 We've been busy preparing for Kate's birthday this week! (photos later)

Random Updates 3

Winter again today. 

We had 8" of snow, delightfully mixed with rain and salt (courtesy of the county road people). Massive shoveling so we could drive out and mingle with the rest of civilization.

Emily spent the afternoon over lunch at her friend's house. Jenna, Kate and I had lunch out, did errands and then headed back to pick Emily up. Ended up visiting a long time with the friend's mother, while all four girls played together. It is always a treat to spend time with this dear friend (the mother as well as the daughter) but to have tea with them on such a bleak day as this was a gift. 

And while we are on the topic of random updates, Kate has been drawing faces! Sometime soon I will share a photo of a complete face, with outline, hair, hairline, nose, eyes and mouth. Today we get to see just circles. Kate has discovered the craft punches, and she has been making tiny confetti as well as these larger circles. She drew a series of faces on these and explained to me what they were. 

Top row: on the left is "A sad face" and on the right is "A looking -left face".
Bottom row: "This is a tuna face, and this is a tuna face, and this is a tuna face, and this is a tuna face." 


Kate has joined the ranks of the other face artists in our family. I can't wait to see how her art evolves.

Random Updates 2

It rained all day, it rained all night

The world, it was a dreadful sight

And we, just at the brink of spring

Today surrendered everything.

No fantastic outdoor adventures today. 

We dropped Jenna off at school this wet, blustery and hail-y morning and went to another donut shop for a second breakfast. Then some errands before picking Jenna up again and heading home for lunch.

In the evening, we packed art supplies and drove Emily to gymnastics class. We stayed to watch her, the other two girls coloring in their coloring books while we waited for her to be done with her class.

In between our outings, we played fairies, did crafts and had a dance recital. We turned up the volume to "99 and a Half Won't Do" and everybody, even the audience (i.e. me) danced. 

No photos of anything particularly beautiful today. So instead, here is a photo of something particularly beautiful the girls made me last weekend while I was out on errands:

and an update on our painting project from yesterday. It's so obvious now what they are, isn't it?

Tomorrow we add sprinkles!

Odd Egg

Two days ago, I cut into a hard-boiled egg and was astounded to see this:

It was the palest egg yolk I'd ever seen. Although the photo above doesn't show it, it was almost white. 

Here's another photo of our colorless friend next to a regular egg yolk to give you a better idea of what it was like:

Quite unappetizing, honestly. And I wondered if it were.. you know....diseased. So I googled it and found this picture. I'm glad it wasn't one of the raw eggs we used later for chocolate chip cookie dough. 

Anyway, turns out it's just pigment (or the lack thereof). And it's sort of rare, so we took pictures. No, we're not selling ours on ebay. I mashed it, mixed it with mayonnaise, black pepper, oregano, salt and chopped tomatoes, and baked it open-faced on croissant halves. It's all gone now.

Random Updates 1

Emily is on spring break this week, so we were ambitious and packed our day with lots of things to do!

This morning, we drove to one of the nearby donut shops for breakfast. 10 donuts and 5 donut holes later, we headed home and spent the rest of the morning painting.

This is an at-least-two-days project, so the newspaper is still taped over our kitchen table. "That's the ugliest tablecloth I've ever seen!" said Emily to me.


After lunch (on the newspaper tablecloth) we went to the zoo. It was only 47 degrees (8 C) but we acted like it was summer and had ice cream for tea.


Then home for dinner. The post-dinner craft, as suggested by Jenna and Emily, was paper aeroplanes. Jenna and Kate are still learning the proper way to launch them, but they were quite adept at decorating them. Already there are signs of sibling rivalry: Kate announced, "I want mine to be more beautiful than Jenna's!" Or maybe it's just a recognition of exceptional quality (Jenna's paper aeroplane was quite gorgeous) and setting one's standards accordingly. 


Fun day. We got more exercise today than possibly all the winter days combined. 

Happy St Patrick's Day

Not a lot of stuff on this blog recently. We've been sick the past two ++ weeks, and only beginning to come out of it. Today was St Patrick's Day so we were a bit funny and drew rainbows on marshmallows with our edible markers. We tinted cream cheese green and had four-leaved-clover shaped sandwiches for lunch. So silly. 


It was 54 degrees (12 C) today and we wore our flip-flops (aka beach sandals) into the car to get bread from our favorite bakery for dinner. A nice change from snow boots and socks. The neighborhood had come to life all around us - people walking their dogs and the teenage boys, in shorts, playing street hockey on the er.. street. The snow on our deck has melted to the point where we can actually see the deck. And everywhere the frozen grass is emerging underneath the receding ice.


The Big Thaw has begun, and not an hour too soon. Daylight savings has kicked in, and we are loving the bright, sparkling sunshine. Now to get rid of this awful cough/cold/general malaise so we can be outside, running free.

Jenna Made Gifts

Tuesday was a very important day for Jenna. 

She went to school like any other school day. 

But on Tuesday, she went, bearing gifts.

She wrapped them herself, and I helped her write notes to tell the recipients all about the goodies therein -

goodies that Jenna made herself.

About two weeks ago, Jenna said she wanted to make gifts for her two favorite friends at preschool, Ani and Corbynn. 

"Pillows and blankets for their dolls," she said.

So on and off for two weeks, she worked on them. She chose the cloth - pink and covered with colorful cupcakes. She decided on the dimensions, and I cut them out and drew stitching lines. She made one set for herself as a dry run (quickly kidnapped by Kate) and then continued with the other two sets.

Kate helped stuff the pillows, but otherwise, Jenna sat at the sewing machine and pedalled away until they were all finished.

"Why do we leave a hole and not sew all the way around, Jenna?"
"So we can stuff it," said Jenna.
"Don't pull the cloth, Jenna, or it won't move."
"OK. We have to feed the cloth to the needle, Mum, right? Eat. Yum."


And by the time we were done, she was familiar enough with the process to tell me, "We have to sew backwards whenever we start and stop, Mum. You forgot."


Cheeky.


And pleased as punch to give them away. 

Anticipating Spring

Daffodils! Spring! Soon!

See my orchid checking out this new addition to our kitchen window. Dave bought this pot of gloriousness for Valentine's Day. He's sort of trained by now to avoid roses (they tend to have caterpillars in them) and it's always fun to be surprised by the different kinds of flowers he brings home.


Lest you think that this is turning out to be some kind of wannabe horticultural blog, let me assure you that there is no other spot in (or outside) the house with green, living things. 


Want a snapshot of life today?


As I type this, the last batch of chocolate chip cookies is baking in the oven. The kids have just finished an early easter egg hunt, organized by Emily. They are standing at the coffee table, examining their loot, surrounded by plastic half-shells. On their fingers are the stains of permanent ink, from their post-lunch coloring activity. The kitchen table (site of Craftmaggedon) is strewn with Sharpies, half-finished paper bookmarks, one Normal Wowie, a copy of Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators, a small bowl of chocolate chips and a purple sock. Spanish worship music is playing on the computer - "Poderoso! Dios Eterno! Verdadero, Oh quien es como tu?"


Tea time is in 10 minutes- one order of warm milk and one order of hot chocolate, please, Mum. There's cleanup to follow all over the house and Emily needs to be at gymnastics later in the evening. I need to stop by Target to pick up the two dozen cans of root beer/Dr Pepper that I paid for this morning and failed to actually take home. I still have no idea what to make for dinner. 


And outside it is almost 40 degrees. 


:)