Kate is 3 months old

Happy quarter-birthday, Katydid!

Independence Day

In keeping with family tradition, we celebrated the 

4th of July at Grandma Ruby's cabin on Maple Lake.

We had beautiful weather and not a lot of mosquitoes, 

thankfully! So we spent the day visiting with family

running barefoot in the grass

playing classic summer games

chilling

connecting with nature

and enjoying the water, of course

Emily and Jenna spent many happy minutes manually 

filling their little wading pools/boat from the lake.

This was probably the highlight of the day for Jenna, 

whose love for dumping water is even greater than 

her love for dumping sand, which is saying something! 

Happy Birthday Arne

During the weekend we celebrated Grandpa Arne's birthday -

Happy birthday, Grandpa!

Banana Bread

And when we got home, I found one overripe banana sitting mournfully on our counter. So I baked banana bread, which is the fate that befalls all the overripe bananas in our house.

This is a recipe from my mother-in-law's friend Roz Watnemo and it is practically fail-safe.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups sugar
  
• Half cup vegetable oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 long or 3 med bananas)
  
• A third of a cup of water
  
• 1.75 cups flour
  
• A quarter tsp salt
  
• 1 tsp baking soda
  
• A quarter tsp baking powder
  
• Half tsp ground cinnamon
  

Method:

1 Preheat oven to 350F.

2 Grease a large loaf pan and line with parchment or greaseproof paper.

3 Combine the dry ingredients (except sugar) in a small bowl.

4 In a large bowl, mix on medium speed the oil, eggs and sugar till creamy.

5 Stir in (or briefly mix on low speed) the mashed bananas.

6 Mix in on low speed, the dry ingredients, alternating with the water.

7 Pour into loaf pan and bake 50-60 mins or till toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Note: I often halve this recipe and bake it in a small loaf pan for about 45- 50 mins. Or bake two small loaves and freeze one wrapped in wax paper in a large ziptop bag with the air sucked out with a straw. The batter rises to about twice the original volume, so the pan or tin you use should be large enough to allow for that.

What the Kids Did Today

Painting. 

Specifically, painting on the easel on the deck.

Emily's idea. 

While setting it up, it felt very preschool-ish.

Incidentally, Jenna had her fingers in her mouth the whole time, 

extracting them only to dip them in the water cups.

Sesame Street

I've always loved Sesame Street as a child and am grateful that it is still around for our kids. Sadly, Sesame Street now is so different from Sesame Street in the old days that I almost can hardly bear to sit through it. It's certainly changed with the times and probably adapted so that kids nowadays can relate to it. But I do miss the old humor, the wonderful music and the hilarious animation, along with characters that are long gone, like Guy Smiley, Kermit the Frog (who crossed over to the Muppet Show and never came back), the then-politically-incorrect Cookie Monster and Grover the waiter before he gained his super powers and started moonlighting as a travel agent. 

Some weeks ago we rediscovered classic Sesame Street animation clips on You Tube and got Emily and Jenna to watch them. We quickly found our favorites: 











Emily happily sings the songs and Jenna has learnt to count - a testament to just how powerfully educational it used to be, or at the very least, that there was life on Sesame Street before Elmo.

What the Kids Did Today

We were out shopping this morning and came home with, among other things, a new box of foam stickies (hurrah) and a new princess T-shirt for Emily. When we got home, Emily examined her new T-shirt and then declared, "It has sparkles on it. So when we wash it, we have to turn it inside out." 

Dumbfounded, of course. So I asked her where she had learnt that and she said, "From my (other) T-shirt (that also has sparkles on it)." Pressing on, I said, "Yes, but who taught you that?" And she said, "The T-shirt did!"

Either they are making talking T-shirts now, or else she has learnt to read laundry labels, or else she's been watching weird TV because I don't remember ever telling her this.

Later, while I was preparing lunch, Emily and Jenna were doing arts and crafts in the living room just within earshot. From the snatches of conversation that I overheard, I gathered they were using the new box of foam stickies and that Emily was being a rather good big sister by not monopolizing it.

Suddenly, I heard her say, "Say 'Thank you', Jenna! Say "Thank you'!" and after a while, Jenna muttered, "Thank you." and Emily praised her.

Then Emily called out, "I'm teaching Jenna to have good manners, mom!"

I do enjoy it when the kids entertain me like this!