A Day in the Life

The girls made a video the other day with a friend.  It's always good to be able to laugh at yourself.  Enjoy!

Frilled A

I'm going to do a series of pictures of A looking like the local animals, like she did with the wallaby. This time my daughter has embodied the essence of a Frilled Lizard!

Mumble Mumble Mumble

So, I was standing down by the pond this morning watching the Canada Goose family that stopped by when A opens the door and calls to me:

A - "Mama!!!!"

Me - "What?"

A - "Where's my bagels?"

Me - confused because she knows where we keep the bagels, "In the freezer!"

A - more emphatically, "Where's my bagels?"

Me - thinking she was looking for a different kind down in the basement freezer, "Which kind?"

A - "Both of them!"

Now totally confused, I head up to the house. When I asked her what the heck she was talking about, she said, "I burned my bagels."

Ooooohhhhh, it all makes sense now.

The above exchange was from my perspective. For her it went like this:

A - "I burned my bagels!"
Me - "In the freezer!"
A - "I burned my bagels!!"
Me - "Which one?"
A - "Both of them!"

I'm not sure which one of us was more confused.

Random News

In just a little bit, we are leaving to go to the airport to pick up C and then to the flooring store to hopefully pick out some oak for my dining room to match the rest of the house. I was going to just paint the subfloor under the carpet and wait on doing the hardwood, but then I realized that I would have to put my dining room back together only to have to tear it back down again sometime in the future. I have no interest in moving all those books again! So, we decided to just bite the bullet and get the oak. The place I am going has unfinished wood, so we can do the same linseed oil finish as the rest of the house, which I love. And the price is right! Here's to getting one room of the house 100% done! Yay! I'll show you what it looks like when we get it all done.

In other news, A has started a new ballet class, which I believe is going to be great. E spent the entire class time dancing in the waiting area and got lots of comments from the other parents about why she wasn't in the class. Sooooo, we signed her up, too! She told me she wanted to have A take the class and tell her if it was any good, before she would know if she wanted to do it. Little stinker, using her sister as a guinea pig! I am much happier with this place, over the last one. It is so much more about the enjoyment of dance, rather then performance and competition. That, and the parents were much cooler to hang out with! This seems to be the school that the hippies in Ithaca go to. My kind of folks!

So, I am going to be quiet here on the blog for a few days while C is home. Or maybe I won't! See you soon.

I Tried!

This is what happens when I try to share my daughters beautiful singing with the world. I have to be sneaky about it because they are resistant to the idea of singing in front of anyone but their mother, pretty much. Right before I got the camera out, they were singing loudly and beautifully together, I swear! It is almost like they had eyes in the back of their heads. Or they turn into singing chipmunks...

But...But...Butt!

This is what happens when cousin J spends the night:

I'm not sure if I should be proud, or very, very afraid. ;-)

Don't Mess With Mama Goose

This is a Guest Post By A

Hello, I havn't blogged in awhile because I was...Um...Because I...Er...Argh...Because I...MAN, I'm not good at this. Well, I'll try again. Hello, I havn't blogged in awhile because I'm...Uhm...Er...THAT'S IT! I'm not blogging anymore. Yep, I am. YAHOO!

Makeover #2

Before: After:

Turns out the objection to being put on my blog was more about not liking the haircut rather than not wanting the world to see her! So, today she got another haircut, more to her liking, and NOW you all can see it. Isn't she cute?

Vermi...what?!?

Vermiculture or vermicompost. Worm composting, that is. We began our adventures in turning food scraps into rich compost for the garden today with the arrival of 2lbs of redworms. I have been wanting to do this for a long, long time, so this was pretty exciting for me. The girls came to watch them go into their new home, and cooed over how cute they were, but other than that, they are not too jazzed to have a box of worms in the basement. I guess the thought of all that organic waste avoiding the landfill and the free fertilizer and soil builder for our garden does not float their boat like it does mine! For those interested in the details, read on!

That's the box I concocted from a crate left from the move and some scrap wood that was in the basement. I got a book from the library, Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof to work out the details of size and proper bedding and how many and what kind of worms to get to eat the garbage we make each week. I think I shall have to buy myself a copy as it was very informative. Once I had the basics worked out, I placed an order online for the worms. I got them here as they seemed to have a good price. There are a ton of places online you could get worms, just look around.

When the worms got here today, a day earlier than I expected, I rushed to tear up some newsprint paper and wet it down for their bedding. Along with a few scoops of soil from the garden, and the latest contents of the compost bucket, we settled them into their new home. I set up a light to shine on them to keep them from escaping the box. After a few hours, I checked them and had to rescue a bunch that had crawled out. Here is a little guy heading for the door:

I'm told they will settle down and stay in the box in a day or so. I can't wait to see how this all works out. I'm looking forward to the first batch of vermicompost, in a couple months. Maybe by that time, the girls will be as fond of the idea of worms eating our garbage as I am!

Dancing Elves

Now, if you have seen the video in the post below, you'll get a kick out of this homegrown version!

Extreme Sushi

Lately, E has had an interest in getting in the kitchen and creating her own culinary creations. She saw a little feature on Disney Channel about food from around the world and declared that she wanted to make sushi. Not having any of the required ingredients around, we improvised. Later at the grocery store, we found sushi rice and seaweed sheets - I already had rice vinegar at home - and pickles. Yes, pickles. This was E's idea and she would not be swayed with other more traditional sushi ingredients like cucumber or avocado. And no fish! So, as soon as we got home, she had me cooking and preparing the rice. Nevermind that we had gone out for lunch at an Asian buffet place and had eaten rice (and sushi, for me) aplenty that day! She wanted to make her own. And she did. After one bite she declared the seaweed too fishy. Oh well, at least she tried! Now that I have the seaweed and the rice, I am going to see about making some sushi that she might actually like. And we have a new sushi place just opening up the street, so we might go check that out one night. Look at all this learning and exploring going on, all from a 1 minute thing on the TV. Who says you can't learn anything from television?!?

p.s. don't miss the new video down below Sunday's post...

Rain!

For the past few days we have actually had enough water fall from the sky and get the ground wet to call it rain. Today I asked the girls if they wanted to go out and get me the mail in the rain, with their new umbrellas from the WWF. They, of course, jumped at the chance to use the umbrellas.E waiting for her sister to open her umbrella. She managed to get it open by herself, which is not a big feat until you remember that, unlike a lot of kids, she can count on her digits how many times she has seen rain in the last four years!

The girls walking across to the mailbox. Notice the shiny wet landscape. It's WATER! No, I'm not excited or happy about this, really, I'm not.

Heading back in with the mail. Ever watch a couple kids try to hold umbrellas, use a key to open a little door, and extract the mail from the tiny box inside, all while trying not to get wet? It's pretty funny. Luckily the pieces of mail E dropped on the ground, not once but three times, were just junk mail!



All the rain and clouds have made for some beautiful atmospheric displays. Here is a shot of a sunset seen from our upstairs bathroom the other night:

The Boy Who Lived

Or did he? You'll have to read the book to find out! I finished it today and just have to say that J. K. Rowling is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I did not want it to be over so soon, but I could not help myself.

A told me today that she can wait to read the book until after we have read the second and third books in the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Princess Academy, and finished listening to the Septimus Heap trilogy. What?!?!! She can wait to read the seventh and final book? Considering we go about a chapter a day, that would be MONTHS from now. She even said she wanted me to re-read all six previous books to her before we started number 7, "to catch up on everything". I'm not sure that we will actually wait that long. Or maybe I will just have to sit on her and force her to listen to it!

She is attempting to read HP#1 to herself, although the process is painfully slow and involves me deciphering long strings of letters shouted from the other room into actual words, oh, every five seconds, or so. I know that the process will make her an exceptional reader very quickly, but it might just be easier to read to her for the next few years! The things you do for your kids....

Out of the Mouths of Babes

This morning we were watching the new Charlotte's Web from Netflix and A says, "Pigs are intelligent". E pipes in, "Smart, too!"