mathmom's blog

One of our new family favorites, thanks to the Raleigh International Festival. Ingredients 1 Pound flank steak or tri-tip, thinly sliced across the grain 5 Tablespoons soy sauce (we prefer 1/2 light, 1/2 dark Pearl River Bridge) 2 1/2 Tablespoons white sugar 1/4 Cup chopped green onion (we skip this for the sake of our children) 2 Tablespoons minced garlic 2 Tablespoons sesame seeds 2 Tablespoons sesame oil 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper Cheese (we skip this) Steamed rice (we just cook white rice) Flour tortillas (we use lettuce instead) Directions Place the beef in a shallow dish. Combine soy sauce, sugar, green onion, garlic, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and ground black pepper in a small bowl. Pour over beef. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight. To grill: Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil the grate Quickly grill beef on hot grill until slightly charred and cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes per side. To broil: Line a broil

Amanda and Luke were in the back seat discussing superpowers.  Whenever one of them declared that they had a superpower (like x-ray vision), the other would steal it from them. Amanda got tired of this and declared that her superpower was that no one could steal her superpower from her.  My mind is still trying to wrap itself around that.  Amanda is definitely the philosopher of the family...

For many many years I've wanted tickets to the symphony, but somehow we never got them.  I still remember going to see "Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" soon after Amanda was born and sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time worried that my phone would ring and I'd have to go home. (Looking back on this, I was being ridiculous.  Michael was perfectly capable of handling any emergency.) This year we finally got season tickets.  For the first concert, I was out of town visiting my brother.  No problem, Michael took Eleanor.  For the next concert, Amanda got sick that night.  If she had been less sad, we probably would have gone anyway, but we decided that she needed to have a parent there.  But there was no time to change the tickets, so they would have to be used that night. We asked Eleanor, who flatly refused.  I called the neighbors.  My friend was busy.  As we were doing all this calling and asking, Luke kept pestering us.  "Can I go to the con

Occasionally your children do something that makes you think they'll turn out OK.  On Halloween, Amanda trades away much of her candy because she's allergic to dairy and nuts.  Eleanor loves peanuts especially. So during trick-or-treating, Amanda specifically picked up things with nuts because she knew that Eleanor loves them.  And Eleanor specifically picked up Amanda-safe candies because she knew Amanda would have to trade. Made me smile. =)

So we didn't get any pictures of kids in costumes this year.  I'll tell you why later, but first let's get to the costumes. Eleanor wanted to be Harry Potter, or at least someone from that franchise.  She had some money saved up and asked if we could actually buy her costume---not my favorite thing to do, but for a Harry Potter robe, it actually makes a certain amount of financial sense.  She did not buy the wand (which lit up) or the broom or the tie or the white shirt, figuring that she could make something of her own.  She got a dowel from the hardware store and turned it into a wand and broom of her own. The most troublesome part came when she insisted that she'd wear her rollerblades.  They don't really fit.  She can't go up and down hills or steps in them.  She's already broken her foot on the scooter, not to mention falling down and busting out several knees of her pants.  I was seriously running out of ideas for how to say, "This is a really

The other day I asked Luke to fold towels.  He does this instead of folding his clothes, which he steadily insists he does not know how to do.  I let him fold towels instead of arguing. Usually he spends most of his folding time telling me about how tired he is, and how he doesn't like to do work, and how he just can't do jobs today, and then he spends a few minutes folding like mad when his sisters are almost done.  Today, however, he folded cheerfully.  The difference?  He folded the towels into triangle shapes instead of squares. He explained that this method of folding was from North Carolina before I was born (he implied that it was from prehistoric times, but I don't remember exactly what he said...)  He tried to get me to fold my things into triangles.   He was generally so pleased with himself for having found a superior method that he was cheerful and happy the whole time, even when I tried to get him to fold the towels into squares so they would fit better on

This is what Luke brought home from school today. I'm pretty sure that by the end of the year the entire contents of the classroom will be in our house...  (Update: in case you can't tell from the picture, they are marker caps.  Apparently he wasn't the only one who took a bag of them home...) (

At Luke's school, there is a woodworking center. Parents bring in wood scraps, and the kids use hammer and nails, or glue and tape, to build things. Luke likes to make "structures"---put together pieces of wood in various ways with no glue.  So far this week he's built an airplane, a rhythm instrument (upon which he plays a rhythm from violin) and a ramp. The problem is that every day he's been bringing home piles of wood. If the economy fails and we need to heat our house with wood, we'll be  in great shape.  Today, Luke accused someone at school of stealing his airplane, so we went to check it out. He had made another ramp, but someone else had taken the pile of wood and taped it together into a large pile.  Luke made it into his ramp, and then we had to go home. There was much sadness when we left without his structure. I may have convinced him that he can do a project with Daddy---we'll see.  If it decreases the amount of wood that comes into the h

The parking lot was a mess. People were parked on the grass, in every spot, walking down the middle of the road. I had Ella and Amanda (who was sick for tue first day of school for the second time in her life).  I really didn't want to get out of the car, but for the first day of kindergarten you need to, right? "Can you drop me off? I've been waiting forever to be dropped off on this side!" (as opposed to the preschool side). So, apparently, one does not need to be taken in to class on the first day of kindergarten. I had a report later that he finished his checklist all by himself, and he wasn't scared by the experience at all. I did sniff a little on the way out of the parking lot, but we had so much to do, I recovered quickly. If I were an inspirational family blogger, at this point I'd write about the black swallowtail butterflies emerging from their chrysalises today. But since I'm not that kind of blogger, I'll leave it to your imagination. (

We were at the children's museum with my 2 year old niece A. and she did the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.  Part of the museum involves pink and purple buckets, which can be filled with green balls.  There are lots and lots of balls, but a semi-shortage of buckets---they were around, but you had to look for them. Because of this semi-shortage, buckets did not sit on the ground unattended for very long.  A. had set down her bucket to go get some more balls and a slightly older child (maybe 3 years old) came and grabbed it.  A. noticed, and the older child and A. pulled it back and forth for a while until I distracted A. by telling her to look behind her.  There was another bucket, just like the one she was fighting over, on the floor right behind her.  As far as I could tell, the buckets were exactly the same, and this would eliminate a nasty scene. The older girl grabbed the bucket and ran, and A. walked slowly over to the bucket.  She was not convinced that it

This summer I wanted Luke to learn two things: bike riding and swimming.  The bike riding came easy (see previous post).  The swimming, not so much.  He refuses to pay attention to what anyone else suggests, he refuses to put his head under the water except with his face up to the sky, he won't kick with long legs...  So swimming is slow. The one thing he has finally learned is treading water.  He calls it "dreading water," which seems oddly appropriate.  He can actually dread water all the way across the shallow end, so it's almost like swimming, but not quite. I think we'd actually need to get him into lessons in order to teach him to swim.  He'd benefit from a teacher who is not his parents.  He might also benefit from having some other kids to watch: as I may have posted before, Luke learns things very well by watching others.  Where Ella tends to reinvent the wheel (pretty well, all things considered), Luke takes whatever techniques seem useful and ma

This is the last full week before school starts.  We did lots of stuff, since my sister was visiting (yay!).  There was swimming, the children's museum, the bounce house, Pullen park, more swimming, including swimming after dinner, which was much more exciting than daytime swimming as far as my kids are concerned.  We were pretty busy. Today we went to Amanda's before classes start playdate.  Ella played at her friend's house while the little kids and I did many many errands.  Then taekwondo. Tomorrow we need to visit the library.  We also might go to the doctor, as Amanda is complaining about feeling weaker and weaker...  who knows.

We've been visiting family.  I sat down to write this at the end of last week, trying to remember what we did every day, but I found that I wasn't sure what happened which day.  This is close =) Monday: Went to Duluth.  Saw the beach, the train museum (and the other museums in the same building), the beach (this time in swim suits) and dinner at Grandma's.  I think I remember eating at Grandma's when our youth group visited Duluth, but I'm not sure... Tuesday: Made bread in the morning, played with cousins in the afternoon. Wednesday: Maybe went swimming?  I got out of it somehow by promising to make dinner and set the table so we could eat as soon as the kids got home.  I think I got a good deal =) Thursday: Played with cousins in the morning.  Recuperated (at least I did) in the afternoon. Friday: Went for a bike ride on the river trail.  Luke rode at least 8 miles, the last 5 without stopping.  He finally has learned to start his bike without pushing it

Monday: We went to the Museum of Life and Science---see the other post.  One note that I didn't mention in the other post is that they have a new exhibit called "Into the mist," or as Amanda calls it, the "Mysteriological garden".  It's a rather large play area with sand, rocks, tunnels, hills, and...mist coming up from the ground.  We were there on a rather hot day, and the mist was very thick and cooling.  You could not see through it---the kids played hide and seek.  I think we met the designer, because when I mentioned to  the museum staff member that the exhibit was awesome, he said that it was good to see kids enjoying themselves on something he designed!  He may have convinced Amanda to give the money from her allowance that she donates to the museum, although I think he may have given her the idea that she will be able to name the playground... Tuesday: Ella's friend came over and they had a long playdate.  My main job was to run interference b

...not all the animal exhibits are in cages. In other news, they've really improved the train ride by adding lots and lots of art.  I enjoyed myself  more than I have in years! My favorite was the eagles nest, and the mirrors were a close second. Our engineer was pretty awesome too.

The Johnson family model rocket club was launched today. A great deal of fun was had by all, possibly excepting Michael when he climbed the pine tree to retrieve Sky Dragon I , Ella's  special rocket.  We have a few more engines, so there are more rockets coming!

We have a two story entryway and a railing from the 2nd floor which overlooks it.  This is a great temptation for children to drop things over, but we have firm rules about what can be dropped: things which are soft and things which are light. Yesterday as I was making dinner, Luke started trying dropping things over.  He dropped his bean bag.  He dropped our hula hoop. Then he started looking for bigger things. He came up to me and showed me the old keyboard we have for playing with.  "No, you may not drop that over the edge."  Then he came and asked if he could drop over my 5 pound dumbbell.  The image of the dumbbell hitting the ground was not pretty, and to Luke's disappointment I said no again.  Then he started to get more desperate. "Can I drop off my woodworking?" he asked.  His preschool had collections of boards, hammers and glue that the kids could make into things and bring home, so woodworking refers to a couple of 2 foot long sections of 2 by 4s

Monday: We went out to Sylva in western North Carolina to visit a dear friend.  We drove out on Sunday afternoon, had a pretty uneventful trip, and got there in time for dinner.  We watched the Andy Griffith show---some of the episodes are more fun for kids, but they are all appropriate. So on Monday we decided to go to Deep Creek to go tubing.  Because the weather was iffy, we weren't sure when to go but we ended up picking the best time---after lunch.  Tubing deserves a post of its own, but lets just say that it is nothing like tubing on the Apple River.  Instead of a long, slow trip down the river, there are many short quick trips down a section of river, in between which you have to carry your tube back up to the top.  It was a blast! Tuesday: There was a program about birds of prey at the library.  Ella only checked one book out.  In the afternoon we went to the pottery painting place, while it poured down rain.  We would have gone just a few blocks over to the candy store

The 3rd and 4th weeks were camps---that was pretty much what the kids did all day, except Luke spent the afternoons with me. Monday: Went to the car place in the morning.  Had a playdate in the afternoon with one of Amanda's friends from school. Tuesday: We went to the pool at 5 pm for an hour---fun, and just the right amount of time.  I do not remember what we did in the morning!  (edit: Amanda had a Dr. appointment and we had violin and viola lessons.) Wednesday: Fourth of July.  Joel Lane house in the morning, errands after a late lunch, and our own fireworks and the neighborhood fireworks in the evening. Thursday: Marbles in the morning, lunch, school and cleaning in the afternoon. Friday: Swimming in the morning---it's hard to believe that it can get too hot to swim in the afternoon!  Library in the afternoon.

There are some mighty creative people in the world: scientists, artists, inventors, and so on.  But for my money, no one can beat a 5 year old boy for sheer volume of ideas.  Most of which are bad... One example: in the 30 minutes that I was trying to make pancakes for dinner the other day, Luke had the idea and executed a recipe for "Carolina Wren Cake."  It started with some yeast, sugar and water from an earlier "experiment".  He added oats, sunflower seeds, 3 tablespoons corn syrup, some flour and cinnamon. (Luke was looking for the cinnamon and picked out the chili powder, cumin and coriander.  I managed to convince him that those were not the spices he was looking for.)  I added a few more tablespoons of flour and some salt, he kneaded it, we let it rise and baked it at 350 for about 20 minutes.  He was a bit disappointed that there wasn't enough for rolls, but   it was actually quite tasty.  The biggest problem is that none of the kids will eat it... =)

Somehow, we managed to sign the kids up for camps in 3 different locations:  a middle school, Amanda's school and the gym.  There were good reasons for the 3 locations which I won't bore you with, but it was not convenient.  Ella went to rocketry camp and pottery camp.  In the morning, she decorated and set off various rockets of various sizes.  She learned about parachutes and fuel and lots of other things.  In the afternoon, she made things out of clay.  She did not get the two confused.  I think she enjoyed both camps, but whenever she said, "I had so much fun in camp today!" she meant the pottery camp. Amanda went to superhero camp and junior detective camp.  She dressed up as her chosen superhero, "The Sneaker," all week.  She got to do finger prints and get together with the 3rd-5th grade camp, "Spy camp." Luke went to rock climbing camp.  After the first day, he had topped on one of the auto belays.  After 2 days he had done two.  Afte

Our GE microwave is only 7 years old, but it appears to be on its last legs.  The light burnt out (entirely my fault).  The glass turntable has been broken, and replaced.  The turntable does not turn (don't know whose fault that is...)  Unfortunately, it is installed as part of our cabinetry, and appears to be darn hard to replace. We might need to, though, after today's escapade. Ella wanted to make popcorn, so I told her she could try to use the paper bag method a friend taught us.  I'd done it before, no problem, so I only needed to look up the recipe to tell us how long to cook it.  Same as other microwave popcorn, easy. The recipe also mentioned you could use a staple to hold the bag shut.  My friends didn't use a staple, so I was in favor of leaving it out, but Ella found a staple on the way to the microwave and put it in. I told Ella to stand by the microwave and watch it (or more precisely, listen to it) so she would know when to stop.  I went away and sud

Luke has been busy.  On the first day he said that there was shrimp and octopus for snack, and he ate them all up so that no one else got any.  Then he played with his friend Annie on the playground and threw balls at her until she blew up. Today he collected rocks.  We counted, and he had 85 including the shell they gave him in class.  Apparently, there is a rock collecting contest and he and his friend are running neck and neck.  But (according to Luke) Luke is a better collector, and besides, he really likes collecting rocks.  I don't have to teach competitiveness to this boy. The prize is a cup full of shells...or is it a dragon...or maybe a treasure chest...or maybe more rocks...  It's hard to tell from what Luke says.  He's got me alternately laughing or tearing out my hair.  It's a good thing he's so cute.

Today they did: square dancing.  Ella had Luke, Amanda and me demonstrating the Virginia Reel. rounders (baseball) leather working cord making cooking a "hoe cake," using the butter and buttermilk they made yesterday recorder playing (no violin playing today) I'm sure there is something else. Ella is having so much fun---except for the dress, which is very hot and getting hotter.  She thinks the boys should dress more appropriately, but then they'd have to wear dresses until they're eight... Amanda had a fun time picking out things from the store... we did have to put some of them back, but she and Luke got parasols.  Ella got a pen and ink set.

...is awesome!  I knew I would like it when I found that the first thing that they did was issue colonial clothes (2 sets) to the kids.  But Ella and Amanda seem to like it too. Some of the things they're doing: fire making with flint necklaces quill writing violin/viola playing (Ella couldn't play the A-E combination on the viola...) marching to a nearby field with a fife/drum combination (the walk is less onerous with music, according to Ella) playing hoops and tug of war butter making (they're going to bake today) And that's just the first day! Ella complains that the boys just have to wear shirts while the girls have to wear a shift, a petticoat and a pinafore.  It's been cool today (80 degrees) but it's going to get up to the 90s tomorrow, I think. Anyhow, it's been pretty fun so far for them.  I'll write more later.

Monday: Haircut, swimming (interrupted by thunder) and taekwondo.  A very boring day =). Tuesday:  Went to the History museum.  The North Carolina exhibit really is fantastic, the only problem is that we run out of steam after we get to WWI.  Luke had a speech therapy evaluation.  We'll have to find some sort of child care arrangement, I  think. Wednesday: Didn't get much done in the morning.  Luke had a play date with Colin in the afternoon, so the girls and I went shopping---got a pencil holder and a paper holder for Ella's newly cleaned off desk.  Amanda went to her first dance lesson, which she enjoyed.   I do see why we haven't done this before, though, the logistics are annoying.  There was one woman at the studio with 4 (maybe 5?) kids, and they were all at the studio for 3 hours for various lessons.  I'm not sure how we'll work things out as the kids get older, I'm worried that the number of activities will balloon... Thursday: Swimming in the

I admit that I am not an active person.  I would rather sit and read a book than ride a bike, or even take a walk.  My kids (especially Ella) are taking after me in this.  Ella isn't in any organized sports that require lots of practice and hour long games---Taekwondo is good, but it's only 1 hour twice a week. I was also concerned about Amanda's core strength: as I've learned through my exercise class, "They're all core exercises!"  It's important to have good core strength for all aspects of life. So I was trying to think of how we could stay active during the hot summer months when it is easier to stay inside rather than go out into the 100 degree heat. We go swimming and bike riding.  We can play at the park (although Ella and I bring books =).   But we started a daily exercise program to augment these.  Here's what we do: sit ups.  I do 20.  Ella does 30, Luke does 10 and Amanda does 15.  pushups.  Ella and I do 30, Amanda and Luke have t

The number one reason to grow parsley. Luke says, "I love this day!"

Amanda leaves a lot out of her cartoons, but she explained this one to me.  The man and the woman are having a conversation about whether the year 33,033 will ever happen. (This was inspired by my observation that I've seen 2 palindromic years, but amanda might not see any.  Doesn't seem fair.)  The man can't believe it, but the woman knows that you can't stop time.  At least that's how I understood what she was telling me at the time. It was interesting to me that she really seems to believe that women in general are smarter than men, but she thinks that michael is smarter than me.  Go figure.

Mon: went to lunch with Grandpa and Daddy, went to Carrboro to pick up a picture I had framed, ate Locopops.  Went to rehearsal for recital and then Taekwondo. Tues: Dropped Grandpa off at the airport.  Built lots of things out of kapla blocks.  Relaxed until the recital---we had to eat dinner really early in order to get there on time.  All the kids did great at the recital.  Luke was very funny with his seriousness (playing Takka Takka) and then bowing 4 or 5 times when he was finished.  We went out for gelato afterwards, it was great! Wed: Actually did some "school" (writing, math, reading).  Ella and Amanda finished listening to Chomp.  Went to Ella's friend's house to drop her off, went to Monkey Joe's to meet with friends from the homeschool co-op, then back to Ella's friend's house to pick up Ella.  Went to taekwondo. Thurs: We did our morning routine, including exercise (yay!), except somehow Amanda didn't eat breakfast.  Went swimming, b

One of the best parts of bike riding is actually going someplace (instead of just riding around the neighborhood).  So today we packed up our water bottles and books (because you shouldn't go anywhere without a book) and rode to the neighborhood park. This was complicated by the fact that Ella is a proficient bike rider, Amanda is adequate (although she has trouble staying on her side of the road and tends to stop often to pick up pieces of fluff and feathers on the sides of the road) and Luke is just beginning.  Ella and Amanda were pretty good about waiting for Luke and me, but Luke is not really sure about his brakes yet, and not really good about going up hills yet, so we had to walk up and down the steepest hills. Still, we got to the park and set the girls' bikes up in the bike rack.  Luke rode around the playground for a while.  I only had to remind him once that the one of the first rules for riding a bike was, "don't run into babies!" Ella got out her

Luke wanted to make a recipe from the recipe book his grandma gave him, so we made a fruit and granola parfait. We changed the strawberries to grapes and left out the pumpkin seeds, but otherwise we made it as written.  Luke says it's pretty good!

Friday was the "Mother's tea" at Amanda's school.  All the kids wrote little essays about their mothers (including details like "my mom's favorite TV show is the news" and "My mom is 40 years old.")  Amanda wrote that she wanted to go on a bike ride with just her mom, but that I couldn't leave Luke at the house alone so I couldn't go. So today while Luke was out on a ride with Daddy, I went out with Amanda.  The squeaky wheel gets some grease, I suppose.  Maybe asking indirectly is better than asking directly---it's easier to say yes.

We noticed a few weeks ago that Ella's knees were knocking against the handlebars of her bike (well, not quite, but almost).  So today we went to the bike store and picked out a new one, a HUGE purple bike, just right for tooling around the neighborhood on.  We also got water bottles, a little "bike purse", and a kickstand for Luke's bike, since he asked us to remove the training wheels and to give him a kickstand.  He's been riding the "strider" bike pretty well for a while, and almost balancing on his own bike, but we wanted to wait until he was ready. Well, we got home from the bike store and every few seconds Luke was trying to open the kickstand.  He really wanted to put it on.  "You can have the kickstand after you learn to ride without training wheels," we told him.  So, of course, he insisted even more that he wanted to take the training wheels off immediately. Michael got his tools and took off the training wheels and went into th

How many violists does it take to hold a concert? More than thirty! There was a great concert with lots and lots of violas. My favorite piece was the "Ride of the viola valkyries" played by 8 violas.  They also invited violists from the audience (who had registered in advance) to play. Apparently when they tried this in california they got over 100 participants.  We had 38, which was still an impressive sound. My favorite joke: Why are viola jokes so short?  So violinists can remember them.

When I was young, if I wanted to make a skirt, we went to the fabric store, looked through the pattern books, bought the pattern, fabric, and notions, pinned the tissue to the pattern, cut out all the little triangles... and so on.  Eleanor, on the other hand, picked up some fabric from a trunk sale, looked up free skirt patterns on the web, printed off the directions and went to town.  Now she's almost one skirt richer.

Saturday, before breakfast, Luke got out the fish tank cleaning tools and started cleaning away. He wanted to use kleenex to wipe off the algae from the structures, I tried to convince him that only mamas could do that. He wanted to siphon to clean the bottom ("vacuuming!") but we needed to let some water sit before I'd let him. Then he went to the piano (the "pananno", sounds like banano) and played, looked at the mechanism, decided it was broken and found a bunch of screw drivers. When I wouldn't let him do that, he found the digital clock in the basement (he probably remembered stories of his daddy's escapades with clocks) and tried to fix it. Then he got out the eggs, soy milk, oil and made a "recipe". I have told him that we are not allowed to use eggs except for recipes out of cookbooks, but he was adamant. While I was folding laundry, he cracked 5 eggs and mixed everything up (in the salad spinner...) I didn't even know he could

Luke told his teacher today that he was a golden retriever. OK, she said. She's used to Luke. Yeah, I'm a golden retriever because I can retrieve gold things from the playground! That's genius! she said. (Apparently a leprechaun visited the playground and deposited gold painted rocks all over. Luke says we're going to have a solving party to solve the mystery of the rocks. Sounds like fun, I suppose.)

This is Amanda's rocket ship.  She noticed that two red triangles make one blue triangle, so she turned it into a rocket.  Then she asked me to take a picture and told me what to write. We love magnatiles. I think the kids party with them at least 15 minutes, probably more, every day.  Unfortunately, they haven't been available because of floods in Thailand. We hope (for many reasons) that the floods recede soon...

This is Amanda's favorite food, I think.  Wash and dry the kale well, drizzle with olive oil, bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes, turning once.  Sprinkle with sea salt and enjoy.

Ella put on her "let's try to trick daddy face" and asked, "So, is a right triangle a triangle with three right angles?" Daddy decided that an introduction to spherical geometry was in order.

Luke just turned 5. This has some implications around our house. Luke collects many many stuffed animals and other things: Lemma, Mr. Gotche, a pillow named Eyeball and another named Pillowy... you get the idea. Tonight he was missing his blanket. We couldn't immediately find it, so I used the excuse I had been using for years: "Blankie just went on a little vacation. He'll come back in the morning." Luke looked at me like I was a crazy woman. "But they can't MOVE!" I tried again. "Don't worry, Luke, Blankie will come back in the morning." He just repeated again, "THEY can't MOVE!" After a few more tries I did get through to him the real explanation, that he had moved Blankie somewhere, but that we didn't know where and would have to look for it in the morning. In the end Luke saw Blankie's corner sticking out somewhere, so it didn't matter anyway. But I'm left wondering how many more convenient expl

Luke was praying tonight. He said, "Jesus can do anything! If you're blond, or sick, or can't walk, Jesus can help you!" Is that a childlike faith?

Amanda wanted to make sure no one could steal her valentines, so she rigged a tripwire from a length of elastic...

Carrots, mashed pear, vinegar, sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, margarine: $2-3.  Afternoon of Luke baking (and then cleaning up): priceless.

Like daughter. Actually, I can't even imagine reading while swinging now, although I remember doing it when I was young.

Sunday, we made napkins from the backs of Michael's old shirts. I think they're pretty.

At the science museum.  We got to hear hissing cockroaches! Luke informed the teachers that dragons have special scales that are fireproof.

The kids voted for a picture of the fog as the picture of the day.

This is as close to a snowman as we got in NC this weekend. It also happens to be Sunday dinner.

Here is the stack of books I'm in the middle of right now.  I seem to have lost the Organized Simplicity book, though.

...and I don't like it one bit.  (actually, it's a lot of fun =)

Ella is trying to stay on skates all day. Amanda made a ship...or an airplane...or a boat... Mama and Luke made a marble run using almost all the pieces from the set.

II still need to get my brother-in-law's recipe, but these turned out pretty good. The kids ate one stalk between them. It seemed a shame to waste good asparagus. I'm not quite sure what the paintbrush is doing there...

New style... =)

I had been thinking about going to our local park to pick up trash today, so it was a nice surprise that our town had scheduled an official event. I'm not sure the kids were on board entirely, until they brought out the picker upper tools.  Then suddenly the whole event became much cooler.

Behind the mask you can't see Michael sticking out his tongue.

One of the best presents we got this year for Christmas.  (Actually, Amanda got it, but we all like it... =)

It's a beautiful day here, so I sent the kids outside to play. A while later I saw luke and Amanda working diligently on something on the play structure... They found some wood, made an "oven" and started cooking.  As Luke said, "We worked together and figured out what to do." Does anyone need some dried vampire blood?

After watching his sisters for a year or so, Luke finally got to put on a uniform and do a few kicks.  He was so proud he could hardly talk, which is saying something.

Today Luke asked if I could "please give me ten common cents." I told him he was really in need of some common sense, and if I found any, I'd give him some!

We made these with a kit we bought for Ella's school. Everyone (including Luke) had a good time =) Mod podge is fun!

Tree, lights, wreaths, it all comes down today.

The shark's name is David,  according to Luke.