24 February 2008

Sophie likes to give Abe and Helen piggyback rides. She also ran 16 laps (2 miles) at her school jog-a-thon this week, tying first place for girls in her class.


Sometimes we call Helen "Princess" to which she replies, "I am not a princess. I am the QUEEN."


The 4th grade put on a play after the book "King Bidgood's in the Bathtub" this week. Sophie played the xylophone. The play lasted about 15 minutes which is about perfect for a school production. We heard that the 6th grade band concert lasted 2 hours, which is even more painful than it sounds when you consider most of the students have been playing their instruments less than 6 months.

Saturday, Brandan helped Sophie build a model of Fort Clatsop for school. Fort Clatsop is the small fort Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery built to live in the winter they lived in Oregon. Lewis and Clark had only 6 days of sunshine during that winter. We've never had such a gloomy winter. One winter we had 25 straight days of rain, but some of those days hardly counted. How did kids build dioramas before glue guns?

17 February 2008

Abe prepared a terrific talk about David and Goliath. He got stagefright when it came time to give it. Abe is so handsome in his Sunday clothes, he makes all the old ladies at church swoon.

Happy Valentine's Day! We started our day with a candlelight breakfast. The sun was barely coming up at 7am. Helen is spreading Cool Whip and blueberries on her waffle. We gave Abe and Helen each their own bowl of Cool Whip so they could eat out of the bowl and lick the spoon as much as they liked.

Abe made Valentines for his preschool class. This involved ripping apart paper cards, folding them and writing his name on each. Sophie made homemade Valentines for her class out of pretty paper she picked out at the scrapbooking store.

Becky was in charge of the Valentine's Day party for Sophie's class. This is the first time she's volunteered to organize a class party. Her first idea was to get a pig's heart from a butcher to dissect. You know- hearts and Valentines. Brandan discouraged that idea. Especially since her other big idea was to serve chocolate fondue for a treat. Instead of dissecting, we played "Love Story." The first person writes down a girl's name and folds the paper over so you can't see it. The next person describes the girl. The next person writes the boy's name and the game keeps going until you have a short story written. The class wrote several stories at the same time and they were very funny to read. Lots of people falling and jumping off buildings and one poor couple was eaten by cats. Brandan didn't need to worry about weak stomachs or cross contamination. The photo is of Sophie dipping a banana in chocolate.

With four kids, Valentine's Day is more a family day than a couple's day around here. Becky was reminded of this when she heard Abe tell our neighbor, Pam, when she came Thursday night to watch the kids, "Come see the flowers Dad brought us!"

10 February 2008

Just before Christmas, an artisan chocolate shop moved in next to the Rogue Creamery, our local cheese factory. Their chocolates are made on site and are amazing- easily as good as the best chocolates we've tried in San Francisco. This is now Becky's favorite parking lot in town, cheese on one side, chocolate on the other, lots of samples at both stores.


Sophie gets a treat whenever she passes off all the songs in a piano book and this week she finished her piano theory, level 2 book. She could have had a milkshake for the same price as one truffle, but Sophie wisely chose quality over quantity. It was hard to choose and she finally picked a buckwheat honey truffle- very rich and delicious.


Helen woke up early Thursday morning and joined Gibson on the counter while Becky packed Brandan and Sophie's lunches. Gibson wakes up early every morning. He's gnawing on a kiwi that will soon get peeled and put in Sophie's lunch.

Brandan made amazing wheat-, egg-, dairy-free bread this morning, no small task. Most wheat-free bread is very heavy and tastes weird. This was light, chewy and tasted perfectly like bread. It took about 3 hours and has odd ingredients like garbanzo bean/fava bean flour in it, but when you consider this was Abe and Helen's first experience relishing warm bread from the oven with butter and honey, definitely worth the time and effort. Abe really likes the bread, he's scowling in the photo because he's tired of posing for Becky. Maybe we'll try for some action shots next week.

3 February 2008

Sophie had 2 days off of school this week- one teacher inservice day and one snow day. Her friend, Emma, came over one day and they made a tea party for Abe and Helen with apple juice, toast and tarts. Even more impressive, they cleaned the kitchen afterwards without being asked. Perfect hostesses.


Sophie, Emma and Abe built a snowman in the field near our house. It would probably take all the snow in our yard to build a snowman this big.


We really like ground flax seed- it's full of Omega 3 fatty acids and fiber and tastes like nothing so we eat it on granola and oatmeal. Becky filled our sugar shaker with ground flax seed and now Abe liberally shakes it on all kinds of stuff. At least it's healthful.


Helen and Brandan cleaned up together after lunch on Saturday. Helen likes to eat the bubbles. Not so healthful.