Niamh's Imagination

Yesterday Niamh was playing by the bookshelf with heart shaped crayons and a Hello Kitty face made of Perler Beads, and narrating a story between the two, when Rowan said "Mama, I sure like Neevie's imagination."

Niamh is a storyteller. Besides telling stories with her toys (or non-toys, as the case may be), she is also the one who will pick up a book and tell a story as she flips through the pages. Sometimes related to the actual story, sometimes not. I especially love it when she narrates her life in real time. Like the other morning when I asked her to go upstairs to get dressed. She cheerfully replied "Okay, Mama!" while walking up the stairs. And then in a slightly quieter voice "She said as she dashed away."

Through The Back Gate

Rowan wanted to drive his truck on the path behind the house, which led to the idea of trying our sled on the small slope between the path and the field. We bought this sled years ago in Switzerland and had sadly never used it until now. Turns out it is great fun! One of the many things we meant to get to during our time in Morges, but never did. Kicking ourselves now, as I knew we would, for not using our time there more wisely.

If you are wondering where was on Muriel this particular morning--she was inside with Daddy. When she sees Ro and Niamh excitedly getting ready to go outside on snowy days she thinks she wants to go too, but has always had enough of it after about ten minutes. Oh, yeah. That's why we never did much with the snow when we lived in Switzerland.

Staples RJ Ranch

Came across this really cool old ranch building near the bike path. If there hadn't been a stream separating me from it, I would have been tempted to do some trespassing for more photographs.

2.25.11

stay out of the way when daddy is shoveling the sidewalks

don't worry, she thought it was funny

Wintery Math

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snow ice cream!

It snowed Thursday night and almost all day on Friday, giving us the opportunity to make snow ice cream. There are a gazillion recipes out there on the internet, and they are all basically the same. I used two different methods, one with cream (minus the vanilla pudding mix) and one with chilled sweetened condensed milk. I thought the ice cream with the condensed milk would be better, but neither the kids or I could taste a difference. Maybe a side by side test is in order for the next time it snows. One thing I found helpful, which neither website mentions, is to make sure the individual bowls for the ice cream have been chilled for a bit in the freezer before serving. This ice cream melts fast and the chilled bowls help slow it down a bit.

One of my clearest memories of the Thanksgivings spent at my Great-Grandmother's house in Eastern Washington as a child is making snow ice cream with my sisters and cousins. It was fun to do again!

Happy Valentine's Day!

One thing I love about being back in the states is all the holiday candy. On the other hand, I do miss a lot of the holiday treats we had in Switzerland. Such a dilemma!

Eagles In Socks

The kids went outside to play this morning and when I looked out the kitchen window a bit later I noticed that nobody had their shoes on anymore. Yes, it is mid-January. Yes, there is still some snow on the ground (can you see it by the fence?). No, it was not above fifty degrees. My first instinct was to open the door and order them to get their shoes on immediately. But they they were running back and forth so joyously I instead opened the door to take a picture. When they saw me they said "Look Mama, we're eagles!"

A little bit later they tried to convince me that it was perfect weather for getting in their swimsuits and running through the sprinkler. "We want to be fresh and cool!" "It would be like a bath outside!" There were some very sad faces when they realized no amount of reasoning was going to convince me say yes.

Even Suburbia Is Pretty When It Snows

The kids and I made this garland for the birds and squirrels mid-December, and I was totally disgusted to come back from our trip to see that not one berry or kernel of popcorn had been touched. Anyway, it snowed quite a bit yesterday which was fun for the children, but has me worried about driving the next couple of days.

Winter Morning at Lake Loveland

Tomorrow it's supposed to get pretty cold for a few days, so I figured today would be a good day to get the kids out of the house for a bit. The lake is pretty well frozen over, and there were even people out in the middle of it, but I was too nervous to let the kids go out much further than Niamh is in the above photo. It's been warmish the past couple days and I couldn't stop thinking about books I'd read as a child where someone would go through the ice on a frozen lake/pond.

There was a lot of this:

Which of course led to some of this:

But I don't think it bothered them much.

We even spotted some wildlife on the other side of the street. As we were watching the big flock of geese/ducks/birds a man came up to me and excitedly showed me the wood duck he spotted which he hadn't seen in years. I'm afraid it was lost on me, but I figured I had better take a picture for Bumpa.

The kids were much more excited about the fat, round squirrel who was scampering through the snow and up the trees. We saw ducks and geese all the time at the lake in Morges, but I don't think we ever once saw a squirrel, which still seems strange to me.