today...

As we've been working our way through Baking Bread with Children, we've been reading a story, poem or singing a song every few days. The other day we stumbled across the song Shortnin' Bread, which I have vivid memories of singing and playing on the piano as a child, and happily, my own kids love it too. After learning the song, Elizabeth wanted to know if she could make some shortnin' bread, but I'm not exactly sure what that is so we're pretending that they mean Shortbread. :) Since today was Elizabeth's last day of school, and only a half-day, she headed for the kitchen in the late afternoon and decided it was time to make "shortnin' bread". This is the recipe she used, and although it's decidedly not health food, the shortbread cookies she made were absolutely delicious.

Finn was thrilled with the "I Love You" sign cookie that Elizabeth made for him.

He even tried to match it up with his own hand. (melt a mama's heart!)

It's amazing the ways kids' imaginations will take off when you give them the tools. I'm so happy to see my 9 year old getting excited about spending an afternoon in the kitchen baking a food she heard about in a song from the early 1900s.

Also today...drumroll please...

I'm debuting a new blog, The Book Children. Head on over to check it out and leave a comment in The Book Children's very first giveaway!

WIP Wed & other random things

The bulk of my knitting work this week has been on this sweater for Finn, probably a birthday or Christmas present. The sleeve length is a bit off so after plowing through the body of the sweater, I've spent most of the last couple of days on the sleeves. I'll try to make some notes on ravelry when I get the sleeve thing figured out. I think it will be really cute when it's finished though, and I really like the soft cotton by Mirasol.

I also made a second tractor mitten this week which turned out much less bunched in the picture area than the last one. A third will be in the works so I can avoid staring at the warped mitten in dismay every time he wears them. I'm in need of a break from these mittens though so I might wait a few weeks before finishing the set.

Other happenings in our life right now:

Finn's cloth scrap basket has turned into a basket of feathers. He knows which bird each "feather" came from too!

The music maker is seeing lots of love since it joined our family. The favorite sheet music: Bach's Minuet, which I didn't see coming but rather enjoy. You can hear Paulie's version here.

Elizabeth took this last shot. She and Finn set up the "perfect Plan City", and she photographed some of the happenings around the city. I'm fascinated by some of her compositions, including this shot of the luggage truck inside the airport.

Would you like to swing on a star?

{listening to Bing on daddy's old gramophone}

A Date!

Elizabeth and I are going on a date tonight. You can watch the video below to see what Elizabeth and I will be doing this evening, although not at Slane Castle, unfortunately. Elizabeth has been a Celtic Woman fan almost as long as I have, and we'll both get to see them in concert for the first time tonight.

simple autumn pleasures

Autumn in our area is shaping up quite nicely. Finn has finally taken to wearing his gnome hat a bit, which is what happens, I guess, when siblings decide to wear your things. We have been thoroughly enjoying the cooler weather and the slight chill of the evenings, not yet so cool as to drive us indoors.

This evening was the last evening that I'm home alone with Finn and Elizabeth (as Paul arrives home in the wee hours tonight). We decided to read some autumn poetry, beginning with Red in Autumn and ending with The Mouse and the Pumpkin. Finn fell in love with The Mouse and the Pumpkin and so we read it again and again...and again.

In my garden grows a pumpkin

orangy and gold.

Along came a little mouse
so the story goes.

Nibble, nibble went the mouse;

'til the pumpkin was a house:

two small windows

and a door

and lots of feathers on the floor.

There the mouse slept well, I know,

even when the cold winds blow.

Shortly thereafter, we moved to the keyboard and picked out the tune to the first autumn grace in All Year Round. Finn and Elizabeth are always up for learning a new chorus and loved this one. There is something about autumn that makes singing and reading seasonal poetry together so cozy and beautiful.

Over at Turkey Cookies, Jessica is hosting a Soup Swap. I couldn't resist getting in on the action. Such a warm, autumnal soup, this Southwest Pumpkin & White Bean Soup.

Southwest Pumpkin & White Bean Soup

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp cumin

2.5 cups cooked white beans

1 tbsp ketchup

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (opt)

4 cups veggie broth

4 cups pureed pumpkin

1 cup fresh or frozen corn

3/4 cup fresh or frozen chopped spinach

salt to taste

1 tbsp lemon juice

Cook first 4 ingredients in skillet over medium heat for 5 minutes until onion is starting to become translucent. Transfer to dutch oven with remaining ingredients, except lemon juice. Simmer for 30 minutes until tastes have blended.

a low-key kind of day

Paulie and Elizabeth woke up a bit out-of-sorts this morning, probably more exhausted from the craziness of the last 2 weeks than anything, and asked if they could stay home with me while I worked today instead of going to the summer program at the Y. I, of course, agreed, with the understanding that they were to entertain themselves because mommy still has to work. ;) How long do you think that lasted? By 10 am, Paulie was asking to be taught how to needlefelt, and typically, Elizabeth was too caught up in a book to show him, so I took a few minutes break to show him the ins-and-outs of needlefelting. His summary of the experience: "needlefelting is hard and dangerous!"

And what else would be the first felty from a kid in a veggie family, but a hamburger! (to be fair, he is omnivorous at his mom's house)

A short trip to the library over my lunch break gave us a few hours of quiet...especially once they realized that there were prizes involved for 8+ hours of reading through the summer reading program at our library.

Elizabeth decided to make her own book about the Suger [sic] family. Kids' names: Fudge, Chocolate and Cream. I think the inspiration for that would be the Judy Blume books she's been reading lately.

Then I caught them giggling uncontrollably in the library while making the wooden figure model do various dance moves.

This next picture didn't happen until after dinner when Paul, et al, returned home, but Finn's muffin-smeared face playing a wooden recorder was too cute to resist posting. Elizabeth's indignant reaction: "Now he's not just slobbering on my recorder, but he's getting muffin slime on it too!"

school happenings

Paulie has been studying the skeletal system in the last couple of weeks of school.  He brought home his pasta model, labeled with correct bone names, the other day.  What a fun way to create the skeleton in a manner that will hopefully aid his remembering the various names!

Elizabeth has been charged, in this last full week of school, with making a math-themed board game to share with her classmates.  The first step of the process was writing down all the rules of the game.  She has been diligently working for the last several evenings on Magical Fairy Math, the game she created, which is centered around the fairy characters from the Rainbow Magic book series.  I'll try to post the board and characters when she's finished with them.

Philip had his first violin recital yesterday.  He's our most timid performer, but we thought he did a fantastic job.  Here's a little clip from one of his songs:

It's that time!

That time of the year is here...the time where all the final school projects are being complete, the end of grade testing is almost here, and the school performances are being performed.  Elizabeth's final choir performance was last Friday.  And Paulie's end of year violin concert was this afternoon.

Elizabeth is the one with her hands folded toward the right.

They both did such a fantastic job, and I'm so proud of all the hard work they've put into learning their music and practicing their pieces!

Earth Hour

We celebrated Earth Hour last night from 8:30 - 9:30 EST.  Well, we actually celebrated for 2 hours because I knew the kids would really enjoy it and they generally go to bed much earlier than 9:30.  

So we started at 7:30 with roasting marshmallows over a beeswax candle.  (Not my idea, I saw it here.)  This part was a surprise so they were thrilled, to say the least.  It was at this point that Elizabeth declared Earth Hour to be "best celebration we've had in a long time."

Then Paul cranked up the victrola, and we listened to Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me".

Then we got down to business with a bit of family game playing.  The favorites of the night...Gobblet Junior (by Blue Orange games, sustainable, all wood games--quite fitting for Earth Hour, I think) and Apples to Apples Kids.

After the kids brushed their teeth by candlelight and crawled into bed, Paul and I sat alone in the dark, breathing the silence.  I think it shouldn't take another Earth Hour to spend more time this way.

5 things I'm loving right now...

1.  This French music cd that Paul gave me for Valentine's Day.  I've listened to it nearly every day since then.  Even the kids are starting to waltz and make French-sounding humming noises.  That alone makes it something worth loving.  (Oh yeah, it also came from Starbucks, but we're going to overlook that point.)

2.  Authentic chai tea from Earthbound Arts, a local shop with all manner of wonderful pottery, felt, soaps, paper art, hand-blended teas.  I always liked chai tea, but never loved chai until I had this chai.  I don't know if it's the fresh spices, but the taste is so much richer.  Mmmm...

3.  Figuring out this knitting thing.  I'm tackling learning to purl now that I've gotten the knit stitch down pretty well.  Purling doesn't come as natural to my fingers, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

4.  Reading The Secret Garden with Elizabeth.  On the nights that Paulie and Philip are with their mom, Elizabeth and I have been reading The Secret Garden together.  I especially love the illustrations in this version that I stumbled upon at the Strand in NYC last year.  Elizabeth is captivated with Mary's interaction with the bird and the small growth she discovers in the garden, probably because Elizabeth has been similarly drawn to nature since she was small.

5.  Reading This Organic Life in my spare (ha!) time.  There  is something fascinating to me about this couple who purchases their homestead based on the gardening potential.  The house is merely a secondary, if necessary, consideration.  Joan Gussow's journaling of preparing the land, testing various crops, and adventures in razing the existing house and eventually building an new house are endlessly fascinating to this suburban mom.  Maybe one day I'll actually have the time to devote to gardening, especially for food, that I desire.

I hope you have a peaceful weekend and find something to love in it.

Christmas Car-i-oke

Most weeknights are too busy for much Christmas celebrating so when I found a book called Christmas Car-i-oke, I thought it might provide a few special weeknights without requiring much time.  I realize that the whole point of the book is to entertain kids in the car, but our kids enjoy singing and only half of them can read so I thought the Car-i-oke might be better suited to the house for now.  We picked 4-5 songs to sing with the accompanying CD.  The kids had a blast.  I think we might have to carve another Car-i-oke weeknight out in our schedule before Christmas.

Of course, they needed one more round of the jazzy rendition of Jingle Bells for dancing.

We ended with some delicious hot chocolate and Pirouline for a perfect Christmas evening.

Music Boxes at Christmas

There is something magical about the sound of Christmas coming out of a music box.  I don't know if it's the tin-y sound or the satisfying pumping of the handle but they attract kids like moths to a flame.

Elizabeth sneaks the music box into bed with her so she can listen to it's twinkling right before she falls asleep.

Finn just prefers to bang the music boxes together, amused by the random garble of tin-y notes.

That's Finn...banging away.

Ba Ba?!

Finn fell in love with the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann when he was around a year old. He would light up and sway back and forth whenever it came on. After a few weeks of accomodating him, we kind of forgot about his new song-love and months went by without us playing it again. On the way back from the beach, Finn rediscovered his song, only now that he's somewhat verbal, he can insistently demand "Ba Ba!" every time we pull out the ipod in the car. He also enjoys listening to it in the house where he can really groove. (Car dancing is SO confining.) I wonder what kind of glimpse this is into his future musical taste?