Feasts

Michael's feast day, the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, was last Wednesday. To celebrate, the girls and I did some baking.

As you can see, we had to sample as we went along. (This is a gratuitous Sim picture; as you can see, he didn't get to sample the chocolate, but he's darn cute, so we wanted him in there!)







The result: Mint Chocolate Cupcakes from the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.



I know what you're thinking: "Vegan cupcakes?" Well, if your kids had egg and dairy issues, you'd do all you could to find ways to feed them (and yourself) cupcakes, too. And, really, these cupcakes were amazing.

Oh, and Dominican, I just realized as I looked at the picture -- black and white are the Dominican habit colors. How appropriate! :)

Dogs

scare Naomi. She's been known to utter eardrum-piercing shrieks when she notices dogs, or if they move in her direction. Today we went to the garden store to pick up a few things. They have a fish pond with a bridge over it that the girls love, and they were both headed towards it when Naomi stopped and refused to move. She said something I couldn't understand, and I pointed out the fish pond to her, thinking maybe she didn't remember from last time.

Then she said again, "Is that a real dog?"

It was a dog statue -- a dachshund, lifesize -- among the other available statues of St. Francis and gargoyles. And then I noticed that there were a bunch more dog statues, too. They must be the in thing for gardening this year.

"No, Naomi, none of those dogs are real."

She ran off happily to the pond.

The mirror

has become fascinating to Simeon -- he's old enough (4 months old today!) now that he pays attention to such things. I've put a mirror by the changing table, and he's very appreciative of the new baby who's come to chat with him -- good-looking kid, too. It's really cute to see him lying there smiling and gurgling to the mirror.

Little Dragon Courtesy

Hannah has learned the phrase "For Heaven's sake!" from the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I wasn't quite sure she knew what it meant, so I was trying to explain it to her.

Dad: "For Heaven's sake" means for the sake of God and Heaven.
Hannah: Really?
Dad: Yes. For example, if someone was going to hit you, you might say, "For Heaven's sake, don't do it!"
Hannah: Or you could protect yourself by blocking their punch.
Dad: Yes, yes, you could.

Being a Little Dragon means never having to talk your way out of trouble ... because you have Fists of Fury!

The hazards of trying to teach children

Naomi has recently taken to eating her dessert quickly and then scavenging extra dessert from the rest of us. I was eating a chocolate cupcake last week and Naomi approached and asked for a bite. (I momentarily considered shoving the rest in my mouth, then remembered I'm older than 10 now -- also, I wasn't sure I could fit half a cupcake with icing in. ;)) I paused as I considered the wisdom of adding to her dessert load, and she came out with, "Mama, you need to share: we're a sharing family!" Hmmm...where had she heard that before?

More fun with art study -- preschool edition

At bedtime tonight, Michael read the Van Gogh book that we have to Naomi. She was interested in all the paintings depicted. Looking at one, she said, "Dada, I've seen that painting on your mug!" And she had -- we have a Van Gogh mug. I just didn't know she was paying that much attention.

Lounging

Sim has figured out that he can make his bouncy seat bounce by moving his legs. He's taking full advantage of this feature -- he'll often be relaxing in his seat with one leg up moving slowly up and down so as to produce a gentle bounce. He isn't very impressed with the play mat, which has no such fun feature, although he's beginning to understand the allure of the hanging toys. And now that he can hold his head and shoulders up, tummy time isn't nearly as upsetting as it used to be. Still not as fun as the bouncer, though.

We don't always get it

N: Hey! Hannah, NO THANK YOU! You say SORRY to me!
H: Sorry, Naomi.
N: Now you say, "I forgive you."
Mama (from the other room): Naomi, you're supposed to say that.
N: Oh. I forgive you, Hannah.

Studying art

makes for some really fun conversations.

For instance, when I got a card recently and opened it to read it, Hannah yelled out, "MOM!! Look! It's a Monet painting!" And it was.

French braid?

Hannah wanted a French braid in her hair yesterday. As I was doing it, she asked why it's called a French braid. I don't really know, so I told her I didn't.

"So, in France, they just ask for a braid and they get a French braid?"

Fun Benefit of Homeschooling

At our house, Quiet Time is observed daily, usually right after lunch. I read to each of the girls and then they go into different rooms and play, read, or sleep (yeah, right!) for about an hour. The other day, I was putting Simeon down for a nap, so I asked them to wait for reading until I got out. Hannah offered to read to Naomi for Quiet Time, and Naomi quickly accepted. I came out of the room where Sim was peacefully sleeping and went to check on Naomi and Hannah. They were reading happily.

"Oh, you've chosen Rosie's Babies,that's a nice one." I said.

Hannah indicated the three other books on the bed, "And I'm going to read these ones, too, Naomi asked me to." Naomi looked up contentedly, and then the reading continued.

The next day, Naomi was offered a choice for readers at Quiet Time: Mama or Hannah? Hmmm...guess who was her pick?

Our kids like The Sound of Music

...and you can tell. We went to the park the other day and Hannah asked if she could "run across the meadows." So she was running and called back over her shoulder, "Come on, Mimi, and run with me like Maria!!"

More Christmas fun

This year we had a white Christmas, something that doesn't happen often here in Seattle. So much so that there's a song (a really sappy song -- sorry to anyone out there who loves it) that goes, "Christmas in the Northwest is a gift God wrapped in green."

In fact, we get so little snow here that we're not properly equipped with snow removal trucks as a city, and driving became somewhat treacherous as the snow packed and then got slippery. And then, when it began to melt, well, it wasn't pretty.

So, our usual Christmas fun was expanded to include snow, chains on both vehicles, snowmen, snowshoeing places in our neighborhood, and other snow-fun activities. Here are some highlights.

Christmas fun

Among the usual activities surrounding Christmas, there often develop UNusual activities -- or phenomena -- that make it that much more fun. This year had several things like that. One was Naomi's creative play with the Nativity figures.

We learned a lot about the Holy Family from Naomi's demonstrations this year. For instance, they like to have a good meal with good friends just as much as anyone:



Also, and it seems important to point out that this was before Christ's birth, some of the members of the Nativity scene seem to have gone in for worshipping mammon. This phenomenon was not repeated after the Incarnation, though, thank goodness!




Jesus, true to his image in the Gospel, did like to hang out with some questionable people. For instance, this crowd, who are not above cruising with four people in the bed of their truck. I believe this practice is illegal in most states, although heavily practiced in at least one that I can think of.




And remember, when you're watching a movie, the Holy Family is watching with you! (Look closely at the coffee table in front of the TV to see Mary, Joseph, and Jesus -- in the manger, of course -- watching the ballet Sleeping Beauty!)

The rewards of hard work

Poor Michael has some sort of nasty virus. He's down and out. He started feeling terrible on Saturday morning, but managed to still come along and get our list for Saturday taken care of. Sunday he stayed home all day, and the mobile doctor came to check if he's got the flu. (Mobile doctors are provided for in Microsoft benefits -- OH MY GOODNESS, SO HELPFUL!!!) Not the flu, but some other nasty virus. Poor guy keeps going up and down as far as fever goes, ranging from chills to way too hot to normal temps.

However, the clearest sign that he's not well is that he didn't even attempt to get up at his normal time today and try to convince me he could go to work. He slept until 8, had a little breakfast, and went back to sleep until 10:15. He was up for 2 hours, and is now back in bed asleep.

So, his reward for returning to work is an awful virus.

Windows 7 Blog Post

OK, so it's not family news, but I was published on the Engineering Windows 7 blog, which was a cool thing in my professional life. See
here. It's all about Accessibility, which is what I do when I'm not playing with my dear children.

Cooler still, I've been translated into French!

Bedtime Reading, Advanced Edition

Knowing of my interest in Latin, my mother-in-law got me an amusing gift recently: Cattus Petasatus, a Latin translation of The Cat in the Hat. To be honest, this was one of those gifts that I looked at briefly, chuckled, and set aside.

Until now.

Naomi, our two-year-old, pulled the book off the shelf because she likes Cat in the Hat. She then demanded that I read it. I started to read it, thinking she would lose interest. She didn't, although after 13 or 14 pages she allowed me to switch over to the English edition. I thought for sure she wouldn't want it again, but she asked for it the next day, and the next day. She just loves it. Even her persistent questions have adapted: "Why 'nec ridemus, nec gaudemus', Dada?"

When Monica and I talked about bilingual education for our children, I don't think this was quite what we had in mind!

Rickrack is fun

Hannah, Naomi, and I recently did a Christmas craft that involved rickrack. This was a new term for Hannah, and she was excited to find rickrack on other things, too, like the table runner made for me by one of her Grandmas.

This is all very cute, except when the discovery is made in the reflective silence after communion at Mass on Christmas Eve. Looking at her dress, she suddenly, enthusiastically pipes up, "Look Mom! Rickrack!" Clearly she's reflecting on the wonder of the Incarnation...

Gato is next

The girls have some friends who are bilingual, so they've been picking up some Spanish vocabulary. They now refer to their horse toys (favorites for one of the friends) as caballos. The other friend loves her stuffed animal cat, so I'm sure that pretty soon we'll be talking about their gatos.