Okay, I’m serious now, people

Make these cookies.  I made them to take with us to Easter dinner, and they do live up to their name:  Brownie Roll-Out Cookies. I highly recommend the 1/4 inch roll-out thickness and dark chocolate cocoa powder.  Mmm. 

Hunting eggs

We hunted eggs at the local sister and brother-in-law’s house

(it ended up being dry enough to hunt outside, despite dire forecasts!),

and there were lots of hunters, but I only got pictures of a couple of our kids. 

I didn’t get any of Hannah, even.  It turns out that Easter egg hunting is a speed sport,

and if I had wanted pictures of more than 2 of our kids, I should have enlisted another photographer. 

And perhaps set my camera to “sports” mode. 

By the time I had snapped some of Sim and Naomi,

Hannah had finished her hunting.  Whoops! 

Happily, we also hunted at home (indoors, since it was raining then)

in the morning, and Michael got some shots of Hannah at that point. 

Simeon didn’t remember egg hunting from last year, so it was all new and exciting for him.  He did very well!  He didn’t demand that we hide the eggs repeatedly, which I seem to recall his sisters doing when they were his age.  I was not sorry to see the endless loop egg hiding and hunting skipped for this year.

Cherry trees

When we moved into our new house, we were excited about the four cherry trees planted in the parking strip along the side of the house.  And our excitement was rewarded.  Not only did the cherry trees add seasonal beauty to our garden, but also we had some good years for cherries!

These lovely blooms covered the trees and filled the large window in our dining room – lovely!

Beautiful in fall, too.

Stately when covered in snow.

And delicious in summer, of course.  Cherry pie from the pie cherry tree was a summer delight.

Last Monday we said goodbye to our cherry trees, to our great dismay.  Years of alternately neglect and poor pruning had taken their toll.  The pie cherry tree had a canker so bad that we were afraid it would lose a limb onto the sidewalk if it leafed out this summer.  The others weren’t quite as bad, but were well on their way, with peeling bark and other nasty symptoms of disease. 

We all were sad about their going.  Hannah mourned ahead of time, Naomi wept the first 20 minutes or more that the men were working on their removal job.  Sim’s sadness was somewhat short-lived, since he found it so intensely interesting to watch the men working in the trees.  The three kids spent the 2 hours it took them to cut down the trees standing at the windows of the dining room and watching. 

Now we have to decide what to plant in their place.  We have until fall.  I have to admit that I’m really, really missing them. 

Christ is Risen!

Alleluia!  Happy Easter, everyone.  Posting this past week has been light…okay, nonexistent.  It’s been a busy week. 

Naomi has been doing some seasonally appropriate drawings.  She drew this one, which I meant to post on Good Friday, but didn’t get to it:

If you click on it, you can see that she included weeping angels and clouds blotting out the sun. 

This one she drew last Sunday at Mass.  It begins with Good Friday in the lower right, moves to the tomb just to the left, then there’s the risen Christ (wounds included), and then he’s ascended up at the very top. 

She just decided to draw these. 

We all went to the Easter Vigil last night, beginning at 9 p.m.  Of course, the start time was 2 hours later than their normal bedtime.  Nobody complained about that, though.  They were excited to get dressed up in their Easter finery.

Simeon somehow became convinced that his Easter outfit was his cow costume.  I have no idea where this came from.  But he told anyone who commented on his outfit that it’s his cow costume.

Some of us like to ham it up for the camera.

And some of us like to ham it up differently:  “Take a picture of me with my Easter basket around my neck!”

When I was growing up, the Easter bunny always provided the baskets on the day, but our kids like to set them out, like stockings on Christmas. Okay, that’s fine.

This one was going to be a picture of just Hannah, but Naomi of the wild eyes snuck in at the last moment.

Simeon felt that he was wearing a cow costume, but he told all the females in his family (including me, at the church, in the silence before Mass began) that we looked beautiful in our dresses, like princesses.  That was sweet.

Oh, yeah, I was thinking we didn’t have any with our current fake smiler showing his stuff.  But here it is.

“Take a picture of me with my Easter basket in front of my face!”

The earrings (not pierced) and necklaces were made by Aunt Kate.  They were a huge hit.

The dark church got them all eventually, though.  These photos are from Michael’s phone.

They were out.

The lights, bells, Glorias, singing, sprinkling with water, organ, string quartet, etc., did not wake them.  Sim woke up during the Consecration, and Naomi and Hannah woke up during the closing hymn:  Jesus Christ is Risen today. 

They were more than ready to go right to bed when we got home just after midnight.  Michael and I tucked them away, did Easter bunny duty, and then went off to bed ourselves.  To be awakened at 7 a.m. by a cheery voice calling for “Daaaaaaadaaaa!”  When Michael went in the room, Naomi cheerfully said, “Happy Easter, Dada!”  Yup.  Nobody went back to sleep.  Although Sim wasn’t yet up, so he slept until 7:30, of all late hours!

Everyone enjoyed their Easter baskets.  Michael and I were still up in bed and heard some yelling from downstairs.  “Oh no, they’re fighting,” I said, preparing to run interference.  “No, they’re shouting for joy,”  Michael assured me.  I thought maybe it was just wishful thinking, but then I realized what they were saying:  YOU GOT ONE, TOO!!  Naomi came upstairs moments later to share the good news:  tickets to The Magic Flute for the girls! 

Okay, yes, that might seem like an odd thing to give to a 7 year old and a 5 year old, but they have recently discovered the story of The Magic Flute and then discovered that it’s playing in town soon.  They have loved every ballet they’ve gone to, so we’re going to see about the opera.  Michael’s pretty excited about taking them.  We got Simeon a kid’s CD telling of the story, since he’s fascinated by it, too, but I really wasn’t going to send a 2 year old to the opera.   

This afternoon we’re heading for the local relatives’ house, where we’ll have Easter dinner and another egg hunt.  We’ll also have a whole bunch of local friends who don’t have family in the area, so it will be a nice big gathering.

We’re looking forward to the Easter season!  Happy Easter everyone!

More patience than I ever had

Hannah was telling me about her usual method of judging books.  “If I can’t get into it by the third chapter, it’s probably not a very good book.  But if I get into it in the introduction, then it’s probably really good.  Robin Hood I didn’t get into until the end of the introduction, but then it turned out to be really good.”

I don’t think I ever voluntarily read the introduction of a book until I was out of high school, but apparently Hannah is in the habit of doing so regularly.  Come to think of it, I was somewhat surprised when she told me she couldn’t get into Robin Hood, and then later told me what a wonderful book it is.  Now I have an explanation. 

Crafts with Dad

Michael here.  I’m not very good about posting here – I rarely find the time – so I thought I would write a quick post about three crafts I do with the children.

1. Hannah’s Electronics Lesson.  Every Saturday morning, Hannah and I do electronics lessons.  We use a fabulous kit called Snap Circuits that is a bit like Legos, but with electronic components on it.  This is one of the highlights of both Hannah’s and my day: she sneaks it at 6:00 am to whisper, “Dad, it’s time for Electronics lesson!”  We’ll make a radio, or an alarm, or whatever the project for the day is.  Usually we start by ourselves, and then Naomi and Sim wake up to join us.

This circuit is am amplifier – the kids are talking into a microphone:

I’m not sure who enjoys this more!  I had kits like this as a kid, and it’s fun to have a reason to do them again.

2. Woodworking.  OK, I can’t say we do this all of the time, but we did get a children’s woodworking set a while back, and decided to make boats last weekend.  They were not complex: just a hull, a mast, and some paper sails.  If we get to a craft store sometime soon, we’ll get canvas for the sails:

Once we had made them, of course, we had to sail them.  It was a rainy day, so we had a bathtub regatta:

3. Painting the fence.  At some point, I read a Mark Twain story where the kids get sent out by the father to paint the fence.  Our fence gate is rotting, and I’ve built a new one, so I thought I should involve them in the painting.

I didn’t send mine out alone – I went with them – but I think Mr. Twain is safely in the realm of fiction for the time being.  As soon as I had opened the can, there was paint everywhere: dripping off of brushes, on to clothes, into hair, and even a little making it on to the fence.  It was a mess!  It took much longer to clean than it did to do.  Still, the gate was ultimately painted, the paint removed from driveway and hair, and the kids had a good sense of achievement.

Good times, those crafts with Dad.

Naomi likes this dog

She’s not ours.  Hannah is deathly afraid of her, and Simeon doesn’t feel like sitting still long enough to cultivate a friendship.

Allergy test

Tuesday we found out that Simeon is no longer allergic to dairy!  Last year he tested positive for allergies, but about a month ago he didn’t have a reaction in his scratch test, so the allergist recommended an ORAL CHALLENGE!  This sounds much more foreboding than it actually ends up being.  Of course, it’s a 4-hour test, beginning at 7:45 a.m., so…well…that’s not so fun.  Not that we’re not all up by 7:45 a.m., of course, but we don’t usually have to be somewhere by then. 

However, what it actually entailed was that I brought in chocolate milk and vanilla ice cream and they fed increasing amounts of it in 20-minute intervals over 3 hours.  He took 3 increasing “doses” (heehee – they actually did call it that!) of chocolate milk.  Then he decided he didn’t want any more.

Happily, I’d decided to bring in the ice cream, because it would have been an inconclusive test and I would have had to go in AGAIN at 7:45 a.m. for a 4-hour test if Sim had just refused to drink any more chocolate milk and we didn’t have backup.  It was pretty hilarious when he made it clear he wouldn’t drink the milk and the nurse asked, “Would you like some ice cream?”  He got an enormous grin on his face. 

Then they brought MORE ice cream – and a bigger serving – 20 minutes later!  Banner day for Simeon! 

After the last dose, we waited an hour and 15 minutes while Sim watched The Sword in the Stone. 

Simeon was a bit…cranky…by lunchtime.  In general we don’t spend our mornings eating sugary things, and being cooped up in a small space while doing so didn’t help much.  But really, he was only a little bit cranky. 

Now Simeon has been cleared to eat dairy, having had no reaction to the ORAL CHALLENGE.  This is great news!  But I won’t be feeding him chocolate milk and ice cream for all the morning hours again any time soon.  Much to his dismay.

Totally cute

Both the girls sang the song, “Roll on Columbia,” at the recent concert.  Since they both practiced it often and it was on their practice CDs, the rest of the family learned it, too.  There is something REALLY REALLY cute about a 2 1/2-year-old singing it. 

Smoothies…yum

Freedom for Naomi!

Naomi has been riding a glider for a long time now, and is very skilled.  She has a glider with a hand brake, and she uses the brake to great effect.  We have LOTS of hills in our area, and she likes nothing better than to fly down the hill on her glider and brake suddenly at the bottom of the hill.  She’s great at it. 

We recently got a hand-me-down bike from girl cousin who lives nearby. 

[Indulge me in a short tangent for a moment.  For some reason, bikes that fit Naomi (who is 5 and on the small side) don’t come with hand brakes usually.  You have to really search.  And here’s the thing:  I don’t really trust the back-pedal brake for the hills here, and I want a hand brake for Naomi on her bike.  So we’ll have to see about getting a brake put on this bike, because princess bikes don’t come with hand brakes.  Apparently, princesses don’t bike full speed down huge hills to screech to a halt at the bottom…]

Girl cousin’s bike came with training wheels on it.  I was pretty sure that Naomi would be just fine once she started off on a two-wheeler, so Michael took off the training wheels today and we took the bike to a park that had a couple of different good flat areas for biking (I didn’t want her on the hills to start out) and Naomi was off!  I helped her get started a couple of times, and then she didn’t need any more help. 

The sidewalk in front of our house has a slight incline as you go away, but only slight.  This afternoon we went out there, and Naomi was up and down the slight incline, getting herself started and cruising along, yelling, “I’m DOING IT!  I’m DOING IT!”  It was really cute. 

Hannah was so excited for Naomi.  At the park this morning, she came biking up as Naomi was biking for the first time, and said in an awestruck and very encouraging voice, “NAOMI!  You’re riding!” This afternoon, they were biking up and down on their pink princess bikes with sparkling streamers.