Adventure Eaters

We're trying something new at our dinner table starting tonight. This afternoon I presented each of the three older kids with their own Adventure Eater Rewards Cards.

It's pretty self-explanatory.  When the kids try a new food (or one for which they've previously declared distaste), they get to write it down.  If they decide they like it, the food gets a star. Whether they like them or not, once they've tasted 10 new foods, and their Rewards Card is complete, they get to choose what's for dinner!  The measure of a "true try" goes up one bite with each child by age, meaning Adah has to take four bites and Maggie three.

I read about this idea in Family Fun today.  They called it a picky eaters reward card.  I decided that I didn't want to brand my kids as "picky," but rather engender in them the idea that trying new things, especially new cuisine, is an adventure!  I always say that I'll try anything once. (And I proved it two weeks ago when I tried my first aspic.  If you saw Julie & Julia or are familiar with French cooking, you should know what this is. This sample was a gelled ring of tomato juice something with noodles in it.  It was cold and slimy, and my first try was my last. I think I deserve an adventure reward for that.)

Tonight for dinner? Quick and Easy Pancit: It's essentially a stir fry with rice noodles, cabbage and chicken (and probably a couple extra veggies) flavored primarily by ginger, lemon juice, and soy sauce.  We've had it before with varying success on the kids' plates.  Tonight I'm hoping they'll all dive in with a taste for adventure (pun intended).

Taffy?

I came home one evening a couple weeks ago to find Damon making taffy. He claims he'd done it before and just felt like doing it again. The only taffy experience I knew he had was a time we tried to make some when we were dating and it turned out all dry and weird. Not sure what got into him this time, but he and the girls were at the kitchen table with buttered hands pulling away! I also joined in. It's hard work!

We had root beer and peppermint extract in the cupboard, so those are the flavors they made. The whole experiment turned out differently that expected, though. The resulting candy is nothing like the chewy taffy you buy at the seashore. It's hard as toffee and there is practically no discernible root beer or peppermint flavor. They're still nice to eat, and really have a creamy kind of flavor and texture akin to a Werther's Original.  They're sticky as can be though. They stick to each other in the bowl and once you soften it up in your mouth, beware of getting it in your teeth! I think some dentists would be pretty freaked out by this candy.  Maybe we can try another batch soon.

As much as child e'er lov'd

Adah and Maggie woke us up a little early on Tuesday morning: "We would like to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day," Adah began. We promptly (and a little grumpily) tossed them out and told them to come back after 7:00. We should have been a little nicer. We didn't realize that the girls had been in their room composing poetry for us.  A little later, we got up, but they sent us back to bed so they could share their poems with us as they had originally intended. I was already feeling bad for sending them out when they were just trying to be nice, and then their sweet and funny poems really did us in.

They stood at the foot of the bed and took turns reciting their verse.

Maggie gave me the paper where they'd obviously worked out the poetry, and I've retyped them here, but fixed the spelling and punctuation so they all make sense.

To both of us:

Roses are red

Violets are blue.

We love you--

our parents--wahoo!

To Damon:

Your airplanes fly,

Butterflies, too.

You're sweet as ice cream.

We love you.

To Jillaire:

Roses are red

Your pajamas are blue

[Maggie had to stop here and qualify, or try to come up with some other line, since my pajamas aren't really blue, but they needed a rhyme--too funny.] 

                                         We love you,

                                         Mommy-moo.



To both of us, recited together:

You've taught things to both of us,

Like lessons saying not to cuss,

And that our family love

Should stay pure as a dove.

We love our girls!



------------------------

And, from the Bard, a note on the post title:

      Sir, I love you more than [words] can wield the matter,

Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,

Beyond what can be value, rich or rare,

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor;

As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found;

A love that makes breat poor, and speech unable;

Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

--The Tragedy of King Lear (1.1) by William Shakespeare

Our Funny Valentines

I found a great idea for the kids' Valentines this year. This is the first year that Gunnar's needed to have classroom Valentines. We started with a little photo shoot with each of the 3 big kids and some PVC pipe.

It took only 3 shots to get Gunnar's great expression. I think I had to take about 10 of each girl. Holly wanted to get in on the action as well:

We picked our favorites (featured above) and I ordered prints from Snapfish. I was way bummed that I hadn't thought of this before their 99 prints for 99 cents sale had expired! Still, it was worth it.

After picking up the prints at our local Walgreens (no shipping charges!), I had the kids get to work writing their names while I punched holes.

Here's a little proof that maybe Gunnar is my kid, too. (He looks so much like Damon.) If you look closely, he's just barely sticking out his tongue, something that I also do when I'm concentrating. : )

 

Once the writing and holes were in place, we inserted Tootsie Roll Pops, taped the sticks in place on the back, and voila! It looks like the kids are holding GIANT lollipops! Don't you love it?

Full disclosure: I got this idea from Family Fun magazine's February 2012 issue. I'm not really this clever.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Adah of Green Gables

Adah recently read Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. She loved it. I was so happy, because it's a book--and series--that I also love. I own the Kevin Sullivan Anne of Green Gables movies starring Megan Follows and promised Adah that when she finished reading it we would watch it together. (Maggie wanted to watch, too, but I told her it was strictly reserved for people who've read the book. She'll be ready for it in another year or two and having a special Mom-and-daughter date is a good incentive.)

On February 1, a Wednesday, the girls didn't have school due to semester break day. Gunnar and Maggie ended up going to play with friends in the afternoon and it seemed the perfect time for Adah and me to watch our movie together. Holly napped and played while we watched and it was a perfect cozy afternoon on a day when I was actually battling a bit of a cold.

Adah decided to dress up to watch the movie. So, here she is sporting her version of Anne's clothes near the beginning of the story, complete with my black lace-up boots that I used to wear when I did pioneer living history. (Her feet aren't actually that big.)

 

She really liked the movie, but, like any true book worm, of course, declared that "the book was better." I'm so proud.

Logging Blogging Time

 

When I'm not typing, this is pretty much what I look like when I'm at the computer. In fact, a little bit ago I looked up at my Picasa albums and saw this photo at the top center...and I was sitting in that exact position.

So now you can invision what I've looked like these past couple of weeks with all the blogging I've been doing. I actually played with the dates a bit to get all of the posts to appear in the correct chronological order (and to not look like I posted them so long after they happened). Cheating? Perhaps.  But, now I AM CAUGHT UP!!  All that down time with the snow and ice was definitely good for one thing: Views on the Hood.

Thanks for being patient with all my absenteeism. Thanks for reading. I hope to be more consistent in 2012.

October 12, 2012 Note: I just found this blog post in my list as a draft. For some reason I never published it. I'm publishing it now under it's original February date. I'm adding the note here, in case you happen to get this via email as a subscriber, to explain the reference to the snow and ice. (And, as I read this post, I looked just like the photo.)

Snow, Ice, No School, and No Power: Just Another Day in Paradise

If you haven't already heard about the major snow and ice storms that hit the Northwest the third week of January, let me tell you all about it.  Warning: This post is long. It was quite an event and ordeal.

The week started fine enough with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, January 17. The kids had the day off school. It had snowed a bit during the day, but not enough to cause alarm.

Tuesday we woke up to a couple inches of snow. The children were elated. The girls' school was canceled, which we thought might have been a bit premature since by noon the snow was turning to rain and not really sticking to the roads. However, our district does span quite a rise in elevation, so there are times when we're getting rain in town and further up (on Snowden Road, appropriately enough) they have 3 inches of snow. Gunnar attends a preschool in Hood River, which is in another district (heck, it's another state), and they held school with a late start.  So, my kiddos all went out and played in the snow for a little while in the morning and then we all loaded up and took Gunnar to school for a shortened day of just two hours (usually it's 3). I was able to stock up on groceries for my barren fridge, which turned out to be a very good thing for what was coming for the rest of the week.

This photo is of the kiddos playing in the snow on Tuesday morning.  You can see the accumulation on top of the fence--just 2-3 inches.  Notice how deep it is as the kids are sitting in it.

Now, look at Gunnar sitting in the snow the next morning. It's up past Adah's knees! You can be sure that school was canceled that day. I think our neighbor boy measured 14 inches on their trampoline.

I think that in this shot Holly may have still been standing on the deck, or at least on snow that had been packed down a bit. Believe me, it was practically up to her armpits. On Tuesday she loved playing in the snow with her siblings. She stayed out with them for at least an hour, coming to the door for help each time her mitten would fall off. But on Wednesday, she could hardly move in the snow. I think it was pretty overwhelming to her and she was not such a big fan. She's grinning in this photo, but it's only because she'd just gone outside.

Adah tried to throw a snowball at me from the depths of the front yard:

Maggie made herself a little chair:

Snow angel! Careful, Adah, we don't want to lose you!

After photographing everybody I came out to play.  Damon was shoveling our berm and also did the neighbor's, including a path from her car to her door. (She's about 70.) While he was working on that, I got a head start with the kids and we went to the school playground. We were the first to get there and break ground, as it were. I pulled Holly and Gunnar on the sled most of the way there. We saw people cross country skiing on the roads. It was actually pretty tough work hauling the sled and then carrying Holly through the huge snow drifts to get to the playground. I rushed up and went down one of the slides, clearing it of snow, and landing in a soft pile of powder. We all had fun doing that. The tunnel slide was super fast, but eventually not such a soft landing. We had to add more snow to cushion it. Adah was pretty disappointed because the hills on the playground where we had sledded last winter, were no good this time. The snow was just too deep and the sleds merely sank.  With the snow continuing to come down and fatigue setting in, we trudged back home to dry off and warm up.  At that point, I think Damon went into work.

Thursday morning we awoke to freezing rain and NO SCHOOL. Damon went into work and managed to get there using chains for the last little way. His office is kind of in the country and he has to go down a gravel driveway for the final stretch. That evening he had to abandon the truck at work and get a ride home from a co-worker who had a bigger "manlier" truck. Fortunately, that co-worker had actually left for home and realized how bad the roads were, so he returned to warn and help the ones who hadn't left yet.  This storm brought out lots of kindly acts as everyone looked out for each other.

On Thursday evening we had just finished reading scriptures with our kids and had a family prayer when the power went out! We knew this was a possibility since some of our friends living further out of town had already had outages. We got flashlights and tucked the kids into bed with extra blankets and just prayed the power would come back on soon.  Remember, we don't have a wood heat alternative.  Fortunately, the power came back on at about 1:00 a.m..  No biggie.
Friday morning we awoke to more of the same outlook: piles of ice-topped snow in our yard and no school. The kids actually had fun playing in this new version of a winter wonderland. They loved jumping up and stomping holes through the top layer of ice and into the snow beneath. Damon stayed home from work and shoveled out another old lady. I made some homemade bean, bacon, and vegetable soup and baked biscuits and cookies for lunch while everyone was out in the snow. I loved looking out the window to see all my kiddos playing happily together and sliding down the small slope created by our flower bed and then onto the lawn area. They were having a great time and I felt so snug and warm inside our house. I felt very lucky to all be home and safe, and that on our 5th day of no school everyone was still being so pleasant.

That afternoon we got visitors. Ryan and Andrea V. came over with their two kids. They'd been without power since the day before, and while they had wood heat to keep them warm, they longed to be out of the house and to have a hot meal. The pizza place in Bingen was open, so they ate there, got groceries, and then came to our house to indulge in some conversation, Phineas & Ferb, video games, and overhead lighting. It had taken them over an hour to drive into town from their house (usually 15 minutes) because Ryan had to keep getting out of the car with his chainsaw and cutting fallen limbs and trees and then dragging them off their private road.

Friday night after the kids were snug in bed and Damon had removed fresh cinnamon rolls from the oven, we were just settling in to watch Napoleon Dynamite when the power went off again! Flashlights and extra blankets for everyone! This time, however, we didn't wake up to find the heater blowing on our faces. In the morning there was still no power and the temperature had dropped into the high 50s.  We knew that everywhere there were tree limbs snapping and falling due to ice.
However, the sun was shining! Damon insisted that we all go outside into the sparkling world of ice. It was pretty amazing. We carefully made our way a few blocks away to a friend's house where we hoped to let the kids play and soak up some of their gas heat. We slipped along like penguins on the ice-covered snow in a vacant lot. We trudged through slush on the street. We meticulously avoided walking under trees since limbs could fall at any time. And we saw a rainbow.
Sadly, our friends weren't there. Well, she was, but her husband had taken all the kids to see a movie in The Dalles, so there wasn't much use in taking our kids inside. After a short visit we headed back up the hill to our house. We changed into dry clothes and got in the car to head to The Dalles ourselves. We had heard that Hood River was without power also. On our drive, we listened to the radio and heard that our entire county--12,000 PUD customers--plus parts of a few others up and down the Gorge were without power. It was a huge mess. I'm so grateful to the crews who worked 16-hour shifts (36 in some cases) in the awful weather to get everyone back their electricity.

We really had no idea when our power would return and spent time in The Dalles at the McDonald's playground, doing a little shopping, and letting the kids look at the animals at Petco. Finally, in the late afternoon we decided to head back towards home. We weren't sure what we would do for the night. We had an invitation at the home of friends with a wood stove, but they have six children and had no running water (electricity-dependent well), so we weren't sure if that would work well. Then, as we were coming west on the freeway, I got a text message from a friend in White Salmon, "Power just came back on!" I nearly cried in relief.  I don't like to be cold and was very anxious about what our little family would do.

We arrived home about 15 minutes later to the furnace blasting.  The temperature in the house was 52 degrees. We were able to cook some dinner and have comfortable warm beds (and to finish Napoleon Dynamite).  I was really so grateful, especially as the power outage continued for some of our friends for another 24 hours, and poor Ryan and Andrea until the following Thursday! They were without power for a full week.
On Sunday our ward just met for sacrament meeting. Very few members were able to make it. Some people's roads were still impassable since even though we'd had a lot of melting during Saturday's sunshine, it had sleeted/snowed more overnight. After church a couple friends came and showered at our house since they didn't have running water. We were happy to be in a position to help after feeling so vulnerable the day before.

You can see remnants of the storm everywhere you drive. Some people lost entire trees. Most places there are just several limbs or even small branches strewn about. We were lucky to really just have sticks and twigs litter the yard. One day I came home and huge chunks of ice had slid off our roof and were standing straight up in front of the deck. It looked like giant teeth trying to chomp the house.

On Monday, January 24 the girls finally returned to school two hours late, despite many of the students in the district still being without power. The schools had power and the buses had chains. After four snow days (two more than originally allotted in the school calendar--the end of school has been pushed back), everyone was keen to get back in the classroom. More snow on Tuesday panicked the school and caused them to send everyone home two hours early. Wednesday, January 19 was the first full day of school since January 7. Life was finally returning to normal. I don't think anyone wants to push the last day of school back any further. Today the power went out about an hour after school started, and stayed off for four hours. The schools served cold sandwiches instead of pizza and kept everyone in class for the full day.  Way to go! We're survivors now.

The Good Life

Kids Getting Along

Babies Falling Asleep On You

 

 

(They were really all faking it.)

Boys Falling Asleep On Sippy Cups

Playing Tricks on Daddy When He's Asleep
(That's a pink wig; there was jewelry involved, too.)

 

Pajama Party

Maggie had a pajama party for her birthday this year.  This was not a slumber party.  Just a party where all the girls came in their PJs for some pajama-pillow-sleep-themed fun and then went home to their own beds.  Perfect, right?

Maggie was so excited to wear her cupcake pajamas for all her friends to see. (They're footed and I wouldn't let her wear them on pajama day at school since I didn't want the bottoms ruined.)  All of us had fun changing into our PJs after dinner, just before guests arrived. I even wore my pajamas and robe. (Damon declined--party pooper.)

All the party guests got to go home with a little basket containing a comb, toothbrush, travel toothpaste, and a little bag full of Hershey's "goodnight kisses." We arranged them on the buffet with some cuddly stuffed animals, including the sleepy sheep holding the number 7.  As everyone arrived we set them up at the table with pillow cases and fabric markers for decorating.  Other activities included musical sleeping bags, a relay where they had to find a matching set of slippers and then race back, and a pillow fight. I was actually pretty nervous about the pillow fight. I never liked them as a kid and was just sure it would end in tears. Not so. Everyone loved it and they were very careful to not whack each other right in the face.

Maggie's cake was really fun to make.  It looks like five little girls in bed. Their bodies are Twinkies (my kids' first time having them!), the heads are Nilla Wafers, and the pillows are marshmallows. Frosting and M&Ms completed the quilt.

Mags decorated all the girls' faces herself (while wearing her new princess dress-up dress).

Just after making her wish!

Yummo! Everybody sure looked cute in their jammies.

Maggie did a really nice thing for her birthday party this year. She included one of Adah's friends on the guest list! She's the older sister of Maggie's good friend. Maggie wanted to invite them both "so Adah can have a friend at the party, too." I thought it was really sweet, and it sure did make the party more fun for Adah.  (And their friends' parents loved it since it meant a night out without having to hire a sitter!)

Maggie got lots of fun presents. She was really excited about a small hippo pillow pet, a stuffed narwhal, a horse Webkinz, and a little set of brushes, curlers, and pretend hairdryer. The girls wasted no time in setting up shop, beauty shop that is. The birthday girl was primped and doted upon, which is as it should be at your own birthday party, right?

We sure had a fun time celebrating with our new seven-year-old!

Friday the 13th was really the 7th.

Friday the 13th didn't mean bad luck for Maggie this year.  It meant turning seven!!!

Here's our birthday girl all ready for school and ready to open her presents.

 

Here she is checking out a clown camera that I made for her. She'll be able to use it as part of her clowning act. You'll probably need to book a show to see how it works.

Maggie also got a piggy bank that she could take to the pottery studio and paint herself. Grandma and Grandpa sent her two cute tops, but they didn't arrive until after school. They also gave her a really fun electronic spelling bee game. We all like that one. Nana & Gumpin sent her this cute dress.  She promptly changed her clothes before running out the door to school so she could wear her new birthday outfit.

In the afternoon, Gunnar, Holly, and I took birthday treats to Maggie's classroom. She was delighted to have me there taking pictures.

Maggie's afternoon teacher (she's in a classroom with 2 teachers that job share) is Mrs. Dennis.  She had Maggie stand on a chair and help "conduct" the class in singing "Happy Birthday" before eating their treats.

The treats were these cookie pops that have kind of become a trademark classroom treat with us. They look like lollipops, but they're really cookies and are so easy to make. I didn't think I'd have enough sprinkles for them, so I decided to use green food coloring. Then I found yellow sugar sprinkles and put those on. The whole effect made them look like tennis balls--at least to me; no one else said anything, thank goodness. : )

 

Seven things to know about Maggie at age 7:

1. She has a gappy smile but her two front teeth are finally starting to come in.

2. She still loves the color pink!

3. She is a very good reader. She is in the top reading class in the first grade. She does an amazing job when she reads The Book of Mormon out loud with our family. She rarely has trouble pronouncing any words.

4. She loves to watch TV and would do it all day if we'd let her. Some of her favorite shows are Arthur, Phineas & Ferb, and Wild Kratts.

5. She loves to wear skirts/dresses and leggings and certainly has a feminine style, although she often wears a hole in the knees of her pants! (What is she doing at recess?)

6. She comes home from school with marker on her hands almost everyday. It is also frequently on her clothes and sometimes even on her face!

7. She can't seem to eat without getting crumbs everywhere, although we're finally starting to see some improvement.

And one to grow on: She is a happy, noisy, exasperating, enthusiastic member of our family and we love her!!

Happy Birthday, Mags!



Timmmm-berrrr!

Damon started the new year by cutting down a tree. The first day back from our California trip he opted to stay home from work to take out a fir tree in the front yard.  It's dropping needles and he had decided that it was blocking sun and stealing moisture from the lawn, so it had to go.

My husband is many things. He's an engineer, a plumber, a carpenter, an electrician. He's very handy. But I would not call him a lumberjack.  We don't own a chainsaw. Damon's idea of cutting down this tree was to climb part of the way up, saw into the trunk, tie a rope around it, and then climb down and yank. Damon's also very MacGyver.

So, that's what he did. We tried to get the action on video but were having difficulties with the memory disk on the video camera and didn't realize it in time. Damon went out on the driveway and pulled on the rope until the top of the tree came crashing down. This is pretty much how he cut down another [dying] tree in our yard a few years ago, except that time he used a garden hose instead of a rope. I told you he was MacGyver.

Once the top of the tree was cut off and tangled amidst the lower branches, Damon climbed back up and took his tiny saw to all the branches he could reach. Can you see him peeking out there?

He eventually got things cleared away enough so that we had a giant mess of limbs and branches covering the lawn and a splintered 10-foot-tall trunk pointing straight up into the sky.

The best part of all this was the kids' response when they came home from school. Gunnar came in from preschool and said, "Bad, Daddy!" Adah and Maggie were equally upset ("Daaaaad-yyyyyy!! Why did you cut down that tree?!") and lamented the loss of the tree; they were just appalled that their father would do such a thing. It was pretty funny. We're not sure what their attachment was to the tree. I think it was just that he dared do something so monumental without consulting him.

Adah, Queen of the Branch Pile

I thought it was ironic that he cut down the tree to save the lawn and here he was smothering it, but it just took a few days to find someone with a chainsaw who wanted some wood (we don't have a fireplace) and could help us out the next Saturday.

Enter a real lumberjack. Not really. He's actually one of our local physicians, but he could wield a chainsaw and felled that tree right where he intended. No one got hurt, including the house and cars. I was happy.

Then Damon took a turn at cutting the trunk into manageable sizes while all of the kids (including our friend's two) helped load the useable firewood into their truck and all the branches for bonfire burning (at another friend's house) into our truck.

 

It's nice to live in a place so abundant in chainsaws.  We actually probably had about half a dozen options. Damon just wishes we didn't live in city limits so we could have our own bonfire with the branches. Too bad. I just wish we had a fireplace so that we could have cozied up with all the firewood ourselves...especially about two weeks later when the snow and ice arrived. . . stay tuned.