words and pictures

Eva has different words of the day -sometimes- lately. The other day it was discrepancy and throughout the day she would say it in various scenarios, with various meanings attached to it. The interesting thing to me is that how she uses it, with her tone of voice, which part of the sentence it becomes, who she is talking to, it is always just the right word (even if she doesn't quite know our technical meaning, if you get my meaning). "That princess is so discrepancy." "Yes, isn't it discrepancy?"

Then one day it was revolting and that was fun to listen to. Then derogatory- which she even added -illy to, as in derogatorilly. Today I believe, judging from what I have already heard, it may very well be pneumonia. As in, "Pneumonia is definitely not what you want to do."

I was just going through my most recent photos and there are some very fun pictures in there. A picture of Samuel with his head in the candy bag (from the St. Patrick's Day parade in Hillsboro) and lots of pictures of candy taken by Eva so that she can remember all of the different pieces after she has eaten them. Today Samuel had an idea that he could take pictures of people when they are angry and then erase them...and the anger would go away as well. He took a picture of me pretending to be angry and then erased it, otherwise I would post it as well.



Our friends Mary and Addie visited from Texas and we went to the Arboretum with them. Eva and Addie enjoyed climbing up these gigantic tree roots sticking out of the ground. There is Eva in her new "party" dress climbing in the trees and mud! Also, Eva and Samuel carrying Big Baby!




Playing out in one of the many Spring hail storms...



Fast and furious on Easter morning with lots of eggs and bunnies staying up for the Easter Bunny himself!



These are our Easter pictures, as Samuel calls them, and they seem to be all about having rabbits on our heads!



Eva ready for her birthday with her big unicorn balloon; Samuel with his dragon balloon; Eva on her birthday in her new purple shoes holding up her playmobil penguin family and Samuel holds up his lego guy.



Blowing out candles, up close of penguins, riding in a fast car with Samuel at Chuck-E's.



More Chuck-E rides and cupcakes and cake. Eva said, "Momma I thought we were going to have cupcakes and cake for my birthday!"



And this is where Eva spent most of her time at Chuck-E's- the merry-go-round. She just loves it and the lovely part about the merry-go-round is that someone at some point is bound to come up and put tokens in to make it go, so the kids just climb on and look around, waiting for this to happen!



Ok, how cute is this? I gave Charlie one of my old fleece socks and he really likes it. He gets into the sock and sleeps- so warm. And he learned through trial and error to keep his head available for treats!



Eva and Samuel with lots of animals, Eva coloring with others while Samuel has riding lessons, Samuel's self-portrait.



Samuel on Mirage!



Ok and I just can't resist how gorgeous Spring can be with pink petals against dark gray sky- hail is on the way!

Backlog

Today the kids and I went to a homeschooling conference nearby and I got to see my parenting coach Scott Noelle speak, which was great fun. He has a lot of say about unconditionality and the title of his talk was "How to enjoy parenting, even if you have kids." Samuel found it to be great fun and Eva and I colored pictures of unicorns to pass the time (1 hour, 15 minutes, not too bad but really they are ready to go at 45 minutes...). We celebrated with Thai food and a trip to the park, good swinging times for everyone, including Eva's newest baby, who pees if you put water into her mouth. (I had a baby alive when I was little and can attest to how much fun this is. This baby came with a potty as well.)

Back in time, we celebrated Easter as usual, with colored eggs and an Easter egg hunt on Easter morning and of course lots of Easter candy. Ellen and Evan came over and we had a nice meal with them to celebrate spring and Grandma Spangler's birthday (she has since passed, but she was born on Easter and died on Good Friday and her presence is palpable during this time of year.)

Eva has taken an interest in Jesus and the Christian meaning of Easter and we spent Easter looking at several pictures of Jesus being crucified and the Stations of the Cross, both traditional and avant garde, and I learned a good bit more about this event then I had previously known. Then on Tuesday we took a little trip over to St. Mary's Convent here in Beaverton and the good Sisters there let us in to their chapel and we got to see a Crucifix up close and lots of pictures of Jesus and angels and more Stations of the Cross, which were quite fascinating and we had the whole chapel to ourselves to look around at our leisure. I think we are going to Mass tomorrow morning to see more pictures of Jesus and the Cross. We saw Jesus today as well because the conference was held in a church and we got to see a Protestant cross without Jesus on it, which was also fascinating.

Eva's interest in Jesus and Samuel's interest in the Revolutionary War and all of this Star Wars viewing and talking has given way to some very interesting discussions about good and evil and the lack thereof and duality in general and I almost forgot they have been watching All Dogs Go to Heaven, which also has opened up the discussion on different people's views on Heaven and Hell. Quite fascinating, all of it.

Eva is fully five now. We celebrated her birthday (March 20!) at Chuck E. Cheese's with pizza and cupcakes. She spent a good bit of time on the merry go round and Samuel continued perfecting his skee ball. We finally got the flowers for Spring Equinox and her birthday planted a couple of days later. I like this tradition of planting on the Equinox and Eva likes picking out the flowers and a special one for her birthday, as she was born on the Equinox.

We planted more peas because I got restless about the others- which, by the way, have finally started to come up, so there will be plenty of peas! This year I planted English peas, not just sugar snap peas (which I like so so) and am excited to freeze some as well. There is mesclun mix coming up, radishes, forget me nots, turnips, peas, onions and then we planted more! Broccoli raab, deers tongue lettuce and something else I am forgetting. We had our first radishes from our produce basket this week and Eva ate them all up on the first day, in between playing a game with them and the purple carrots, which is always fun. And more leeks. Good grief, what do I do with all of these leeks! There are certain foods that seem to come in massive abundance that I just can't seem to use up- zucchini, cabbage, celeriac, leeks...I bless them for their abundance and then I just have to move on, I guess.

I got the idea to plant the deers tongue after looking at Slow Food's Ark of Taste which looks at preserving our food heritage. Deers Tongue and Jacob's Cattle Beans are two heirloom vegetables that are from North America and I thought I would give them a try in the garden this year. But for now we have crazy weather as usual, spring time in the Pacific Northwest- hail and sunshine and rainbows and rain all in the same day!

Revolutionary War and other reading

The kids and I are doing quite a bit of reading about the American Revolutionary War, per Samuel's request. He is particularly interested in the Boston Tea Party, because, as he told me last night, it makes the least sense. He has questions like, "How does throwing the tea in the harbor do anything about the taxes?" So we have been reading and talking quite a bit about the ideas behind the Revolution and about freedom and taxes. We had a fun conversation last night with Samuel comparing the Star Wars movies to the American Revolution- King George and the Emperor, General Cornwallis and Darth Vader, the Rebels and the Colonists/ Patriots. Because as you know, we study Star Wars quite a bit around here, particularly lately- again...

Here is our list so far-
Can't You Make Them Behave, King George by Jean Fritz (a particular favorite!)
Deborah Sampson Goes to War by Bryna Stevens
Aaron and the Green Mountain Boys by Patricia Lee Gauch
Katie's Trunk by Ann Turner
Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Still to go-
This Time Tempe Wick by Patricia Lee Gauch
The Story of the Boston Tea Party by R. Conrad Stein

So we have read about Tories and King George and the Patriots and women enlisting and how others helped the fighting soldiers. Samuel is really looking forward to the book about the Boston Tea Party and it was fun to read Longfellow's poem, which is dramatic and beautifully written.

We are reading another book by Dick King-Smith and just finished up Little House in the Big Woods and are waiting for the next in that series from the library. Lots of other reading tidbits going on as well. Samuel is still enjoying his Mars Mission legos and the kids are playing with their Star Wars guys quite a bit and there is also a lot of play with Eva's new playmobil toys, most of which I have not written about yet but intend to soon...

Watch it!

This is a really inspiring video and I highly recommend that you watch this!

This is a fleetingly glorious part of spring with daffodils everywhere on the ground and pink cherry blossoms in the trees. There are red buds blooming and yellow buds blooming and tiny light green leaves on the willow tree across the street.

Today at the grocery store our favorite checker picked up Eva and announced to the store that it was her birthday tomorrow and had everyone sing Happy Birthday to Eva. She was torn between being thrilled and mortified. She beamed through most of it and was also happy when I picked her up again. We left the store giggling and feeling bright about tomorrow's celebration.

We are on our way to Party City again to get balloons. This time we are in search of a unicorn balloon in honor of Eva's big day. She will be 5!

Do you remember way back in December when I wanted to go for a walk in the woods to celebrate Winter Solstice? And how we didn't get to go because the kids were sick and then I was sick? And then how we still didn't get to go the next month or the next because of one thing or another and then the kids got sick again and then I got sick- again? Well, I am happy to say that today! we went for a walk in the woods, a spontaneous walk at the Arboretum, and I realized this was our first walk in the woods in a long long time. Finally, one week before the Spring Equinox, we found ourselves in the woods again! Yeah!

We ended up in the woods today because we were visiting with my friend Mary and her daughter Addie who were in town visiting for a couple of days. We haven't seen them since we left California nearly 5 years ago and it was great to see them both. We also got to meet her brother and his friend who were also in town to visit with Mary and we all ended up at the Arboretum (rather than the Japanese Gardens) and had a lovely time enjoying the woods and the kids got to climb on the tree roots and I got to show Mary the amazing moss and lichen that grows in the very damp woods of Oregon!

And the only thing that was troubling was having to tell Jack when we got home that we did indeed go to the Arboretum without him today- because he had an inkling before we knew ourselves, that we would go someplace glorious today and when we left the house he was particularly upset that he wasn't going with us. And you say, why tell him, why upset him so? Because he knew and I had to be honest with him. He could tell by the dirt on my jeans and the mossy damp smell on my hands and I swear he turned his head away when we got home and that he knew we had done the unthinkable and -gasp-gone on a walk without him. So I told him that I would take him to the woods- the Arboretum or Sauvie Island, maybe, as it time to see the frogs- and he was pleased with that. No one like a dog to remind you just how great a walk in the woods can really be!

One of these things is not like the other

Where's Maxwell?



Where's Jack?