Farm visit

This is the second year that we've enrolled in a CSA (community supported agriculture) with Sungold Farms in Forest Grove. Each week during the season, we get a bag of whatever is fresh and ready to harvest. Its kind of fun to have the challenge of planning meals around the suprise, and learn to use things I wouldn't have tried on my own. For example, pickled beets are awesome, though I was sure I wouldn't like beets in any form. They always have an open farm day at the begining of the season. We got to see where our food is coming from, meet the family that runs the farm, take a hayride and check out the equipment. Zane learned the word "tractor" in record time, and boy does he love to use it.

Grandma Visits and Girl Scouts

We were very lucky to have Grandma Candy, Aunt Wanda, Aunt Judy and Wanda's helper and friend Jenn come for a visit. It was a ton of fun, but too short! It happened that they were here the weekend we had scheduled for Willow's Daisy troop to bridge up to the next level and become Brownies. One of the requirements is for the girls to help plan their own ceremony, and they decided to "bake" into brownies. One epic journey from Lowe's to my house dragging a washing machine box later, we were in business. Our family was very patient with me and my obsessive attempts to get the box to look like an oven....turned out pretty good, huh? Despite the typical spring weather (read cold and drizzly) it was fun and cute, and the girls really did work hard for their achivement.

Happy May Birthdays!

May is usually crazy month here, what with mothers day, Willow and Zane's birthday, other family birthdays and "Joe Peterson Day" (last Sunday of the month - celebrate it with a Joe Peterson you love!) We waffled and waffled about what to do for Willow's celebration. I just didn't have it in me to even do cupcakes in the park for her class, so we just had cake with her Daisy troop after a meeting. She prefers whipped cream to frosting, but I've learned that m&ms candy coating melts in whipped cream (though still not in your hand) So she ended up with a wierd tyedyed cake studded with grey nubbins. Sadly, no pictures ;(

Zane just had a little family party, and sadly his cake turned out ugly too...but it tasted great, lemon cake with lemon frosting and filled with fresh strawberries from the farmer's market. The big hit of the presents was his little wooden train set. Bedtime became very tearfull and echoing with calls of "more choo-choo, more choo-choo" for a while. He also got a trike, though it is a bit big for him, it was still very exciting!

MMM ice cream

Joe found out about some sort of super-cheap cone day at Baskin Robbins so he and Willow brought us home some with predictable results.

My daughter, the bearded lady.

Or perhaps a zombie who craves chocolate instead of brains.

Rainbo sherbert brings on a crazy giggle

Willow tests into Juniors

Sorry, this is way old news and I'm just now getting this up. Willow tested from Little Tigers, the 4-6yr old program at her karate school to the Juniors program, ages 7 and up. She came in at an orange belt level.

Kids are grown ups in training

Wow, sorry for the blog-fade to anyone who is still reading this. We'll try to get back on top of this. Here's a short anecdote for now.

I walked into the kitchen and saw Willow apparently playing with a tea bag over the sink. As I went to fill up my water glass, Willow looked at me and asked "What does this do, Dad?"

"I don't know. What are you doing?"

"Squeezing the tea bag," she said.

"Why?"

"Mom told me to."

Then it clicked. "I think she meant for you to squeeze it into your cup of tea to get more of the flavor out before you threw it into the compost."

Sara then laughed as she realized that Willow was squeezing it into the sink. It totally makes sense that if you were told to squeeze out a tea bag, that you would do it over the sink. I mean where else would you do that? And since that was probably the first cup of tea Willow ever made by herself, how was she supposed to know?

More later.

Fingerpainting

Zane got his first chance to do some bathtub fingerpainting today....he had a pretty good time

and then he found a spoon...mmmmm painty!

Braces!

Well, Willow got her braces yesterday, and she seems to love them so far. We will see how long that lasts as the novelty wears off. Keeping them clean is a really serious project. Up top she has braces on her front four, and below she has a soft splint to help with her under bite. She had great fun show and telling them in class today. One good thing about being six, the kids all think braces are cool, not horrid. I have to reconfigure her lunch plans since she can no longer eat some foods, but all in all, it is not as disruptive as I had thought it might be.

Winter fun

While we didn't quite get dumped on the way Washington state has, we did get enough snow to be a pain for natives and awesome for those of us who have lived in CO and miss the snow. One of the neatest parts was watching the hummingbirds bicker over the feeder. Eventually I put up another in the back because one big female was guarding the one in front from the other three who were hanging around. It is amazing such little creatures can survive in the cold.