Cuteness Warning!

School starts next week. Time for the lemonade stand. Ron arranged all of this and took the picture. Here's another great shot he took of our black-eyed susans.

The Art of Relaxation

Okay folks, maybe we should just let the pictures tell you how it is.

Planning for the Summer

But wait, there's more! I've been planning for the summer. As in Planning. As in 6 hours of thought and work. I ordered a blank gameboard (treetop.com, under $3 if I remember correctly) and I made a game out of our daily activities so we can all keep track of what we're doing. Each time the kids complete the game course, they get a "Q" Buck, named for Quassy Amusement Park http://www.quassy.com/. When they get 25 Q Bucks, they can go to Quassy. Even better, tickets for Quassy are discounted through our local parks and rec department because of the tough economic times. So tickets are less than $15. There are two tracks through the game. You can start at the top left or bottom left. You can choose to cross up at block #6 or stay on the bottom half of the board, or, if starting from the top you can go down at #6 or stay on the top half of the board. This way you don't do the same chores every single day. And with the math, reading, writing and music, hopefully I can figure out a way to keep both kids busy at the same time while being able to help them both. Flash cards, math books, mad minute pages, etc...and we'll be visiting the library for lots of books to read. I bought a couple blank books (they look a lot like Dr. Seuss books in terms of size) that the kids will be writing a story in. You can get them with or without lines - I got them with lines. The lines are only on part of the page on the right, and the page on the left is blank for a picture. I also got a few blank puzzles -- they were 99 cents! I'm not exactly sure what we'll do for that yet...I do have some backup activities for days where I'm just too busy/tired/skadoodled to do anything - things like building a peacock puzzle that I found at Goodwill, watching a couple videos from the library, etc. But I'm most looking forward to the learning projects we'll be doing. As a scientist at heart (and as a parent of scientific children who think like I do), of course I have all KINDS of ideas for our science time. I listed about 15 kinds of science ("ologies") and we'll be doing activities for each one. Some include travel around the state and some don't. For example, we'll be going to Fort Griswold and learning about the Revolutionary War during the first week of July http://www.revwar.com/ftgriswold/. We'll go on a hike and learn to identify some different leaves. We'll build a barometer, make a magnet and make paper mache dinosaur eggs. We'll take a trip to Dinosaur State Park http://www.dinosaurstatepark.org and we'll go blueberry picking. We'll (of course!!) go to the beach. Last year I meant to do a lot of this kind of thing but nothing ever happened. I didn't plan anything. I had an insight this year: If you don't plan it, it won't happen. So I guess that things don't just magically happen without planning. Like, if I don't plan to eat breakfast, I don't eat. Weird, huh. People who don't know me can just imagine some serious tongue-in-cheek here. (Speaking of which, isn't that a strange expression??!). One of the things that I think will be fun is that we'll make a poster map of Connecticut on the first day and then whenever we go somewhere, we'll put something on the map (a picture, postcard, leaf, etc.). And, I truly hope that my energy can be sustained so that this happens for more than one or two weeks!

Baby Birds

Look what Malachi found outside in the forsythia bush! There are 4 of them, according to Malachi who dragged a chair and piled the back of his toy ride-on tractor on top of the chair to precariously perch for a better view. No need to mention that I did not watch him do this!!

Malachi is so fun

Here are some pictures of Malachi. He's so fun. He went on an all-day field trip today and had a great time. He was SO proud to be going on the morning bus. Big times. He's liking the camera.And you've got to love the sleeping pictures. He's asleep with his head over the edge again. Tonight I found him asleep with a lumpy pillow stuffed up under his shirt!! Wish I had a picture of that.

He's lately been going to sleep listening either to Mozart (his favorite is Ave Verum Corpus) or a mix of popular pieces like the Bach Air, the Barber Adagio, etc. He had the Bach Air on repeat on night and it went on forever. Luckily that is one of my very favorite pieces ever so I didn't mind a bit!

He recently told me that he and Popo often have to work their undercover police job on Saturdays. Popo had to sell his restaurant because he kept getting calls on his walkie talkie to go do police work and it just interfered too much with the restaurant managing. (Said restaurant is located UNDERNEATH Ruby Tuesdays).

Here are both of them playing in the sand during the ward picnic on Memorial Day. I love that they get along with each other so well. They are truly a wonderful pair.

Happy Birthday Talia!

What a fun birthday party we had tonight for Talia. The "family" (read Seth & Rebecca & Emma & Levi) came over with Seth's brother, Mick. We ate cake and ice cream. Well...some of us did. Since it's Passover, Seth, Rebecca and Mick were not partaking of cake (flour, leavening, you know). So they thought they'd have ice cream...our flavors (Talia's pick) were: Cake Ice Cream, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. It was pretty funny. Luckily there was no actual cake in the first, just cake "flavoring."

We sang and ate cake and opened presents and the kids ran around like nut cases. The cake was orange flavored with cream cheese frosting and I have to say it's one of the best cakes I've ever made. The recipe is in the database at mrandrews.com. I ate some cake...going back to the no sugar thing tomorrow. Thanks to Rebecca for taking pictures, as I inadvertently left our camera on the back of the car a couple days ago, never to be seen again...after I drove somewhere...(argh!).

Spring Break Fun

It's been a wonderful spring break with just beautiful weather and lots of time spent outside in the yard. We had a couple play dates with Gracie and Aiden and Bridget who live about a block away.

We created a strawberry patch and we're just waiting for the strawberries to come in the mail (next week, they say, which in my opinion is about a month too late). Right now we have plenty of room for 25 plants.

Talia and Malachi have also been riding their bikes every day, and getting much better at it! No training wheels anymore. Talia likes to do "tricks" on her bike that involve balancing and putting her feet up on the crossbar. Ron doesn't even want to know about this (so don't read this, Ron).

You can see the great digging patch that M & T have created! Anyone who's hankering for a juicy mud pie can come right on over. Some of the dirt has been taken up to the front yard planting bed where I'm hoping to plant a black currant bush. The method of choice in transporting dirt these days (because I'm not sure that all of you are up on the latest technology) is via an old winter knit hat. Fill the hat chock full of dirt, stretch it out good and there ya go!

And finally, aren't those violets so fun! We pressed a page or so of them in Tali's flower press book.

Reasoning Abilities

Yesterday Ron did lots of laundry. He had folded it and it was on the couch. Malachi got a warm-up top from his pile. He said, as he found it "Mom, I just wore this two days ago!" Then, after about 3 seconds of thought, he said "You know, when we went to Utah, our washer and dryer got a good rest. Now they are working faster!"

These cute reasoning abilities are what happens when you sleep in the partially hanging off the bed position, demonstrated above.

Happy Easter

We went on an easter egg hunt today at the park. Such fun and so short-lived. The hunt started at 1 pm and we were driving home at 1:12. But it was a fantastic thing for me as a mother to be so proud of my son!! Look below at the pictures to see why:








In other exciting news, Talia got her very first goose egg on the forehead today. It was a big one!! After about 45 minutes of the serious application of frozen peas to her head, the egg has pretty much disappeared. I teased her that she's trying to be her own easter egg and maybe we should decorate her goose egg...

Brandon is home this weekend. He's so excited to be almost done with his first year. "Just a few more weeks of college," he longingly says to me. 5 more weeks for him and then he is home for the summer. "I'm so looking forward to not living with these people next year...I slept really well last night." He has a lovely roommate who plays loud videogames all day and all night. The joys of 3 people in a room. Next year he's negotiated a single room in a suite shared with three other people.

Tagged: About my Man

Awhile ago, Sarah tagged me to talk about my sweetie. Here I am finally getting around to it. Here we are as babies, not even dreaming that we'd one day be best friends.

What is his name? Ron. Ronald. Ronnie. Kenny, if you want to talk to his evil twin, but I don't know much about that because Kenny left a long time ago and I never got to know him very well. (whew!)

How long have you been together?
We met in January of 1997 and since then we've enjoyed nearly nine years of marriage. But lots of times we feel more like we've been together forever -- in a good way! He proposed on February 4 of 1999 at the Zaleski home (where we first met - how romantic!). We ended up having our wedding reception at that house too, just to keep with tradition. Three's the charm, eh? I have to say, when we first started dating I liked him so much that it made me totally mad! I mean, it was clear to me that this couldn't ever work out (after all, he was this hot guy and I was a dork) and to find out things like he plays my FAVORITE instrument, the cello, was just SO ANNOYING!!!
How long did you date? About two and 1/2 years. We met in an a capella group; he flirted with me, I made him ziti, and the rest was history.

Who eats more? Um, he does. Usually. Sometimes I can but not often! Here's a picture of him putting away some lobster on the Connecticut coast in June of 99 right after we got married (we were in CT looking for a place to live).

Who said I love you first? Boy this is really too bad that I don't remember.

Who is taller? He is - about 10 inches taller.

Who has more speeding tickets? He does I'm sure. We could also ask who has totaled more cars and the answer would be the same. Who has hit more deer? He has. Here we have what's left of a Honda van after a deer jumped in front of it in New Hampshire.

Who is smarter? Luckily we are well matched in this area.

Who is more sensitive? I am, no doubt as long as we are talking about emotional reactivity. But in other forms of sensitivity...like...hmmm...basketball...???

When there is a fight who usually wins? Hmm. I think we are mostly a team. When we do have disagreements, I probably end up being more controlling but that's not really winning, it's just that he ends up being okay with my point of view because he's so dang mature. He does reserve the right to "put his foot down" and since I get my way nearly all the time, I usually have no problem when he insists on his way for something. He almost always has a good reason. He's a great problem-solver and he sees parts of the picture that I miss. So we make a good team.


Who does the laundry? Mostly him. I try to do some but he does the bulk of it.


Who does the dishes? We both do. I may do them a bit more than he does but not much.


Who sleeps on the right? He does. The rule is that he sleeps closest to the door (and the bathroom).



Who pays the bills? I do but we try to keep track together.

Who mows the lawn? He does almost 95% of the time. I have mowed the lawn a number of times but not usually.

Who cooks dinner? We both do, depending on who is home first. Below is a dinner we made together for New Year's a few years ago. We (okay me) like to choose a theme - this year it was Indian food. We had chicken pistachio korma and saag paneer (we made our own paneer - a kind of simple cheese). You're all invited!

Who drives when you are together? He does. If he wants me to drive it is 1) RARE, 2) on a long trip where he drives 10 hours and I drive 1, or 3) when he wants to read a book in the car. Seriously, other than trips, I think I've driven him about 10 times ever.

Who is more stubborn? Ha ha ha. Him. No doubt.

Who kissed who first? He kissed me! He came over one night and said that he wasn't leaving until he kissed me. I resisted (why? who knows) for about 90 minutes or so. He kissed me next to the piano and the music in our hearts began to play a song of forever (are y'all gagging yet?).

Who asked who out first? We hung out together the entire night when our group sang at Fat Saturday, the fancy benefit for the Lexington Children's Theatre. We danced, he sang to me, making up words to go with blues music, and we flirted shamelessly. He walked me out to my car and I just knew he wanted to kiss me, and I didn't let him. So the next night he came over, and...see above. He finally asked me out on an actual date about a month later. We went to a fun Chinese restaurant that actually doesn't exist anymore. What was memorable about this date was that he discovered my huge lack of knowledge about pop culture. That is to say, I didn't know who Bob Marley was. That was then.

Who proposed? He did. I completely wasn't expecting it and I was 100% surprised. So I wasn't very cooperative -- I mean, I accused him of stealing flowers from a friend and pretending to give them to me. Then I ignored him and talked to our friend. He couldn't get a word in edgewise...and when I asked him if he wanted to say something, he just didn't get enough time to get out the words. Finally he had to just hold out the ring...and I screeched "here? now?" At last, he got to ask the actual question.

Who has more siblings? I do. 3 sisters & 3 brothers. He has 1 sister...well, maybe 2 sisters...well...sometimes he says he has three sisters. He has an inclusive definition of family. For instance, he doesn't ever call my sibs "in-laws" because he feels like that is unnecessarily distancing.


Who wears the pants? We both wear pants. We try to make decisions together but when I get impulsive, he is very kind and supportive.





Okay, I tag...hmmm...Deon, Amanda and Carolee. Email me when you've posted!

How Far Can I Take Multi-Tasking???

Tell me, is this too much?

Here I am (Talia took this picture and did a great job!) doing the following things:

1. Exercising on my minitramp while...
2. Planning what to say in a deposition I was giving later that day while...
3. Simmering soup on the stove for lunch while...
4. Parenting my children (Talia is taking a picture of me, experiencing the development of new and exciting skills) while...
5. Kneading bread in my hands. Truly, that is a blob of dough I am holding.



Yes, is this too much? I'm just asking...

In other news...

I'm going to Boise at the end of April to give a couple talks. Anyone who wants to drive up to say hello is welcome (and crazy!).

Malachi loves wrassling. He especially loves to be "smogrified" Smogrification (pronounced like the word smog) involves wrassling, tickling and kisses and hugs. Sometimes we play kissing smogrification which is a contest where you try to kiss another person's cheek as many times as you can while they are trying to kiss your cheek. When it's two vs. one, it's pretty funny. That is to say, Talia and Malachi team up against me and it's hard to hold one of them down much less two! If someone kisses your cheek, each kiss takes away one point that you have and adds one point to the other person's total. Everybody wins in theory, but in reality we just end up giggling until we cough ourselves sick.



Talia's reading skills are really coming along! We are so excited that the world of books is becoming more open to her. She's so proud too.



We had a wonderful meal yesterday with some wonderful friends, Marlon and Amanda and their cute daughters. In addition to our typical West African feast (roasted chicken with peanut sauce, cabbage salad, plantains, ginger drink and melktert) I tried a new recipe - curried okra. It was very tasty and I would have had more for lunch...but it was all gone. I've never cooked with okra before and I'll definitely do it again.
Basically onions, garlic, okra and tomatoes seasoned with coriander, cinnamon, ginger, cumin and sea salt.

Ron sang in church yesterday. He sang Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord, and added both of the verses that Aunt Cynthia wrote. It was just beautiful. I accompanied him on the organ, which worked out just fine.