Journal

Pure Deliciousness

1 Comment

I’ve been wanting to try making cinnamon rolls for a long time, but they seemed rather intimidating. I finally got up the courage to try, and they turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. Since it was my first time kneading bread dough, I was afraid I was going to mess something up. However, they turned out perfectly, and everyone in the family gobbled them down. They were soft and sticky, and being fresh out of the oven, they were much better than the ones I have tasted from the store.

cinnamon-rolls

Tulips

1 Comment

We bought some tulips from the store a few weeks ago, and every time I saw them sitting in their vase on the countertop, they brought a smile to my face. It was a lovely bridge to make the path between winter and spring easier to walk. Just after the petals began to fall from these beautiful flowers, I noticed a bulging stalk emerging from amidst the tulip leaves in my garden to show that soon we will have flowers out of doors as well.

tulip1

tulip2

tulip3

The Fashion Expert

1 Comment

Joseph: Mom, you got new pants!

Mom (pleasantly surprised): Why, yes they are, Joseph. How nice of you to notice.

Joseph (approaching and pulling a sticker off of the pants): They still have the tag on.

March

1 Comment

March flew quickly past, as I kept very busy with schoolwork, vision therapy, and preparing for my grade 4 ballet exam. I’ve been working hard on my geometry, getting in an extra lesson a week on Saturday mornings to stay on track, since I’m a bit behind because of the problems my eyes have been causing me while reading. Fortunately, I just made a breakthrough in my vision therapy that I attend once a week, and it seems to be the beginning of the end of my eye pain.

Ballet exams for Maria and I took place at the end of March. I had to wait almost a week for my score, and I just found out tonight  that I received a pass plus for my score.

The only other exciting thing to happen this March was my sixteenth birthday, which was made even more special by the robins arriving on that day for the second year in a row. My cake also turned out nicely, and it was six layers of white cake with raspberry frosting and jam in between the layers. It was delicious!

img_0436

Advent of Spring

1 Comment

Every year, the same signs herald the rise of spring and the death of winter, yet every year these changes are as exciting and as fascinating as before. Today, the first of the annual signs appeared, as the first of my tulips emerged from below the earth.

spring2

The columbine also, one of my favorite spring flowers, decided it was time for a second try at coming up. (It was fooled by the short warm week  in mid February, only to get nipped by temperatures in the single digits.

spring3

There was also an enormous migration of snow geese in the morning and early afternoon, with large V’s of birds visible in the sky at any moment. I looked them up in a bird book, and found that they winter in the southern US, and are now journeying to the uppermost region of Canada and Alaska for the summer. They were very loud, and although they were only small shadows high in the sky their distinctive honk was clearly audible from the ground.

One of the smaller flocks of geese.

One of the smaller flocks of geese.

Refined Defined

1 Comment

Maria, Johnathan, and Alexander were going to an Irish Caeli dance, and were getting ready to leave. John was wearing a polo shirt neatly tucked into his pants. As his favored apparel is a sloppy T-shirt and jeans with holes in them, I commented that it was nice to see him looking refined. John simply stared at me, glanced down at his clothes with a confused expression, then replied with slight annoyance: “Well, of course I’m going to put on socks!” Realizing he didn’t know what refined meant, Mom and I began to try to explain it to him. However, he persisted, “No, she meant stupid!”

At Least He Warned Us

2 Comments

“Uh-oh!” Daniel’s little voice called. Maria asked him what was the matter, and he proceeded to point at himself, and then at the television remote in his hands. (The remote being both one of the most coveted and the most forbidden articles in the house, surpassed only by the phone.)

Winter Birds

1 Comment

The past week the temperatures emerged from below zero and today it soared up to fifty degrees. It has been a lovely break from winter and a nice head start on melting away the snow. Since it was so lovely, we figured the wildlife would be enjoying the spring-like weather as well, and we headed out to the Outdoor Campus to watch and draw some birds visiting their feeders. As we expected, there was a huge number of birds fluttering around the feeders, including sparrows, chickadees, white breasted nuthatches, downy and hairy woodpeckers, mallards, and even a cardinal! Everyone had fun drawing the birds, though they were frustrated that they wouldn’t stand still, and I got in a few good pictures.

Downy Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker (Female)

Quank, Quank!

Quack, Quack!

Same Cardinal

Cardinal in winter plumage.

Tea Time

1 Comment

It’s snowing. Again. Winter was fun at first, especially with the ice skates I got for Christmas, but now it is beginning to drag. I have found, however, that a nice, hot cup of tea really helps to warm up the whole day. Apparently the rest of the family thinks so, too, because no sooner than had I made a cup a few days ago than everyone decided they needed to have some as well. Even Daniel was in on it, saying ‘tea’ in sign language over and over again until we got him his very own cup.

tea1

tea2

tea3

Daniel signing "Tea".

Daniel signing "Tea".

My Birds!

Leave a Comment

The trip went smoothly, and now I have my birds! The male is on the perch and the female on the side.(You tell them apart by the red feather on the male’s chest, and the female’s more streamlined appearance.) The female says some words, including hi, hello, watcha do’in, come here, uh-oh, whoops, and meow, along with an assortment of beeps and whistles. Uh-oh and whoops are even on cue, such as when she drops a seed to the floor of the cage! I want to go look at them all the time, but I am forcing myself to spend only short times in their room so they can be comfortable enough to breed for me.

african-greys1

African Greys

1 Comment

In the last week of December I sold my last baby sun conure. I was both sad and excited to see him go, since now that I no longer have any baby suns, I can now get into breeding a larger kind of bird. Tomorrow Dad, Maria, Landon, and I are going to Minneapolis to pick up a breeding pair of African Greys, the best talking parrot breed of all.  I’m chomping at the bit to leave, and I’m going to have a hard time sleeping tonight from excitement.

If You Give A Baby a Cookie. . .

1 Comment

If you give a baby a gingerbread cookie, he will ask for another one.

If you give him another cookie, he will hand it to you and pull you over to the nearest chair to sit and eat it with him.

If you sit next to him and begin to eat your cookie, you will become thirsty and want a cup of tea.

If you get yourself a cup of tea, the baby will see the tea cup and then promptly tell you in sign language he wants a drink. By the time the baby has finished with his drink, your tea will be done, and you will bring it over to the table and dip your cookie into it.

If you dip your cookie into your tea, the baby will want to copy you with his own cookie, and say tea in sign language.

If you let the baby climb on your lap and dip his cookie into your tea, he will then try to take a sip of your tea, but you warn him it is too hot.

If the baby is told the tea is too hot, he will bring you a spoon so that you may give him a small spoonful of tea in the spoon after blowing on it. He will want more and more spoonfuls of tea, until you begin to get frustrated that you can’t even have a cup of tea in peace.

But then the baby will look up at you and give a beautiful smile, and you will melt and let him take as many spoons of tea as he wants.