snow, sweets, and the countdown

When you have snow in Seattle, everything changes! We have been mostly house bound for about a week and a half (go ahead and laugh, all you folks in Colorado). Thus, I have a spotless and completely organized house, and we are a semester ahead with school. Oh wait, no, actually our house is in its normal busy disarray, and we have done little "school" as the kids have been playing with snow every day all day, and, because I stocked up at Costco and have a lot of sugar, flour, and chocolate, we have an abundance of sweets! Just felt the need to bake my little heart out- warmed the house a little, too. Anyway... Kids and I had fun doing these cookies for days, whenever they weren't outside... Then I realized that after 8 days in the kitchen I was becoming a little grouchy... Do you see? Anyway, I went for a beautiful night-walk by myself, and the next day got outside and made some snowmen with the kids. Great times!The kids made these two by themselves.

Isn't this guy great? He's like the Grinch of snowmen. As Naomi likes to sing, "I wouldn't touch him with a- 36 and a half inch pole!" (Eva- "39 and a half foot- Naomi! Foot pole!")

Our little family on the deck. If you're sitting on the couch inside, you can see them standing cheerily behind the Christmas tree- I love it!

Dad's old hat, "Ski Cap." Love that too.

Little Rasta baby.

The Mama.

The Vanimal, sporting a cool flat-top
As if there wasn't enough snow in our yard... we had to move on.

Feeling better! Christmas? Bring it on. We can't wait! As the girls say, "Merry Christmas Eve Eve!"

endangered species, please- with butter and honey

Monday morning- Josiah was thinking as he was stirring eggs and milk together for waffles...

Josiah: "Mom, what if waffles became extinct? Oh wait, waffles couldn't be extinct, because they couldn't be all dead.... Oh wait, they could, because they have eggs, and eggs are chickens, and chickens could be all dead..."

Me: "So what's your conclusion?"

Josiah: "What's a conclusion?"

Me: "A conclusion is the decision you make after thinking about something, and considering all the information- like a final thought."

Josiah: "Oh. My conclusion is... I'm hungry for some waffles."

The Camel and The Wise Man

Once upon a time there were two children who decided to play at wise man and camel. The wise man decided, of course, that he should ride upon the camel. The wise man was called a wise man, but really he was a little silly. He was also rather heavy; heavier even than the camel; and prone towards camel strangulation.

Now the camel, though called a camel, was more clever than most of her species. She was also rather a lightweight camel, and prone towards disliking strangulation and /or work. After a few minutes of being ridden down the wooden path by the heavy, silly wise man, she asked that he dismount so that she could rest. Down went the silly wise man, up went the camel- sneak! onto his back. "Giddy up, wise man!" called the camel. "Here we go! Faster, now!"

And off they rode- no where near Bethlehem- camel atop, and wise man none the wiser.

The End.

fa la la la la

Here is the run-down on all the musical happenings of the weekend so far. Tis the Christmas season- and the girls have become something like professional musicians- in high demand right now. It has been a whirlwind of fun for them.

Eva and Naomi are in our church's Children's Christmas Choir. They have been practicing for months, and have learned songs for the Christmas Cantata and also a Christmas musical. Last night was the first cantata performance, and the girls got all dressed up and looked lovely, so I had to take their pictures in front of the tree before we went out into the freezing rain.

Below, Eva and Naomi at Eva's piano recital today. The girls love to play duets and Eva really wanted to play on what she called the "white chocolate" piano.

Eva and her piano teacher, Miss Heather. Eva was thrilled to see that Miss Heather was wearing the scarf she had knit her as a Christmas gift! It was lovely to see Eva's face light up when she walked in and saw her teacher...

The piano behind them, which the students played for the recital, is a Steinway Concert D- the same piano used in almost all concert halls around the world. It is nine feet long, and sells for $250,000- can you imagine?

Eva practices constantly, and did very well with her two pieces. They sounded sure and heartfelt. During one piece I heard the lady behind me say to her son, "See how she looks at the notes and not her hands?" She also tapped me on the shoulder afterwards and said, "We'll look for her at Carnegie Hall!" So later I told Eva what the lady said about looking at the notes, and she said, "Oh, no I don't look at the notes- I read the words! And then I watch the inside of the piano work."

I will have to admit, though it's a testament to my less than perfect character, that watching about twenty kids whom I don't know play beginning piano pieces is basically painful, no matter how comfy the chairs. I watched in horror as a mom in front of me recorded the entire recital- not just her own kid! She must either be the nicest person alive or she is a secret agent taking the tapes to Guantanamo to torture foreign prisoners into giving up their deepest secrets. No offense to any one sweet child in particular, it just got very long!! I'm going to lobby for breaking the recitals down to groups of say, three students each. That would be perfect.

Jason decided to surprise the kids and take them out to Red Robin for lunch, as a celebration of Eva's hard work and their musical endeavors. (This is what he said, but I have a sad suspicion he was doing anything to delay eating the left overs of the wonderful quinoa/sweet potato/ red pepper/ spinach soup I made last night. To me, it was one of my best inventions ever. The only displeasure in eating it was looking up over my bowl at four pairs of mournful eyes... If anyone is hungry for something delicious and nutritious, come on over and do my fam a favor!) So we didn't tell the kids where we were going, just that we weren't going home. We hammed it up and said we were going somewhere where they would be bored. Actually, bored, hungry, itchy, tired... very uncomfortable. We pretended to be deciding between Home Depot, Costco... Naomi was sighing and glaring from her seat, when Eva chimed in, "Hey, I've know you guys for almost nine years now. Don't ya think I know how you work? You're not doin' anything like that! Don't worry about it kids." She's so got our number.

Below, some poor photos of the girls singing in tonight's performance of "There is Peace in the World Tonight." They sounded great- the whole choir was impressive.

Mom and Dad came to watch too, which made Josiah very excited; you can see him snuggling Grammy below. Sarena you will be pleased and surprised to see him wearing the dashing cap and jacket you got him for Christmas in 2006. Remember how when he opened it he threw it on the ground, said "yuck" and burst into tears? What, you've repressed that memory of my son's horrid ungratefulness? Oh, thank you. Well, two years later, he's had some time to reconsider, (and to grow) and he actually, unbelievably, likes it. He got so many compliments on his looks tonight- mostly from senior ladies. I think he's feeling a bit smug.

After the musical we stopped by a house near ours that has millions of lights timed to Christmas music on 98.5 FM. It was actually incredible- like a Christmas laser show! The kids loved it. Josiah said, "This isn't even cool. This is AWESOME."

When we got home, there was quite a bit of snow sticking. The kids started eating it like crazy when they got on the deck. Don't know what they're thinking! I reminded them of all we've learned about weather lately, and evaporation to precipitation, etc. Naomi concluded that they must of just eaten goose poop from Shadow Lake, in a new form. She didn't seem too worried though. I'm sure they'll do it all again tomorrow.

a lot of thanksgiving

So I've finally put together all my best pictures from our Thanksgiving in Chimicum, and summarized the weekend. Now that Thanksgiving is totally over and it's all about Christmas. And I didn't even start on the Sunday Thanksgiving at my parents' house... (Didn't bring the camera there, though- Andrea's blog will have to cover it!). Oh well- I'll be behind on Christmas too, I'm sure. So here they are...

Lydia helping Flavia put together a delicious, as always, Thanksgiving meal! The girls are always happy to see each other- lots to talk about!

Lydia's boyfriend Trevor, watching football with the guys. No, he doesn't have antlers. Doesn't it look that way though? Cool horns, Trevor!

Thea teaching Josiah to use the voice-recording parrot. Thanks, Thea! :)

Thea brought craft supplies so Sol could teach the kids to make paper pumpkins for the table- a good way to pass some time, and it turned out very cute. They made the paper flowers too. Grandmom brought the carefully pressed Maple leaves from her tree in Canada.

A friend brought over a few big bags of delicious clams. Aaron cooked them up, and the kids eagerly dug in. All but Josiah- but do you see that he's thinking about it? If you know anything about his taste, it's shocking that he would even consider eating the clams. Maybe it was the other kids' enthusiasm, but he actually decided to try one! He was pretty wary, but once he got it down, he decided it wasn't that bad, and had two more! Unbelievable.

Sol and Josiah love to play around the property together... They stomp through the woods, play hide and seek, watch the chickens... On Thanksgiving Day they decided they wanted to go with the big guys to shoot the guns down in the field. (I just had to go to, of course). The dad's gave them their lessons, and they each took a turn shooting (with uncle's help). Josiah even hit his target once. I thought they'd want to do it several times, but after the first time, all they wanted to do was pick up everyone's bullet casings. They had quite a collection of shiny treasures jangling in their pockets. Quote of the day from Aaron- "There's nothing like firing off a few rounds of ammunition to say Happy Thanksgiving!"(If you read this tell me if I got that wrong!)

Sol, giving one of his heartfelt soliloquies to the old empty chicken coop.

Sol and Siah giving me their "tough guy" faces.



After all that running around, they fell sound asleep together on Grandma's bed.

Here is grandmom (on a stool, she's not that tall) with some long-time Heineman family friends, the Reinertsens- Dad, Rick in the middle, son Sam on the left and son-in-law Mark on the right. We got a call at the house the day after Thanksgiving that they were being airlifted to the hospital after their crabbing boat capsized and they spent over an hour floating in very chilly saltwater... Thankfully they were spotting by someone up high on land who called the coast guard, and after a few hours of treatment in the hospital were released to go home, unharmed. We were all so grateful for their rescue, we had to get together the next day for another Thanksgiving- with something very real to be thankful for! Not that we shouldn't be, or are not, thankful for food, but with the abundance that we've become all too accustomed to, I think it's hard to keep in mind that food equals survival like the pilgrims did, wouldn't you think? Most of us seem more worried about separating ourselves from food. Anyway, in this, second Thanksgiving, we were very thankful to have our friends there with us! We were also thankful that they brought over the crab they'd been after. It was so good.

A pleasure indeed to have Grandmom with us- she had to get up a 4am to catch the ferry, just to spend time with us! I think she is a top notch great-grandmother.

Here are some guys we hired to work on stuff while we ate a bunch of turkey. In lieu of payment, we fed them eventually. They were quite grateful. A good time was had by all.

holiday preparations- one way or another

What do you do if you are six years old, and you know that Christmas is coming, and your aunties have decorated, but all your mom wants to do is work on baking for Thanksgiving? You recruit your little brother, fill him in on the mission, haul out all the paste, paper, tape, and crayons, move chairs around and just hang stuff up on your own- that's what you do!

Naomi's wreath

A pop-up Christmas scene, by Naomi

A snowball, taped to the pantry by Josiah. Bet you never knew wadded up copy paper could be so festive! My camera just doesn't do it justice.

Naomi is so excited for Christmas- probably more so than others... She heard about the activity of Christmas Carolling- going door to door singing!- from Uncle Matt and Aunt Dani, and found it fascinating. In fact, the other day we were eating breakfast, and she was trying to convince me to throw off other plans for the day so that we could just Christmas carol around the neighborhood. On a Monday morning. I had all sorts of excuses, of course, like that we didn't have enough people, and that they didn't know many songs, etc., but none were holding water. She had comebacks. But when I told her that we couldn't carol no matter what because we had to run to Costco to pick up more Christmas lights, she was about to accept defeat... "Oh, man. There aren't any doors there to carol." But then- "Oooh!! I know! We can just go in the bathroom and knock on the little stalls and sing to the ladies in there! Yes!" Here is a girl who knows how to overcome obstacles!

This year I told each of the kids they could choose a dessert to make for Thanksgiving in Chimicum. They really enjoyed selecting and making the desserts, and the positive feedback they got later. It would have been a little overwhelming had Naomi not chosen to make Jello-Jigglers- no problem!

Naomi's Jigglers in progress

She decided to use no less than 10 cookie cutters to make them into shapes such as the tea-pot above, tulips, snowflakes, and so on. Why limit Thanksgiving to turkeys?!

First few Jigglers completed.

Eva chose to make Butterscotch Pecan Perfection Pie. We are not experienced pie crust makers, so had to follow the recipe carefully. Also, we did not want to use Crisco and used only butter, which I read makes it harder, so we had low hopes but were pleasantly surprised, and not too humble about the success of the crust! I guess it's not that hard.

Anyway- so the last step of the recipe said to shape the crust into a disc to refrigerate. As she read it, Eva asked me, "So a disc... do I make the hole in the middle or what? That's weird that she wants it in the shape of a CD..." I had to explain that the word "disc" has been around for ages before the invention of apparently the only thing she knows as a disc! Below- her pie, which we over did a little- my fault. Still tasted nice.

Josiah chose to make Chocolate Satin Pie- fortunately quite simple. He loved the whole cooking process, especially stirring at the stove.

After I took these pictures he said, "OK, now stop taking pictures so I can really focus!"

The finished product, before refrigeration. Looks a little unappealing, but actually tasted really good. I think next time we'll chose a healthier category for all this food prep, but of course this was fun.

So I'll have to do another post about the actual Thanksgiving celebrations, because I have too many great pictures to share- this post would be so big. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday.