chicken and dumplings

I made chicken and dumplings for dinner tonight. You know, from scratch, all very delicious.

Mary, however, initially wasn’t impressed.

Mary: [poking a dumpling] What IS it?

Me: It’s a dumpling!

Mary: No, it isn’t.

Me: It is. Seriously.

Mary: Dumplings have things in the middle!

Me: Not always.

Mary: They do! They have–like–meat. And green onions. And there’s a sauce to dip them in and they’re all noodly outside.

Me: That’s one kind of dumpling. This is another kind.

Mary: [tasting it] Well, I don’t get it. This is just…the outside part. Lots and lots of the outside part.

Me: Well, you tasted it; you don’t have to eat anymore now.

Mary: Actually, can I have a lot of them? [holds out plate]

overheard

Wesley: I played enough Star Wars–I’m going inside now.

Mary: What! We’re not done!

Wesley: I’m cold.

Mary: Fine. You go ahead. I’ll just stay here and support the Rebels ALL BY MYSELF.

Wesley: Okay. I think I will drink some milk while you support the Rebels. [goes inside]

from Mary’s school journal

Mary’s class has “journal time” every morning–each student writes a journal entry in his/her composition book. Recently, they’ve been practicing writing letters, so the teacher puts a little letter on the projector, and the students write back.

Tuesday’s installment (which I happened to see because of a parent-teacher organization meeting) was the following letter from the teacher:

“Dear Students,

Where is the snow? Can you write a poem about snow? Write back!

[heart picture], Ms. M”

 

Mary’s response said,

“January 18, 2012

Dear Ms. M,

The snow is in the sky. Yes, I can.

[heart picture], Mary”

outdoorsy pics

We’ve had a few nice days recently (although yesterday was still cold!), so I’ve gotten a few photos of the kids outside, running and playing and generally being wholesome.

Wesley, wearing Batman cape, Spiderman shoes, and Star Wars shirt (he is everyone’s target market):

Mary in her princess crown–they have basically been wearing the crown and cape since Halloween (not always on the same kid–sometimes they trade):

Yesterday, we went to the park. Wesley got very brave on the climbing things:

And, for that matter, so did Mary.

Mary is looking very adult.

Her ears got cold.

Wesley asked me to come through and play.

He wandered around, looking at squirrels.

Mary was sad when it was almost time to leave.

She shouted, “Wesley! There are monsters! RUN!”

Mary’s favorite thing to take pictures of

So, as you may recall, Mary got a camera for Christmas. So far, her favorite subject–bar none–is her “yucky pumpkins” from Halloween.

We put them in the garden so that the kids could watch them break down into compost. (We have a compost heap, but we figured they’d actually be able to watch the process with the pumpkins.) Mary has taken pictures of them off and on and now she’s delighted that they’re “almost dirt!”

November 19: “Ooh, they’re really getting yucky.”

November 23: “These look almost the same. But a little more yucky.”

 

November 26: “They’re squishing down like balloons with the air out!”

December 1: “Parts of these aren’t orange anymore.”

 

January 12: “They’re ALMOST DIRT!”

 

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that Mom knew Mary was putting her Christmas gift to good use–ha. She has taken other photos too, but these are her favorites.

merry Christmas to me!

So, David and Nina gave me this lovely yarn for Christmas:

It’s from a local farm in Colorado.

I decided that its fate was to become a pair of fingerless gloves, so I dug up the Fetching pattern from Knitty.

I finished the second one last night. I had to rip back the last rows of the first one, because I decided I still don’t like that picot bind-off; it looks sloppy–at least when I do it–and it makes the glove too loose around the knuckle. I did a few extra rows instead, with a decrease to make them tighter around the knuckles, and I like them a lot! Mary obligingly took a modeling photo:

he’s totally asleep

Wesley’s in bed, talking to himself. 

He just said, “I am a snake! I am so funny! Wocka wocka wocka!” 

I think buying the Muppet movie soundtrack was probably a mistake.

good grief!

This evening, I decided it was time to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Conor had pointed out to me that it was available on Hulu, so I went to the trouble of hooking up the laptop to the TV and everything to watch it.

It’s suddenly clear to me how little TV we watch. (We watch a lot of movies, and for that matter TV shows on DVD–but very little TV that’s actually on TV, if that makes sense.) Every time there was a commercial, the kids freaked out. “Mama, it’s BROKEN! Who is that? Why is that guy standing on a table? WHAT HAPPENED TO SNOOPY?”

They were also pretty alarmed by how mean the other kids are to Charlie Brown. I had forgotten that somehow. Every time one of them used the word “stupid,” there was a chorus of “That’s so mean! That’s a very mean word!” from the kids.

I’m not sure the viewing was quite a success. ha.

protesting too much

I just went upstairs to see what Wesley was doing that was making a thumping noise.

When I opened the door, he was standing at the end of the crib with a plastic bird in one hand and a spoon in the other. He said urgently, “Mama, I didn’t!”

Mary’s Christmas present

My parents gave Mary her own camera for Christmas–so exciting. Here’s a selection of the first pictures she took.

Grandma and Mama:

The last flower of the year:

Squishy pumpkins (ew):

Grandma and Mama (Mary’s vantage point makes us look very tall!):