Wednesday, January 30, 2008

January Twuonleyeth

Katie's 5th birthday party was Jan 20th and a bouncy time was had by all (well almost all). We decadently rented a bouncy-house for the day, for $90 bucks. Not bad considering we had it from 8:30 AM till almost 7 PM, though of course bouncing was not constant during that period. I'd say we got our money's worth: 13 girls, 2 boys, and at least 5 adults had a go in it, there were no major injuries, Disney princeceses adorned said abode (Katie can rattle them off, but all I know is Cinderella & Snow White (who I never realized was a princess)).


The only major trauma was Momma accidentally serving the first piece of cake to a different Katie (Katie C., not Katie A.),The wrong Katie gets the first piece and some minor ouchies which, when it comes down to it, are an essential part of childhood.

While the party had a princess theme (which, on one level I don't relate to, but on another can't object to) we didn't overdo it. Or I should say I didn't. Momma E. made a smashing good princess cake inspired by the princess cookbook that Grandma N. got for Katie last year, and this post will close with an homage to the birthday girl and her adored baked good:

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers

This book is one that Katie and her friend Julia have built an entire fantasy play world around. I love the description by the author of the article on "100 books every child should read":

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, by Beatrix Potter(Frederick Warne, £4.99)Tom Kitten learnt nothing from his parents about the consequences of curiosity. Abducted by a psychotic rat, he comes within a whisker of being turned into a pudding. Nightmares guaranteed.
In fact, Katie & Julia have never lost a wink of sleep over this story.  Katie is Annamaria, and Julia is Samuel Whiskers, and sometimes, if she's lucky, little Eri gets to be Tom Kitten, and J & K turn her into a "rolly polly pudding".  More often than not though, it is just J & K running around gathering food for their rat dinner, and finding sticks that will be useful in constructing infinite rat houses.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Our Katie


Just received from Katie's teacher. That's our girl on "hat day" with a princess crown that she made at a classmate's birthday party last year. It's held up amazingly well. Last night as I was putting Katie and Erin to bed I was reading them books. Max's Valentine to be precise. Erin wanted it "again, again" (a very common request about anything that is enjoyable) and Katie didn't. "Why not?" asked Erin. "Because it's my body" replied Katie. OK then!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Super helium debunked

So I discovered that it's not the helium, but the balloons that make the balloons stay up for a month. They've got an extra non-porous plastic lining which keeps the helium in the balloon. Mystery solved, there's no such thing as "super-helium"--or is there?

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Christmas Cookies

So far I'm a failure at capturing events in realtime. So here's installment 1 of a semi-irregular report on what we did over the holidays.

Christmas Cookies

In honor of MeanLouise who says she was cookie deprived this holiday season, here's a view of one of several Christmas cookie events in our neck of the woods.



Naked chef, watch out!

BTW, these Gingerbread bears were made from a kit from Crayola.

Thank you Grandma, they were a hit--at least the making of them. Neither child seemed to actually enjoy eating them. The cat enjoyed playing cat-hockey with the gum-drops that were deposited on the floor however, and I believe Santa had one too.

First achievement of 2008

I received this exciting call while I was out to lunch:

Katie zips her coat, alllllll by herself!