Spring's Here, and It's Time for Dust Baths

Skateboarding Princess

She's a character.

A little cold for a campout update

They did it.  They slept out on the edge of the woods all night long in close-to-freezing temps. That's my girl!

A little cold for a campout....

Lee and Lila are camping out tonight.  It's supposed to be 33 degrees.  Hmm.....we'll see how this goes.

Fish Curry - who knew?

One thing about living in a small town (that is actually the biggest town around) is the lack of ethnic food.  We have a Chinese restaurant and another pan-Asian restaurant with ok sushi, but no Mexican, no Thai, and no Indian.  Sigh.  It has driven me to begin cooking more ethnic foods, which isn't a bad thing I suppose.

Tonight I pulled some cod from the freezer and my Madhur Jaffrey cookbook from the shelf.  I decided on a fish curry and rice noodles with brussel sprouts.  All those yummy spices were required: ginger, garlic, turmeric, brown mustard seeds, paprika, and curry leaves.  Oh, and dried red chiles, which I didn't have.  But no worries, I pulled some frozen chiles from last summer out of the freezer.  The recipe called for four dried red chiles, so I substituted two green chiles, thinking that would be safe.  It turned out they were habaneros.  Yowsa - it was hot.

So I told the girls that they didn't have to eat it,  but they both said they'd try it. They both ate several pieces of fish and some noodles.  No complaining, no forcing.  I was shocked!  Since we've completely stopped pressuring them to try things they've really widened their horizons.

I think I'll build a telescope

These are words I would never have said as a child.  It's one of those times when you ask yourself, "Where did this child come from?"  It must be Bridges' genes.

Clara's creation actually telescopes, with three separate moving sections.  I think it's pretty cool for a six-year-old.

Chicks 2013

They arrived, all nineteen of them, at the post office in a little tiny box that went "cheep, cheep".  The number nineteen is due to the fact that they threw in a free exotic for us.  That would be Andrew, the yellow guy below who is almost certainly a rooster.  He's pretty cute with feathers all over his feet.  We'll see what he turns out to be!

The girls are having a good time, although they're not spending nearly as much time with them as they did two years ago when we did this.  That being said, we did do some of schoolwork in the basement the first few days because they couldn't stand to be away from them.

Lee has taken on her role of Protector of Chicks, and acts as a proud mom.

This involves lots of scolding of Clara for being too rough, which explains the expression on Clara's face below.  "What, me?  Have I done something wrong?"