The girl did the Gospel reading at assembly on Monday. It has taken me a few days to get it up. She spoke in front of a total of 600 students, teachers and parents. As she is in the choir, she also gets on the podium every couple of weeks to lead the morning's patriotic song. I know I wouldn't have been able to do that at 7, or even now.

This was her Gospel reading.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke. Jesus said "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine all over the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon." When they hear this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

The Gospel of the Lord

Boy makes national TV

NHL games are broadcast nationally, so I'm not exaggerating. The boys godfather got us some good hockey seats. After the game we went home and looked for ourselves on Tivo... and there he is giving the Sharks high fives.

and now some video I finally got around to uploading...

The Kissing Flowers and Other Cute Things...

The other day, the boy asked what type of flowers these are. The girl told him tulips, to which he replied "Oh, they are kissing flowers" (tulips-two lips). Around our house, they are now known as kissing flowers.

That little exchange got me thinking about how much I will miss having little ones in the house, because of all of the cute things they say and do.

A couple of weeks ago the girl was talking about platypuses. The anomaly of the platypus and echidna are very interesting to my logical little girl. You would be surprised how often we discuss them and their habits. From platypuses we moved onto marsupials (another topic of interest). When she mentioned marsupials, the boy say's "I know about marsupials, we learned about them in science class last week. The babies are born tiny, like the size of my finger. They crawl down the mommy to get to her couch. They stay on the couch until they get to big for it and then they come out." At this point, the girl and I looked at each other and smiled. She then said "He thinks the teacher said couch instead of pouch, isn't that cute". I didn't have the heart to correct him. I kind of like the image of marsupial mom's having little couches.

Peach blossoms

For the relatives in VA.

Happy Fat Tuesday

In honor of Fat (Shrove) Tuesday and Mardi Gras, I made a king's cake for dessert. I don't know if you can see it, but the girl decorated the top in gold, green and purple. A king's cake is more of a sweet bread than an actual cake.

This is our last sweet dessert for awhile. We are giving up desserts for lent. I was thinking of giving up chocolate. I gave it up once for lent, before I had kids. I wouldn't do that to my family, I might get a tiny bit cranky going without it for 40 days!

Here is the dough during the first rise. It rises twice. Since it was a cold and damp day, I ended up forcing it to rise in the oven. Luckily, I started the process early in the afternoon, because the cake wasn't done until after dinner.

Authors Night

Here is a picture of the girl getting her book signed by the author. The kids school has a great program where local childrens authors and illustrators visit. They talk about where their ideas come from and if they are an illustrator, they talk about the process of creating the artwork for the book. They then read one of their books to the kids and parents. It was a fun, if late night. It was late, as each author took the time to talk to and customize the book signature to the child who brought up one of the author's books.

The author signing the girl's book knew what her name meant and customized an illustration for her along with a signature. The boy also got a book signed. The author of his book also did an illustration and signature just for him. He was so excited, he slept with the book that night. I love programs like this that foster reading!