What we have been up to

Not much, that's for sure!

Anyway, a few weeks ago we went ice skating with our church small group. This is the first time we had been out with Reder, even though he skates all the time at school during gym (we are at his school rink here). At school they have you skate around pushing a bucket until you're a little more able and confident. Reder loves his bucket a little too much and when Jason went to help tie laces one day he observed that Reder looked ridiculous flailing about with his bucket, and was the only one in his class still using one. This day Jason made some progress with him about making him feel better going without.

Ruby's favorite thing was to sit on top of the bucket and have Daddy whiz her around the rink. It worked!

They are required to wear helmets at school while skating, and on Valentine's Day I forgot to send it with him, so he had to use one from the school. He said since it was Valentine's Day he chose a pink helmet with hearts all over it. He was thoroughly confused when kids in his class laughed and called him a "boy princess". Oh dear.

For Valentine's dinner we had the theme of "kid food we don't get to eat very often". What do you think that means? Hot dogs and chips, or course! I considered doing fancy seafood or something, buy why? I'd spend a lot of time and money and no one would eat it. This was a hit. We had apple crisp for dessert.

Speaking of food, per Mom's recommendation I made ratatouille for dinner last night. I didn't figure the kids would eat it but that's too bad. I left and went to a meeting but Jason said they ate every scrap on their plate. Reder asked "what did mommy put in this to make it so good?" and Jason would say "Ruby Ratatouille!" and she'd take a big bite. If you don't know what it is, it's a French dish that is essentially lots of veggies cooked in a lot of olive oil with thyme and basil. Delicious!

Reder is part of the WOW team at church (Wesley's outreach Wednesdays). It's a service group for elementary schoolers. Ruby is in WOW tots, which is pretty much just nursery care but we usually have them do some little thing to include them too (in my case it works to trick Ruby into thinking that Tots is as cool as WOW and therefore I don't have to fight her to get her to stay in the nursery). Anyway, each year we have a "Love to You" tea party to honor the older folks in our church. The kids seat the guests, take their coats, serve them tea and cookies, and sit and visit with them. It was really precious. Here they are all dressed up and ready to go!

Finally, a friend and her baby were over this weekend. My kids have never held a baby I think. They were all over her! She laughed and thought they were funny too. I think all 3 of them would have stayed like this for the afternoon if we would have let them. Reder wants to know when we get to have another baby but I said we aren't, we're getting chickens.

Speaking of chickens, my set-up is all ready to go and after school today we're heading over to Murdoch's to pick them up. Can't wait!