Breaking out...

Here it is...

Kinder in a Kapla

Sabine wanted to be built into a Kapla creation...so here she is...





The breaking out was pretty cool!

More Kapla

Sabine rearranged the dining room after we came home last night...the everything in the room went into the living room, and the 1,000 Kapla blocks came out...Along with friend Scott, a tower was born...






And died...

What a difference...

...a year makes.

March 26, 2008.


March 22, 2009.

Happy Spring, everyone!

No Knead Bread

Click on the title of this post for the recipe. It really is amazingly easy. The only trick is mixing the water, flour and yeast the night before you want the bread so it can rest for 12-20 hours...the other trick is having a nice heavy pot with a lid to bake it in...I use my large Pampered Chef stoneware bowl, but you could also use cast iron, or enameled cast iron.

This was the loaf I made for dinner with our neighbors on Friday night...yummmm...

I still LOOOOOVE the bread from Little T (right up the street from us), but this less expensive option does not make me feel deprived at all!

Reading nook

I was making lunch the other day and heard Sabine running back and forth, up and down the stairs. She said she was creating a surprise. She used the pillows from the guest room (under the pink blanket...she said we'll put them back in the guest room when people come to stay, don't worry) the ever-popular Chix Rule blanket made by our friend Theresa, some throw pillows from the couch and a $5 end table from Goodwill.

The window is at the mid-level-landing of the stairs...


The older book on top is a Webster Consolidated Encyclopedic Dictionary from 1950. It belonged to my grandparents. It has several pages of full color animals, plants, etc. Sabine's been enjoying it. Bret bought The Knowledge Book on one of his solo-job-hunting trips to Portland last year. Dave took him to the National Geographic Society's huge warehouse sale that only happens every couple of years...I can't wait to go to the next one!

A few quotes

Found these quotes here -- tried to send a comment to the blogger, asking for permission to post them on my blog (and crediting them) but message never would go through...so I hope it's OK that they're here! She also has some great posts on control, and having an abundance of art supplies...they also have a vintage Airstream...we may jut be kindred spirits!

Unless warped by cruelty or neglect, children are by nature not only loving and kind but serious and purposeful. — John Holt

Just about everything [very little children] do, they do as well as they can. Except when tired or hungry, or in the grip of passion, pain, or fear, they are moved to act almost entirely by curiosity, desire for mastery and competence, and pride in work well done. But the schools, and many adults outside of school, hardly ever recognize or honor such motives, can hardly even imagine that they exist. — John Holt

Ask children. Hear them. Teach children to ask the questions they want answers to. Believe that what a seven-year-old has to say is important. Because it is. Just ask. — Ann Marie Corgill, Of Primary Importance: What’s Essential in Teaching Young Writers

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. — Garrison Keillor