here's what we've been doing lately

READING:

madeline and gretchen took a break from "princessing" to read.  i love madeline's new reading abilities!  it makes it easier to overlook her being so engrossed in a book that she 'doesn't hear me'.  (and there's a chance she gets that trait from me...)

PLAYING AIR GUITAR:

don't ask me how he learned this.  but it is pretty cute.  pace loves music.  really loves it.  he dances and sings and plays the guitar any time he hears any sort of music.  
WRITING THE FAMILY GAZETTE:

liesel and gwyneth thought of this all by themselves and snuck it onto the table for me to find.  it was a white board with different 'articles' about our family on it.  there was a 'guess who' section, a 'healthy eating' spot, some 'fashion advice', and other miscellaneous items and announcements.  it was really cute and very clever, i thought.  it's fun to have kids that are getting older!


LEARNING HOW TO RIDE WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS:

on saturday i decided it was time for gretchy to be done with training wheels.  loren took them off, and i prepared myself for much tears (gretchen's) and gnashing of teeth (mine).  i was spared both, however--she learned how to ride without help in less than 5 minutes.  no tears, no falling, no drama.  yeah for gretchen!  liesel and gwyneth were very upset when they said they'd learned how to ride just as quickly and i had to remind them that there had been quite a bit of drama involved with them learning how to ride a bike.  they are too much like me, i'm afraid.  they got another chance to prove their skills, however, when we bought them new BIG bikes last night.  they handled themselves much better than when they were 7.  

SPOTTING THE BURROWING OWL:

i was driving gretchen to preschool today and saw, in this field right by her school, a little tiny owl!  it was crazy.  at first i thought it was just a funny little bird, but then i remembered this book the girls and i had just read (carl hiaasen's 'hoot'--a very good read, i might add) about this endangered owl in florida, and so i took a closer look, and saw that it was, indeed, an owl.  then i saw this sign in the field that said "no trespassing:  home of the burrowing owl".  anyway, it was quite exciting, and fun that we'd just read the book.  and crazy that i've driven that road twice a day since we've moved here, and i've never seen the owls or the signs.  must have my mind on other things!  actually, it's probably because i'm showing pace the cows and horses in the field across the road.  on the way home from preschool today, we saw an iguana in the grass.  as long as the alligators stay put...

celebrities from gwyneth's point of view

we've had celebrities on the brain lately (due to our close encounter with one at disneyworld).  this has made for some interesting discussions between me and my children.  i guess i may have done too good of a job at persuading them that they do not want to become 'stars' in the hollywood sense of things.  this is what gwyneth said tonight:  "i bet that the number of famous girls that get married to someone who is normal and nice and not famous and loves them for true love and not for being rich is exactly one."  i have to say she's probably right.

new recipe blog

www.greenereating.com


so, my sisters and i (and my mom) just started a blog with some of the recipes that we use. it's been really fun for everybody to share their recipes. i've cooked dinner more in the last couple of weeks than i have in a long time, which i'm sure my family has appreciated. feel free to check it out if you want to catch a little glimpse of how we weirdo vegans eat! it does have the donut recipe on it that some of you asked me for, if that makes it more tempting to take a look!

pace in his groovy clothes

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because i'm supposed to be mopping the floor i'll do one more post

i am stalling. it takes forever to mop my floor. all the floors in my house are tile or wood except the playroom, which has carpet. anyway................
so, i thought this would be the perfect time to see if any of you want to do a 5 week challenge to lose 5 pounds with me?! i'm not saying you need to--i'm just trying to get myself motivated to do something about the way the numbers have been creeping up on my scale. maybe if i put it out there that i have this goal, i will actually do something about it? maybe? it's worth a shot at least. i should be like ellie's family and say that i'll pay you all if i don't lose the 5 pounds. but then i might go broke, so i guess i'd better not!
okay, enough rambling. off to do the floor. and my yoga. and not eat any cookies on the way.

unusual sightings at disneyworld--guess who?

so, i was getting off the whinnie the pooh ride at disneyworld, and there was a girl standing there waiting to get in my car, and i thought "wow, those sunglasses really make her look like britney spears". then i took another look, and i was like "oh my goodness. it is britney spears". so, then i didn't want to show that i knew it was her, so i just acted like nothing was unusual and walked by her. loren missed the whole thing, but luckily (?) we were still standing outside the ride talking about how crazy it was, when she got off the whinnie the pooh ride, so we got another chance to see her (yeah?). in fact, we walked with her little entourage the whole way to the small world ride. loren wanted to get on the boat before them so he could casually say "oops, we did it again", but she was more privileged than us and got to go straight to the front of the line. i still managed to sneakily snap a few pictures of her. i stopped when one of the body guards turned around and gave me a 'look'. anyway, it was kind of a funny thing to have been less than a foot away from somebody so (in)famous. liesel and gwyneth's comment on the whole thing: "too bad we don't like her, huh." (and, a disclaimer here: i have no idea how to spell whinnie the pooh or britney spears, and it's not worth the time to look it up).

pace and the birds

we watched a bird show at disneyworld that had real birds flying all over the place landing on their trainers' hands, arms, shoulders, etc. pace absolutely loved it, and spent the rest of the time at the animal kingdom trying to hold a bird. he would hold out his arms and say "hold it, bird", and when that didn't work, he'd look at me and say "help. pace hold bird." it was so cute we might need to acquire a bird somehow.

disneyworld

we went to diseyworld for two days this week to celebrate liesel and gwyneth's birthday (and the free disney passes that came along with it), and to use the passes that loren's brother had gotten for us for christmas. we had the best time ever! since the passes were all free, we splurged on a great hotel suite that was a lot of fun, too. we did the magic kingdom the first day, and then went to the animal kingdom on the second day. liesel and gwyneth were brave enough to try space mountain with me (they didn't like it), but the rest of the time we went on the low-key rides, which suited everybody just fine!

some new "cutenesses" from the kids

gwyneth: "if we were regular people, we'd have a bowl of m&m's on our coffee table."
gretchy: "mom, so, is that how you're doing your hair today? it's not so beautiful"
gwyneth: "i've decided our pool isn't really for swimming laps. it's more for moms who want to lay out on those big float things."
madeline: "my teacher doesn't care if we raise our hands. i know--i tried it out once myself."
liesel: "mom, just tell me to go to bed." me: "go to bed" liesel: "no, like say all the usual stuff." me: "okay, time for bed--get in
pj's, wash your face, brush your teeth." liesel: "thank you!"