Sunday, October 4, 2009

"A dream that will need/All the love you can give..."

Lest anyone doubt the power of naming or the influence of language on perception, let this forever be known as the day when Katie discovered the joy of "pea ice cream." We were adding frozen peas to our stew, and I ate one frozen and told her it was "pea ice cream" and that I love frozen peas---whereupon Katie proceeded to eat about 1/4 cup of the peas herself:



Yummy pea ice cream! By the handful!


Mouth full of frozen peas! Eventually her Batman figurine started getting mischevious and stomping on her peas to the beat of The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music. She thought this was absolutely hilarious!


And speaking of Batman, he was very pleased with today's craft:

We were decorating for Halloween more in earnest this morning (we have autumnal decorations up, but today was the day for ghosts and spiders and so on), and we decided that we needed some bats. I made templates for the body and wings, and we cut them out, decorated them, and glued them on clothespins so that we could hook them around our family room and kitchen, like they are flying.

Katie really loved this. She loved drawing on them and putting on their eyes (she has some good dexterity with that). She chose all of the places to hook them: she wanted one on each lamp, one on the lace curtains to the french doors, one on the valance above our cozy chair and one over new the fireplace. She would squeal with delight each time we attached one.


Here's another one, flying in toward our cozy chair.



We spent a long time outside today, enjoying the smell of autumn in the air. It was a bit chilly, but that didn't stop Katie from her favorite pasttime: watering with her bucket. We also played with Tuna Cat and I got caught up on my Gratitude Journal.


After lunch and a change of clothes, we commenced work on dinner: chicken stew with homemade biscuits on top. It really was more of a chicken pot pie recipe topped with biscuits instead of pate brisee. I just loved simmering onions and chicken stock and heavy cream on a chilly day---the whole dinner was quite cozy. Katie helped so much: she helped pour in the chicken stock, unwrapped the chicken boullion, unwrapped the butter and put it in the pot, handed me the carrots to peel, cut out all of the biscuits with the cutter after I rolled the dough, etc, etc. She loves to help and almost anytime I go in the kitchen these days, she will immediately offer, "I want to help. I want to help." We sang along to The Sound of Music and also made up our own songs. Katie initiated "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and can sing the whole thing by herself. We spent a good couple of hours singing and cooking---and that was just dinner. We also made Sunday breakfast (pancakes) together this morning while singing along to our Music Together CD. She mixed all of the ingredients and proudly told her daddy all about it when we sat down together.



A cozy fall meal. I have sooooooooooooo many things I need to make now that it is October.
This week is another crazy busy fun week. I need to make time to plants pots and beds of mums (an autumn tradition for me), we have Amanda's birthday, my formal speech, our Snow White pre-order comes in, Toddler Time, music class, etc. etc.
I LOVE FALL!!!!!!