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November 15, 2007

Ethan's soup!

So we made Ethan's secret soup recipe the other night. I can't tell you all the details of the recipe, but it was REALLY GOOD! I think the excessive amount of garlic helped make it very flavorful. And Jeff's brainstorm to roast the pumpkin. And there were no golden beets so I got a rutabaga instead. And we blended it in the end, so it was this nice light orange color. Super tasty! Jeff, he of little faith, had been moaning all day that we were going to end up with vast quantities of soup we didn't like, and that there was no way Ethan would eat this soup. But he did, and he loved it! Of course, he didn't actually finish his bowl, but he ate a significant quantity. And Linna liked it too.

So his first invented recipe is quite a success. We'll see how dessert turns out!

Posted by ktingey at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2007

The virtues of a cardboard box

There's this cardboard box we've had for four years or so, that some of our dining room chairs came in. Shortly after we got it, I made it into a little house for Ethan - I cut a door, a window, and drew things on it, like some flowers. Jeff cut a little moon window and a star window too. He enjoyed that, and then it languished upstairs for a few years. About a year ago we brought it down again, and it became a spaceship, perfect for missions to Jupiter and Venus.

It's starting to get a little ragged, as it saw some use at Ethan's 5th birthday party, resulting in the window being torn off and the whole thing being slightly squished.

Linna enjoys going in there, too, as have Adrian, and Mika. The other day all the stuffed animals got shoved in through the window, a joint effort by Ethan and Linna.

Then yesterday, Ethan was reading one of Jeff's Calvin and Hobbes books while Kaya tried to get Linna to nap. As a result, he decided to turn the box into a transmogrifier. He cut out a blue arrow, asked me for help attaching it with a push-pin, and then wrote all the different options available: snake, Ethan, elephant, tiger, dinosaur, alien, lungfish, and bee.

Posted by ktingey at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2007

Ethan's secret recipes

Last night we had Sunday dinner at J.D.'s house. Mandy's aunt Tamar was in town and made a yummy potato-leek soup (which Ethan ate). And we brought cookies, Jeff's "secret recipe," which is a variation of the standard Nestle one.

After eating a cookie, Ethan, who had been quiet all night (probably because he'd been busy devouring his latest library books in one fell swoop) suddenly announced that he was going to make two of his own "secret recipes." One dessert, and one not dessert.

When we got home he got straight to work on the not dessert one, which turned out to be soup. At first he wanted it to have all the vegetables in the world, then just all the vegetables in Portland. After some discussion he decided to do autumn vegetables that could be found in Portland. So he wrote the whole thing out, carefully deciding how much of everything, such as 1/2 cup of onions, and 1 sunchoke.

Next, the dessert. I can't tell you all the details, since it is, after all, secret, but I can reveal that it has 10 cups of sugar in it. And a pound of chocolate. Then he decided he wanted to make a kind of Rice Krispie treats, only ones that he actually likes, instead of the usual kind. To that end, he added Rice Krispies to his ingredient list. And told us that he was going to count them individually in determining the quantity. Jeff and I just cracked up at that. So, his recipe has 10 cups of sugar... and 50 Rice Krispies.

Posted by ktingey at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

November 07, 2007

School

Ethan's generally been enjoying school a lot lately. He's still a homebody and would probably prefer to just stay at the house and play games all day, but still... since he finished many of the language materials near the beginning of this year, Jude (the head of the school) has been working with him to invent some new "purple boxes." They pick objects, put them in a box, and then he gets them out and spells them. Things like dinosaur, motorcycle... whatever they can find that seems fun to spell. He really likes that, and there will be other kids who might do them later as well.

Today's the last day of swimming lessons this time around - probably his last time in Penguin, as he's gotten quite good at back floats and front glides. He wants to wait a while before doing it again. This time was fun, though, because Linna had a class at the same time. Mostly Jeff went with her, and she's gotten really comfortable being in the water with him. In fact, she loves it.

Linna's been super cranky lately, and this morning she kept coming up to Ethan, grabbing a hunk of his hair, and pulling as hard as she could. She did it three separate times as I was trying to get everything ready (Jeff's out of town), and amazingly, Ethan didn't retaliate. He yelled, and he swiped a hand at her, but didn't actually hit or push her. Amazing control considering that more often lately, I've had to really watch him because he's prone to pushing her over if she knocks his blocks down or whatever.

Posted by ktingey at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)