Bizarre fruits and things

 Get ready for a photo dump of pictures from my camera.  I'm so used to my mom's camera, I rarely take pictures on my own camera.  This is what I've found:

This was from when we went to The Tanglewood.  This is Dottie and a bee colony.

The wind was blowing us away!

Grandma and the kids on a pretty bridge at the Tanglewood.

Did I mention my little man has joined baseball? There's a pretty intense game schedule, with 15 games in 6 weeks.  So far, he's had two games, but has yet to play in one.  The first game we were out of town, the second game was canceled today because of rain.  My little guy sure is adorable, even if he is one of the smaller and less experienced players.  We're working hard on teaching him the basics of the game.

Easter! This year, Jared and Tabitha joined us!  I was so excited they came, and so was everyone else!  We had an egg hunt Saturday morning.  As you can see, Ruby had her sass on. 

You're never too old to find eggs stuffed with candy hidden in bushes.

Hands on hips is a favorite pose of Rube.

There were a few meltdowns.  Don't feel too bad, she got more candy than anyone else. 

Did I mention Ruby LOVES dance class? She asks several times a day, "Mom, can I go to dance today?" She got to try on her costume for the performance the other day at class.  Let's hope I make it to the recital...it's 4 days before my due date.

Elliot is my grocery store buddy.  I take him to the store while Ruby naps and while Dottie...should be reading.  Instead of asking for a snack, he's been asking for the bizarre fruits the store has to offer.  We started off with pomegranate.  This week, he opted for a fruit called Kiwano Melon from Africa.

The outside is hard and spiky.

The inside is filled with seeds that are like cucumber seeds surrounded by a bright green gel. It kind of taste like a mix of cucumber and kiwi.  Interesting, but I can see why it's not flying off the shelves at the store.

And I don't know if I've posted this picture before, but all three kids cuddling? It's a must-post.

An Ill-Fated Trip

 I had some Southwest points that needed to be used by June. Since I am having a baby in June and the last trimester started at the end of March, I had to fly soon. We found out that Carrie and Lon were going to visit Emily for Lon's spring break from dental school, so perfect! A sister's reunion was planned.

When I say it was an ill-fated trip, it's not because the trip itself was terrible.  We were literally sick the entire week we were there.  Think of the Thanksgiving Barfarama plus babies. I won't go into too much detail, but it started with everyone getting the stomach virus, then everyone getting the real flu virus, despite many of us having flu shots. Oh well. At least we were miserable together. Misery loves company, right?

My mom is way better at taking pictures than me...or maybe because I know she has a camera, I neglect taking pictures, and then she posts them on FB. So again, here's the pitiful few pictures that are from my camera. I took a few on our last day there.

Dottie avoided the stomach flu, but got the real flu the day after we got back.  It probably didn't help any of us that we had an overnight flight and got to sleep at 3 am on our way back.

Ryan got both viruses. Elliot got the second virus. He started an antibiotic on Wednesday....yes, we've been fighting the sickness this long.

Pregnant bellies! Emily and I are due 10 days apart.  She's having a boy, and I'm having a girl. Isn't it interesting how two sisters can carry a baby so differently? It probably has something to do with Emily being 5 inches taller than me.

Last Saturday, in one of my semi-well moments (I am also now on an antibiotic for a sinus infection), we went with some ward friends to a maple farm to see how maple syrup is made. It was fascinating! So I made Dottie write a paper about it. This is one of the benefits of home schooling...I can make Dottie learn something even when she thinks she's having fun. 

Ruby holding her stick. The little bucket on the tree behind her is where the sap is collected, then boiled down to syrup later on. The man who did the tour was so nice.  He let the kids try some of the sap. I couldn't taste still at that point, but I heard it was slightly sweet, but nowhere near the sweetness of syrup.

Dottie waiting to go in the "Sugar Shack," where they boil down the sap to become syrup. It's extremely warm and moist in there, so no pictures of the inside.

Elliot eating maple cream, which I bought. So good! Further melted down syrup that's stirred until the syrup crystallizes into sugar.

Keeping with the theme of sugar, Dottie and Grandpa melted down sugar in the oven until it became carbonized for a science experiment. Here it is before melting. It's that small blob on the tin foil.

And here's the carbonized sugar, after about an hour of baking in the oven.

My son took these next few pictures. We did a conference store again for General Conference, our church's biannual broadcasted conference that lasts 8 hours.  We need many activities for the kids. So, during songs and breaks between sessions, the kids got to go to the "store" to spend their "conference bucks." This time, I got bigger buckets and made a $1 bucket, a $2 bucket, and a $5 bucket.  I added an incentive so they could earn more money.  Not only were they expected to hold still and stay occupied, they were expected to tell me one thing the speakers said, then write down what they said.  For each speaker they actually listened to, they earned an extra dollar.

This year, I made my own conference bucks. I couldn't find the online template I used before, so this is as good as my artistic abilities get.

Kids doing activity sheets during conference.  Even Ruby did  them, due to the peer pressure from Dottie and Elliot. We've got 4 more hours of conference today.  I'm proud of my kids for behaving so well and learning how to listen to the prophets' voices!

Wintertime....and the livin' is terrible

Well. This polar vortex or whatever it is is killing my spirit.  Every day, I check to see if there is a glimmer of hope on the 10 day forecast for zipcode 18848, and every day, I am greeted with temperatures 30 degrees or less for the next ten days. Oh Texas. I won't say I want to move back, but I sure could use a dose of 70 degree weather.  I miss being able to go outside so much.

Okay. Enough complaining. We had a part 2 of Cherry Berries.  Since I didn't get pictures the first time, here it is:

We went to a train museum in Scranton.  This is just one of the pictures.  The rest my mom put on FB. We are outside at the round house, where they would park all of the trains.

Dottie learned about The French and Indian War recently.  She made a model of the fort Washington set up, called Fort Pitt.  This later became Pittsburgh!

Then, we visited The Ithaca Sciencenter.  As usual at these kinds of places, Ruby went for the water.  Luckily, they drained this thing after a while.

Kids on the dinosaur.

Ruby pretending to be a turtle swimming.

Elliot and the turtle.  The stickers on his face are from a memory test he took from some Cornell students.  He got the stickers as  reward.

Seriously, Elliot could have squatted all day and watched this marble machine.

This was the infrared screen from the Sciencenter.  Notice the dark spots.  They show cold spots.  My nose was cold, so a little black, and Ruby was soaking wet from the water toys.  It kind of looks like she murdered someone or something.

Sorry this one is sideways. If someone went on the other side, your faces were mixed together.

My dad and Ruby making a carbon chain. Ruby just liked the foamy shapes.

Winter day playgroup. We made snowmen rice krispies.

Today, there was a Dr. Seuss event at Ben Franklin. I wish there were more stores like this.  It's like Hobby Lobby, but less busy and huge, and more charming.  Anyway, the kids made Cat in the Hat noses.

My kids always need to smell Yankee candles if they are available.

See the cuteness of this store? Child-sized shopping carts.  You know, so Ruby can make her own purchases.

Because it's Fast Sunday tomorrow, I made a huge meal today.  It took me two hours.  So I have to take a picture when I do hard things, right? Well, you know Ruby and helping. She was "cutting" the ham for the Potato, Ham, and Leek soup.

I'm terrible at taking nice pictures of food.  I remember as we are eating that I should maybe snap a photo.  I was trying to copy a dish my dad and I had at The Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca last weekend.  It had a quinoa salad, guacamole, and yummy chips.  This was the guacamole. It was really good.  I used a Barefoot Contessa recipe.

Ruby. I had to bribe her with pastries from the Flying Cow to eat her food. I' m an awesome mom.

This is the quinoa salad in this bowl, if you can see it.  It has quinoa, carrots, black beans, green onions, and a yummy lime dressing.

And finally, the Craig bread to go along with the Potato, Ham, and Leek soup. I guess I didn't get a good picture of that.  Well, maybe I'm obsessed with food since I can't go outdoors anymore. Maybe tomorrow will show a glimmer of hope for the 10 day forecast.