Good Morning To You, Spam-I-Am

The little boy’s latest cinematographic endeavor…

please pardon the shaky camera work – he is only eight, after all!

I love that he pauses in the middle to play a few notes on the piano.  🙂

♥

And…

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♥

Spring break starts right now!

Happy Friday!

♥

P.S.  Julia continues to bloom her little rosy heart out.

Julia’s neighbor, Charisma, is fiery orange.  The detail of the blossom is blurry in the picture, but you get the idea.

They’re perfect pals.

♥♥

Twinkle Twinkle, Tiramisu, and Pretty Flowers

Eight-Year-Old Cinema

The little boy just took the video camera from me and went off to make his own movie.

He has been doing this a lot lately.

It mostly just involves filming the walls up close and singing in the background while occasionally waving his hand in front of the lens.

Sometimes he makes funny noises and laughs at himself.

Sometimes he mumbles scenes from his favorite movies.

But only rarely does he really point the thing in his own direction.

I only hesitated about two seconds before handing him the new camera to use without my supervision.  He just seemed so eager to do it himself, how could I say no?

Yes, maybe he will break it, but it wasn’t that expensive and he’s actually pretty careful.

Who knows?  Maybe he will find his future behind the lens.

Here is a sample of his cinematography skills:

And just in case you prefer to see his face and hear his singing while I hold the camera, here’s Twinkle Twinkle:

♥

Tiramisu

I made tiramisu from this recipe last night.  I was really drawn to it because of the almond extract, one of my favorite dessert flavorings. I also appreciated the omission of raw eggs and rum, neither of which are high on my list of culinary delights.  😕

This is a really good recipe – very easy to assemble – though I recommend finding heartier lady finger cookies than I did.  Mine were VERY dainty and spongey, not at all firm like those in her photos.  They sort of fell apart when I dipped them in the coffee.  I made the best of it, used them anyway, and chilled the assembled dessert for only the minimum six hours before trying it.  It’s delicious!

Thanks to Mom #2 for saving the Food Section for me!

By the way, a quick search produced this very simple lady finger recipe, so maybe that’s the way to go next time.

♥

Photos

I snapped a few pictures in the yard while we were waiting for pizza today.  The little boy has sauce on his face for the close-ups.  😀

Our Julia Child Rose is doing really well.  The yellow flowers are beautiful and cheery, but I love how the older blooms fade to a creamy white.  It almost looks like there are two different flowers on the same plant.

We planted a Charisma Rose a few feet behind it, but it isn’t as happy as Julia.  Our Charisma has that unfortunate white fungus on some of its limbs.  We will snip those off, treat the others somehow and hope for the best.  I think there’s a picture of it in there so you can see how unhappy it looks.  😦

Notice the orange-yellow Hibiscus.  Just this morning, the husband mentioned how pleased he is that the plant is healthy and producing nice flowers again.  An hour later, the little boy hacked off all of the blooms.  😐  Sigh.

A picture of the book I chose from my too-tall pile of options is in there too.  I grabbed it as we were heading out the door to the park this morning.  It was on top of the stack.  I read three chapters without even noticing I’d done it.  So far, it’s good.  I’ll let you know if it holds my interest!

Enjoy the pictures!

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Happy Sunday!

♥♥

Eggs, Crystal Climbers and Julia

Eggs

The little boy is very determined to decorate for Easter.

Everyday, he makes me cut out eggs from colored construction paper – dozens and dozens of eggs.

He scribbles little words or pictures on some and on the others, he wants “Mommy words.”

He frequently interrupts my writing and asks me to add a word or even to write something else entirely.

Because of that, the eggs don’t always make a lot of sense.

He writes his name on most of them and then insists on reading each one aloud.

It has actually been a great way to help him learn some new words.

His reading has improved by leaps and bounds this school year.

He loves this egg activity and we’ve done it every afternoon for a week now.

One day, I felt so wasteful that I pulled my traffic school pages out of the recycle bin and cut eggs from them too.

He decorated their plain sides, but he taped them backwards, so now we have California traffic code on our wall.

I don’t know what he remembers or believes about the Easter Bunny, but he sure has holiday spirit.

He decorates for every season and seems very invested in cutting and pasting and taping and stapling.

Every bit of it goes up on the wall or hangs from the chandelier.

It’s serious business.

As much as I don’t prefer the look of our front room a lot of the time, I am cheered by his purposeful effort to make our house into a home.

He puts his stamp on everything and takes pride in his work.

How can I be bothered by that?

♥

Crystal Climbers

For Christmas, we got him a box of Crystal Climbers from Lakeshore Learning.

He plays with them once a week or so.

They’re not a hugely exciting toy, but he makes the most of them.

Last week, he was quietly playing with them in the front room while I was busy in the kitchen.

When I walked back to see how he was doing, he was just coming down the stairs.

He had gone to get the tape from my sewing table.

Groovy, man.

Getting the tape out of his hair made us both laugh.

Oh, how I love this little boy.

Happy Wednesday!

♥

P.S.  Have any of you read The Reader?  Is it worth keeping in my someday pile?  You know, that’s the ginormous heap of books on top of the piano that I’d like to get to, but probably never will.  I have one friend who didn’t like the book or the movie.  What do you think?

P.P.S.  Julia Child is alive and well and showing her stuff, right in our own front yard.  Lovely.

♥♥

Super Mario Morning

Rain robbed the little boy of his park time yesterday.

This morning, he wouldn’t get off the couch.  I think he knew the fields at school would be muddy and forbidden.  Unfortunately, without recess and a good lap around the track, this boy just isn’t interested in being there.

We shifted gears.

Instead, today is about Super Mario Brothers 3, singing to the computer, wearing jammies, and just staying in.  Oh, and one wet, messy bout with a bottle of bubbles.

He’s content, so how annoyed can I be that my day without plans is still my day without plans?  Not very.  I have the rest of the week for errands and groceries and thrift stores.

Right now, I’m starting to think about lunch and the last chapter of my much neglected book.

And cookies.  We have chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer.  Just gotta thaw it out.

Jammies.  Cookies.  Super Mario.

♥

On Saturday, husband and I decided to look at roses for our front yard.

It seemed like a good excuse to take the little boy on a trip to Simpson’s Nursery in Jamul.

It’s a pleasant drive and the nursery is worth the thirty minutes to get there.  Simpson’s has a rich history and a commitment to old fashioned business practices.  It also has a famous collection of antique trucks and muscle cars.  I’m not sure why we never looked at them before this visit.  I found the collection very interesting and I don’t know anything about the automotive industry.  I can only assume a true car fan would really enjoy it.

We also poked our heads into all of the other little buildings.  In addition to a large variety of plants, trees, cacti and flowers, Simpson’s sells all kinds of garden furniture, pots, birdhouses, t-shirts, art soil, moss, fertilizer, seed and other items.  There is a lot to look at.

We wandered back to the animal enclosures this time too.

Simpson’s has a llama!

When this llama puts his front legs on top of the fence to honk and snort and look at you, he is very TALL and very purposeful.  I wish there had been a caretaker in the area to tell us a little bit about him.  He really just seemed like he wanted to be friends, but he could just as easily have wanted us to go away.  He was a very compelling fellow, but I’m not hip to llama lingo, so we had to keep our distance.

We did get to pet some pygmy goats, chuckle at some chickens, and watch as a pig shook and snored in his sty, before we headed back out to wander the rows.

It was a beautiful day to walk the grounds, get the little boy some exercise and to make some decisions about what to do in our teeny yard.  We’re going back sometime this week to pick up a Julia Child floribunda. We left without it, but it’s a beautiful rose and now we can’t get it out of our minds.

Simpson’s is a great day trip destination.  If you’re game for good eats afterward, Filippi’s is across the street.  Yummy.  😀

Happy Monday!

♥

P.S.  The little boy just leaned close to the toaster where his cinnamon pop tart was warming away and asked me “does it smell like laughing sugar?”

It occurs to me that this is the perfect name for my cheery little boy who eats nothing but sweets.

He has crazy hair, dirty teeth and a brand new name – a perfect, brand new name.

That’s what I’m calling him from now on…

Laughing Sugar.

♥♥