Leena

This is Leena. One day she informed me that she was Queen of the Squirrels.
I asked, "Queen of the Squirrels?"
She replied, "Mmhm. See my dance?" She danced around on her tippy toes singing:

I'm Queeeeen....of the Squirrels.
I'm Queeeeen....of the Squirrels.
I'm Queen, Queen, Queen, Queeeeen....of the Squirrels!

She is 5 and about to celebrate her First Day of No School.

The Queen of the Squirrels Proclaims

that when it is snowing, she stops being Queen of the Squirrels and is instead Queen of the Snow. When the snow melts,she is Queen of the Squirrels again.

Zorg, Klenda, and Mxyl immediately began to speculate on when and how exactly this transformation took place (notice that no one doubted the Queen's proclamation!).

I asked her what if it were snowing on a squirrel.

She looked at me as if she couldn't believe she had to explain this: "Then the squirrel is cold."

Seven Quick Takes Friday

1. My favorite Christmas tradition which we started with the Zoomlians is this: we play with the presents as soon as they are opened. As in, everyone opens a present, thanks the giver and then goes and plays with it for a few hours. Then we open another one. Doesn't that take a really long time? Yup. About 12 days.

2. Watching your kids surpass you is both weird and wonderful. Mxyl now has an intuitive understanding of how things fit together that I can only dream of. It's both freeing and unnerving to hand him a box of parts that I can't put together and say, "Here, could you do this for me, please?"

3. Klenda is a careful shopper. She carefully examined all the model horse kits before choosing the one with a plaster mold. The other kits had one or two horses, but with the mold, she can make millions!!! Bwa ha ha! The beginning of her plaster horse empire!!

4. Zorg and I are reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It is an amazing book! And then I found out that great swaths of the plot are real history. Amazing, simply amazing for an adult or a child interested in the power of the imagination to heal and sustain us.

5. Leena is learning more about squirrels. Her latest discovery: when a squirrel twitches it's tail at you it means it wants you to go away. Also, squirrels love squirrel food. And if you bury the peanuts for them, they love to dig them up! And squirrels love Bejeweled. At least the Queen of the squirrels does.

6. You would think that Choclo's very favorite thing about winter would be warm chocolate (like hot chocolate only, well, cooler). You would be right. Ice is good. Frost is neat. Snow I'm sure will be great if we ever get any. But warm chocolate... Mmmmm.

7. Oob has, at long last, mostly left the climbing on the table stage (unless you are foolish enough to leave anything spillable, squishable, smearable, breakable or otherwise interesting up there). Hooray! Now he's just pulling the books off the shelves. True, we have more books than tables (3000+ to 1) but it feels like Victory.

More with Jen!

Random Science: Part 2

 Continuing on (this was actually all in one day!), Zorg created an experiment using the lazer tag guns, looking at which surfaces would block, absorb, or redirect the invisible beams.

He worked this up on his own, and did it with a bunch of the Zoomlians while I was working on the dissections.

He used a mirror as a reflection control, and discovered, among other things, that the beams were not absorbed by black surfaces.  Very cool!

 I ran a quick fun experiment looking at surface tension.  You pour a little milk in a plate, then drop in some coloring.

The diffusion of the color is interesting of itself, but the real fun is when you add a drop of dish soap.

When the surface tension is broken, the colors go crazy!

We also did a bunch of chromatography experiments, and we put some celery and some white snapdragons into blue colored water (both of which continued to amuse for several days).

And we ended up with a somewhat unintentional science project when the Queen of the Squirrels decided to feed her subjects to help them prepare for winter.

The internet is full of videos of squirrels stealing bird food.  We have cardinals and jays poaching squirrel food! Every time this little fellow turns his back...

Seven Quick Takes: All the Stuff

1. Still catching up from being sick over the summer!

The older kids went to Brick Fair.

It's amazing having kids old enough to do this kind of thing on their own!

This was my favorite.

2.  In other news, I gave up and gave the younger boys haircuts. 

Some kids liked the results.

And some kids didn't.








3. Maybe it's the cooler weather, but I have been knitting obsessively maniacally compulsively    a lot.

I did a giant scarf (and matching hat) for my sister in North Dakota.

Then I did sets for my other sister's sisters in Seattle.  It's not super cold in Seattle, unless you're from Ghana.  Then you want a nice warm scarf.



4. My sister sent me this beautiful picture called Our Lady of the Forest.

Really, she sent it for Leena because she is Queen of the Squirrels, and there are many many squirrels in this picture.

I'm torn between "I love it!" and "Aaaaaah!  The squirrels are attacking Baby Jesus!"

I think I'm going with "I love it!"

 5. This picture is everything I liked about growing up in NJ (besides the lake, ice skating, and my actual family of origin).

6.We made marshmallows!!

I have no idea why this impressed me more than making jam or cheese, but it did!

Maybe because marshmallows are so technical looking?

 At any rate, they came out looking, tasting, and feeling like actual marshmallows except a little fresher and tastier!

It wasn't hard, but it does have to sit overnight unless you want marshmallow fluff.

7. My dear FIL brought me over some magazines, as he often does, and I happened to notice we had Science, then Popular Science.

Huh, I thought, all we need is Unpopular Science.

The next one was Sierra, all about climate change and vegan ice cream.

( IMHO, climate change is real, but not vegan ice cream, unpopular and scientific as they both are.)

I think I may be all caught up! Now I just need to clean my house.  Or... I could just take a quick look at everyone else's takes with Kelly.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday, Leena!

Queen of the Squirrels, Queen of the Snow, Queen of the Flowers, Leader of the Mermaids and Dolphins, happy golden birthday Leena!

Happy Birthday, Leena!

Happy Birthday to a charming, sweet, squirrely 8!
1 You are our very own ray of sunshine!
2 You are hugs and snuggles and butterfly kisses!
3 You are our smart sweetheart!
4 You are one tough cookie!
5 We love to tell jokes with you!
6 We love to play games with you!
7 We love to drink tea and dance with you!
8 We love you, Queen of the Squirrels!!!


The first party was cousins and a cherry cake (cherry chip cake, cherry frosting, cherries on top!)


The second party was with might-as-well-be-family Mr. Bill and Miss Tracy with an angel food cake with a layer of raspberry jelly and 7 minute frosting.





The third party was "just" the eight of us and a bunch of littlest pets! Here we had an ice cream cake.

I love Carvel cakes, but it would cost me $40 a birthday, so I make them myself.

I save stale chocolate cookies and turn them into crumbs in the food processor. I soften two packages of ice cream in the refrigerator for an hour. I line a casserole or loaf pan with foil.

When the ice cream is soft, I scoop the top flavor into the mold. I then sprinkle it with chocolate crumbs. Then I scoop the second flavor and top it with crumbs (if I have them). I cover it with foil and freeze it over night.

The next day, I soften frozen whipped topping (or make whipped cream). I turn the "cake" out onto a foil lined cookie sheet (with a rim, in case of melting). I "frost" it with the topping and then freeze it again until I need it. I suppose you could add the candles and sprinkles then, but I knew Zorg wanted to decorate this for Lena.

Happy Birthday, Leena!

 Happy birthday Queen of the Snow!

Happy 11!

How about 11 great things about Leena?!

1. She's Queen of the Squirrels AND Queen of the Snow!
2. She loves Super Girls' Night!
3. She can do anything with fractions!
4. She is our Sunshine Girl, she always has a smile!
5. She draws funny comic strips!
5. She likes jello cakes!
6. She is very strong!
7.She can draw manga!
7. She can even look manga!
8. She likes to help other people, especially younger kids!
9. She loves to play games!
9. She loves to tell jokes!
10. She has the quirkiest sense of humor I know!
11. She is our sweet and loving Jelly Bean!

Happy Birthday, Leena: Round 2 & 3!

 Happy double digits, Leena!

For her actual birthday, she had a blue jello butterfly "cake."

Later on in the week, we had an extended family celebration and she had a confetti cake with very pink frosting!

10 things about Leena:

10 . She can do long division!
9. She's Queen of the Snow, although she didn't wear that crown very often this year.
8.  She looooves jello!
7. She's a manga drawing maniac!
6. She loves to tell jokes: Two men walk into a bar, the third one ducked.
5. She loves cute little animals!
4. She can do her own magic show with lots of neat tricks!

3. She likes to make little books and comic books!
2.. She's Queen of the Squirrels! Chicka-chicka-chik!
1. She's the sweetest, neatest 10 year old sunshine girl ever!

Happy Birthday, Leena!

 Leena is thirteen!  She's a teenager!

She wanted a Lumpton themed birthday, complete with a jelly cake.

Yum!  This one was mango and raspberry.

And then she had a party with her friends with lots of sledding and more jelly cake.

This one was cherry and melon!


 Very fun, but the big news was her birthday present.

 Various siblings bought her parts and accessories for this enormous gerbil palace!

 Mom and Dad bought her the actual gerbils: Chocolate and Vanilla.

That's Vanilla cuddled up with Chocolate, but you can only see Vanilla's face.

Cute!!!!

Thirteen Cute Things About Leena

1. She is very caring with all sorts of little animals.
2. She's Queen of the Squirrels.
3. She's very snuggly with us, too!
3. She loves God very much.
4. She invented Lumptons - if that's not cute, I don't know what is!
5. She loves doing Algebra with Lumptons.
6.  She's very kind, loving, and gentle.
6. She gives scooter lessons to the younger boys.
7. She makes fabulous audio books, some with very cute voices.
8. She likes to make videos of her brothers and sisters.
8. She loves teaching people things, and helping them do things.
9. She is a fantastic humor blogger!
10. She's a lot of fun to be around!
11. She is a thoughtful and caring sister.
11. She is a thoughtful and caring daughter!
12. She draws lots of Chibi (cute manga) stuff.
12.  She loves jokes and puns.
13. She has a real talent for piano and acting.
13. The world just wouldn't be right without her (submitted by Oob)!

Happy Birthday, Leena!

Happy birthday, Leena Beana!

Sunshine Girl!

Queen of the Squirrels!

Can you really be 7???

You're silly and smart and fun and loving.
You bring us such joy, just by being you.
Sweet, inimitable you!

Here's to many more years of happy squirrels and squirrelly happiness!!

And a big Happy Birthday to the other birthday girl, too! That's our dear friend, Miss Tracy, doing her part. (They both got wishes!)

Squirrelly

Leena would like you to know: the Queen of the Squirrels has a Baby Squirrel that she likes to push around in her Squirrel Box.

Also, we have determined that Oob's full name must be Ooby Carry-Toss. (If the pun escapes you, either count your blessings or click here).