A Child's Prayer

In raising our children, we are trying to instill certain values in their lives, as do most parents. On of the things we do routinely is pray with and for our children, and encourage them that they, too, can pray. Which Alina does. She mostly is thankful for lots of people in her life. Her prayers begin with "Thank you, God, for" and then they sound a bit like a family tree. She actually asks very little of God. But, there's one request that keeps coming back over and over.

She asks God for a little brother.

(OK, you can guess what's coming...)

Little brother or another little sister, that prayer will, Lord willing, be answered sometime around New Year's.

Faith like a child...

Language Lesson

ALINA:  Me see the wind-waohs!   ME:  I see them, too!  Alina, can you say "windmill?"   ALINA:  Can you say éolienne?

Ever wondered...

If it's a bad thing when your sourdough starter smells like vinegar? (It is.)

If breathing too much cloth diaper lint could harm developing little lungs?

Chocolate Juice

Here is Alina's recipe for chocolate juice, as she shared it with me after dinner this evening.

20 grams melted chocolate (She got a bit confused when I asked her if you had the
measure the chocolate BEFORE or AFTER melting it.)
2 teaspoons oil
5 eggs
sugar
4 spoons flour
1 spoon salt

Then us try it. Us not cook it. Us just put our pinky finger in it. Then, us put it in one bottle. Us put it in the fridge to keep it cold so us could drink it. (This is a pretty much word-for-word rendition. I actually grabbed a pen and paper and copied down what she was saying as she was saying it, because I thought the proportions were just too funny.)

Playhouse

The Hunt

We are now officially house-hunting. Ever since we moved to Melle, we had been led to believe that our current landlords could be interested in selling the house where we are currently living. This not being the case, we've begun looking around at other things. Seen one we like so far. But, it was the first one we visited, and everyone knows you should never buy the first house you visit...

Music School concert

In case you'd like a little glimpse of our annual, all-school concert for the music school, see the two last posts here. I was encouraged to see that, even with the poor sound quality, there is still a marked difference between when it was students playing and when it was teachers. The concert went well, but some music was supposed to happen outdoors, and we were supposed to be able to enjoy the pond and the little trail and the picnic benches...but instead we huddled in out of the rain.