FIRST THINGS FIRST: Last Month's Poll

A big hearty thank-you goes out to the eight voters who weighed in on my poll. Yes, all eight of you -- you know who you are...

Essentially, the big issue was whether to have each kid play two sports this spring.

What we came up with:

Both kids are playing pony league baseball - coach pitch, everybody bats, no one keeps score, everybody wins - ON THE SAME TEAM. Easy-peasy so far. Practice two nights a week, a game on Saturdays. In the next week, one of those practices will become a game and eventually the second practice will get dropped. This goes on until June 4.

The clencher: the coach knows the kids will miss games in parts or as wholes - and is a-ok fine with it. After all, Ashland Little League prides itself on being flexible, in the interest of kids simply getting out and playing sports.

Cool.

Aubrey will still do a gymnastics class once a week at the Y. Soccer conflicted completely with practices, and that turns out to be okay. She loves gymnastics, and baseball and soccer might've been too busy for her.

Dane plays on the Y's soccer team - same team as last fall. They've changed their name from the Dangerous Jedis, though, to the Oregon Outlaws, in case you're following them. He's delirious with joy. Seriously, the boys are giddy out there on the field, and their skills are leaps and bounds improved over last fall. It's totally exciting.

Soccer practice is two nights a week - one practice overlaps with baseball, no sweat for either coach if he misses - and a soccer game on Saturday. This goes on into late-May.

Cool.

What last Saturday looked like: Dane soccer game 10am - 11am; both kids played baseball 1pm - 3pm. Full day, but manageable. And if it ever feels unmanageable, we just choose one to miss. No biggie.

Cool.


Next Up: Watercolor project

When Mick was gone for a long weekend at a dental convention, I found this neat looking watercolor project I wanted to have the kids do. They did it.

Aubrey made a couple sheets of the flowers and added some text:



Dane tried the flowers, but was unhappy with the result, so he broke away and went for a Halloween scene:

He's way into mummies lately (notice the little guy under the tree) and has been researching them in his Mummy Club that he set up at school with some classmates. (Aubrey joined, too.) I walked into the classroom one day to drop something off and found him and four pals reading a Magic School Bus Pyramids book out loud to each other - they didn't even notice me standing behind them because they were absolutely riveted.

Here's the link to Dane and Aubrey's current favorite mummy information site, if you have an interested kid at home: Discovery Kids - MummyMaker.


Last Up: Cooking

The kids concocted this dish (I'll avoid putting an adjective before it, letting you be the judge once you read the recipe!). They kept meticulous notes as they put it together, so you, too, can enjoy this, um, cake, if you ever need a new baking idea:

3 t. salt
Just a little under half c. sugar cane [sugar]
3 dabs of haf n haf milk
3 t butter
1 Lime sqwees jusie out
8 spoons of flour

Bake at 350 for an indeterminate number of minutes.


We all tried a bite. 'Nuff said.