With Sylvia gone, Ephraim got lots of attention. When we went to the park, he still played with Sylvia's friends. Freddie made him an epic leaf crown. I thought it made him look a little like Peter Pan!
He shot off smoke bombs for days, in preparation for the 4th of July .
He helped get his fair entries ready for the Stoughton Fair.
When we went down to the fair Friday night, to see what the judges awarded the kids' projects. Ephraim came out with three blue ribbons, one for each of his project entries!
The wooden stool he made with Sean got a blue.
The bowl he made at a local pottery shop got a blue.
And the entry we weren't sure about, his photography entry, got a blue!
The rules said to enter a collection of "four 4x6 photos of animals". When Ephraim went out to take pictures of our chickens, he either got pictures of their rear ends (because they were running away from him)...
or pictures of their backs (with no heads) because he wasn't centering them correctly in the photos.
We decided to pretend he meant to shoot the photos that way, and labeled his entry "Chicken Backs". It got a blue!
Sylvia projects (a ceramic bowl, photography, and a beaded bracelet.) got a mix of blues and reds. She got an extra gold ribbon, an "Award of Merit", along with a blue ribbon, for this photo of hers. It is an 8x10 titled "Chicken Raptor".
After checking out the awards in the exhibit building, we moved to the animal barns.
Sean and I enjoyed visiting with some wonderful farmers about raising wool sheep and pigs. After Ephraim finished petting all the animals he could reach, we walked on to the carnival area.
Fast cars and motorcycles were his top picks for rides. I fear I have a speed demon on my hands. He will likely get more tickets than Asher.
Good food was plentiful this week. I tried out my new Dutch Oven and chimney starter. (Both gifts for my birthday last month.) Sean was a helpful teacher in the Jedi ways of charcoal briquettes.
We made a curried lentil soup, and tried making naan on the lid.
Results were mixed. We have needed more coals on everything we made this week. Eventually it gets cooked.. but not as quickly as the recipes say they should.
The naan didn't have enough heat to cook it all the way through, so we finished the dough inside on the stove. We kept trying.. and next decided to bake an applesauce breakfast cake with choco-chips in it. This turned out really well, but again, needed more charcoal than we had originally planned.
We celebrated the Fourth with grilled hamburgers and a delicious new recipe for lime pound cake I found online.
It was fun to celebrate the Fourth with curious Ephraim. He wanted to try some of the activities we had read about in the library books I got recently. They were all stories having something to do with Independence Day. So, I taught him how to sew.
He sewed a lovely t-shirt tunic for his stuffed monkey, "Lunkey". He also wanted to know how to make butter. Sean went to the store, bought cream, and put it in a jar to shake. By that time, Ephraim wanted to start drawing his own versions of American flags. That left Sean to do the hard work of cream shaking.
It turned out great. We put the butter into the chocolate frog molds we had lying around from Sylvia's Harry Potter birthday party. We have been using butter in the shape of a frog for several days now. It's a bit stomach turning, but amusing.
Without Sylv, our house has been less jokey and less imaginative. Ephraim is a pretty factual guy. Sylv is a bubbly fountain, a nice break to the little man's constant monologues. He honestly went on for almost 30 min, about dragonflies, and their eye structure, after he caught this dragonfly.
We picked Sylvia up tonight from her high adventure with the scouts to Swamp Base. (Stay tuned for her blog post about that later this week!) We've missed her!
She has two more week long camps later this month. It looks like we are going to have to get used to having a teenager again in the house. They come and go, and come and go, and come and go. I'm happy with the person she is becoming. She came back from the swamp more confident. You could see it in her eyes and posture. Sylv is going to amazing by the end of the teen years! Then it will be Ephraim's turn to come and go.
This week Sean and I caught a glimpse of what life would be like without a houseful of kids. We are going to have to get used to being just a stopover location for our adventurous kids, out in the world, sparkling bright like the fireworks we saw this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment