little bit of this, little bit of that

Today's post is just a little mish-mash view into our world.  Austin and I are STILL fighting off this cold.  Brian, not wanting to be left out, has joined in the sniffle fun.  So, we've kept pretty close to the house and tried to keep things low key.

 Bridge to China
Although we haven't physically left the house too much, Austin has taken several trips to China with Thomas and his friends.  He lines up a huge caravan of engines and drives them off out of the living room.  No tracks, these are free-wheeling trains.  He says "bye-bye" and off he goes.  I asked him where he was heading, and he said, "China".  This took me by surprise, so I asked, "What will you do in China?" and his response, "Get chopsticks!"  I pondered this unusual response for awhile and wondered where he had ever heard of China and Chopsticks and then it finally occurred to me that the "little bear" stories we have been reading mentions a tunnel to China.  Little Bear wishes to go there and bring back chopsticks for Mother Bear.  Mystery solved.  The problem with the long trek to China (which is located in the downstairs bathroom) is that there are 2 "mountain ranges" to cross (ie small wooden boards connecting the floors of adjoining rooms) and these mountainous areas cause many an engine to capsize.  All this tipping over causes a lot of frustration and the accompanying frustrated sounds.  Mama had to step in and in an amazing feat of engineering, build and hot glue gun a Bridge to China that allows safe passage to this distant land.  We tried it without the glue first, but it kept collapsing and added to the frustration. It's amazing the problems a little hot glue can solve!

 Here is the story of Jonah and the big fish, a current favorite.  Austin plays the role of the big fish happily swallowing and spitting out Jonah.

 Another little bowl pre-felting.  Love the way these little bowls fly off the needles in no time at all.

When life gives you lemons

Another topic of conversation brought about by the Little Bear stories is Lemonade.  Austin had never had any

but talked about it often and "made lemonade" in his kitchen frequently.  I decided to let him have a go

at the real thing.

Yum! The amount of sugar right before bedtime made me a little nervous, but of course, he really loved it.  Well, at least there's bound to be some vitamin C in all those lemons, right?  We'll just think of it as extra tasty cold medicine.