Welcome Thomas Charles!

Meet Thomas, our new nephew, four days old here. Such a sweet little face! More pictures soon at the flickr site.

Little Painters

I'm trying to make painting a little easier to set up and and clean up - they often want to paint and I often don't feel like it. So, we are starting to use the easel again (instead of the dining room table) and got some used men's shirts to use as smocks. Put a cloth on the floor, et voila, much easier. The problem with the dining room is that I didn't necessarily want to sit there and watch, so I would go do something else and come back to find paint all over their arms (and some pretty paintings too) but I can do without the body painting.

Mmmmmmeringues

We're having our second annual 4th of July dessert party where we eat dessert and walk over to the open hillside by the park and watch the fireworks. I am trying a couple new things - these meringue cookies and a fresh fruit tart. I tried one recipe for the meringues from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book but they didn't turn out well (too chewy), so I tried this one from Joy of Cooking - and these came out great. Happy 4th!