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This month in the Blossom room, we are learning about buildings. Here is a picture of our house. Check out my cursive and my (misplaced) apostrophe:

I have also been drawing some more notable structures, such as the Taj Mahal:

I did a Taj Mahal drawing for our neighbors Becky and Kirk (Stock, BS and KS). That’s their cat, Dazzler, in the corner:

The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai:

This is an architectural creation of my own:

It’s spring skiing time:

Enough with the pictures already, Mom!

Lunch in the sun after skiing:

The Easter Bunny visited me this weekend:

Tulips!

Eggs!

Some of the eggs had money in them!

After egg hunting, it was time to ski:

Working on my tuck:

Taking a break at the chair:

Skiing did not tire me out, so I went for a bike ride when we got home:

Get a load of this ridiculous get-up:

Some of the food we ate this week. Korean barbecue tempeh wraps and grilled asparagus with mustard caper sauce:

Curried udon noodle stir-fry:

Pumpkin crumb cake with pecan streusel:

Pasta primavera:

Deep chocolate bundt cake:

Can I fly? I have wings.

Looks like that’s a no on the flying.

Maybe I can build a boat. Three corks, a landscaping flag, and a drill. It floats. Nice.

I can wear a costume without trying. Check out this combo. Shorts, long socks, and a donut hole. Doesn’t get better than that. Or does it?

Hmmm. Oh, yes. It does get better and it comes in the form of a pork and beans hat.

It was spring break this past week. I’m not sure what that means besides The Bigs went skiing on a powder day without me. The views were pretty good.

But not as good as the ones that I saw from THE VERY TOP of Mt. Bachelor when I rode Summit Lift this weekend.

It’s like skiing from the top of the world.

Relax, grandmas. It was no problem.

Riley went away for spring break. Guess she missed me…

Food we ate this week.

Spagehtti squash mexicana with tropical avocado salsa,

chocolate-chocolate chip-walnut cookies,

and GG Marie cake. She’s never had it, but we know that Great Grandma Marie would LOVE this coconut-lemon bundt cake.

Michael O’Shaugnessy visited on Wednesday. He left chocolate gold coins, gummy frogs,

and walked through my breakfast oats.

Ready for April showers.

I am still really enjoying making my disgusting concoctions.

Mom tried to trick me into making a concoction that was actually edible. She thought that melting marshmallows and butter and mixing in rice krispies would be strange enough to appeal to me. I humored her.

I absolutely loved the end result, but I still prefer my recipes.

I’ve been asking The Bigs to ride the Skyliner lift. They mumbled things like no beginner terrain, maybe on a nice day, blah blah blah. Well, I did it. This weekend. And it was meant to be. There was a gnome watching over us (just left of the sign).

As for that intermediate terrain. NO PROBLEM. Here I am getting ready to blow down DSQ.

I was cold at breakfast. Nothing a hat and a blanket help together with a binder clip couldn’t fix.

Nan sent me $5 to share. So buying The Bigs gelato and getting myself one too is sharing, right?

I had lemon and boysenberry sorbetto. YUMMY.

Other things we ate this week (The Bigs are working their way through another cookbook):

Cacio e pepe pasta:

braised seitan with brussels, kale, and sun-dried tomatoes and broccoli polenta:

portabello mushroom burgers with carmelized onions and wilted spinach and baby bok choy with crispy shallots and sesame seeds,

banana nut waffles,

and pumpkin cranberry scones.

I bought myself a drill. A real drill. Yes, I’m 5 and The Bigs let me buy and use power tools. We’ve all been exposed to their questionable parenting methods for long enough to not be shocked.

I made dinner again this week. I don’t really believe in recipes. I just give The Bigs a grocery list. I was thinking a pasta primavera with a mashed potato sauce. Mom refused to buy the potatoes and told me it would be too starchy.

I went with an Asian-inspired peanut sauce instead.

Here’s the final product. The Bigs thoroughly enjoyed it,

but I thought the peppers should be crunchier.

My kitchen experiments were not limited to meals this week. I also made glue

The Bigs have really been offloading a lot of responsibility lately . Now they make me make my own lunch – peanut butter and banana for after skiing.

I also make my own dessert. My favorite thing right now is yogurt, strawberry jam, strawberries, and chocolate chips.

I watched a few nordic races recently. I was inspired. I skied for three hours on Saturday and covered almost five miles.

I did have to stop frequently and feed. Here I am devouring The Bigs’ jerky. The pepperoni flavor is super yummy Great Auntie Cheryl.

We did some downhill with Riley (that’s Dad, not Riley) on Sunday. It was grey, but still a good day.

Some other food we made this week. Mujadara (lentils and rice with caramelized onions),

Baja-style, grilled tempeh tacos,

and because 3/14 is Pi Day, chocolate avocado pie.

Pretzel shamrocks:

I got some poles (also know as sticks and sometimes even, pokes) this week:

I have been making medicine from seeds and leaves I collect at school:

Some cross-country skiing Saturday morning:

followed by a bit of gardening:

On our drives to and from the mountain, we have been listening to a podcast by America’s Test Kitchen Kids called Mystery Recipe. Each week they have three shows focused a different ingredient in that season’s recipe. One week was tomatoes, one was olive oil, another onions, etc. At the end of the season, they finally reveal the mystery recipe. This season, it was a one-pot pasta recipe. I made it along with Molly on the podcast:

It was good:

I gave it a thumbs up (I’m still working on this particular gesture):

Stickman on the mountain:

In addition to my pharmaceutical pursuits, I enjoy concocting strange recipes using strange ingredients. Here, I’m making some sort of pancake-like strangeness from coconut flour, sprinkles, mashed banana, oat milk, sugar, and probably some other things I forgot:

They actually turned out mostly edible (I know because I made The Bigs try them):

Words of the day:

Ryan sent me a bunch of shirts. He is so cool:

Some of our food from the week included sushi (Nana! Look, they finally used the plates you gave them – it only took 13 years and the purchase of a rice cooker!):

All-Morning-Energy Bars (that ended up being more blob than bar, but good):

Shredded parsnip and beet salad in a pineapple vinaigrette:

Corn and edamame sesame salad:

This is me in February 2016:

This is me in February 2021:

Pretty much the only thing that has changed is the fact that I am now aware of Mom constantly taking my picture.

This is me and Dad in February 2016:

Here we are in February 2021:

I sure do love my books, so between a trip to the library and a new book from Yaya and Papa, this was pretty much an awesome week. (Dad still has his ski clothes on because I refuse to wait until he has changed to read my new books.)

I also had some time to dress up. Here I am as an explorer:

Steve Jobs,

and Mr. Rogers.

As you can see, I am working on a capsule wardrobe.

I also did some skiing. On Saturday, most of the lifts were closed. Mount Bachelor received 122 inches of snow in February, with something like 2 feet coming this past week. That combined with heavy winds made it hard for them to keep up. We had a breezy, chilly Saturday of skiing, followed by AMAZING bluebird skies and warm temperatures on Sunday.

Here is the lift chair ‘bench’ at the nordic center on January 17:

And here it is (I’m basically standing on it) today:

DAD. Do not let Mom watch any more of the Annie Lebovitz Master Class. She is driving me crazy with the picture taking.

The Bigs don’t make my food anymore. If I say I want a snack, they tell me to make it myself. Lazy. My favorite right now is bagel with a great deal of butter and cinnamon sugar.

Yummy.

Other things we ate this week: refritos and maduros bowl,

Brussel sprouts with browned butter and black garlic,

and dal with Indian rice.

And here I am ripping it up:

Presidents’ Day yoga with the Cosmic Kids Yoga. Mountain pose:

Boat:

Table-top:

I get to choose one dinner each week. This week, it was waffles!

Sunny powder day on Saturday:

Skiing powder in the morning, jumping my bike in the afternoon:

Saturday’s sun was replaced by Sunday’s rime:

But, I got to ski with Riley!

Tico breakfast – gallo pinto and maduros:

It’s anatomy month in the Blossom Room. We dissected a sheep heart! (Not sure why Aubry is giving me the stink eye.)

In other exciting news, I got a new bike! It has disc brakes, gears, and a shock!

Come on, Dad. Hurry up and get this thing put together. We’re burning daylight here.

No problem. I have a headlamp:

Glad I got a few rides in before the snow came:

Powder!

I made a very exciting purchase this week: my own set of three whisks! Thank you, Nana. Here I am testing them out, making chili sauce for the bibimbap:

I also used them to make heart-shaped cakes for Valentine’s Day. Thanks, Nan and Pop.

Some other things we ate this week: balsamic, asparagus pasta,

and banana bread with two-ingredient chocolate, banana ice cream:

It was a busy week and exciting week.

After some saving and more waiting than is fair to make a five year old do (come on UPS), the remote control car I bought with my own money came. It is AWESOME!

I played with it a lot. I’m getting to be a pretty good driver. I also made some jewelry for mom,

did some serious construction work,

cat sat for Becky,

skied,

played dress up with Hadley,

made messes with Hadley,

went skiing…

where I met up with Riley. Over here, Ri!

Latest skiing video:

Phew. I wasn’t too busy to do some work in the kitchen. Now that we have the brownies worked out, Mom and I started work on perfecting a layer cake.

We also made a yummy kale salad with a warm cranberry vinaigrette.

Sweater day:

Exploring the woods at the Nordic center:

I had some candy money burning a hole in my wallet (thanks, Nan), so I hit the Market of Choice bulk section after skiing. So many choices:

I chose gummy worms, Swedish fish, cinnamon gummy bears (too spicy), and gummy frogs:

Counting out my money:

and getting my change:

Baking makes me thirsty. Not to worry, we have plenty of beer:

I saved another bottle for the recipe, cinnamon chocolate-chip beer bread:

After baking bread, I made some chana masala

and sumac pickled onions:

Yes, I have two saucepans going at the same time:

The finished products:

As if that weren’t enough, I also made some Valentine’s Day cookies:

Snowy Sunday: