Chinese New Year

We have a few friends who are from China and so are getting ready to celebrate Chinese New Year next week, on Feb. 1st:  https://food52.com/blog/15769-how-to-make-your-own-lucky-red-envelopes-for-chinese-new-year

I learned of the Boxer Rebellion from one friend and was pleased to see this icon here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

Last week I ran a fever, then one of the boys had the same symptoms, just so grateful it lasted only 24 hours.  I learned many years ago that we should let our body fight infection by itself and only if the fever is dangerously high, seek medicine to aid, otherwise one can prolong the illness, so I just let my body kill off whatever it was with the fever.

We have had some very cold days!  -13 F even at 10am and then warming up, but still below 32.  When the sun is out, it feels warmer, or if not and the wind blows even colder.  We got a bit more snow today. 

Saturday morning, we made bacon and shared a little with Sandy the kitten, who is 4 months old.

Snow drifts

when the wind blows and the snow drifts are so deep you fall over and laugh...or cry, below, because it's just 17 degrees Fahrenheit.

old calendar new year's eve vigil and then liturgy the next day... and we made a vasilopita, this past Friday!  Little George got the coin.

I'm currently reading The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye.  It was published in 1978 and is so beautifully written.  The main character is born of English parents in India, where he stays for 12 years, lives in the palace as a playmate to the prince and then escapes...  I finished reading "A Long Long Time Ago and Essentially True" by Brigid Pasulka a few days ago, which was good.  Two stories one of a grandfather, in his youth, and one of his granddaughter at the same age, going through life as one does as a new adult, working or studying and finding your place.

Using Wheat Montana prairie gold flour in baking bread.  We drove through Montana about 10 years ago and stopped at their place, very nice bakery and gift shop.

My sister and her family gave us this wooden icon house as a gift and we just hung it up last week.  Isn't it nice?

The sunshine is perfect on these cold days.

4 months

Today marks 4 months since we've been here in upstate New York! It's very cold 17 F and tomorrow the expected high is 6 F with the low as -2 F but we are happy and rosey cheeked when we come in with a stack of logs for the wood stove. We have made a lot of cookies!  So nice with a mug of tea.

Sandy the kitten follows me around as I do chores.  Keeping water for the cow, chickens and kittens is important, it has been freezing!

Looking back at a photo of our girls at about the same age as our boys now.

We took this photo using a timer after Liturgy on Friday Jan. 7th at home.  The boys liked dressing up.

Snowflake the kitten using the barn door as a scratching post.  Kittens nails are sharp.  They have climbed up me several times and they can climb up trees very well.  Our paperwhites blossomed on the eve of Nativity!

Play dough

My husband bought cream of tartar for homemade play dough.  The boys were sick for several days last week, but we are ready to start up regular activities now.  We got a squishy circuit lite set in November and needed new play dough to run the circuit.  Our 6 year old really likes watching the mini lights go on!  Our 3 year old kneaded, rolled and poked the dough.

I used Himalayan pink salt in the recipe and added dried powdered turmeric to some, so there's a pale salmon color and yellow ochre.

A friend whose children are just a little older than our boys gave us these gently used matching Hanna Andersson pajamas!
We got to watch Olivia LIVE with her colorguard girls who were down in Dallas, TX for a few days last week with the band + football team who played in the Cotton Bowl.

We made cocoa cookies and George is becoming quite good at rolling out the dough.  We put them in tins and will save them for Nativity...4 more days!

We got another load of gravel!  The kittens are 15 weeks old now.

Paul's Godfather and his wife and their two children came to visit.  They gave us so many gifts, the "My Synaxarion" books are really nice.  

We went to the Russian History Museum, which has some lovely icons, vestments, metal items and more.

If you want a play dough recipe, there's a great one that will also conduct the electricity to complete a circuit:  https://squishycircuits.com/pages/dough-recipes