Merida Update

My kids love Disney, so I do get Disney email newsletters even if I don't like everything about them.  When I got an email with the subject "Presenting Princess Merida: Strong, Fearless and Adventurous," I had to click through to see what they'd done with Merida.

To my delight I found the original Merida.  It's a pity they didn't revive the original princess styles all around, though.  Maybe that's the next petition.

A Visiting Bishop

We had a bishop with us at church this morning.  I was quite taken with him because of this...

Khakis and Birkenstocks

Disney Merida Makeover

In case any of you don't frequent The Sounding or haven't already heard through other venues, I wanted to share with you this great post by Mat. Donna Farley.

I loved Brave when I saw, and it was the first Disney Princess movie that actually made me cry.  I think I was even as excited as my girls about how "cool" Merida is.  I guess I don't keep up with pop culture well enough, and I don't buy much of the Princess merchandise for the girls, so the new look of the princesses truly surprised me, and not in a pleasant way.

I highly recommend reading Mat. Donna's post and following the link at the bottom of her article to sign a petition to Disney.

Child Nutrition and Cooking (Updated)

I'm a bit disappointed in this class after the second week.  I had expected the second week of lectures to be more in depth, to teach me something new.  Sadly for me, the class is really just skimming the surface, touching on things that have been brought up by the "Food Movement" without even going as deep as some of its proponents.

If you have never cooked or paid attention to all the news about food -- slow food, whole food, real food, edible food substances -- then you may learn something new in this class and find further resources to learn more.  If you generally keep up on all of this stuff, which I do, then you might get a few good recipes and a review outline.

On the other hand, it is free so it doesn't hurt to check it out still...

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Six months ago or so, I discovered the wonderful world of online education.  Several of the large and prestigious universities in the US are offering free courses online for everyone.  I've been enjoying this new venue for "life-long learning." And yesterday was the beginning of a new Coursera class on child nutrition and cooking.

Childhood nutrition is at the front of my mind, and I am usually racking my brain for new ideas to get the kids, especially Hummingbird, to eat healthier foods.  Needless to say, I am very excited about this class.  The short lectures this week have already offered a couple of quick ideas to try at home.  Additionally, there are several optional lectures that look at everything from the big bad boogie man, "Big Agriculture" to breastfeeding and their effects on childhood obesity and malnutrition.  There are also weekly cooking assignments.  This first week's is to create a colorful vegetable feature dish with at least three vegetables.  I can't wait to try this.  I'll probably be thinking of ideas as I fall asleep tonight...

This is a free class and you need not invest a ton of time to get some benefits from it, only commit what you can.  So, I highly recommend it for anyone interested in childhood nutrition in general or specifically for your own kids.

Pascha Silhouettes

Christ is Risen!

This is turning out to be the best Pascha since 2004.  We had a small, but large miracle on Great and Holy Friday, which led to the most joyous Pascha we've had in years.  Plus, the liturgy last night proceeded nearly flawlessly, unlike last year's which was a tragedy of errors and storms.  Joy is in the air!  Christ has, indeed, risen victoriously!

Yesterday afternoon and today the girls and I worked on some Pascha silhouettes.  These were quite simple and fun to do.  You can find a template for the silhouette shapes here.  Just cut out and lightly glue the templates to your paper, color around them with your preferred media, and then remove them.

Bumble Bee's rainbow watercolor

My monochrome watercolor

Hummingbird's Oil Pastel