renee's blog

Well, I've started baking bread again. After about 1 year of taking a break I was anxious to try again. For awhile Brienne was sensitive to wheat and it was no fun to bake bread and then only eat it when she was sleeping or not in the room. This combined with some failed loaves and I thought I'd give it a rest.

I've been trying a recipe that makes 2 loaves. Today's modification was 3/4 whole wheat. I'm moving towards 100% whole wheat. The more I do it, the easier it gets. Today's bread tasted great. The kids love it and after not eating homemade bread for awhile it's a real treat. My first attempt last Friday was too moist but we ate it up anyway. I was happy with today's results.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Today the kids and I had our own election. Although we don't watch TV the kids have picked up that "something" is going on, inspite the fact we haven't talked about it too much because as non-citizens we we can't vote. But the kids have seen all the posters on the side of the road and we've had a couple candidates campaigning at our door over the past couple weeks.

So, today Celine was asking all kinds of questions. What does election mean? What does voting mean? Who would we vote for? Which leads to questions like: How does the president get our money (in reference to taxes)? Complicated questions. I tried my best and then thought we'd have our own little vote. We set up the cardboard ballot box on the table. Wrote out 3 ballots with the presidential candidates. I showed the kids how to mark their ballot with an X and then we all went to our own secret spot to vote. Laurent kept referring to John Kerry as John Arable (we just finished reading Charlotte's Web). We all secretly voted and then opened up the box and counted the ballots. George Bush won with 2 votes, John Kerry lost with one vote. I won't say who voted for which candidate except to say that the ballot for John Kerry with marked with a Q, I guess the voter didn't quite know how to write an X!

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We had a great time tonight. This was our second halloween in our neighborhood and the second year we had our good friend's Landry's over to celebrate with us. Firstly, we all enjoyed pizza late in the afternoon. Then everyone went trick or treating and Damien and I took turns staying home to serve hot spiced cider. Landry's teenage daughter stayed at our home also to hand out candy. We had 145 kids come before we ran out of candy at 6:45. Our neighborhood is "the" place to be on halloween. It's really fun, lots of family and kids. A great way to get connected in the community.

Yesterday Damien and I made cider from organic Willow Pond farm apples, where we have our summer produce share. We served it hot from the crockpot. I also made a really good pumpkin pie and we had that as the adult "treat" after the trick or treating was done. I have to post this recipe soon as it is a divine pie and totally vegan. The weather was perfect as well, probably 5-10 C.

Happy Halloween!