family of four: Got yeast?

There are various things that are difficult to buy lately: toilet paper, hand sanitizer, sometimes eggs, yeast, and other random things. Josh has been making bread and likes to cook, and did not like the idea of being without yeast. So we bought a pound's worth on Amazon. He asked on Next Door if anyone else wanted some, and we got such a response that we bought two more pounds' worth. Noah helped measure out ziploc bags with 3 tablespoons of yeast, and he helped deliver the first batch by bicycle to 15 or 20 people. Then we started hanging them on a board outside the house, with sidewalk chalk arrows and labels, and happy people have been coming to pick up bags of yeast. Aviva is helping make signs and we're all upkeeping the board, keeping it taped up with bags of yeast that keep disappearing with grateful neighbors and Berkeley residents.

Noah's 8th birthday - Thank you to many people for calls and gifts and cards! He got some really nice presents and he's slowly deciding what he's willing to share with Aviva. The goal is for everything to be eventually shared; he has a couple more days of sole proprietorship. What he told us he wanted was to choose the food we had for the day. This is what he chose. Pastries for breakfast. Whatever for lunch. For dinner, Nana and Papa came over, and we had garlic bread for the first course. It was homemade of course (Josh made everything basically, and Yona helped a little as a soux chef). Second course was rice pudding, muffins (delivered by someone to thank us for the yeast), chips, and fresh halibut with fresh mango salsa. Then we had crepes with bananas and chocolate sauce with strawberries. Luckily he didn't want dessert. It was all really really good.

We flew kites last week and we've been hiking and walking and picnicking in a lot of pretty places:

Pizelle cookies we made

Cool pizelle iron we used

You can see Noah's new bike

We got a new swing for the porch; thank you Grandpa:

Aviva's been doing a ton of writing, and also reading

Aviva's little cardboard house

Notice the shingles

kids playing airhockey on the floor

We made pretzels:

Bikes - we got bikes. Been biking around everywhere, around campus and bike trails and the neighborhood. We got new bikes for both kids. Aviva's has sparkles, and Noah did not want her to get it because he doesn't like to look at sparkles, and it's not fair that he has to look at it. And also it has a basket and that's not fair, because he doesn't have a basket, though he does have a kickstand and a bell, which she doesn't have.

Other info/details about life:
Aviva pretends all kinds of things and wants us to go along with her. Some popular scenarios are:

the house is burning down and someone needs to call 911, and someone else is the operator
someone is about to give birth and needs to call a rollercoaster ambulance
I'm looking for a puppy or kitten to buy but I can't find the storekeeper and can't find the puppy or kitten I want
One of us is the mother of a baby or kitten who fell in the water and died just a little bit, and the other is the 911 operator. The baby or kitten always comes back to life
There are a lot of puppies who are sick, or maybe it's me who's sick, and we need to have trashcans next to us in case we throw up (but if we throw up, it has to be without any sound) and we go to the hospital but can't get the attention of any doctors or nurses
I'm walking around looking for a shopkeeper or a friend or someone, but they don't see me and I have to tap them on the shoulder after saying "excuse me," and they don't hear me.

When we read books to her, she doesn't want any inflection or intonation whatsoever. She wants us to read "regular," a.k.a. deadpan. Whenever there's a character who is upset or confused or mad, or feels any emotion, it comes naturally to be expressive with my voice, but she does not like that at all. It's better if I read like a robot. She calls me on it every single time.

They were both scooting and skating around the kitchen floor last week, wearing 10 pairs of socks each. Their idea.

Noah came out of the bathroom the other night really giddy and laughing and laughing. He could hardly make out the words: "I did mischief in the bathroom!" I should have taken a picture -- towel on toilet seat with tissue box holding a balanced cup with a soap dish and shampoo and toothbrushes and floss.

She talks about conflection sites and things she has to conchestrate on.

Noah says "what the..." without knowing there's anything that comes next.