Here comes the sun

It has been a while since posting but that happens when it gets warm and we are out playing. The hoop has gotten a work out lately. They guys play all kinds of versions of one on one. I love some of their made up rules.


O goes strong

G's new red cleats

When the sun is out some things have to take a back seat

So not to get his cup mixed up with George's, O decide his needs to be customized

Food Post

The more Rick, George and Owen say they enjoy my cooking, the more I cook. Last weekend my sister Kathy and I got to talking about how we both are constantly thinking about our food plans. Sometimes, we'll be eating one meal and planning the next. We come by it genetically.



Apple Crisp is fantastic year round.



Friday night at the Henss house means homemade pizza. This recent concoction is one of our favorites for dinner and breakfast--basil pesto, prosciutto, fresh garlic green onions and new potatoes. That's right, I said potatoes. Dang, that was good.

Many people don't realize that in addition to getting famous for leading the snakes out of Ireland, St Patrick was also the first guy to brew green beer. Here's to you SP.

He also liked brown butter soda bread. So we made some of that.

And his favorite meal was coddle. So we have this every year in his remembrance. It's potatoes, sausage, bacon, onions and parsley. Sort of like Ireland's breakfast of champions.

Things we did and made this week

Earlier this week we were visited by a Frenchman wearing a Bob Sanders jersey who was much more peculiar than any other Frenchman who has ever paid us a visit. He brought us bread. Turns out he was very nice and hardly spoke with any accent. Becca, George and I had a wonderful time listening to his wild stories about life in Paris. We're not sure where Owen was the whole time.

After our visitor left us, we knew just what to do with the bread. Mmm, french toast. If only our guest had arrived with syrup, too. Oh, well. C'est la vie.

The boys were floored by Rick's spell-ability.

George--aka G-point-one-four--sporting the fly pi medalion he crafted to celebrate Pi Day, March 14th (3-14, get it?).

This part of Owen's US government project highlights on our president. (By design, Mr Obama's head is not to scale.)

Signs of spring

Signs of spring are everywhere. Slowly the neighborhood is coming back to life.

The balls, bats, kicking tees and training cones we planted last fall are coming up earlier than expected.

Another great weekend

Another weekend races by. This one was all about making good food and cakes, painting, trading cards, the art museum, muscle making, music making, football at Butler, hoops, differential equations and some evening game-playing as we lounged by the fire. If only the weekend lasted all week.



Becca's screen print. She liked it so much she taught the process to her students and they went nuts.

When I figure out what this means, I will let you know. This is Rick writing, not Becca.

Owen is gearing up for his career in film. He spent much of each morning filming a riveting LEGO baseball story. He made it with our video camera, but in a stop-motion way. What took him an hour to film lasted about two minutes in real time. It was great. Circular white pieces attached to string looked just like baseballs flying out of the stadium. There was a serious collision at the plate but the ump missed the call. Really, we got it on tape.

George went deep in his own right. He made this collage for class because they are studying the states, and his pick for the midwest was Iowa, of course. Rememebr, he's named after the quasi-official king of the southeast region, home-based on the Iowa Girls Farm in Mt Union. Not only that, but his father was born in the booming metropolis of Mt Pleasant, his grandmother was once crowned Queen of the Rural Electrical Co-op, and his grandfather, according to a handful of aging residents of the Wayland retirement home, is still considered the sharpest shooter the WACO High basketball team has ever known.

Friday night means pizza night. Homemade Thai Pizza was this Friday's delight.