good news bears

this morning's photo op: 

he walked away unscathed

so, some good news today-- on april 16th, wiliam can start kindergarten.  the same school as henry (ravnen-- the raven school)... two weeks after henry.  still a month away, but at least he has a spot and it's earlier than we would have expected, except that we knew raven was going to try to get him in as soon as possible.  thanks to pia and pernille!  if you're interested in getting a look, here's the website to their school: http://www.ravnen.roskilde.dk/index.asp.

if this link works: http://www.ravnen.roskilde.dk/admin/inc/billede.asp?billedid=894&bnavn=b_aellingerneoktober149.jpg you will be able to see a typical outdoor outfit for all of the kids around here.  full body all purpose bad weather suits, and hats that pull over the entire head-- i think of them as little viking helmets, minus the metal and the nose guard.

in other good news, william found a few boys to play with outside today.  the kids were playing with swords and shields-- doing battles, if you can believe it.  i told william and he ran down from playing upstairs, got on his coat (very windy and cold here today), "battle boots," and (bike) helmet, went out the back door and quickly realized he'd need one of his swords, if he were going to participate in this battle, so he came back in and ran out the front door to get one of the various long sticks he's collected from walks, and basically chased after the boys until their mom came out and handed william a real (toy) sword and probably told her children to please include this kid who is desperate for friends, in their play (or maybe that was what i was thinking as i held my breath, hoping they wouldn't reject him, so confident and sure of the situation he was).

we now have a sword at our house that he was given to borrow, and you will see below, a short video of him this evening showing it off.

more good news: greg understood a short conversation at work today on the topic of butter, held completely in danish.

the good news does not stop: henry thoroughly enjoyed dinner tonight.  a stew of cabbage, parsnips, carrots, mushrooms, jerusalem artichokes, and sausage.  it called for lots of paprika, but we have none, so i put in lots of turmeric and cumin instead.  the lighting in this picture is not the best, but you might notice henry is stained yellow (as is our white kitchen table-- any suggestions for that???).

here he is after his bath enjoying wind in the willows... 

and here is william with the sword... 

tonight we (as in, greg) are making a sweet treat with muscavado sugar, which i've seen before in recipes but never tried.  but when i looked for brown sugar in the grocery store, that was what i found instead.  if you've never had it, it's got a very molasses-y flavor to it and according to wikipedia, it is nutritionally richer than other brown sugars.  also, they don't seem to use liquid vanilla extract here-- rather, a vanilla powder-- in case you were wondering.

that's all for now.  take care!