Fruit salad, Word salad, Life salad

That was quite nice in kindergarden yesterday. 4 year olds muster an unbelievable enthusiasm about things like cutting bananas or stirring a pot with noodles, and they ask questions like "What animal are noodles made from?" and "Do those yellow balls have cores?" (referring to oranges). Three of the four kids in this pic are no native speakers, and it´s even more fascinating having conversations with them when they constantly throw in words in their mother tongue, expecting me to naturally understand them, and I speak neither Albanian nor Turkish nor Russian. All of them had snotty noses, and one of them accidently threw his used paperhandkerchief into the bowl - um... no one saw it ;) However, they paint a constant smile on my face.

As do my sons recent adventures in reading. They´ve known the letters of the alphabet for quite a while now, but in those past months, they´ve learned to put them together to words. Quickly. Short words, common words, come easy and without hesistation.

Longer ones, like "Rotkäppchen" (little red riding hood) take some consideration, but they come. 

They definitely lack the fine motor skills to write, yet. And, compared to their sisters, the motivation. But we´ll get to that, and in case you have any links to pages where I can download free worksheets with beginner lettertracing tasks, please tell me in the comments, so I don´t have to make them myself again.

Other than that? Want to know about more of my life right now?
Well. My husband went to work with two different shoes this morning.

I founded a computer work group in Ronja´s school, I have awesome, clever students who are eager to learn, and no computers. But the headmaster promised to get them ready next week again. Keeping my fingers crossed for that.

My grandpa finally died two nights ago, after losing all of what is defined as dignity, and I´m happy for him. Not for losing his dignity, of course, but for finally being able to go. I firmly believe that death is no tragic event when it comes at a decent age, and 91 is more than decent. So, though I feel quite sorry for my gran, this is something to be happy about. And when she´s ready for it, she´s welcome to sit in our garden and enjoy her great grandchildren. Because, now she´s free to do it.

Eva is feverishly preparing for her first live concert ever, we´ll see her beloved Taylor Swift, tomorrow. Preparing means that she´s printing T-Shirts, chatting in a message board with other freaks as long as I allow her to do so, asking me what purse she needs to wear and how she should wear her hair, urging me to reload my camera batteries, petting the tickets, getting nervous about loosing the tickets, and counting the hours. I read that her opening act for the North American tour is Needtobreathe? It would be sooooo cool if I got to see them live tomorrow. I don´t expect too much from Taylor Swift, but Needtobreathe would be a whole nother cup of tea :) But mostly, I´m looking forward to watching Eva.

And apart from that, we are enjoying the financial shower we get every March, debating whether to spend it on a big summer vacation, or carry it all to Ikea, or be reasonable and pay off a tad more of our house, or just have another child. The usual.
And my daily music is Paramore:

I only just started to look into their music this morning, but they sound pretty cool to me. I think it was only a question of time for me to listen to them - they fit into my frame, with their passionate teenage heartbreak lyrics and their heavy guitars and drums.
Oh, and let me just add this one:
Eyecandy and earcandy :) I need a festival. Soon.