Tuesday 31 May 2011

what's on our shelves this week?

Play silks - perfect for dress up, dancing, flags, blankets, sails, etc etc etc!

Find the letter Upper and Lower case

Ribbon weaving

Magnetic Maze

Matching colours colouring (purple and orange are underneath)

Which one doesn't belong?

Whole and half fruit matching   

The printables for this week came from www.montessoriforeveryone.com and www.KidsSoup.com.  The inspiration came from the kids!

Sunday 29 May 2011

pipes and connectors!

Best. Activity.  Ever!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Becky at MyKidsMake.com for this idea!  You are a Diva!  I am inspired! 

So on Thursday Riley and I headed to ye 'ol Home Depot and you know if I can get that kid to Home Depot without a huge fight and general laying down of the smack from yours truly here, you just know this is gonna be a fun activity!  After much searching throughout the store we found both pvc piping and elbow connectors (you would think they would all be stored together, but you'd be wrong), and after I spent 10 minutes trying to saw through the pipes myself, someone (thank you, sir) managed to help me and we were off with 12 some odd lengths of pvc piping and I don't even know how many elbow-T-cross connectors!  Pipes and Connectors!  I may have found competition for the cardboard box as Greatest Kid Toy in the Universe!














After a hard day playing, you've just got to take a little rest.
 

Activity Cards

I got this idea from Allison at http://www.notimeforflashcards.com
It's just an pizza box that I cut into pieces and then wrote different activities on.  The kids flip them over and we all do said activity - perfect for when it's a smidge too wet to play outside for a long time!

cardboard box = awesome!

May I present to you that totally wonderful of all wonderful toys, the creme de la creme, the CARDBOARD BOX!!!!  Yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!


Decorating!

In a pinch, it can a napping bed.  Sadie thought it was soooo much fun to sleep here!

Our fishing boat.

Other things our cardboard box has become: a swimming pool, a submarine, a house, and a dining room!

Friday 27 May 2011

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

a wonderful, beautiful tradition from soulemama
 http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Their Royal Highnesses......

1st royal proclamation:  Crowns are AWESOME!

Gardening 101

Oh look!  I can change the font!  Who knew?  It's a different font for every post for me from now on!  Woohooooo!

You know what, this font looks exactly the same as the other one.  What's up with that?


But I digress.


So since it's Spring and whatnot, the kids and I decided that it was once again time to try to do a garden, or in our case, many small pots of gardens!  And with thanks to Opa Peter and Grandma Peggy for bringing them and Ashley for planting everything (yay Dear!), we have tomatoes and strawberries and sunflowers galore!  We even have a worm composter!  Let the growing commence!


I have pics but it would appear that the add-photos-option isn't working right now.  My pictures keep getting rejected.  They're feeling sad now, need some chocolate.....  I'll try to post another time.

Cheers,

Christy

Okay, pics are working now!  Huzzah!

Oooh, look!  Worms!

What the worm level of the worm composter looks like.  Our worms eat coffee grounds and mushed bananas!  Our worms like caffeine!

We sprinkled wild flower seeds in this planter.

One of the 5 tomato plants brought to us from Opa!

Pansies, marigolds, and sunflowers, oh my!

Raspberry plants, 1 of 3!  We'd really like to eat some delicious berries!

Strawberries, from Grandma Peggy!  Can't wait to yum these up!  We have to keep an eye out for slugs though!

The 2 backyard composters!



Tuesday 24 May 2011

Nutella Mini Cupcakes

Feb 5th is World Nutella Day.  How could I have missed such a wonderous occasion?  I feel shame.  Shame and a need to eat more Nutella.  Nutella tastes good.

Our recipe:

Wet Team: combine 1 large egg with 1/2 cup Nutella and blend until smooth.
Dry Team: mix 5 Tbsp all purpose flour with 1/4 tsp cinnamon.
Add Dry Team to Wet Team.
Pour into mini muffin tins (12, lined - I just used Pam spray and ours kinda got burnt.  That could just be me, mind you.  I can burn anything.).
Cook 11-13 minutes at 350 F.
Let cool and yum them up!!!!

These were rather dry brownies, I'm not certain what to add to make them moister?  Maybe some mashed bananas? 

Christy: "So Ashlyn, what does the flour feel like?"  Ashlyn: "It feels like baking powder!"

Ashlyn stirs the Nutella and egg together.

Riley counts out 5 Tbsp of flour.

Sadie very carefully mixes the flour and cinnamon.

Adding the Dry Team to the Wet Team.

Ready to bake!

Brownies, hot from the oven!

A little icing sugar can fix any burnt edges!

Nom nom nom

Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!

Monday 23 May 2011

I want this, I really do, please Ashley can we have it, please?!?!?



Hop Scotch Garden Tiles, how awesome is that?!?  I love this!  Wouldn't this look absolutely wonderful in my backyard?  Oh yes it would!  I found the idea at www.pinterest.com, most addicting of sites, and I thank Slugs on the Refrigerator for introducing me to it!  Cheers!

Friday 20 May 2011

this moment

what's on our shelves this week?

sequencing activity (did I spell 'sequencing' correctly?)

rhyming activity

colourful bead transfering

links

farm animal stamping

bead caterpillars (I'm sorry, I don't remember where I got this idea, but as soon as I do, I'll post a link to the site)

abacus

pocket-sized magnetic fishing

glass bead counters, goes from 1 to 10

the water table is now outside!

colour matching game (idea from Frugal Family Fun Blog)

chalk board

Scrambled Feelings book and wooden eggs

new in our kitchen area: stir fry set!