Rainbow Paints

An old ice cube tray works well to store the small amount of paint we need to make a whole heap of Beautiful Art. Creating Beautiful Art takes focus...

and concentration...

and does, occasionally, elicit a wee smile...

Lefty me is interested to note that in these pictures, three of four children are using their left hands. (No,  I don't think they're all left-handed. Particularly with paint brushes, they switch off quite often, so catching three of them at the time they happened to have the brush in their left hand is likely coincidence. I just noticed after I'd posted the pictures!)

Just because

They're not doing anything special, they're just being cute. Which is pretty much their default state. (Except when they're being grumblefrumps, of course...)

The stripe girls:

Nora and Dries are starting to form a friendship these days.

During the heatwave

Recipe: Spinach Pie

Ingredients:

2 frozen pie shells (Yup. Storebought! With pastry, I cheat. My own pastry is awful, awful, awful. My grandmother did her best, but I totally failed that part of her training.)

1 pkg frozen spinach (10 oz), thawed and squeezed out
1 cup cottage cheese
3 large eggs
1 medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon dried dill

Method:

Prepare pie shells as per package directions.

Mix all other ingredients in medium bowl, pour into pie shells, bake at 325 for 30 minutes, until set. Let cool 5 - 10 minutes before cutting. Excellent hot or cold.

n.b.  If you put this in phyllo pastry instead of a pie shell, it becomes, magicallly, spanakopita!!! (And gains about a gazillion calories, while becoming much fiddlier to make. Yummy, but only for the occasional treat, I figure.)

Happy Birthday, Ella!

Ella is the first of the three Big Kids to turn three. As per her request, we had white cupcakes with pink icing. Here we have pink icing in the making. Stir, stir, stir...

Stir, stir, stir...

Ella's cupcake had the candle, of course!

While Addie's had the ... hot pepper flakes? sour lemon? chunks of rocks? No idea what caused that face...

Oh, wait. Maybe it's the full-mouth version of the Camera Face. Yeah, that's what we're seeing here, I'm pretty sure.

Ella's cupcake appears to be just fine. No rocks nor nuthin' in there but sugary birthday goodness...

Nom

Nom, nommmmm... slurp!

Drive Play

Sometimes it's not feasible to get too far afield. Maybe we're waiting for a late arrival, perhaps someone is taking a nap. We can't get to the park or the library or playgroup ... but we can play in the drive!

I guess that's the vent for the furnace. They were thrilled to put their hands in the airflow. Whee! And then I started to wonder. What's in that rush of warm air? Is it just air? Is there also something icky? Probably not, but ... Unsure, I shooed them away. Er, "redirected" them.

Zoom!

Menu Monday

Monday: Macaroni and cheese (home-made), white cupcakes with pink icing
Monday's menu Ella's request, for her birthday lunch

Tuesday:Vegetable-tofu stew, carrot biscuits

Wednesday: Veggie burritos, sweet-and-sour red cabbage

Thursday: Eggplant, stuffed with a potato-cream cheese filling

Friday: Rice and beans, with a veggie-tomato sauce

So exciting!

What's caught their attention this time?

Whatever it is, it's pretty rivetting!!!

It's the giant hole and the mondo digger, of course! We have to check it out every time on our way to the park. Or our way to the green space. Sometimes we go and check it out JUST BECAUSE WE CAN!

I was hoping it wouldn't happen

But it has. 

The "Camera Face". 

She thinks it's a smile, of course...

Let's all hope she grows out of it quickly...

Group Shot!

 No good reason. Just because they're cute!

Happy St Patrick's!

A little late...

A neighbour, having had a St. Patrick's party over the weekend,

found himself with a surfeit of green balloons.

Where better to offload than the daycare across the street?

I'd say your children thought that was a FABULOUS idea!!! (Daisy found it interesting. But was not -- amazingly enough -- responsible for any of the subsequent, inevitable poppage.)

Wheeeeee!

Menu Monday

Monday: Pasta with sesame-paste sauce
Everyone liked this. Dominic had three helpings! They all had to be reminded that they didn't get seconds just because they'd finished the pasta in their bowls: all that boring other stuff (the beans, the vegetables) had to be consumed as well. Some of them (Dominic!! Nora, Addie) were cheerfully willing to suffer the boring stuff to get more pasta, some (Ella, Dries) were not -- but they all finished the first helping without complaint.

Tuesday:  Fish and spinach curry over rice

Wednesday:  Spinach pie

Thursday: Enchilada bake

Friday: Sri Lankan tofu curry