Fascinations of Nature

Along the verge of the road leading into the park are a series of large rocks, placed there, I am sure, by a resident to prevent cars from parking on the grass. The children love, love, love, to step on these rocks.

They are allowed, of course, with one caveat: Under no circumstances are they to touch the rocks with their hands, for Windsor Park is an off-leash dog park, and approximately 385,300,032 dogs pee on these rocks each and every day. Sometimes more than once.

So, the children know these are "pee rocks", and they are very good about stepping up using only their feet. Not too often, however, do we actually see any pee on these rocks. But when we do, it is an Event.

This rock? Had pee on it!!! We saw it going into the park, we saw it coming out of the park. The fact that it had not evaporated away two hours later made me doubt it was pee we were seeing, but I let it go. Dries was having way too much fun playing tour guide to this Urinary Wonder of Nature.

"Pee! Look, Adda, look, Noe-wah! Dere is pee on the rock!"

"You not touch that rock! Dere is pee Dere! See the pee on dat rock? No hands onna rock!"

Lemonade Adventure!

It has happened that, by virtue of being the only Big Kid (hence, non-napper) present during the day, that Nora has had special activities. Today, Nora even had a special Outing. A couple of little girls up the street had set up a lemonade stand. Stephen is a TOTAL softie for cute children manning lemonade stands, and can always be relied upon to buy a glass or two. He and Nora set out.

Td-dah! Success!

(Re)Introducing Etienne

Etienne has helped out in the daycare before. (In fact, much to his mother's delight, Etienne changed his first diaper under my expert tutelage.) He went with us to the park a couple of times this month, and you may be sure I took shameless advantage of the superior energy reserves of the eighteen-year-old male.

Want someone to chase you around the sandbox? Etienne can do it! Need to be lifted off the ride-on toy? And back on? And off and back on again? Etienne!! Want to spend eleventy-gazillion hours on the swing? Etienne will push you!!

Whee! (Does it look like he minds much? I didn't think so, either.)

Do you think the kids enjoyed having him around? I dunno.

You tell me...

Bye-bye, Dominic...

Today was Dominic's last day, and we needed to commemorate in some way. ("Commemorate"; 'celebrate' is hardly the word. We will miss him!)

Three Little Monkeys had these adorable sets of cupcake liners and toppers. We made muffins -- cottage cheese and apricot -- topped them with white icing and sprinkled on some chocolate cookie crumbs for 'dirt'. Stick in a truck and ta-day! Muffins worthy of an Important Event.

Mmmmm. Finger-lickin' good.

Daisy hopes for a hand-out. She watches me, because she knows that really? I am all that's standing between her and that muffin...

Everyone knows that when you eat a cupcake or even an iced muffin, you start with the icing. And maybe you finish the muffin. Maybe.

Vrrm! Bon Voyage, Dominic, in your exciting new adventures! We love you!

Brantwood Park

Silly Billies

Nothing more exotic than high spirits here, but they were so cute I thought they should be shared. Three children sit nicely in a chair, except...

"Hey, Dominic, you silly. Hold those feet still!"

Ella can't resist that...

"Ella! Nora! Now your feet are flying all over! Hold those feet still, you silly billies!" I know I've just thrown a red rag to the bulls. Nothing is more fun than being a silly-billy.

How about we hold our feet still, but make goofy faces??? Is that silly-billy enough, Ilona??

The other two think Nora's on to something terrific there. Three tongues appear.

Silly billies, all three of them.

Nap-time Artist

Nora was the only child awake during nap one day this week, so we took advantage of the quiet and the nice weather to have an outdoor art time. I'd set the paint aside before nap, but forgotten to retrieve the brushes, so we had to make do with the few I had in the kitchen.

When there weren't enough brushes for paint colours, we discovered that leaves, tiny spatulas, and branches spread the paint around pretty well, too!

Menu Monday

Monday: Veggies and tofu with peanut sauce, on brown rice vermicelli

Tuesday: Lentil-rice cakes (the children will be helping to make these), beet-carrot salad

Wednesday: Tandoor chicken, cucumber raita, naan, lentil-beet salad

Thursday: Fish-spinach curry on rice

Friday: Enchilada bake, broccoli with sesame sauce

Happy Birthday, Dries!

Happy Birthday Number Two!

In this house, that makes Dries a "middle boy". (Less-than-twos are "little". Three-year-olds are "big".) Though when Dries declares himself a 'big boy', we don't argue!

Strawberry shortcake! Nom. (That's not a hairband on Dominic's head, but a pair of sunglassses.)

Yes, Addie and Nora were here, but the batteries in my camera died, and the new ones hadn't been recharged. Boooo... Sorry about that!

Stop and Smell the Roses

One of our neighbours has a beautiful rose bush in their yard. The children love the flowers.

I love the photo op.

You can be sure that these little ones never forget to stop and smell the roses!

Pesto!

I love pesto. So quick and so easy. A great way to use up wilty greens, too. In this case, it was spinach. The bag had hung around a day or two past optimal, but with a thorough rinse and a careful picking-over, there was enough there to make spinach pesto. (If you're a purist, it probably isn't pesto unless it's basil ... but we are not purists around here. Not at all.)

Ella, for one, simply cannot shovel it in fast enough! Nom.

As far as we're concerned, a heap of greens, some nuts or seeds (in this case, ground walnuts), and some Parmesan cheese, all pulsed in the food processor with enough water (not oil, because Ilona likes her waist the size it is, thanks) to get the right consistency...

and it's pesto! Served on crackers, it makes a super-yummy, super-nutritious (kinda messy) afternoon snack.
("You got more of that stuff, lady? Puh-yease?")

Frugal, too, because otherwise that too-limp-for-salad spinach would likely have been tossed, and oh, I feel so virtuous when I come up with a good use for compost-bound food.

Now, isn't that the very picture of happy nutrition???

Too Many Cooks?

When you're a toddler, and you have a sympathetic grown-up around, there is no such thing as "too many cooks".  Though perhaps that's because there's really only ONE chef. These guys are sous-chefs-in-training. Today's lunch was a galette (fancy name for free-form pie), this one made with vegetables and cheese. They each got to choose their vegetable. Ella chose corn, Nora, beans, and Dries, carrots.

So, today we learned to peel carrots!

Peeling carrots takes more hand-eye coordination, fine motor control, and sheer physical strength than you might think. But it's FUN!

We grated cheese, using the food processor. Obviously, these shots are posed -- the food processor is not running with me behind a camera a metre away!

No fingers were endangered in the making of our pie!

Children and ingredients, all gathered together. (That's spinach in the pie shell, spinach being Ilona's choice!)

Then we each sprinkled our vegetable of choice into the pie shell. Corn...

T

beans...

carrots...

Top with cheese, fold the pie shell over it all, bake, and ... YUM!

The three of them ate this ENTIRE pie. I had one small piece, just to keep them company, but they all went back for seconds, so one small piece was all I got!

Food: healthy, educational, and fun!

Splish, Splash

Hot, hot, hot! The temperatures started to climb before we got our water table and our pool. What to do? Buckets and hoses, of course!

Dries loves to splash. "SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!"

Wet faces are adorable faces...

Buckets, hoses, and the occasional dump truck. Splish-splashy cool fun!

Counting Buddies

Dominic has a counting book, which he is reading to Dries. "Six cows, Dries, see? One, two, three..." Dries is not paying quite enough attention to suit Dominic, however, but Dominic, being a constructive and intelligent little guy, has the solution.

"Here, let me help you count. Are you ready? One... two... You count with me, Dries. 'Ooonnneee... twoooooo..."

I'm not sure whether Dries understood that he was counting so much as he was enjoying holding hands -- he's such a friendly and physical little guy -- but they both enjoyed 'reading' the book.

Load 'er up!

When you're tired of scribbling on the neighbour's house, there are still all sorts of fun things to do with a bucket of chalk!

Brrrmmmm!