Rainy Wednesday Craft

It was a super lame day out yesterday so we inevitably got into the craft drawer.

 The boys decided what we should all wear and added the googly eyes.  Left to right:  Daniel, Thomas, Daddy, Mummy, Auntie Niska.

The sun and the moon

What do you craft for a rainy day?

Lego Ville

So this is what I spent my evening working on monday night. In an attempt to clean up I started to organize the lego...then build with the lego...

                                             winnie the pooh and friends, picnicing and fishing

                            A looks way less impressive shot from above of the whole scene

                       The supermarket, complete with scale, food display and cash register inside

                                                               Police station

                                 Farm, complete with exotic animals like a lion cub, elephant and giraffe

                                                   
                                                      Campers around a camp fire.

My genius use of the train to use up the last of the lego blocks hehehe.

I would like to say that the kids were bowled over but truth is Danny didnt care too much, he just drove one of the cars around and Thomas thought it was cool, played for a few minutes then procceded to make one of the vehicles fly and crash into everything.  Totally worth it though because i love lego :) 

Easter Egg hunting!

    So, we have an amazing store on Roncy called Scooter Girl Toys. They sell all of the best and cutest toys you can imagine and are one of the boys favourite stops in the hood (obviously, toys.)  Last year they did an Easter Egg hunt around our area giving out clues on their facebook page until they are found (four eggs, clues every day or so)  Last year we were big winners and were able to get a little wooden BBQ floor model which has been rediculously loved by kids and adults alike.  This year things are a little more hectic for us but we have still found the time to go on the hunt. I think it is awesome to have a store that wants to inject fun into the neighbourhood creating a more family friendly city.  We were a mere few feet away from egg number one when we went on the hunt only to have it found a few hours after we gave up the search.  Today however we were triumphant. We were hot on the trail of this egg from the first clue and scoured the area with the following few clues. They must have gotten tired of this egg because the last clue all but said "look by the Emus!!   well thats just what we did, and little Danny was the lucky egg finder :)

                    My lucky boys watching the Emu at High Park Zoo make its freaky grunting noises at them.

                                                 Our little green egg hidden in the tree

                      Victorious! (they were excited really, it was just the Emu freaking them out)

The best part of an Easter egg hunt is the spoils after its all over.  Inside the egg was a ticket to return to the store and get a $25 gift card.  Thomas of course wanted the big Bruder trucks but once he came to terms with them being a little more than the gift card was for settled on his $5 airplane (which is totally awesome)  leaving Danny with the big pot to get a Duplo supermarket set (it has Duplo bananas and apples and cake with it making Danny a happy little 2 year old)     A big thanks to Scooter Girl for being super awesome and fun.  Always a nice reminder to why we try to buy all of our kids gifts from there :)

http://www.scootergirl.net/

High park Zoo

Who doesnt like a zoo in the middle of the city?!  High Park Zoo is a place my mum remembers being taken to as a kid. This march break they did special activities like feed the Llamas, colouring pages, where you could buy a peacock feather etc.  all in the hopes of saving the zoo for yet another year.  We went on a saturday and enjoyed ourselves looking at all of the animals.  I couldnt tell you how many times weve been in the 3 short years weve lived in the city but I dont think that we will ever get bored of it.

                         JM and the boys on our way to the Zoo.  We took the mucky way there.

Hockey Hall of fame!

I hadn't been since I was a kid going on a school trip but because its been cold outside  I was hoping to take the boys somewhere new (indoors) for a little entertainment. Anyone else with two little kids taking transit knows that getting there is fun, getting home after a day out is exhausting.  My solution to this was Grandparents.  We met up with my parents at Union Station and made our way through the path.  The boys had a blast and I think my Dad had just as much fun.

                                              Little Dan going past the origional Stanley Cup

This was possibly one of their favourite parts of the whole day. The boys were hopping from one metal grate to the next counting and then stopping to look at the stained glass skylight above them.  Thomas remarked on the skylights pictures that it was like a story.

Thomas and Daniel out on a Date

This past saturday Thomas was lucky enough to get taken to the ROM by my good friend Auntie Niska.  Danny got a much needed Mummy and Daddy date.  I was a little nervous having Thomas out ALL THE WAY TO THE ROM without me (Im a little attached)  I let them go and they had so much fun!  I got a text about 3 hours later telling me that Thomas was "beside himself" having fun. They even managed to think of us when they reached the gift shop.

Thomas picked out a rubber ball that lights up when it bounces, a marble and a Pteradon eraser for his little brother and a marble for his dad and I.  Auntie Niska picked us out a dinosoar sandwich cutter.  Its nice to know they were thinking of us.

Danny on the other hand was thinking about Thomas and Auntie Niska through out the day, randomly saying "bwa bwa" (his nickname for Thomas) and " Niska".  We decided that we would take Danny out for the day in the neighbourhood since I had to pick up my shades from being repaired.  He wanted to stay in the stroller on the way down since it was still kinda chilly but was more than happy to get out once we got to our lunch destination.  We ended up going to HEY on roncy for brunch.  Danny had pancakes with blueberries and whip cream, JM had their breakfast sandwich and I had a classic breaky plate with toast scrambled eggs, mushrooms and bacon.  They make everything fresh there and it tastes like it too.  We then meandered our way home through a school park then on to one of our favourite parks for the kiddos. Daniel was having fun knocking the icicles off of the equipment and working on his ballancing on the timber walls around the sandbox.

It was so nice to get to spend a little quality time alone with Daniel since hes always with Thomas when he goes out. It was about time he got our full attention.

St Patricks Day

Now that I have kids, St Patricks Day isnt another day to go out with friends and be silly but rather have a little fun with the kids.  I saw this great Pattys day treasure hunt on the blog Love Grows Wild.

  http://www.lovegrowswild.com/2013/03/st-patricks-day-scavenger-hunt-kids-activity-free-printable.html

I didn't use the free printable, instead I made the hunt with my kids during craft time (they cant read anyways)    I saved the finishing touches for when they were in bed.  They turned out great and Thomas at least had fun trying to figure out what a clue is and how to figure it out.

                                     
We opted for new water jugs with a few skittles and gold wrapped chocolates since spring is just around the corner.

                                          Rockey and Eddie even helped out with the first clue!

It was great to see the boys run around and be excited about their little hunt but the best part for JM and I was once they found their treasure.  Daniel asked me to open it and once I did he gave me the first piece of chocolate that he pulled out and he and Thomas continued to share with us and each other :)  such innocent hearts.

I hope you had a great St Pattys Day too!

8 out of 10 cats!

8 out of 10 cats, if you haven't seen it I fully recommend. It entertained us for a year and a half abroad and countless references are made to it in our house now. Typical to British humour there are no rules and no topic is out of bounds.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSlR705B0EI

My Sons Pinterest Album

         My husband says that I have a pinterest problem, its not true hes just joking.  I only joined a little while ago so hes just teasing me about it because I can get excited about the great ideas I see on there. Luckily my husband has found out he likes pinterest too now that my son has an album.  Thomas was watching me pin things and wanted to help, only he didnt want to help me pin the cute outfit or dresser for the bedroom pictures. He wanted to pin what he wanted, so I made him an album and let him type or tell me what to write on his pics.  My friends, JM and I are finding it seriously cute and funny to see what goes through his little head.


                                               http://pinterest.com/reeseraymo/thomas-picks/

A lot of blue

  Thomas decided that he wanted to do a little arts and crafts this past weekend.  He came to the table with the table cloth and made his trips to and from our little craft drawers in the basement with everything he wanted to use. There was blue paint, blue rice, blue sparkles...you get the point.  I joined in to play and just let them do whatever they wanted as long as they wanted.  It lasted for about 2 hours and ended with our typical playing with water in a soapy sink :)

 We have some beautiful, very sparkly and very blue artwork for the fridge now.

Learning from Lego

The other day the boys and I were playing with their lego (random bag of stuff scored from Value Village for $4) and I decided to organize it in order to get a better idea of what sort of sets I could put together.  In the process the boys wanted to help and spent the better part of an hour with me sorting out the differnt colours, pieces with hinges, ppl and their shields, hats etc...  This is what we ended up with, and they enjoyed every minute of it :)

This is how I want to store their Lego in the future...although I bet it will all be in giant tupperwares like my brothers was

A cute little discovery

The other day while folding the laundry I made my first little discovery.  There was a little marble tucked in the pocket of Thomas' pants.  It got me thinking what other wonderful surprises I will find in their little pockets in the future.  This one was pleasant but im sure I will encounter unknown goos and perhaps something im not supposed to see in the future...

What have you found in your kids pockets?

Valentines Day

 What did you do on the holiday of love. No big romantic dates for the hubby and I, we decided to do one better. An awesome family dinner date at home.  Thomas picked the menu, Fondue and I added the nutrition carrots and broccoli.  We had been making hearts all week and strung them up over the dining room lights and I surprised the boys with balloons hanging from the living room chandelier :)

 Balloons are always a big hit around here and a super cheap way to keep the kids entertained and feeling like its a special event. Clearly hitting the balloons became the activity of the day with a chair for each one to stand on and try to hit each other in the face with them.

 My time consuming portion of our fondue dinner was the carrots, they wont take as long the second time around and turned out super cute.

 During the holidays I always find produce that normally isnt there like these multi coloured carrots. I was thrilled to find them while expecting to get regular orange carrots.

                              step 1- cut a notch out of the carrot lengthwise.

        Step 2- use the peeler to shave the bottom to a point and soften the curves of the top of the carrot

                                          Step 3- slice

... and then nothing like rice crispies with fun sprinkles the boys picked out at The Merchantile to top it all off.                http://www.themercantile.ca/

Hope you all had a great Valentines Day!

V-Day crafting

  With all this snow and a rainy monday morning there have been lots of crafts and slimy activities making a mess in our house.  I found the easiest recipe on pinterest for slime.  (1 cup corn starch and 1/2 cup water) Little Danny whos 2 spent a solid 2 hours playing with it and Thomas (3 1/2)  spent a whopping 4 HOURS!  he only stopped twice, one to ask me for a bowl to pour it into and the second time for a spoon lol.  It was great to see their little minds so focused and captivated by the stuff.

Solo Thomas still at it :)

This was our morning, lunch followed and then came the Heart Cutouts.  We had fun about a week ago painting pieces of paper using sponges and paint brushes and the inevitable fingers and got to cut them up and string them for our valentines day decorations.

 These were stickers that they placed on foam hearts from the dollar store and then told me what they wanted written on them for their grandparents and aunts/uncles/cousins. It was so cute hearing what they wanted on them.

 Sorry for the fuzz, these were for Daddy, Thomas loves sissors so he cut out his own heart and gave it a very artistic fringe all the way around.

These are the decorations I will show you on valentines day :)

Snow Day!

Snowmageddon 2013 here this weekend.  We had more snow in 24 hours than the whole of winter.  This made the boys super happy and let them spend some serious time building a snowfort and then changing it to be a different snow fort with a doorway.  We got some seriouly red cheeks out of it and some worn out boys too :)

 All this snow also meant that we had to get creative on what we play with inside during the hard part of the storm. All of the lego, mega blocks and farm animals made an appearance for our village.

 Hot chocolate as the usual warm up after a morning in the snow...

 and a beef stew to warm up poor hubby who made it home safely from work to cap off our first real snow day!

.                                        (second snow fort, the first one was a big C shaped mound)