Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Celebration Preparations


Here is some of Noah's extensive road work. He had main roads connecting to highways, some of which were overpasses. Noah is, and always has been extremely interested in maps. He probably knows how to get around most of Toronto a lot better than I do (sad I know, but I cannot lie). He is constantly looking at Google Maps, on his I-Pad. He has already been exploring New York City, where we will be vacationing in August. We figure this will be 90% helpful, 10% oppressive. :)


We had a pirate join us for lunch last week! He prefers to be called Jake (and the Neverland Pirates). Arrrrrrgh!


Leila later joined Thomas in dressing up. She is Princess Tigger, of course!


Just plain sweet. :)



So, apparently I planned for a few too many kids for our Easter Egg hunt on Wednesday. Here we have a hoarder's supply of baskets.


AND basket heads!


Actually, Thomas has a wagon on his head. What?


We haven't been to the drop-in at Indian Road Public School for a while. I especially haven't wanted to bring the babies there. They are already unimpressed with getting all their winter gear on, I couldn't see the point of undressing them and dressing them an extra time. At least now I feel that they are accustomed enough to the daycare that they really would enjoy a visit to a drop-in. When it warms up a little, and we are at least foregoing the snow pants, our big gang will all go together.

So anyway, the bigger kids begged me last week to take them to this drop-in. Their wish was granted.  Here they are enjoying gym time.


And here they are running around at the end of gym time. Fun!



Did you know that Leila likes spaghetti? Now you do.


We've been doing a few Easter crafts. This one we did is a 2-dimensional paper woven Easter basket, with eggs. It was extremely hard for this age group, but I just helped them big time. Thomas, for one, liked all the extra help. As I was helping him, he said, "I like spending time with you like this, Charla/" That stuff just melts my heart! 


It is a very beautiful craft, but very time-consuming! Thank goodness they stayed focused for the long haul! (Although we did break it up into a couple of days.)


We also did a much easier, very age-appropriate chick craft.


Here is their beautiful work on display, on the front door.




We are still in the midst of decorating these paper eggs. First the kids did potato prints on them using paint. Now that they are dry, we will be adding stickers to give them more detail.



Of course, we also did our annual egg dying.



Last week we baked Leila's birthday cake for her daycare kids party. We try to make Noah a part of things whenever we can. It can be challenging though, since he's at school all day, and I do need to get dinner ready shortly after he gets home.




But where are the babies?!?! You may be asking that. We've tried bringing them up for a few of the activities, but they aren't really into it yet. Sometimes, they'll enjoy a snack and watch the bigger kids. Usually though, they'd rather be free to roam around. They do often stop by the dining room table to sneak a peak, and make sure we aren't enjoying a fabulous snack without them. :)








The best part of the birthday cake preparation is adding the frosting and the sprinkles though! I let the kids lick the spoons or spatulas they used to spread the icing on the cake, once we were done.


Check out the classic picture below. Thomas is furious that he's been cut off from eating the icing. (He had finished his own spoon, and was moving on to Leila's. Plus, I had noticed him consuming just a tad bit much, even before this, and unfortunately we were doing this activity at a great time; right before dinner.) If you look closely, you can see the icing around his lips. This photo will be one of my faves, forever!


So....now the photo shoot focuses on Leila and Dea. I have included the whole sequence of photos, because it gives the play-by-play of Amadea licking her spatula.

First, she eyes it closely.


She opens wide. (You can't take chances on missing any.)


She checks the status on the remaining icing. The crowd is silent. Amadea is completely focused.


Now, apparently at this point, it had been licked clean, because I later saw this little monkey sneaking some icing from the side of the pan.


Oops. Actually, it was caught on camera.


One of these days she and Tom are going to realize they can work together on their shenanigans. Then we're in trouble! :)


Coming soon to this blog; a birthday post, AND an Easter post! I can barely keep up with the amount of photos I'm taking recently, but it's a beautiful daycare life! :)



















Monday, March 23, 2015

March Break with the Munchkins!


On Monday we went to the Annette Street library. First we visited the upstairs area, and got some more books and videos. Then we went down to the drop-in. The kids did music circle, played with toys, and had the snack which is served by the centre. Dr. Leila gave me a check-up, and I guess I wasn't doing too well, because she had to give me many, many needles. That seemed to make me all better though. ;)


Noah and Leila's nanny was visiting this past weekend, and gave Noah (among other things) a face-painting kit. We tried it out on Monday! He and his friend both wanted to be tigers. Isn't he a handsome little tiger?!



Here's a picture I took while having dinner with the beasts. Leila was pretty brave to ask me to paint an ice cream cone on her cheek!



On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had Riley at the daycare. Everyone is always so happy to have her visit. It is too bad that Thomas was away this week and missed her, but I'm sure he was enjoying himself just fine on the beach in Florida!


As of this past weekend, I am all ready for Easter with the kiddies! Here are Leila and Riley donning some of the bunny gear I got.


Riley is growing up so fast. When I commented that she was wearing a t-shirt of her favourite colour, black, she said, "Black is not my favourite colour anymore. Gold is. Because black is not a colour, Charla. It's a shade." And the way she stated this was so sophisticated. Her tone said "I'm trying to help you understand, Charla." It was absolutely adorable, and clever at the same time!


I love these shots of the kids playing. A rare and sweet period of calm, quiet play!


Later on, when the others were napping, Riley wanted me to paint her as a lion. There were no pictures of painted lion faces in the face-painting kit, so we looked on the internet and found one she liked. I know, looks a lot like the tiger face. :) So sweet!


Conditions were treacherous at Lithuania Park and High Park last week. At High Park, Leila slipped on the ice and got a bloody lip. So we really wanted to find a safer area to play with the wee ones. On Monday, we had seen Noah's teacher at the library drop-in, with his family, and he reccommended Baird Park. So on Wednesday we tried it and it was much, much better!


We played restaurant. Initially it was Leila running the restaurant. When I came to her establishment, I ordered pizza. She informed me that they didn't have pizza. I asked her what she had, then. She said, "Mac and cheese".  I waited, thinking that she was pausing to think of more menu items, but no, this was it. So, mac and cheese it was!


In the photos above, though, Noah and Riley are running the restaurant, and Leila, Dea and I are the customers. Of course, Leila is ordering mac and cheese.


Noah got to go to both the ROM one day and the Science Centre another day this week with his friends! But we had the pleasure of his company for three of the days, and two of the mornings before he left on his adventures. One day we made dinosaur cookies.


The next day we iced them.


Once they had dried, Noah worked on the stenciling part. It was a little tricky!


Ta-da! I think they turned out pretty well!


The Easter activities are starting! Leila spent time colouring paper Easter eggs. She is becoming better at colouring, and spent longer on this than on any other colouring activity.


Although spring is officially here, the weather hasn't gotten the memo yet. Still, you can feel that it's coming, in the air: the way the sun is shining, the way the birds are singing, and just the fact that we can remove our mitts now and then!


You can tell that everyone in Toronto is excited about the coming of spring, and we are no different! We busted out the warmer weather outdoor toys, like chalk. 

And it was a joy to play hide-and-seek with Amadea and Leila. 



They are so nice, and always go so easy on me when I'm it. :)



Leila and Amadea got started on painting eggs, though we didn't want to do too much without Thomas. We have saved the better egg dying kit to do with him this week.


They painted some very beautiful eggs! I can't wait to have some more beauties for our dining room table. :)





Last, but not least, I present you with the fashionistas.


Maryam, in particular, was into the sunglasses. Forgive me if I've already spoken of this (because I speak of her skill so often that I can't remember if I actually wrote about it too), but Maryam can sing the first line of "Ba Ba Black Sheep." Not the precise words, but the precise tune. Perhaps you are amazed with this, but if you're not, you should be. I've been around a lot of babies and I have never known one yet that could do this at 14-months! Actually, she's been doing it for over a month now, so probably closer to 12 or 13 months! It's phenomenal. Please remember us 'little people' when you are a famous singer one day, Maryam!