Easter Activities

We dyed a ton of eggs on Friday! It really was a good idea to do such a large amount, because now we don't care if one breaks here and there.

Leila takes her work very seriously.

I thought Maryam, being only 2, would break quite a few eggs during this activity. Clearly, she's an expert. She only broke one at the very end of the activity (the scientist in her wondered what would happen if she squeezed it - it was hollow, btw).

It was a very pleasant, peaceful activity. Noah arrived home from school just in time to join in.

As you can see, we started experimenting with mixing the colours; it wasn't pretty. Also, as you can see in the background, Maryam experimented with dyeing her hands green. :)

This pic below was taken after she roughly, and repeatedly dunked her egg in the green dye, while singing "mix, mix, mix". I love her look though. "Who me? Make a mess?" lol

Dea works better standing up. :)

They dried quickly, so some of us drew on them with markers.

The egg dye package only came with stickers, but Dea had the genius idea to put tattoos on them. (Leila got a huge pack of tattoos from her Oma, and I have been putting a lot of them on Dea.) Somebody said, "We can't put tattoos on the eggs." Well, we tried Dea's idea, and yes, she is a very clever and imaginative girl. They looked great! Both she and Leila got so good at it that they didn't even need my help. I was really impressed with that, especially with hollow, fragile eggs.

We made Easter cookies on Monday. (Basically, if I have the appropriate cookie cutters for an occasion, cookies will be made.)

We also brought out the Easter baskets. At one point, Drew kept carrying a toy truck around in one of the baskets. He's getting cuter by the day!

Bunny bowling. On Maryam's turn, she simply held on to the ball, walked over, and smashed it down on the bunnies. Strike!

Drew got a chance to just play with the bunnies afterwards. He wasn't into the bowling bit.

We invited Marcus (an alumni) to come to the daycare for our Easter egg hunt. What a thrill to have him back, even for just a day! (Note: this is during our hour of T.V. that I allow from 8-9 at the daycare, which is why Amadea is a little distracted.)



Marcus wasn't shy at all. He really busted a move when we played one of Leila's new Kids Bop cd's!



And finally, here it is...Easter Egg hunt 2016!

We didn't invite any school-aged kids this year. Last year, Noah and B. left school early to join us. The problem was that they were too good, and pretty much took over.

I gotta say though, Leila was extremely quick at finding them! I had to give the kids lot of hints for the trickier hiding places (e.g. inside the toy airplane).

Maryam was happy to look at a few eggs.

There were no chocolates in the plastic eggs, fyi. It was just for fun. There are half plastic eggs all over my apartment this week. lol Maryam in particular, enjoys scattering them everywhere! Haha, it's only a week in time though, and our place is a mess at the calmest of times.

Marcus's mother brought some plastic eggs with little chocolate eggs inside. The kids are enjoying one here at lunch time.

After nap time, it was time to ice our Easter cookies. I was living dangerously, having them do this activity before dinner, but I wanted Marcus to enjoy it while he was here. Turns out, he didn't want to ice his cookie at all.

Drew enjoyed a plain cookie too. Then he played with a closed plastic jar of sprinkles; the perfect shaker! ;)

Maryam was very focused and took her time. She's really getting the hang of cookie decorating!

We missed this face!

Leila won't watch Teletubbies without Drew in the morning.

The quality of the bond they share is pretty clear. Unbelievably sweet!

Drew is getting into the spirit of Easter. :)

And finally, these are 3 little munchkins this morning, in their own little houses. We originally put stuffed animals in their "cages" because we were playing Zoo, but this was far more fun.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Big City Kids!

We made 2D paper Easter baskets this week.

They are actually quite challenging for the little ones, and I am usually against crafts that have me doing more of the work than them. Still, they just loved the baskets (and maybe the attention I gave to each of them as I helped them) and wanted to do more and more.. I finally had to say, enough! lol

But they are beautiful. Noah got the hang of the craft and did most of this himself. Creative, huh?

We are getting quite the collage of Easter crafts on our wall! Wonderful!

On Wednesday, we took a ride on the subway and on the bus.

People kept asking us, "Where are you going?" But the journey was the destination. We took the subway to Kipling, and then took a bus ride back to the High Park neighbourhood.

It's so great that kids are free on the TTC now. It made it that much easier for us. The kids were incredibly well behaved.

Looking outside was a real treat. Next time, we'll have to sit at the very front or the very back of the train, so we can see the tracks.

This was Maryam's first subway ride, and it really was most special to her. She has been talking about it all week!

Here we are looking out the window on the bus, and having our snacks.

Yesterday we took a trip to the Castle Playground in High Park.

The baby part is great for the little ones, but the majority of the playground is far better for those 6 and up. We almost got run over a few times by the big kids!

Maryam has no fear, and wanted to do everything she could.

There was quite a fuss from her when it was time to leave. She wanted more rides on the slide. :)

As we walked over to High Park Zoo, we stopped to feed some ducks in the pond.

Finally, Leila told us we needed to stop. We needed to save our cheese sandwiches for ourselves! lol (There were A LOT of sandwiches, but she was quite distressed.)

At the end of this video, Maryam hears a fire truck. A common utterance from her these days is "What's that noisy?" So cute.


We saw llamas at the zoo.

Maryam found some puddles, of course! (It's been a very rainy week!)

There was a baby calf! Not sure exactly how old, but Amadea was convinced which one was the mommy and the daddy, and informed us. :)

Maryam would have sat here all day, but we eventually had to head home.

She likes to find different places to sit down, not because she's tired. In fact, she walks far more than the two bigger girls. Rather, she just finds it neat to find cool little places sit. Like I said, she's just stopping to smell the roses everywhere, and inspiring us to do the same. (Everyone needs reminders now and then.)

As you can see, she's definitely inspirational. :)

I'm not one for St. Patrick's Day, but it seems that Noah is, and he encouraged us to do a craft to celebrate the day.

Sometimes the kids have such good ideas; ya gotta take their lead! ;)

We were going to join some friends at the High Park Nature Centre today. Right before we were about to leave, we found out it was closed to the public, and was only running March Break programs. This news resulted in mayhem. They were refusing to go outside at all; that is, until I suggested a trip to Tim Hortons. Then it was all smiles.

Thank you, Timmy's, for saving the day!