WHAT Were you thinking???.......

.......was all I could say over and over again. Maggie is the poster dog for comfort and minimal effort. She sprawls on the couch most days amid a myriad of throw pillows and will not extricate herself from this position unless it is to eat or relieve herself. If it is raining or snowing she won't budge and will hold her bladder until the very last possible moment and at that she will charge out then right back in. Tuesday night it snowed here quite heavily and Groovy is thrilled but Maggie was not pleased to have to get her toesies wet. When I got home from a day in town, I let them out and Groovy returned to the back door about 10 minutes later with no signs of Maggie. I called, and called and began to panic. I sent Groovy out to get her and Groovy's expression was one of disdain and she parked herself at the top of the stairs to wait for Maggie to return. Where could have Maggie gone? It is drippy, wet and snowy and she is a diva.... I call again and put my boots on to go investigate. She came running before I got out the door but this is what greeted me:

A good friend suggested that Diva Dog Maggie was just getting a mud facial at the backyard spa. I don't know what she was doing but it was about 45 minutes to dinner time and now I had to bath and dry her, wash out the tub plus wash all the floors where she walked to the bathroom. While I was bathing her I kept thinking "I love my dog, I love my dog, I love my dog.... Where is the WINE!!!"

In this photo I love the little clean circles around her eyes. Proof that eyebrows are useful!

Sid was of course the best helper getting right into bathing the dog by spraying her, me and the floor. The end result was a clean dog so that is all that mattered!It is a good thing she has a cute little button noses and curls, (Maggie, not Sidney!) they saved her once again.

Meet Benny

Playing doctor has lasted a long time but I think we might finally be able to put away our Dr. prop box. Occasionally Sid likes to fix her babies and she is still very baby crazy however, since Benny's arrival, she is all about her Tiger named Benny!
We have read Our Big Backyard Magazine about tigers, we have read every book in our collection that has a tiger or African animal in it. (Benny is from Africa, not Asia as one might assume!) While out getting her hair cut with Dad yesterday, they stopped at a toy store and got a schleich Tiger figuring who Sidney has dubbed Little Benny. Big Benny is a folklore puppet and has incredible conversations with Sidney and travels everywhere with us. We are hoping Little Benny will have the same power to captivate her imagination since he will travel a lot better in stores.
We have started a prop box for a Safari which Sid calls a Refari. "Mommy, mommy, lets go on a refari!!!" We have included 2 pairs of binoculars, a spotting scope, a magnifying glass and a flashlight. We will add to it as Sid finds more items. Here are pictures of Sid on our morning refari in her jeep. It was a bumpy ride but once we got there it was well worth the trip!
We are going to spend lots of time learning about tigers and other African animals. Today we learned that while a group of lions is a pride, there is no name for a group of tigers because they are solitary animals unless breeding, and a group of rhinocerus are call a crash! Tomorrow we are going to buy a world globe (with Nunavut!!!) so we can see where Africa is.

Hands on Science!

It was a busy weekend with a family get together on Saturday and a birthday party for one of Sid's friends early Sunday morning. The meltdowns were plentiful and we knew we had one absolutely exhausted preschooler on our hands. We turned our focus to home time and just hanging out with Dad on Sunday afternoon and Mom on Monday. We had so much fun and learning by just being home and doing what we felt like.

Sunday Sid spent the afternoon in the garage with Grandpa and Daddy working on the plane. Below you can see how she pulled her tools out and was under the airplane. Daddy got her the creeper and showed her how she could roll under it. She thought that was the coolest thing. It was a real pride moment for Daddy and Grandpa!

Monday we had our music class but decided to skip it and have a pajama day instead. A nice relaxing day to just play! Sid had oodles of fun with her magnets and got a kick out of putting the wand under a piece of paper and then dragging magnetic marbles on top. We drew roads for her to drag the magnets along, then we experimented with moving the magnets through different mediums like this bubble wrap bag. It was so neat to watch her face as she discovered new science.

We were supposed to go to the pumpkin patch today but the weather did not cooperate at all. Very cold, rainy with some snow and strong winds. We might get to go next week!

Ken has the parts he needs to mount the engine on the plane and is anxious to get that done. It is nice to see the plane back in the garage as they get it ready for its first inspection.
This past weekend hockey was very busy with a league game Friday and Sunday and house league game Saturday. Good times with friends but I am thankful that I don't play that often every week! We have moved up a division and are carrying fewer skaters so I am seeing a lot of rubber. I am getting my monies worth this year!

Monster Lab

Nan-Nan bought the most wonderful puppet for Sid's birthday. It is still a month away but with Halloween just around the corner, I could not resist letting her play with it. It is one of the neatest and most open ended toys I have seen in a long time. It is a puppet with just a purple sleeve and a mouth and then 30 velcro monster pieces that can go on it. They include, eyes, noses, ears, horns, teeth, arms, furry stripes and more! I took some pictures of the first couple of monsters. This is a great activity for language skills!

Monster One!

Monster 2

Monster helping rock the baby to sleep

Monster two in the works.

Last week the horses escaped from their fenced area across the road and ended up on our front lawn at 10:30 at night. What a surprise to open the door and see two 17+hand horses standing there! They took off down the street when we tried to grab them and ended up at a neighbours place who has horses and a proper paddock. They spent the night there and went to their new home on Tuesday. Now that our resident horses are gone we thought we would be a little lonely but a tiny fox has claimed our property as a part of his / her territory and we have been seeing her several times a week. Here are pictures I took yesterday out of the playroom window. She was less than 20ft from our fence. I just love living in the country!

The Children's Museum

Today Sidney and I were invited out to the Children's Museum with her friend and her friends little baby brother. The girls go to two programs together and are very close in age with her friends birthday on October 12 and Sidney's on Novemeber 12. This was the first time I have taken Sidney somewhere where she was able to go off and play very, very hard without my help.

I didn't hear "Mom. come and play!" once today and it was amazing to watch the girls play and interact. Sid says her favorite part was saying "coochie, coochie, cooo" to the little brother. She is still a bit baby crazy!

Let's go this way!

We're here!

The girls using scissors, tape and sticks. Sidney made a bird.

Lunch break

Off to Egypt

Very tired desert nomads. This was our last stop before going home. We didn't even get through half of the museum after 4 hours but the kids were tuckered out!

My favorite sections was the theater and stage where the "diva's" got dressed up and preformed for us. It was amazing to see them so uninhibited and able to sing and dance in front of the world! In this video they were taking turns singing and dancing for each other. Here is a short clip of Sid singing while her friend preforms.

Cupcake Tuesday!

It was another gloomy day outside so after preschool we decided to bake cupcakes! We had so much fun and relatively little mess. Sidney was on clean up duty and made sure no icing was left behind!