Sugar Bush Time

It was a cold windy morning despite the promise of 10 degrees and sunshine. We dressed for the weather and with camera in hand we met our school friends at a local sugar bush.

Sid, being a lover of all animals, was one of the first to charge to the wagon and sit up near the horses. The driver, Lawrence, gave Sid the reins to Judy and Harry and told her to hold on tight because she was driving. She was pleased but she was so tense she was stone quiet. At one point I asked her if she liked the wagon ride and with a look of concentration on her face she answered "I am NOT in a talkative mood." I think she really thought she was holding on to those horses.

After the wagon ride it was off to the barns to feed and pet the animals. A worker in the barn pulled Sid aside and told her she could climb in the chicken coop and get herself an egg to show her class. She looked at me for permission and with a nod of my head she was off into the coop. She came out with a nice fresh egg that we got to take home in my purse. Thankfully it survived.

Next stop was the sugar shack to see the process of boiling down the sap to make maple syrup and then the best part, toffee on snow.

Since the trip Sid has been down with a bad bug. She has a bout of gastro and I am hoping it comes to an end soon. She is pretty cheery and chipper regardless but I am worried about her and will be until she is back to her old self.

While playing in her room she presented me with a poor little puppy in isolation because he came down with porks. He was waiting to see the vet. "Porks??" I ask. "Yes mommy, he has Porks and the vet has to fix him." With a grin on my face I ask " how did he catch porks?" and she answered "Mommy!! He fell on a porcupine and now he has porks!" Oh, of course! How could I have missed that???

Lastly, we stumbled across a new picture book yesterday and it is in our top 5 all time favorite books now. It is called Bark, George by Jules Feiffer. It is fun and hilarious. I had to read it 5 times in a row to Sid and we have been talking about it for two days straight. If you can find it at the library, it is worth the search. I found this title on a website called flashlightworthybooks.com

House League Champs

For yet another year, the Xtreme won the house league Competitive Division Championship this past weekend. It was a great season with a great group of friends and a personal G.A.A. (goals against average) of 1.00 (which is 25 goals in 25 games) to take another Top Goalie award for me. After a solid week of working those new gloves in every night while watching TV, they did the trick and felt like old friends by the time the important games needed to be played. Now to continue with our ODWHA competitive league playoffs. The Mustangs have 3 more games to play and to qualify for the championship game we will have to win them all.

With Spring on the horizon we trekked off to the Experimental Farm today. The very first thing we saw were Canada Geese flying over the barns. What a welcome sight that was after walking up the long drive way in 40 to 90 km wind gusts. What a great way to brighten a cold stormy day. Sid made some new friends and was particularly please with this gal who she named Rosa the Sheep. She even sang Baa Baa Black Sheep to Rosa.
It was a very cold walk to the dairy barn but as always it was worth it to be able to pet and brush the little calves in the calf barn.After all the mucking about in the barns we got home and Sid decided she wanted to practice her ballet. I caught a few great pictures of her in her dancing glory.

Fittings for the ballet recital in June with be happening this weekend. Sid is very excited to be in a recital even though she had NO idea what a recital is. All she knows is she gets to dress like Tinkerbell and is in group 4 with her friend Charlotte. I will have to borrow a video camera to capture this, it should be priceless.

Saying Goodbye to October

It was a whirlwind of activity this last week of October. We were supposed to go to the pumpkin patch on Tuesday but the trip was canceled due to bad weather. We still had gymnastics on Wednesday, preschool with a halloween party on Thursday and then on Friday, Halloween, we were invited to take part in the filming of a promotional DVD for the gymnastics club. We showed up at 10:30 and did gymnastics until almost 12:30. Sidney was one of only two children in her age group that stayed so long. She was so wound up by the end of class but LOVING every minute of climbing, jumping, swinging and flaying through the gym. We went to Old MacDonalds (as Sid calls it) for a Happy Meal and then managed to squeeze in the ever elusive nap before trick-or-treating.

Sid was dressed up as a cute butterfly and was led door to door by her cousin Emilie. Emilie has such a gentle kind manner with Sidney and patience to match. It was a successful evening filled with much loot and excitement. The kids were worn out by the time we were finished and as planned last year, the Bailey in the coffee was a perfect touch for the adults!

Back row: Laura and Dirk, middle row: Sophie, Julia and Emilie, front: Sidney

When we went to Gymnastics on Wednesday and Friday Sidney was pleading with me to go to the museum to see the rocket (Atlas rocket circa 1960) we drive past it on our way. We have a pass for the museum but with school and everything going on we have not been in a while. Saturday was mom's hockey day so Dad, Mom and Sidney ran some errands in town and mom got dropped off at hockey and Dad and Siddy went to the museum for an afternoon of fun. Finally she got to see the rocket and she went with Dad who would share his love and enthusiasm for space and aviation.

The museum was very quiet and they got to see many displays and demonstrations on their own. I am sure many people were out enjoying the sun after getting all that snow on Tuesday! Mom had fun at hockey and was enjoying post game beer and nachos when the family showed up to pick her up and take her home.

Sunday will be a fixit day. Hopefully Dad can get our new programmable thermostat installed and the new weather stripping on the door before the real winter hits. The freak snow storm was a good motivator to prepare for the real thing! Sid and mom will work on house work and continue with our new hooked on phonics learn to read program. Sid is really into it and has found a new love for letters. We picked it up because she keeps telling us how she wants to learn to read. Seize the opportunity!

Our little niece / cousin Addison is fighting hard and gaining weight and length. Born October 16th at 1lb 5 ounces she is a tough cookie. We are sending her and her mom and dad much strength, courage and love.

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.

Apple Orchard

Well we are right on track this week. It was our first VERY full week of activities which left us both a little bit more tired than usual and so we each had our "moments" but we are working through it and starting to get into the swing of things.

I was taught to teach children upper case letters first but I was getting frustrated because most words are in lower case and most letter recognition activities are either lower case or both upper and lower case. So I did some research and found out the Montessori method encourages lower case first because 95% of our written word is lower case. This makes a lot of sense to me, however, Sidney knows at least 10 upper case letters to start so we are now going to try and learn upper and lower together. I don't know if it will make too hard, but Sid is really into babies right now so we play games where we have to find the mommy or daddy letters and their babies (upper and lower case) and she totally gets it! Today she shocked me by completing this worksheet in about two minutes on her first try. I would say we are ready for the letter Bb!!!

Sid was really into academics this morning because we haven't done any work sheets all week and we were almost late getting to the apple orchard because she kept asking for more games! We played alphabet memory on the computer and did some exercises in her workbook. We finished off with a new emotions wall by our back door to help her better discuss how she is feeling. My sensitive girl doesn't take much to melt down lately so we are trying out this activity to help tell each other how we are feeling. It worked really well this afternoon when she was sad about having to have a time out for pulling on the dogs tail. She told me, "I feel yellow, he is sad and I am too." I showed her the scared face and explained that that is how the dog felt having his tail pulled and I showed her the mad face which was how mommy felt because I asked her two times not to pull the tail. The faces seem to provide a good foundation to help us talk through these situations versus Sid throwing herself on the ground and screaming. That conversation ended in her going over to the dog and saying sorry. I hope it continues to work!

Sidney and Kayla, her field trip friend met up again at the orchard. It was exactly 2 years ago we were here. This time we met up with a couple other friends too. Celia and Sidney used to play very well together at playgroup and they ended up doing indoor soccer together in the spring. We have recently reconnected and the girls do the Monday music class and Julie, Celia's mom, and I get along really well so we chat and hang out. The girls are very cute together and you can see a nice friendship developing. I really like Celia, she has a strong independent personality and plays well with Sid.

Although the season is getting late and we had our first frost last night, the apples were plentiful and Sid didn't need a boost to pick hers this time. We picked Lobo and she ate two of them while playing at the park area. I am glad she likes them because I find them way too tart. She told Ken he wasn't allowed to eat any because we were going to make an apple pie. hahaha I guess I am going to the store to buy and apple pie tomorrow! Mom doesn't bake pies (yet!).

Next week is the same as this week minus the trip to the apple orchard, we will have a trip to the pumpkin patch with playgroup next month, I can't wait! We managed to accomplish the two goals I had set out for us this week which were knowing and recognizing the letter Aa and reciting the alphabet without singing it. So this week we are going to work on the letters Bb, add more animals to her field journal and talk a lot about our feelings! It is so nice that for her learning is playing and Dad is really great about spending time every night playing whatever Sidney wants to. This week they have been playing toy and grocery store. Since starting preschool I have been doing the groceries while she is in school and I think she misses it!

Gitan is going to visit a family on Sunday. If everyone gets along they will likely adopt him. I HOPE it is his forever home. He is always in Sid's face and she is so annoyed with him. He really does like kids. He needs a home where everyone just loves on him and appreciates him.

Papanack zoo

Rain AGAIN! We packed our splash suit, spring coat, hat, rubber boots, and sweatshirt not knowing what the weather would have in store for us. It worked out ok as we managed to see all the animals before lunch and then the storm opened up on us half way through our meal. We ran to the van as the lightening lit up the sky and got there safely but very, very wet. We live south of the zoo and by the time we cut across country we hit sunny skies and 26 degree temps again!

Sid love seeing all the animals but most the exciting event was hooking up with her playgroup friends she used to play with every week two years ago. Here is a picture taken at the apple orchard in September 2006 and these are the same three girls in the picture taken today.

So neat to have them together again. It was great seeing the moms, they each have another daughter, a two month old and a three month old. Sid really impressed me today. A little friend from playgroup came up to her and took her hand. Sid turned to her and said "hi, nice to meet you." I cracked up because it was the cutest thing coming from two little two year olds!

At home we have another foster dog which will hopefully be short term. We discovered tonight that he likes cats waaaaaay too much and although my kitty is ok, he is a bit balder than he was yesterday. You can see Benny at http://www.airecanada.com/ I think tomorrow we are going shopping for a muzzle!

Fun Despite the Rain

The rain couldn't keep us in this weekend. While I played in a hockey tournament on Saturday, Ken and Sidney went to Cumberland Museum to see our friend Todd with his first photography exhibit. The museum is Cumberlands best kept secret! It is something to see with a large scale model railroad, a town recreated from buildings and houses from the area and because of the festival Tony D was there to entertain with his phenominal guitar playing. When I got home from hockey, Ken took us all back to the festival for a bbq dinner and music. It was overcast so few people were out and we were able to enjoy Tony D up close and personal. Befoer it got too dark Ken and Sid went on a train ride. It was awesome! The skies did eventually open and we all fled to our cars and called it a night.

Sunday brought the threat of more rain so we went out early and took Sid and the dogs geocaching again. It was a beautiful trail not too far from our home. Mosquitos were held at bay by the cooler temperatures and Sid was thrilled to find a park so close to the cache.

Rain again tomorrow so we will go for a car ride and then get two more caches if we are lucky.