Days at home

We have found a great rhythm for our weeks lately. Lots of time in the woods, time with friends and time with family. Friday and Monday we had some time at home and it was wonderful! A little bit of time for housework (blah!!!) and a lot of time for projects, cooking and just hanging out together! Here is our ever so cool Halloween advent calendar made by Auntie Shae. LOVE IT! What you see are two sets of 12 muffin tins with a square magnet over each hole. Each morning Sid wakes up and removes the magnet corresponding to the day and finds a clue to lead her on a treasure hunt to find Halloween themed items. So far she has found some books, some Halloween craft treasures, some stamps and a pumpkin puzzle. This is such an amazing keepsake Shae, thank you once again. We have used it twice at Christmas with Christmas themed magnets but this was our first Halloween and it is just as awesome and fun.

Here Sid finishes her pumpkin puzzle in a sunbeam, just like a cat!

More decorations are required! Here Sid makes a batik ghost like her batik owl we made last week.

I have been dying to try this delicious squash soup recipe so I enlisted a sous-chef to get the job done. I was so impressed. I did all the chopping but Sid did the adding, cooking, stirring then she washed all the veggies for the salad and shredded the lettuce. I chopped the veggies but she added them then got the salad dressing out, set the table and served her soup. WOW! Here Sid cooks the onion and garlic in a tablespoon of oil for 3 minutes. Then she adds the squash, cinnamon, paprika, and oregano. Lastly she pours in the 5 cups of vegetable broth which she measured out herself. With a little help she used the immersion blender to smooth it and then added the cilantro.

Cook for 5 more minutes and....

Serve!

Super yummy and made with love! Both Mom and Sid were very proud of this dinner! Here is the recipe for Butternut Squash Soup. You won't be disappointed!

1 small butternut squash

1 tbsp (15ml) canola oil

1 large onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp cinnamon

5 cups vegetable or chicken broth (I used veggie and it was perfect!)

2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

With a heavy knife, cut squash in half lengthwise. Peel, remove seeds and chop flesh into roughly 1 in cubes. You should have about 5 cups.

Heat oil in large pot over medium. Add onion and garlic, and cook 3 minutes. Add squash, oregano, paprika and cinnamon, and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for about 25 minutes or until squash is very tender. Puree soup until smooth using and immersion blender. Add cilantro and warm through add salt and pepper to taste. Makes 6 - 8 servings.

Here is a recipe I tried out in hopes to use it on Halloween. It worked well and I will make to bring to our friends place for supper on Sunday the 31st. I got this one following links from the blog on my side bar The Savory Sweet Life. Check out all their Halloween treats.

Mummy Dawgs

Take crescent roll dough (or the Pillsbury bread stick dough if you can find it!!!) and unroll it. Divide each triangle into small strips and wrap the wiener in dough bandages leaving a small space for the eyes. Cook for 13 - 15 minutes as per package directions. Add mustard or ketchup for eyes and serve!

On Friday Ken sat Sid down and taught her how to restring a guitar. She was a quick learner and will be an excellent guitar tech. Once the guitar was washed down and restrung she rocked out on Dad's Tele (fender telecaster). Sunday night she and dad did the Vantage!

With frost on the ground in the morning we took one last stroll through our garden and in the woods to find anything still in bloom or green. With our collections in hand and our rubber boots and rain coats fully saturated we headed back home for a fun nature craft.

Here Sid dries out her collection on some paper towels in preparation for the craft.

Next she placed all the flowers and leaves on a piece of ironed white cotton. Then together we laid strips of masking tape over the leaves to secure them to the material.

Now the fun part. Hammer, hammer, hammer and hammer some more. We each had a hammer and put the cotton on a large colouring book on the kitchen floor. We hammered until we couldn't lift the hammer anymore. When we removed the tape we were left with this wonderful print. I was going to sew it into a little shoulder bag but Sid wants to use it for a baby blanket for her dolls. It will be a reminder of the last of the blossoms for this year.

While being at home is really productive and fun with never ending things to do, it will never compare to absolute joy Sid gets when she gets together with her cousins and her dad's cousins kids (cousins once removed???) Anyhow I don't have all the pictures downloaded yet but look at all the cousins below with Sid being the youngest at 4. Sid gets to see Ken's sisters girls quite often but all the other kids are from Montreal so it is really a big get together when we all meet for a potluck dinner. Aunts, Grandma's and Grandpas, Cousins, wives, husbands, kids...... well, family!

Can't wait for the next get together in December!

Fall stuff

We have been so busy the last two weeks finally getting out and enjoying the leaves and the cooler weather. September was a bust with lots and lots of rain. We broke the record for most rain fall for the month.

Sid is loving her 2 wheeler and can't get enough riding in. We have it in the back of the van for any riding opportunity. She met her friend Tristan at the park last week and they were both tearing around on their bikes. Watching them brought back a lot of childhood memories.
Tristan and Sid get along really well. They share a lot of similar interests in science and especially fossil hunting. Here Tristan shows us the fossil he just found while Sid shows off her newest additions to her rock collection.

Later in the week we met up with Magda and Isabella for a walk on the old Quarry trail. The girls just thrive in the woods. They can play for hours and hours if the weather cooperates.

Buttercup the cat (aka Sidney) catches cat tails.

Tame deer which will be hand fed when it gets colder and there is less food around for them. Bread is a favorite so we will be back once the snow hits.

This is me walking into a patch of sun. It was beautiful and warm. The girls where holding on to the back of my backpack pretending to be my tail. Magda took all the pictures on the forest walk, and she took the pictures at the butterfly exhibit too. Thanks for such great shots Magda!!!

Carleton University had their annual butterfly expo which is free and gives people anopportunity to see and interact with south American butterflies. A homeschooling mom organized a group trip for us so we had a lesson in butterfly biology before the children went into the greenhouses to see the butterflies. It was very interesting and Sidney was excited to share with the group that she gets to watch the Magic School Bus while mom takes her shower! This was relevant based only on the fact that they were talking about a MSB episode, Butterfly and the Bog beast. Out of the mouth of babes!! We learnt that butterflies have ears on their wings, smell with their antenna and taste with their feet. Also, a caterpillar turns into total goo before it turns into a butterfly while in its chrysalis. ewwwwwww

Checking out cocoons (moths) and chrysalis' (butterflies)

Bellafly

Sidafly

I love this picture that Magda took. Check out the tongue all rolled up!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving! Sid uses a hot glue gun for the first time. We took a piece of faux leather and some artificial leaves. Using a glue gun we glued the leaves around the outside to create a custom made hot plate for our table.

Ta DA!

We also worked hard to make this garland of leaves which were waxed but they didn't last all that much longer. We wrote things we were thankful for on each one and hung them near our table.

Grandpa Bill and Grandmama have returned from the cottage so we got together on Thanksgiving Sunday for a wonderful family get together. The cousins played, and played and played some more. We barely even saw Sid for 5 hours. We will be returning this weekend for another family due with Ken's cousins from Montreal. Sid can't wait!

On Thanksgiving Monday we had a big turkey dinner and invited Uncle Rick and Sid's best friend and family over. Uncle Rick couldn't make it but Isabella, Magda and Dave joined us to dine on turkey, stuffing, cranberries, squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, salad, pumpkin pie and Magda brought an apple crumble. Delicious!!! The girls played up a storm and we saw very little of them for hours. We were having so much fun, I forgot to take out my camera but I did get this one shot of the girls having a tea party with all their stuffed animal friends.

Wednesday was back to the woods to enjoy more of the beautiful weather with Isabella, Magda, Tesling, Terra, and Luna and two leaders from the Maccoun Junior Field Naturalist Club. I am working with Barbara and Rob to put together a Jr. Jr. field naturalists club for kids 4 to 7. This was a meet and greet and an opportunity to learn so many things from these two. We had a really great time and hope they will meet up with us again soon.

YAY, the woods!!!! Mccoun rules... no picking up sticks and hey, lets get off this path and travel through the woods. How cool!

Here Sid is collecting slugs. We found out that they were not native, they originally came from Europe (earthworms too!!), they also have a breathing hole on the right side of their head. We learnt that millipedes are herbivores and centipedes are carnivores!

Here Rob is collecting and showing the kids snail shells.

Female black capped chickadee. Black is brighter and shinier on the males


Male nuthatch. Shiny black on head, female is more gray blue on head. We saw Juncos and white breasted nuthatches too! Plus a porcupine den and a deer scratch (a piece of earth scraped up by the buck then they urinate on it to let everyone know there are there).

When I got home I discovered that Rupert, our guest dale, decided he needed to locate the sheep and alpacas he could smell in my felting basket..... grumble, grumble, grumble.....

Now we are getting ready for Halloween. Today we made a Batik owl. First I drew him in pencil and then Sid and I outlined him in heavy black crayon. Next we coloured him in with heavy crayon leaving no white marks. Next, we crinkled the picture into a ball and unwrapped it x 6.

Last step was to paint it with a watered down black paint and dab off right away to create an old weathered looking batik picture. We repeated the steps to create a moon. We cut the owl and moon out and pasted it on black construction paper. Here is the final project. We are both really pleased with how it turned out!
One other cool craft was our Mummy and Daddy ;) We cut people shapes out of file folder material and glued toilet paper strips to them. Add black eyes and presto.... a spooooooky picture oh and it is 3d!

Off to Pink Lake tomorrow if the weather cooperates then a cool science fun fest at NRC this weekend. You know pictures will follow soon.