A New Adventure!

We are on vacation this week!  So far the boys are having a blast at Grammie and Poppa's house!  We took the boys out to visit my late Poppa's house before it gets sold and that alone was a great adventure!  

Turns out that my uncle is raising chicken and roosters!  The boys got to go into the hen houses and meet all the chickens and collect the eggs!!

Uncle Paul showing Ethan Blackie

Isn't this one pretty??

Some of the chickens (7 got killed the day before because a coyote broke into the coop! These guys survived the attack)

This Momma had 8 super cute babies!

Ethan's blue egg he collected

I forget this guys name, but he could fly and Logey liked him!

They also got to have a nice swim in Poppa's beautiful pool.

Logey checking out the pool before his swim

Ethan checking the temperature of the pool

 It is so sad for me to see this house being sold, because I have been coming to it since I was a newborn!  I have so many memories at the house and was really looking forward to my kids creating memories there too.  Tragically, my Poppa passed away last fall after a terrible accident.  I can't even begin to list all the memories from his house, but to name a quick few: playing in his creek for hours catching fish and frogs, Standing on the end of the driveway watching the parade go by each summer and then heading to the fairgrounds after for rides and a demolition derby! Walking to the candy store well over a million times! Checking out the turtles and snakes in the quarry.  Playing Nintendo (the first original one!) with Nanna and Poppa.  Playing euchre well into the late hours of the night, and of course GETTING MARRIED THERE!

Today, we boated over to the beach for some swimming and sand play!  (And to collect some stuff for a future daycare craft!!)

Mommy and Logey working on a Sand Castle

Ethan digging the hole for the mote

Logey filling the bucket with sand!

Another new thing that Monkey got to try was TUBING!  I was a little apprehensive about taking him out on the tube, more because I thought he would freak out and get scared.  Well turns out, HE LOVED IT!!!  He was laughing the whole time and couldn't get enough of it!  Grammie only has a pontoon boat, so I knew we wouldn't be going fast or would she be trying to flip us off the tube!  Here are a few pictures to enjoy of mine and Ethan's rides!

Look at that smile on his face!

Almost lost him here!

Vacation is half over already and Monday I start back up with the daycare!  (Which I am actually excited about!) 

Home Made Bubbles = Epic Fail!

So, Logey LOVES bubbles (Bubbies!)  And we were completely out.  I so quickly checked Pinterest for a quick recipe for home made bubbles.  Well all the recipes call for liquid corn syrup, and I did not have any....so then I found one recipe that called for 1 cup of liquid dish soap and 8 cups water.  The person said it didn't work very well, but I figured I'd give it a try.  Logey was miserable and desperate for BUBBIES!

I filled a big jug with a cup of dish soap and lots of water.  So it didn't work at all!  Couldn't get a single bubble to blow!  The boys started getting frustrated and I was annoyed it wasn't work! EPIC BUBBLE FAIL! 

(Insert light bulb above head going off here!)

Due to the lack of rain here (been close to 4 weeks now!) Our rocks under the tree are very dusty and dirty!  So first I gave the boys each a stick from the tree to stir up the mixture and get some bubbles going.  Turns out, I should have just done this from the start because they LOVED it!

Then we started gathering rocks from under the tree.  Monkey was talking about how sparkly they were, but they were not shinny because they were so dirty!  Logey loved dropping them into the jug and Monkey gave them a washing.

We got the hose out and rinsed them off after and then watered the tree...and washed everything else that was in the little rock garden.  (My camera died here, so I have no pictures, but as you can guess, the boys ended up soaking wet and so did I!)

So even though the BUBBIES were a huge fail, we still ended up outside for 2 hours having fun washing rocks!  And we now have the cleanest garden on the block!

Logey saying CHEEEEEESE for the picture!  I love this shot of him







Summer days!

Well the heat wave continued here and we are doing all we can do to stay cool!  Monkey has been away at day camp during the afternoons, and Logey and I have been keeping busy!  The temperature has been above 32 degrees Celsius for over a week now, and today it was up over 42 with the humidex!  The boys and I have been doing LOTS of water play to keep cool, although we are now in a level 2 drought in our city and if we hit Level 3 then we have a water ban!  Looks like with the upcoming weeks weather, we could be hitting Level 3 soon!

So I have been letting the boys take turn "watering" the lawn to try and keep our grass green (ish).  Our grass is by far the greeniest out of all our neighbours, but it sure isn't pretty!  It feels like straw under your feet and you have to wear shoes to walk on it!  As you can tell Logey is really into water (including our deck lol!) 

Of course, they wouldn't be brothers if they didn't try and spray each other with the hose!  Although Monkey was enjoying the cool down!

So somehow in the process, Monkey starting filling up the cooler that was sitting on our deck and said that it was his pool!  I thought it was funny and just went along with it.  Kind of surprised that he could even fit it in! But little did I know...

....They could both fit in it! They played in the cooler 'pool' for over an hour.  Filled it up, poured it out, repeat!  They were nice and cool and entertained! 

Thankfully for the boys, Grammie came down for a visit and brought a real pool for them.  It was much nice and MUCH more spacious! 

Staying nice and cool in the pool!

Monkey was jumping in the pool and Logey was laughing so HARD!  He couldn't get enough of him jumping!

Fun was had by all, we stayed cool and the boys were exhausted by the end of the day!  Bedtime is never easy in this house, but after today it sure was!

IT'S HOT HERE!!!!

Well, to say it is hot here, would be an understatement!  It is SCORCHING here!!  Yesterday the temperature was 34 Degrees Celsius BUT with the humidex it felt like 42 DEGREES!!  We made an early trip to the park with the boys - They are really loving the new park here!  Since we are right beside a school, there are 3 playgrounds within about 1 minute of each other!  It is great because we can switch up the parks constantly! 

ANYWAYS...before we left I whipped up a quick batch of coloured ice cubes!  I grabbed all the trays I could find in my house (which sadly was like 8 or 9 trays!) Anyways, just added water and a few drops of food colouring, and re-arranged my freezer like 5 times to get them all to fit...without spilling any coloured water, I might add!

After we got home from the park, and were smoking hot already, I grabbed all the trays and quickly filled up the water table in the backyard.  Here is a few frozen ones, with Logey saying that they were 'COLD!"

Then I just dropped all the ice cubes into the table at once! (Not my finest moment! But the boys didn't really notice that)  I didn't really take into account how hot it actually was!  The ice cubes were completely melted in less than 2 minutes!  The water started changing all different colours right away though and it looked really neat.

Monkey got his hands in immediately trying to get the colours to change depending on what ice cube he was holding!

Logey was just trying as hard as he could to catch one!  As soon as he got his hands on one, he had to test out the flavour.  I don't think it tasted as good as he thought it would.

Since the ice cubes melted so fast, we turned our attention to colour mixing.  The boys had one section filled with a yellow and orangish colour, one with a blue colour and one with green.  They decided to mix the orange/yellow and the green one into the big blue one to see what colour they would get.  Monkey guessed that it would all turn green (probably because it is his favourite colour) and cousin Jake guessed it would all turn blue. 

So, it of course, turned BLACK!

We had a great time outside playing in the water and 'cooling' down a little with the ice cubes!  Monkey has been asking to do it again all day today, so my freezer will be full tonight!

A Few Things You Might Have Missed!

Since I had to take some time off from blogging to deal with Logey's health issues, a daycare over haul, a couple family health scares, a few funerals and a big MOVE....You might have missed a few things!   Here are some photos to catch you up!!!

Monkey turned 4 Years old!  I don't know how that even happened!

Logey LOVES the beach at Grammie and Poppa's house!

Monkey learned to swim on his own at the beach. He even jumps off the rocks alone too!

We adopted 2 kittens from a Cat Rescue.  Monkey named them them Pluto and Jupiter. They are so great and great with the kids! And they love each other so much!

WE MOVED!  I never want to move again!  It was exhausting! Thankfully we had awesome friends help us out!  This is what our playroom looked like 24 hours before we moved! 

Logey Loves his new park!  And we have SAND now!!

Monkey loves the park too! It is more age appropriate for him!

I spent some time watching a REALLY awesome little guy!

And some totally awesome and amazing friends tied the knot!  Signed, Sealed, Delivered!

Lots more to come now that we are back on track!!

Driveway paint

Since it is just me and the boys for the last few weeks, we have be doing lots of great activities outside.  The other day we decided it was a great day to paint our new driveway!  It has been SUPER hot here and I knew this was going to be messy, but the plan was to play in the sprinkler after! 

Making the paint was super easy.  1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of cornstarch and food colouring to make your colours!  If you have ever made goop, it is basically a runny version of goop!  I made 5 colours for the boys and set them up outside with paint brushes. I knew Monkey would love this, but wasn't sure if Logey would try and paint or just stick his hands in and pour out the paint!

Started off great.  They were both painting beautiful pictures all over the driveway! As you can see Logey was LOVING it!

Monkey was having fun too!  

We stayed pretty clean which is REALLY shocking for my boys...but then of course, it happened.  Logey stuck his hands in, and it turned into finger painting the driveway.  Since it was a goopy type feeling Logey just couldn't get enough of it!  And he was a MESS!

I forgot to take a picture of what the driveway ended up looking like when the boys where done...but there was one really cool thing they learned.  We decided to pour out all the rest of the paint onto the driveway when they were done painting.  Because of the cornstarch it had started to solidify and came out of the containers almost like a dough consistency, but as soon as it touched the warm (HOT) pavement, it melted down into a liquid again until it was completely dry.  We got a pretty decent rain storm that night, and it is still all there on the driveway, completely in tack!  Which makes me wonder....how long will it be there!!!

My Wish List....Please help

Since I am off from daycare for the next month and a half, I have been working at getting things ready for when I start back up.  It is going to be a little crazy in my house for a few weeks because I have all new kids starting, and have 3 one year olds starting on the same day!! (insert gasp here!)  So I have been working on a wish list of supplies that I am always looking for.  Thought I would post it on here, so that just incase you lovely people are cleaning out garages, bins, cupboards, houses etc you would think of me and save them!  I will even pick them up from you!  So please take a quick peak at my list and let me know if you have anything!  My kids will be truly greatful!
Thanks

 The List

• large magnet (doesn’t have to be horse-shoe shaped, just nice and strong)
• wooden clothes pegs (the old-fashioned kind, not the ones with a spring)
• eye-droppers (or medicine bottles with a dropper i.e. infant Tylenol)
• plastic syringes
• aquarium stones
• rotary phone
• jewellery box
• magnifying glass
• jumbo calculator
• silk scarves
• milk crates
• watering can
• felt-board & pieces
• flat sheets
• plastic table cloths
• steering wheel
• mail-box
• car mat (area rug type with roads or activities on it)
• buttons
• beads
• sea shells
• sea glass
• costume jewellery
• plastic “gem stones”
• magnets
• teeny collectibles & miniature sets of anything (animals, dinosaurs, sea-life, houses…)
• scrabble tiles
• board-game pieces
• artificial flowers and leaves
• tissue paper
• bubble wrap
• ribbon/fabric scraps
• stamps/ink pad
• spray bottles & squirt bottles
• wine corks
• feathers
• pipe cleaners, felt, foam shapes/letters, pom-poms, jingle bells, sparkly stuff etc
• stickers
• paper plates, coffee filters,
• crêpe paper streamers
• card-stock
• spools (wood or plastic)
• paint brushes (any size)
• white glue, glitter glue, modge-podge
• tape!! (painter’s, masking, scotch, coloured etc.)
• tempera paints, finger-paint
• food colouring
• Easel
• sorting trays (wood or plastic)
• muffin tins
• wood baskets/bowls
• plastic storage bins and containers
• mason jars
• tweezers (metal or plastic)
• tongs
• stethoscope
• chopsticks
• castanets
• finger cymbals
• maracas
• tambourine
• wind-chimes
• jingle bells
• triangle
• harmonica

Oh yes, it is a long list! But if you know me, you know I am always working on crafts with the kids, and always needing new things!

Thanks for reading!!

Bead Decorations

We recently moved to a new house, and I needed some serious time to put things away without kids hanging off my legs begging for me to play with them.  After I put Logey down for a nap, I decided to set Monkey up with some pipe cleaners and beads. I knew this would keep him busy for a little while because he loves making patterns and this is something we had done awhile back with Cheerios for the birds!  I made a few shapes out of the pipe cleaners for him to start with:

He worked really hard on threading them on perfectly. He had to do each arm of the snowflake one at a time.  It is REALLY hot here right now (like 40C!) so we thought snowflakes would be appropriate to cool down!

Monkey ended up playing with the beads for over an hour!  He made a really neat candy cane (again with the patterns) some snowflakes and a few other Christmas shapes...we saw a Christmas movie the other night and it got him thinking about Santa again!!!

Of course, once he was done all of them, and got me to take pictures....he pulled all the beads off, and started all over again!!

It was great practice for him, and good for me because I got a whole lot of unpacking done!  And Logey got a really great nap too because it was sooo quiet in here!!