Giant pencil stuffie, ice cream bars, float planes, and another lost tooth.

So far, it has been a relaxed and fun week.  We haven't had anything planned at all for this week, other than a few flexible things that could be done any day of the week.
Other than that, I have been able to take Jaymi's lead with some of her ideas, and run with them.

Like this morning, she decided that she wanted to make her own stuffie pencil.  A no.2 pencil, to be exact. So she asked me if we had the correct colours of fabric, and some stuffing, and after I said yes, she went up to the sewing area and gathered everything she would need - her fabric scissors, pins & pincushion, needle & thread, fabric, fabric marker, and stuffing).

I am so proud of her, because she did nearly the whole project by herself!  She already layed out the fabric, cut a double layer of each piece that she wanted, lined it up, and pinned it herself.

Then, she threaded the needle herself and did almost all of the sewing, with me helping when the thread got tangled up or when the more difficult parts came up (like sewing 4 layers together).

I flipped the whole thing right-side in and then her and I stuffed it.  After that, she finished the last sewing bit and she even cut out and sewed on a little number '2' (backwards by accident - but she wants to keep it that way).

She loves this pencil.  Called it 'pencily', of course, and is sleeping with it tonight.  It is exactly her size, and  she loves to pretend to write and erase with it.

She loves that she can make her own stuffie. :)

We had a great mother-daughter day this week as well.

We went downtown to sit on the rocks and watch the float planes take off and land.

It was such a nice afternoon.  We sat there, drank some lemonade and ate a bag of chips,

and enjoyed watching the planes.

While we waited for the next plane, we watched people, boats, harbour ferries, kayakers, and just had fun together.

She even waved to the planes as they taxied to take off.

We also saw a ladybug fly right past us, saw a flock of geese fly by, and Jaymi climbed the stone pyramid-like structures in her pretty pink dress.

By the way, we went to Value Village before that, and had a blast in the changeroom, trying on clothes, and ended up finding Jaymi's possible Halloween costume (at the very least, it's a costume for her dress-up bin), a dress for her birthday (which she is IN LOVE with), a dress for Christmas, the pink dress she is wearing in these pictures, and a bunch of books.

After watching the planes, we went to a convenience store to buy an ice-cream bar, and sat on the grass to enjoy it together.

She also lost another tooth this week.  Finally.  This tooth was so loose that it could lay flat against her bottom lip.  She pulled it out herself.  So now she has two gaps - one on each side of her bottom front teeth.

Week #8 of the summer

Wow.
Only a couple more weeks left of our summer, and then we are back to 'normal'!

So, last week was mostly filled with Jaymi's last summer camp.  It was called "Acting Out" and it was a great little day camp that taught her about acting.  She really enjoyed it.  On the last day, the group did a bunch of little performances for parents.  Jaymi was in two of the skits.  In the first one, she played Gretel (from "Hansel and Gretel"), so I did her hair in braids, at her request.  (She has NEVER wanted braids - always says that she hates braids because they feel strange.)  I jumped at the chance.  They looked adorable.

For the other skit, she played a sign.  A weather sign, to be more precise. ;)

We spent a bit of Saturday hunting down a few garage sales, and found very little.  I bought a big container of bubbles and Jaymi chose a small bunch of jewelry (necklaces, rings, bracelets) for herself.  She loves accessories.  In fact, when we got home, we tried to organize the area where she has a mirror in her room and her hair accessories.  We have decided to do a bit more with it, and she is going to call it her fashion wall.

Sometimes she spends quite a while trying to figure out what to wear.  She also changes a few times a days sometimes!  A few days ago, she asked us to help her decided which outfit to wear, and modeled three entire outfits (complete with accessories) to choose from.
We ended up choosing the first one.

Of course, Jaymi also swam this past week, although not as much, because of her camp schedule (9-4) and the weather was a bit cooler.

She lost another tooth tonight too - one that was wiggly for sooo long. I'll take a picture of her new tooth gap soon.

Today, Jaymi decided that she wanted to be a princess, and for most of the day, our whole family had to be royalty.  Mark was the king, I was the queen and Jaymi was the princess.  She kept reminding me to walk like a princess ("princesses do not thump"), speak like a princess ("princesses do not say 'uh-huh' or 'wanna'"), and to sit like a princess.  We had to use napkins properly, and sip drinks properly.  I, of course (as a mom) was loving this pretend game, because of the fantastic manners that come with it!

I've been busy myself, preparing some premade meals to pack the freezer with, in order to make things a bit easier once the school year begins.
Beside learning to pickle, I have also been attempting to learn how to can.  I canned peaches for the first time!
I also baked a batch of blueberry pancake muffins, a batch of chocolate chip pancake muffins, and a batch of yummy cinnamon-maple donut bites.
I made lemon meringue pie for the first time, and my own creation of chocolate/marshmallow/cornflake squares (basically like rice krispie squares, except I didn't have rice krispies and I added chocolate).
I made a big batch of hamburger patties to freeze, 3 mini-meatloaves to freeze, and two full baking sheets full of cooked meatballs to freeze for lunches, spaghetti & meatballs, or meatball stew.
I also have been enjoying making and eating fruit salads.  Yum - one of my favourites for the summer!  Apples, peaches, bananas, and grapes.

And we have had fun looking at some very old photos and videos of our family and friends.
I'll share a few of the photos with you.  They're so much fun to look at.

Week #7 of our summer

Last week, Jaymi had a half-day summer camp called Taste of Dance.  She wanted to take this camp because she loves to dance (she has been through one year of ballet, which she loves), and wants to take tap this coming September.  Taste of Dance allowed her to learn a little bit of 5 different types of dance.

They did a wonderful little performance at the end of the week, that the parents had a chance to watch.

She also had 3 Tae-kwon-do lessons in the past week and a bit.  At the fair last month, she spun a wheel and won a free month of Tae-kwon-do lessons, and we thought we'd try it just to see if she'd like it or not.

She loves it!  There are so many benefits to taking this, and we're trying to sort out whether she will be taking it or not (she's already in a bunch of other classes this coming year).
It will help her balance and co-ordination, her strength, her focus, releasing some frustration and anger in a positive way, and respect.  One of the things I like about this school in particular, is that they give out belt stripes and rewards for reading, helping out at home, acting respectfully at home and at school, and they also check with the teacher as well as the parents before the child can earn the next belt.  They encourage each child to use eye contact when speaking to someone, and act respectfully with integrity, WHEREVER they are.

So, while after Jaymi's first lesson at Tae-kwon-do, we went outside to look at the new fountain that they have built inside the new round-about.  It's timed to music and everything - very cool.

I introduced Jaymi to the game of Yahtzee last week.  That was so much fun.  Actually, fun for all of us to play together.  Good game for strategy.

We also all had fun together in the pool.  We have had the best, hot humid weather lately and have been enjoying it.  Jaymi loved having us all in the pool together.

Jaymi rediscovered her dressup wedding dress.  She has had it for years, in her dressup bin, but has never been interested in it.  She suddenly wanted to wear it, and wanted to see our wedding photo album as well.

Jaymi has always wanted to marry her Daddy, of course, and wanted to have a pretend wedding with him.  So we did a little pretend wedding.  Also, when she asked if Mark still had his tux, and I told her that, although he didn't (of course, it was rented), I still have my dress, she was sooo excited.  She was dying to see it, and then I let her try it on and she loved it!
It was fun, sharing my memories of our wedding with her.

I have also been busy making some new things that I have never tried before.
I made homemade freezies with our vacuum sealer!

I made homemade strawberry-apple fruit leather.

And I made homemade pickles!  And they taste like real pickles too!

Bad news for last week though - Jaymi got stung by a wasp.  She got stung last summer too, and that time, it just came right after her, even though she did the exact right thing by staying very still.  This time, she suddenly started to scream like crazy (our neighbours must have wondered what we were doing to her!) and we realized she was stung on her back.  We have found 4 wasp nests around our house this summer!