Day #10 - rainbows for St. Patrick's Day, more Bird Study, making pizza dough, and lots more fun!

This week is turning out to be very free-style.  We have some ideas and plans, but nothing that can't be changed, depending on how the day goes and how we feel.

 We:

read library books

(these are the books Jaymi got out from the library yesterday,

and these are the books she got at the used bookstore.

She drew a picture for BC Children’s contest for ChildRun.

She started to make a paper rainbow across the room

We had a conversation about tone of voice with cats.  She learned how you can say just about anything to a cat, but if you say it in a nice, soothing voice, the cat will think you're saying something nice, and if you say it in an angry voice, the cat will think you're scolding it.

;)

Cookie (one of our cats) brought a lizard in to us, and Jaymi brought it back outside.

We made an idea jar.

Jaymi changed clothes 4 times by 11am, and twice more after that.

For lunch, she made a cheese quesadilla and I made Avocado-Egg Salad Sandwiches:

10 hard-boiled egg whites, diced

1/2 cup onions, diced

1/2 cup celery, diced

8 tbsp avocado, mashed

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

pinch sea salt (optional)

In a bowl, combine eggs, onions, celery, avocado and mustard.  Stir until well mixed.  Add paprika, pepper and salt.  Stir to combine.

I did some laundry.

We visited my sister-in-law at work (Jaymi wanted to show her the outfit she had on, and show off her missing tooth as well), Mini-Price (Jaymi got a free ring and St. Patrick’s Day sticker from the cashier) Thrifty Foods, and Quiznos (to visit Mark)…and it was such a nice sunny day today, that we parked at one store and walked to most of the rest!

Jaymi had fun getting some of her energy out by running around whenever she had some space, and twirling a lot too!  She had on the perfect dress for it. ;)

We made pizzas from scratch - something I've never done before.  I made the dough in the bread maker (on the dough cycle) and took it out after the cycle was done.  After flattening it, shaping it, and pinching the crust out, we put our toppings on it and baked it in the oven.

Jaymi only likes cheese on her pizza (no sauce please!!) but I made her put a couple of other things on hers.  So...she put 1 beet green piece (the smallest one she could find), a mozzarella cheese string cut up (I didn't realize I was out of cheese), of course she brushed it with olive oil first, and she put lots of turkey bacon on it.

 Mine and Mark’s pizza had:  turkey bacon, beet greens, mozzarella & feta cheese, green pepper, sundried tomatoes, and red onion.

 

We did a very fun rainbow milk experiment

 We used food colouring to colour the milk, the primary colours.

Then, we combined the primary colours to make the secondary colours.

And of course, since Jaymi always insists on accuracy in her rainbows, we made indigo as well.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

We did some more on our Bird Study later today.  We did a cool lesson about bird beaks.  We learned how different beaks allow for eating different substances.  You can tell what a bird eats, partly by looking at what kind of beak he has.
So...since visual, hands-on lessons are always so much more fun...
we discovered how birds like robins eat worms (by picking up a gummy worm with a pair of tweezers),

birds like hummingbirds sip nectar (by sipping on water through a straw),

birds like sparrows crack nuts and seeds with their beaks (by using a clothespin or something similar to crack a sunflower seed and an almond or peanut),

raptors like eagles rip their prey apart with their curved beaks (by ripping a large marshmallow apart with scissors and eating it),

and how birds like pelicans have a spoon-like beak to scoop up fish (by using a spoon to scoop up mini-marshmallows)

We played another game of crib – I beat Jaymi.  She's getting much better at losing - yay!

We saw a rainbow outside. :)

And at the end of the night, Jaymi had Brownies, and had fun showing off her missing tooth.

O.T., monkey bar success, working hard, and a new outfit

Last week was Jaymi's last session of occupational therapy.
Jennifer (her therapist) has been awesome with Jaymi.  Jaymi's left-side strength, balance, and motor planning, have improved so much since she started therapy.  Unfortunately, the program that providing us with funding after surgery, only provides 6 months of funding.  So, we are at the end of our 6 months and it is no longer covered.
Jaymi's neurologist has recommend that she continue with her ballet classes, work at home as much as possible with various o.t.-type exercises, and also sign up for horseback riding.  So that is what we will do.
We are so thankful for Jennifer.  She has a fantastic reputation as one of the best o.t.'s on the island, and she is full of endless, fun therapy ideas to do with her clients.  Jaymi loves going there, and is always proud to show Jennifer what she is improving on.

Jaymi finally figured out how to get up onto the top of the monkey bars at school, by herself this week.  She is so thrilled!  She can get down by herself too, and has been wanting to do this, for so long.
Also, she now has the strength to lower herself down, using only her arms...in other words, holding her body weight up with her arms (straightened).  That is huge for her!  She is also having fun hanging upside down from the monkey bars.

Jaymi and I went to pick up Mark from work one day this past week, and decided to put Jaymi to work while we waited for him to finish.  She had a blast, wiping down the tables, and made a game of it for herself.  Of course, she had decided to wear her Tinkerbell costume...we thought we'd be quickly picking Mark up, not realizing that he would be delayed when we got there. ;)

Jaymi has been very into fashion lately, and I took her out to pick out a new outfit today.  We haven't bought her any new clothes in a looooong time, and she was thrilled to pick an outfit out.  I took the opportunity to have her show me what she considers 'fashionable', since that's what she talks about so much.  And apparently, I keep getting it wrong! ;)
So...she taught me today, that sparkly is definitely fashionable.
And could hardly contain herself when she found these clothes, and put this outfit together.