What an awesome playground!

Jaymi had her neuropsychology assessment last week, and mid-day I picked her up for an hour-long lunch break.  It was such a nice day that we decided to take our lunch and go outside to check out their awesome playground.
Wow - what a bunch of unique and fun equipment for kids to play on!

From headstands to pioneers to biking to veterans!

Today was a day full of random stuff for us.

This morning, Jaymi got to make breakfast for everyone.
This is what she made (all in a bowl):
plain yogurt, ground flax, cornflakes, granola, sliced almonds, pecans, vanilla extract, and diced apple.
She loved it.  Mark wasn't thrilled with the pecans.  He doesn't like nuts in things, really.
;)

After that, Mark and Jaymi went to our store, where she did lots of drawing and stuff, while he got some work done.

Then they made a deal.  Last week, after telling Jaymi that she has entirely too many stuffies, she came up with the brilliant idea that she could give away 40 stuffies and get some new ones.  Of course, getting a bunch of new stuffies would defeat the purpose of giving the old ones away, so her idea was much better than that.  She said that she would give 40 stuffies away, and get 1 new Webkinz stuffie.
I think it was a pretty good idea, so I said yes.
So Mark said he would take her after school tomorrow, to buy the new stuffie.  She's thinking of getting the Webkinz ferret.

Jaymi and I then practiced doing headstands together, in the basement on the carpeted floor, with the wall to help us.  She is getting better at them!  Her arms are much stronger than they have been recently.  All of that hanging on the monkey bars at school is helping! 

Her physio-therapist would be proud!

And yes, you read that correctly - I said that both of us practiced.  She wanted me to do one, and I was proud to realize that I still can!  Yay, me!

After that, we spontaneously decided do look at some information on pioneers from 1800. Jaymi has a learned a lot about that topic in school recently, and we just did an extension on it here at home.
She played a fun game on this website, where she had to make decisions about her pioneer life in Upper Canada, in order to have a prosperous life.
Then, we learned about what people wore, what they ate, what the rules were in school, how they traveled, etc..
Jaymi and I both thought the rules for school were funny.  Like, that the teacher would sometimes cook soup for lunch, for the kids.  And, if the teacher got married, she would be fired.  And, that one student was chosen each day, after school, to dust, mop, and tidy up the schoolroom.

We were planning on going out to Sooke to see the dead, beached whale that has been there for a few days, but then we read that it wasn't there anymore.

So, we did more Pioneer studying.
We pretended that we were pioneers making lunch, and we made "hoe hotcakes" with honey.
Basically, it's corn meal and boiling water, formed into patties, and fried in lard (shortening) like pancakes.  And some honey on top, to serve.
They used to cook them on a hoe, but we used our frying pan.

While we cooking the hotcakes, we tried to make a baby food jar of 1/2-and-1/2 into butter, by shaking it......forever!   I think it doesn't work well with 1/2-and-1/2.  We should have bought heavy cream.

We also made a yummy smoothie to go with our hotcakes.  Not very pioneer though...just a yummy smoothie.
A frozen banana, a bit of milk, lots of orange juice, and cinnamon.

After that we decided that it was such a nice day...it was finally time to take our bikes out of hibernation, and start bike riding again!
So we went for a bike ride.  Jaymi was awesome!  She can get much further up our huge hill than last year, and if weren't limited on time today, we would have gone way past where we did.

And tonight (after dinner), Jaymi attended a special ceremony commemorating the victory at Vimy Ridge, with the veterans here.  The Girl Guides (including her Brownie unit) were invited to take part in the parade, listen to the ceremony, parade back, and then they all got to have a hot dog and hot chocolate before heading back home.

Baked Stuffed Onions, Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp, and a pretty hairclip organizer :)

I've seen this idea in a magazine a while ago, and wanted to do it  -  probably in Family Fun magazine.
Today we got the pieces of ribbon and Jaymi had fun organizing her hair clips - sorted by colour, on each ribbon, hung on a hanger and hung in her closet.

On a totally different topic, we had a fantastic dinner tonight!
I had a bunch of potatoes to use up, because they were starting to go soft, so I cut and parboiled one Ziploc bag full of french fries to freeze, and with the rest, I parboiled and then roasted (with salt and rosemary) chunks of potato.  Yum.

I also made a great new recipe - all with ingredients I already had in the house.
We made a ham a few days ago, which we had for dinner, and then the next night, we had a hash with it (with a pineapple sauce) over egg noodles.  We still had some leftover ham, so tonight, I made these amazing Ham-Stuffed Onions.
Here's the recipe.

8 large, sweet onions (white or red), peeled
butter, for frying
2 cups ham, diced
2 cups bread crumbs
pepper
½ cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons butter

Boil 8 onions in salted water for 10-15 minutes.
Scoop out insides.
Chop up the insides you have scooped out.
Saute the chopped up onion in butter until tender.
Stir in ham, bread crumbs and pepper.
Spoon mixture into onion shells and place in a baking dish.
Simmer 1/2 cup maple syrup and 2 tbsp butter in skillet for 2 minutes.
Pour over onions. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes, basting.

I decided to make a dessert today as well.  We don't have dessert often, but today I noticed that the newest issue of Clean Eating magazine was out, and I thought that the last recipe in the magazine (Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp) sounded sooo good.
So I made it.  Tonight.  And it was perfect, because it didn't require anything that I didn't already have in the house (I made a few easy substitutions) and it was so easy to make!
Here's the recipe:

2 stalks rhubarb, sliced (1 1/2 cups)
18-21 medium strawberries, sliced (3 cups)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice
½ lemon, juice only
3 tablespoons flour, spelt
TOPPING
1 cup oats, old-fashioned
¼ cup Sucanat
¼ cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons flour, spelt
2 teaspoons flaxseed, ground
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F.
In an 8 x 8-inch baking pan, combine rhubarb, strawberries, 1 tsp cinnamon, cane juice and lemon juice. Sprinkle with 3 tbsp flour and gently toss to coat.

(I used frozen rhubarb and frozen strawberries, and honey instead of cane juice.)

Prepare topping: In a medium bowl, add all topping ingredients. Using a pastry blender or your hands, mix until well combined, then spread over fruit mixture in baking pan.

(I used canola oil instead of coconut oil.)

Place pan in oven and bake 25-35 minutes, until topping is golden brown.

Skipping and Quail Eggs ;)

Jaymi has been practicing so hard lately, with her skipping.  Her school does Jump Rope for Heart every year, and that day is coming up next Thursday.  So the kids have all been practicing their skipping.
She has finally got the hang of lots of different skipping techniques, and today I watched her show me her skills and taught her some old skipping rhymes.
Fun, childhood memories for me.
:)

Also, we have been doing a small study on eggs this week, and I happened to find a package of quail eggs at the grocery store.  I bought them and boiled them.  They taste just like regular chicken eggs!  They're great, especially with a bit of salt.  And they're so cute too.

Jaymi liked them - I packed a boiled quail egg for her lunch today.
Mark liked them, I think, but he just couldn't get past the teeny size of them...he felt like he was eating little baby birds. ;)

Happy Easter!

We celebrated Easter this weekend, of course, and as we usually try to do, we do a combination of Easter Bunny stuff as well as the true meaning of Easter.
Yesterday we did one of our favourite Easter recipes - resurrection buns.

Here is the recipe:
Take a package of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and separate them, laying them out flat on a cutting board.
Tell the Easter story as you do each step.
Take a mini-marshmallow (representing Jesus' body, after being crucified) and dip it in melted butter or margarine (representing the oils they would have used to annoint dead bodies) and sprinkle cinnamon on top (representing the spices they used).  Then, place each marshmallow on top of a piece of dough, representing when they placed Jesus in a tomb.  Fold the dough over the marshmallow, making sure that you pinch all sides of the dough (representing the tomb being completely sealed up).
Bake, according to directions on the package, meanwhile, pretending to wait 3 days and 3 nights.
Discuss how they went back to look at the tomb and discovered that the stone had been rolled back.
Take the crescent rolls out of the oven and once they have cooled, break one open, discovering that 'Jesus' body' is gone!  (The marshmallow disappears.)
I love how this recipe is a hands-on (way) to demonstrated the story of Easter.  And of course, then you get to eat the rolls - yum!

This morning we did our egg hunt, that we always do.  We hid a bunch of plastic eggs with things in them like stickers, temporary tattooes, a grow-a-bunny, a top, a very small stuffed puppy, and lots of bracelets, scrunchies and necklaces.
We learned years ago, that Jaymi was so thrilled with those little things, the whole egg hunt, and opening the eggs, that we decided not to give a bigger Easter present.  To this day, she loves it, and doesn't expect anything big at Easter.  (There are enough holidays with big presents.)
Her favourites this year, were two adorable eggs we found that play sounds, calling you, and saying, "I'm over here!....Come and find me!" and they giggle until you find them.  So cute!

Jaymi also received two very nice presents from her grandparents.
Lots of chocolate Kinder Surprise eggs from Gramma and John (she asked us to hide them so that she could find each one), and some fantastic new shoes and jeans from Granna and Grandad (they're all perfect).
Thanks, guys!


Today we did something we have done for years together - a Seder Supper.  It's a traditional celebration of Passover, but we do a very simple, child-friendly, shortened version of it.

Here is a summary of what we did:

Set table
-two kinds of bitter herbs (horseradish and romaine) representing the bitterness (this year I used two bitter greens instead)

-charoseth representing the clay used by the Hebrew slaves to make bricks. (a mixture of chopped apples, walnuts, lemon juice, cinnamon, honey, and wine or grape juice)

-a roasted bone representing the lamb sacrificed so the blood marking the doors of Jewish families would cause their first-born sons to be literally “passed over” during the final plague to strike Egypt. (We always make some kind of lamb for this part)

-baitzah (roasted egg) representing new life

-fresh greens or vegetables to celebrate the new season

-three matzahs

-a bowl of salt water

-wine cups for everyone

-a big beautiful wine cup for Elijah the Prophet

-wine for us and grape juice for Jaymi

-a paper bag for each child/person, with Plague props inside (plastic bugs, stuffie wild animals, marshmallows or cotton balls, blindfolds)

-two sheets laid out to represent the Red Sea.

-a transparent jug with a bit of red food colouring at the bottom.

Since we make this our dinner, we also had couscous and a loaf of bread.

And this year, just to make it extra fun, I told Jaymi that we weren't allowed to use utensils because they didn't have utensils back then.

  

Story:

Wash hands.

Everyone say, "Shalom!"

Dip a vegetable in salt water (symbolic of the Red Sea and reminiscent of the salty tears shed by the ancestors during their enslavement in Egypt.)

Start the story-

Once upon a time in the Land of Egypt, 2000 years ago,

A ruler named Pharaoh made the Jews work very hard.

They worked all day and all night with no rest.

God heard their prayers for help and made a plan.

One helper was needed to save them.

Who was it going to be?

Moses climbed a mountain one day.

He saw a bush that was very bright!

It was God, in the bush!

God spoke to Moses.

He told him to free the people from Pharaoh.

Moses went to Egypt.

He said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go!”

(First cup of wine)

We drink four cups of wine because there are four Hebrew words for freedom.

The Season of our Freedom is the first name of our holiday.

Pharaoh laughed at Moses and said, “No way!”

“I need the people to make the statues.  I need them to make bricks.  I won’t let them go!”

Moses said, “I will return.  God will set them free.  You have one day to change your mind.”

Moses was sad.  He prayed hard.

Pharaoh still did not let the people go.

So God sent some reasons to help change his mind.

When we count the plagues in the seder, we mark them by taking a little of the juice (wine) out of one of our cups with our finger and put it on our napkins.

Second cup of wine.

The second name for our holiday is Festival of the Lamb.

Taste the bitter herbs and dip them in Charoset. (This reminds us of the bitterness and sorrow of the Hebrew slaves.)

Tell about each of the 10 plagues, using the props:

1-Blood (prepare a large clear pitcher – empty except for some red food colouring at the bottom.  At the appropriate moment, pour in some water – and watch water turn to “blood”.

2-Frogs (pretend to be frogs hopping around)

3- Lice (plastic bugs)

4-Wild Animals (stuffies)

5-Pestilence (all animals died of disease – pretend to be a dead animal)

6-Boils (uncontrollable itching)

7-Hail (marshmallows or cotton balls)

8-Locusts (hop around)

9-Darkness (walk around blind)

10-Death of the First Born

Pharaoh finally said, “Yes, take your people now.”

And they packed up their things and headed to the Promised Land.

Third cup of wine.

Then, act out the trip through the Red Sea.  (Jaymi was Moses this year, and raised her 'staff' to let the Red Sea part - two sheets that we divided apart.)

Jaymi made a sign that says, “You are now leaving Egypt”

The third name for our holiday is Festival of the Matzah.

Eat a Matzah and bitter herb sandwich.

Enjoy the Festival meal.

Every year at the Passover seder, we invite a very special guest.

Who could it be?

It’s a very special prophet who goes from house to house on Passover night and has a sip of wine from a special cup put out just for him!

Elijah is his name!

Open the door for Elijah.

Fourth cup of wine.

The fourth name for our holiday is Festival of Spring!

We eat matzah to remind us that when Pharaoh let the people go, they had to hurry and there wasn’t enough time to finish making the bread.  So they took the dough that wasn’t ready yet.

We eat charoset with the matzah to remind us of the bricks that the slaves were forced to make.

Eat matzah and charoset.

We were slaves in Egypt, and that is why we try really hard to make sure that no people are slaves today.  We want everyone to be able to live happy, safe lives everywhere in the world.  Everywhere in the world we fight for freedom.

And we hope for peace throughout the world.

School Field Trip to the Petting Zoo

Jaymi's Gr. 2 class is learning about how animals grow, and animal classification.
So this week, they went to the petting zoo to observe and take notes about the goats (tons of baby goats there right now), pig, turkeys & chickens, roosters, peacocks, other birds, ducks, mice, and rabbits.