Day #12 - dog walking & friends, birds & fairs, soup & a good book

Today, other than doing some laundry and running a few errands out, we had lots of fun.

Jaymi threaded Cheerios onto a pipe cleaner, bent it like a hook at the top, and hung it on a branch outside, for the birds to eat.

We played pretend fair (one of her favourite made-up games), and pretend newborn bird.
Here is how the bird game goes:
Say, "Close your eyes. Curl up very small; as small as you can. Lie on your side. Think how dark it is inside your egg. Yes, you're in an egg! You're tiny and curled up and quiet. It's very dark. Very warm. But now, try to wiggle a little--just a little! Remember, your eggshell is all around you. You can wiggle your wingtips a bit, and maybe your toes. You can shake your head just a little. Hey! Your beak is touching the eggshell. Tap the shell gently with your beak. Hear that? Yes, that's you making that noise. Keep tapping. A little harder. Something is happening. The shell has cracked--oh, close your eyes. It's bright out there. Now you can wiggle a little more. The shell is falling away. You can stretch out, stretch to be as long as you can make yourself. Stretch your feet. Stretch your wings. Doesn't it feel good, after being in that little egg? Stretch!! You're brand new--can your stand up, slowly? Can you see the other new baby birds?"

 Jaymi learned how to draw a bird, so she decided to draw a bunch of pictures of various kinds of birds.  The ideas were hers.  I just asked her to draw a picture of a bird, or colour one, and she decided to draw all of these pictures.

According to her, the first one is a robin, the next set is a tufted titmouse, a flying v of Canada geese, and a flock of bluejays, and the third set is an owl, a parrot in a cage, and an ostrich.

We went to our store for lunch, and to visit Mark.

We visited a friend for the afternoon, and got the chance to see her new (10-week-old) puppy for the first time.  Jaymi played with the kids, I had a chat and a coffee with the mom, and we all got to walk and visit with the puppy, Lucy.

I made Italian Wedding Soup for dinner.  It's a fantastic recipe from "Clean Eating for Men" - a book that we got for Mark for his birthday.
Ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey breast

2 eggs, beaten

¾ cut oat bran

3 tbsp grated parmesan

2 tbsp fresh basil

3 tbsp minced onion

8 cups chicken stock

2 cups spinach, rinsed, packed and thinly chopped

¾ cup diced carrots

Directions:

In medium bowl, combine turkey, eggs, oat bran, 2 tbsp parmesan, basil and onion.  Shape into balls and set aside.

In large pot, heat chicken broth to boiling.  Stir in spinach, carrots and meatballs.  Return to boil; reduce heat to medium.  Cook, stirring frequently, at a slow boil for 10 minutes.

Serve hot with the rest of the Parmesan sprinkled on top.

And we ended the night with some reading of "The Trumpet of the Swan".  Jaymi picked this book from the used bookstore the other day, wanting to read it because it was about birds (relating to our bird study).  It's a pretty thick book, and I have been impressed that once we started to read it together, she took it and continued to read it on her own.  She has it in her room tonight, and has probably read it before going to sleep.

Day #11 of Spring Break - some fun links online!

Jaymi has been taking a lot of time and effort in choosing her outfit every morning.  Each morning is interesting...seeing what she comes up with.
Here was this morning's outfit:

She started off this morning, by finishing her paper rainbow, complete with a pot of gold at the end.

We found a link online where we could listen to bird sounds - any bird we could think of.
It was very cool, listening to all of the bird sounds.

Then, Jaymi decided that she wanted to pretend she was a bird today.  She wanted to choose the type of bird, and she chose the Tufted Titmouse.
;)
Here is a photo of the bird she was today:

 We kept an eye out for birds today, hoping to identify a few.  The first one we saw in the morning, was a fantastic one - a bald eagle.  We see them all the time around here, but since we have been studying birds, it was really cool to see a bald eagle, and actually pay attention to it.

I took some pictures of Cookie, our cat, while we were outside watching the birds.

Jaymi coloured a couple of bird colouring sheets and made a bird beak with paper.

I made some of my homemade french fries and a banana milkshake for lunch.

Then, while I swept and vacuumed the house and Jaymi cleaned the toilet next to her room.  We have a deal right now, that every time she forgets to flush the toilet, she has to clean the toilet.

:)

We have been wanting to make an edible bird's nest all week, and finally got the chance today.

We made them out of shredded wheat, peanut butter, honey, melted chocolate, and Jelly Belly jelly beans inside the nests.  We also stuck a gummy worm in them.

This afternoon, Jaymi and I went into town to pick up the play tickets that we won, and decided to go for a walk downtown.

 

When you have time to relax, and pay attention to what's around you, and you're with a 7-yr-old who is happy about everything, it's interesting what you notice, and how much fun a walk can be.

Here's our list of what we saw/experienced on our walk:

seagulls

police station with lots of police cars parked in the lot

Island Farms factory

dandelions to blow on, and a pretty orange flower

the big arena

an awesome, huge mural across the side of a store that sells wheelchairs

a cute bright green building called The Knotty Bean Cafe

dog walkers, walking 6 dogs at once

a cool statue of people holding up a pillar...Jaymi thought the view from behind was funny - "lots of bums", she said. LOL ;)

Then, we went to two thrift stores where Jaymi had fun shopping for clothes with a few dollars that she has left.  She piled up some clothes on my arm, and modeled them in the change room.  She finally narrowed her choices down to two items, which were both very nice dresses.

Here was one outfit that she put together when she got home (the dress is one of the ones that she got from the thrift store):

 

We also found a cool website with a barn owl webcam.  This female barn owl is currently sitting on a few of her eggs, waiting for them to hatch.  So, we kept it on with the sound up, while we ate dinner.

The funny thing was...the owl was sound asleep for a while, then we heard her making some sounds, and went to check it out.

Turns out the male owl was visiting her, and had jumped right on top of her!  They were mating, right there on the screen.

;)

 For dinner, I made Cajun Shrimp Stir-Fry with noodles.

Basically, it was Cajun seasoning (homemade), red pepper slices, minced garlic, shrimp, lemon juice, and white wine.

We ate our nests for dessert.

:)

And we ended the night with a bit of a short movie I found at the library this week.

It was about a cuckoo, and was a cute little cartoon.

These are two movies I borrowed this week.

 

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.