A New Life

I haven't decided whether or not to continue with this blog. We have moved our family interstate and begun a new stage of life. For a glimpse of what it's like so far, E playing croquet in the sunshine:

:)
See why I spend little time at the computer?

-Polly

Scissor Skills and Latin

E loves any excuse to use scissors. Here's a heart she cut out when she learnt the Latin word 'Amo':

 

We've taken a break from working through our 'learn Latin' book and are just picking up new words from songs like this for now. This one is still our favourite.

 

As I said, E loves to use scissors. She's still getting the hang of cutting well, so I bought her a book called "More Cutting Skills". The Mr photocopied all the pages for us. She has only done the first two exercises as yet, but is having great fun with it.

 

Vale, for now.

 

-Polly

Welcome Spring

It has been cold and stormy here for most of the past week, but before that I took some photos of our garden. It has only taken me a couple of weeks to upload them. :P
Here's our little peach tree in blossom:

It has many more flowers now.

Our nectarine tree has many more fruits than last year, though none are ripe yet.

 

And spread throughout the garden there are still many nasturtium flowers ranging in colour from dark red to almost white.

 



Really we have let the garden go this season. It is overgrown with wild rocket and random weeds. It still gives us food, namely chillies, parsley and the occasional onion (although the onions, too, are flowering right now).

Welcome Spring.

-Polly

Ukulele Song

E and her dad went shopping and came home with a ukulele. E then spent the evening strumming along to made-up songs, like this one:

 

"We went to the ukulele shop

To buy a pink ukulele

They didn't have a pink ukulele

They had a blue one

 

We bought a blue ukulele

I've got the ukulele blues

Not the ukulele pinks

The ukulele blues!"

 

-Polly

Breakfast in a Biscuit

I made biscuits and they were good.

Once upon a time I had a gym membership and I used it. My favourite part was the Les Mills 'Body Combat' classes and I showed up for one every Wednesday morning (my day off at the time). After the class, I would walk a few blocks to the nearest bus-stop and head into town. Usually I'd head to my favourite café and order a black coffee and a 'breakfast muffin'. The café is no longer there and they stopped serving the muffins long before that, but these biscuits taste just like them!

Thanks to Vegan MoFo (that's Vegan Month of Food, for the uninitiated) I've been browsing vegan blogs again. Yesterday I came across this recipe from 'Vegans Eat Yummy Food, Too' and realised that I had all the ingredients to make them. I changed up the recipe a little and ultimately my version is no longer vegan. Oh well, they tasted good and are still healthier than your standard sweet biscuit.

Here's how to make them:
Ingredients

• 1 cup oat bran
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 1 cup Crunchy Nut Cornflakes®
• 1/4 cup sultanas
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds (linseeds)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 Tbsp margarine

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine the oat bran, grated carrot, sultanas, flax seeds and cinnamon. Stir until well combined.
• Fold through the applesauce, honey and margarine.
• Stir well until mixture clumps together. (Use your hands if you need to!)
• Shape into rounds and place on a lined baking tray. Flatten each biscuit with your fingers or a fork.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly golden brown.
• Transfer to wire rack to cool.

When my father came to visit recently, he left us a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes® that none of us enjoy as a cereal. This recipe, though, is perfect for them. Any time of day we can taste the flavours of breakfast, in a biscuit.

-Polly

Here's a Cat

So, I have kind of neglected this blog over the last few weeks. Life got in the way. That happens and I'd rather life get in the way of blogging than the other way around. Soon we won't even have regular internet, so there will be even less posting here. Oh well. Here's a cat:

 

 

It's a photo I took of my family's cat about 3 years ago. The regular readers of this blog have probably already seen it. I blame the Vegan MoFo writing prompts. :P

 

-Polly

Making a Hat

The other day E wanted to make a crown. It had to be purple and it had to be sparkly.

 

I found some purple card and measured it to the size of E's head. The only sparkly things I found were one pipe-cleaner (which I bent into a bow shape) and a little loose tinsel. E got to work decorating her crown using markers and stickers, pasting on coloured paper shapes, and using coloured tape to attach the sparkly things. She sang the "Making a Hat" song from Play School as she worked. When it was done, I stapled it together for her. I think she was quite proud of her creation.

The next day the crown became a boat for E's Jemima doll, with a wooden spatula for the mast and an empty playing-card box for the sail.

-Polly

Muddy Puddles

Yesterday evening I asked E, "What was the best thing about today?"
Her answer, "The zoo."
"What was your favourite thing at the zoo?"
"Walking."

She also enjoyed seeing the animals, especially the rhino which came right up to the fence to see us. The zebras are still a favourite. I thought the baby tortoises were cute.

It was raining a lot. We got wet. We had fun. E and her cousin jumped in a big, muddy puddle.

 

Just like Peppa Pig. Good thing they had their boots.

 



-Polly

A Farmer and his Tractor

Another activity that E worked on this week was this tractor picture:

I got the idea from here, although I didn't use their printout (we don't have a working printer, so I didn't even look at it). I just cut out the shapes myself. It was good practice for E in identifying colours, shapes and sizes, as well as a little bit of counting. It was all pretty easy for her, though.

The farmer and speech bubbles were hand-drawn by me and were to reinforce our latest Latin lessons.

-Polly

Nectarine Blossom

Whilst we still have another month of Winter and I have certainly felt the cold this year, our little nectarine tree is already welcoming Spring.



I love to see the first blossoms of the season in our own backyard. :)

-Polly

D is for Ducks

E's latest letter focus was the letter D. She did a Dd 'dot' painting that I'd drawn up for her and made a collage of things beginning with D. We made a dice using a wooden cube and a permanent marker. We did some dancing. And we did this duck craft:

To make your own ducks, you will need:

• 2 cardboard tubes (empty toilet paper rolls)
• yellow crepe paper
• glue (we used a simple homemade paste)
• orange card
• white card
• pencil
• black marker
• clear sticky tape

Here's how to do it:

• Cut one of the tubes in half so that you'll have one tall duck and 2 shorter ones.
• Smother the outside of each tube in glue.
• Paste on some yellow crepe paper.
• Cut some smaller pieces of crepe paper and glue a few to each duck for tail feathers.
• Let the paste dry.
• On the orange card, draw 3 pairs of feet and 3 duck bills.
• Cut them out and draw some nostrils with the black marker.
• Tape feet and bills onto your ducks.
• On the white card, draw 3 pairs of eyes (using black marker).
• Cut them out and glue them onto your ducks.
• On the white card, draw 3 pairs of wings.
• Cut them out and tape them onto your ducks.

All done!

E enjoyed this craft. She loves gluing things and she loves ducks. She even got to practice cutting with scissors. She later drew a pond for her ducks to play in.

-Polly

Learning Latin

Another book that we bought recently is "Getting Started with Latin," by William E. Linney. No-one in our family has ever studied Latin before, so we plan to work through the book at a snail's pace. That way even 2-year-old E can keep up. Here's an activity that we did after learning the Latin word for 'sailor':

We made basic origami sailboats and little cardboard sailors to sit in them. Here's the folding instructions:

 



We have also watched this [three pigs] cute video a few times. It's fun to watch even if you aren't learning Latin.

vale!

-Polly

Mushrooms



It's been a week between posts because my photos are on one computer and my software is on another and I'm having trouble getting the two to talk to each other. So, sorry if the photos in this post don't show up. They're pretty big and very much unedited.

 

Anyway, onto the actual post:

Mushrooms!

Something I love about this time of year (Autumn and Winter) is spotting all the different mushrooms that pop up everywhere. Here's some that I found in our backyard recently:

I mentioned in another post that we saw some interesting ones at the zoo not long ago. I didn't get any pictures of those. I have realised that I don't know a lot about fungi. Any information on the topic seems a little sparse, too. For Australia-specific information, anyway. We did get this book in the mail recently:

I've only read the introduction and a handful of entries yet, but I like it.

Have you spotted anything interesting in your garden lately?

-Polly

Baking

We have been enjoying a lot of sweet treats lately because I have been baking again. Now that we've been getting some cooler weather, it seems okay to have the oven on more often. Recently I made these orange and date muffins using one of my mum's recipes. I hadn't tried this particular recipe before. Mum always made yummy muffins. :)

One of my husband's favourites is this caramel mud cake from a packet mix. It has been requested 3 times already.

I have also made Gran's banana cake, lemon cupcakes, apple-blueberry crumble, date loaf and vegan lemon slice. I put some of them into the freezer to eat at another time.

They all make a great morning tea with a nice hot cuppa. It has been especially nice to enjoy them together while my husband has been on holidays from work. I have been adding a few slices of lemon zest, along with the tea leaves, to the teapot for a little extra flavour some days. The coffee machine, too, has earned it's keep.

E is learning how to bake along side me. Her favourite part is licking the spoon!

-Polly

Tennis

Lately we have been utilising our local public tennis court.

We all have our own tennis racquets and like to go there with our neighbours. The men get a real workout, while the baby and I tend to sit and watch. E's 6-year-old friend is getting quite skilled at the game. E has a good go at it and always has fun.

I think it's her new favourite sport.

-Polly

R is for Robots

E came home from her latest trip to Scitech carrying a box. Inside was a build-your-own spider robot kit that her dad had bought for her. It was labelled for 10yrs+, but it's what she really wanted. E and her dad built it that same day. She's actually getting pretty good at following instructions and identifying parts.

Now she has fun watching it scuttle around the house.

Obviously E is a big fan of robots, so it was a logical choice for some letter R activities.

Here's a picture we did together some time ago (I did the drawing and E did the painting):

And more recently we did this 'Rory the robot' picture:

Again, I drew the robot and this time E decorated it with pieces of aluminium foil. This is part of a series we're doing to help remember letter sounds and identify letters in a sentence.

-Polly

Zoo Trip

We had a fun day recently on a visit to the zoo. E was very excited to get a ride on the carosel.

Here she is looking at the giraffes:

 She said her favourite animal of the day was the zebras and she also liked the ibis. She did spend a lot of time watching those zebras.

There's something about these tortoise sculptures... kids just have to sit on them.

E also liked watching the (real) tortoise eating a flower.

We had lovely weather for wandering around the zoo. The gardens there are nice and we had fun spotting different fungi.
I was also happy to catch up with a couple of friends who work there.

-Polly

Sleeping Baby

This blanket box seemed to be a particularly comfortable bed for a particularly cute baby.

I wouldn't mind sleeping on 6 layers of blankets.

-Polly

Duck Park

There is a park not far from our house that E refers to as the "duck park" because there are always lots of ducks on the lake there. E likes to pretend to be a duck, waddling around and saying "QUACK!"

We have been spending a lot of time at that park lately. It's a nice place for a picnic. There are benches, tables and gazebos, as well as plenty of lawn, for a choice of where to sit.

E loves the play equipment. Here she is posing on the slide:

There's even a flying fox that is "not scary, it's fun". I think perhaps it's just a little scary.

The duck park is also a great place to go for a walk around the lake or to kick a ball around. It's quite a popular spot, so it's good for some socialising, too.

I love this time of year. I sit at the park, with the baby all rugged up, watching E play and looking up at the pretty deciduous trees.

-Polly

PS. Happy Solstice :)

Building Furniture

Lately, E's favourite things to do are to go for a picnic in the park or to "build something". Whilst she likes her Duplo and her wooden blocks, she has been working on more complex projects including her new bed and wardrobe.
E's dad took these photos of her putting together the wardrobe:

Bang, bang, bang.

Checking her work.

Bang, bang, bang.

E was very excited to get pink furniture for her room. Pink is her new favourite colour. We bought the pink 'Mammut' bed and wardrobe from Ikea and just managed to squeeze all the pieces into our little car. (The girls and I caught the train home to leave space for it). We may have bought the matching drawers, but they were sold out.

-Polly

Autumn Garden

In our garden there are leaves turning yellow and red and falling to the ground.

Our smallest tree is giving us lots of lemons which we have been making into lemonade and baked lemon slice.

Nasturtium plants are flowering beneath the citrus trees and parsley has taken over the herb bed.

Honey-snap peas are sprouting in little pots alongside spinach, basil and rocket.

And we're still getting ripe eggplants and chillies.
I wonder if we'll get enough warm days for the green tomatoes to ripen.

-Polly

A New Toy

E loves to build things. On a recent trip to Ikea, we bought her this bead toy and as soon as we were home she wanted to build it all on her own. And she did.

The blue beads are all threaded onto the blue wire and the red beads on the red wire.

E learnt how to use an allen key and was very proud of herself. She then helped her dad to put together the rest of our latest Ikea haul.

-Polly

Animal Masks

E loves getting mail. :) Recently she received a package from her grandma that contained a book of masks to colour and wear. They have now been coloured with crayons, paint, pencils and glitter and are ready for play.
Here's E as a chimpanzee:

And as a bear:

 Peek-a-boo!

-Polly

Baby

E has a new baby sister!

Welcome to the world, little one.

-Polly

Scitech, Again

Yes, it's another post about Scitech. E loves that place. :) E and her Dad have been back there since these photos were taken, but I thought I'd share anyway.

There's a section at the back where they show off the 3D printer and display projects that they've been working on such as robots like this:

Most other things are very hands-on, like these ball activities in Discoverland,

 And this big spirograph:

There are also puppet shows and presentations throughout each day. We sometimes take E to a puppet show, but she prefers the exhibits.

-Polly