Rainbow Water Beads

We bought some water beads this week, after seeing them here and getting very excited about them. We also ordered ours from rainbowwaterbeads.com. Here's how tiny they were when they arrived.

We added water and watched them grow.

About 8 hours later, they were glossy pearls about 3/8" to 1/2" in diameter.

Here is Kate playing with them the next day. She sorted them into muffin tray wells according to colour.

And what colours!

Apart from just being fun to play with, they're also used to slowly hydrate plants or as a soil alternative. I should put a few of these in my orchid pots when we go on an extended vacation, I think. When we tire of playing with them, we plan to dehydrate them and store them for another day.

There Be Children

The day is coming when I will no longer tread on Legos or prettyrellas when I walk through the house. Already we have left the elite membership of parents whose kitchen floors are host to stray Cheerios and shredded cheese. And before we know it, our home will be adult again, with unscratched furniture, glass and china ornaments and things that generally stay put where we left them. 

Today, while it's still here, I walked around the house taking pictures of the happy evidence that small children dwell herein. Nothing was posed - everything was as is (for today). Enjoy!

I think I can live with this for a while yet :)

Isms

Kate, midhug, trying to escape, "Mum, can you please unsquish me?"


Jenna, responding to Emily's inappropriate offer to exhibit food in her mouth, "That would be disgusting, sort of, and also awkward."

Landmarks

Yesterday we attempted some world geography!

I saw these landmark replicas on Melissa's blog some days ago and remembered to buy them at Michaels yesterday. 

Brought them home and explained to the girls what landmarks were. Without seeing the figures, they were able to tell me just two landmarks, when the country was named: the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. A good start. I don't think I even knew that when I was five. We don't have a big enough world map (must buy soon, along with globe) but we had this excellent book

and in it, the girls were able to locate various landmarks on the different continents, and match up eight of the ten of the replicas. 

Here's Kate holding the Arch of Triumph.

Ever since they travelled to Singapore this year, the girls have been very interested in the world and where everything is in relation to everything else. We've often used familiar food or people/characters we know to simplistically introduce certain countries - sushi from Japan, stroganoff from Russia, pho from Vietnam, our friend Delali from Africa, Dad's family from Norway, Grandma/Grandpa in Singapore, our friend Nikhita (and her mom Daljeet) in Malaysia, my friend Edwin in London, Madeleine (in the story) from France, for instance. We found the Red Sea on the map and talked about how Moses crossed it from Egypt to the Jordan region years and years ago. Now we can use landmarks as well, and bring the flat atlas to life even more. Someday it will be fun to introduce history - wars and important rulers and periods and things like that, using the same concept of visualizing it on the map. I was always fascinated by stuff like this, but completely useless at remembering it, possibly because I was such a visual learner. My knowledge of world geography doubled just playing with the kids today! If only our teachers had brought maps and plastic toys to class instead of droning on and on from textbooks. Now to find a company that manufactures plastic figures of Nebuchadnezzar or Hammurabi or Kublai Khan or Charlemagne. Anyone know?

When Kate does Perler Beads

..... she really goes all out. This is her most recent project, called Giant Circle. I was very proud of her, and told her so, for persevering at it and not giving up.

When we asked her what she was going to do with something that big, she said, "A carpet for my Barbie House". The Barbie House, incidentally, hasn't happened yet. We're planning to make it for her for her birthday because

• the girls have needed a Barbie house thing for a while
• she asked specifically for it for her birthday
• the real thing costs $150 and is pink
• it's cardboard and it's not pink
• but the girls can decorate it pinky if they want
• I think it might be more fun to make than, say, a Barbie cake, and more permanent

Look out for photos soon (soon as I get off the sofa where my feet are up and I'm all dozy and Sundayafternoonish).

Aftermath of Teeth Extraction

How I am getting fibre these days. With spoon, not straw (banned).

Random Updates

Just home from having my wisdom teeth taken out! There was nothing wrong with them - it was just time to get them out. Very smooth procedure, the most difficult part of having the dentist pop the sunglasses over my eyes at the most exciting segment of the murder mystery movie on the telly. Grrrr. It brought back memories of when I was in the hospital, about to give birth to Emily, and watching My Big Fat Obnoxious Greek Fiance on the telly there. The nurse kept coming in to ask if I needed an epidural and I kept putting it off because I wanted to see if the wedding was going to happen or not. Then when I finally decided, "Ooh, this feels bad. Let's call the nurse, and anyway the show is over, " it was too late for any sort of pain relief. Till now I feel sort of foolish about that. Someday I will tell the girls when it's their turn, "Don't watch TV when you're in labor. And plan ahead, for goodness' sake."

I'm supposed to be resting today, so no laundry, bread-kneading or wrestling with children. And since - thank goodness - I have no photos of extracted teeth to show you, I will instead share photos of our Sunday past, on which the temperatures soared to 65F, and we went to the park. There was still ice on the lake, 

the trees were still bare, and the grass was still brown and dry.

But people left their homes and came out to play!

And today it's 70 F outside, and sunny, like it will be all week. We might just have to put away our fleece and flannels, and break open the summer clothes tubs, two months early. Hurrah!

Summer in March

Another 60+ degree day yesterday!

We went for  our first official family walk of the year.

Some of us were on scooters.

We found, along with the melting snow, some interesting ice sculptures.

Then, because it was so warm, we went to a park to play hide-and-seek and ride on the swings.

And then, because it was really warm, we took the plastic off our deck door, stepped onto our deck, dusted off the grill

and made burgers. Mushroom and swiss, in fact.

It doesn't get any more summery than that! Even in March!

Library Card

Someone got her library card last week -

the same Someone who's been practicing her letters (and sneaking in some drawings during).

Yes, it's Kate. We went to the library on Friday, where she got issued her very own card, on which she painstakingly wrote her name. This is a milestone of sorts in the lives of our children, because these cards are given (as dictated by the librarian) to the kids when they can write their own names. Since it is such a big deal, the Mother (i.e. me) took photos. See here for Emily's Big Moment and here for Jenna's. 

But back to this library visit. Everyone checked out vast numbers of books and, upon exiting the car at home, ran straight for the sofa and quietly devoured them. 

I've never seen -or heard - the girls this quiet before suppertime. Usually they're insane, driven to overeffervesence by hunger. Since this is also a big deal, the Mother again took photos. I'm thinking we should go to the library more often, and just before dinner.

Winter Scenes From Today

60 degrees today. 

No parkas.

Wet footprints in crusty snow

which disappeared in patches

while the children ran out to play.