A Blue Day

blueberry smoothie

...literally, as we're all quite happy here. :)

Colours make good, easy theme days. Today's theme, in our home, is "Blue". E and I got up this morning and put on some blue clothes. We made blueberry smoothies for breakfast. I know that blueberries are technically purple, but they are called blueberries and blue isn't exactly a colour that is generally associated with food. We used blue straws. E likes banana smoothies and although we did add a banana to our smoothie this morning, she took one sip and said "No!" pushing her cup away. So E had regular, not blue, toast.

I printed the word "Blue" in block lettering and we coloured it in using blue markers and blue crayons.

Next, I gave E a blue bucket and we walked around the house collecting anything blue that we could find. We collected toys, blocks, bowls, books, a cup and a hat. We arranged some of them on our blue couch to get these photos, which were in part inspired by Maple's gorgeous photos here and here...

...and we made some little buildings with the blocks after that.

Yesterday we had clear blue skies, so I thought that I'd be able to point that out to E today. No such luck, as it was raining all day and the view from our back window was decidedly grey.

grey sky

For another blue activity, we baked blue cupcakes. I know, I know, I said blue wasn't a colour for food. What was I thinking?! I usually avoid artificial colours in our food, especially blue. I've even refused to give E blue frosted cake at a birthday party. We had just about every colour patty cases except for blue, so we used pale, purplish, stripy ones. The cupcakes did turn out quite pretty, don't you think? They taste nice, just like normal vanilla cupcakes... but they're blue. That's just not right. We had one each, anyway. E gets excited about cake.

 One other blue themed activity that we did today was about the easiest yet. I gave E a piece of blue bubble wrap to play with. Pop, pop, pop!

Playing with bubble wrap.

-Polly

The Pigeon says "Happy Birthday"

E likes to have her daddy read "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," by Mo Willems. It's very clever, reminiscent of a 'Sesame Street' book that we both read as children: "There's a Monster at the End of This Book," and is written all in speech bubbles. The Pigeon acts just like a preschooler trying to get his or her own way. I'm sure E is learning 'tricks' that she wouldn't have otherwise picked up on just yet, but it's a cute book all the same. 

Our whole family is pretty much obsessed with books. I can't wait until the council builds us a local library. I believe that they have allocated funds, but that's all I've heard. There are a couple of public libraries not too far away, but they're a pain to get to on public transport. In the meantime, we're building up our home library. We have bought a lot of books recently. Everything from board books to 500+ page textbooks.
The latest children's book to arrive at our house is a sequel to "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" called "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog", in which the pigeon has become even more impudent and we are introduced to a new character, the duckling. Otherwise, it pretty much follows the same formula as the first book. We realised that E probably didn't know what a hot dog was, so Hubby decided that we'd have hot dogs for his birthday dinner this week.

Mmm, cake batter.

Because it was a birthday dinner, of course we had to bake a cake! The request was for moist vanilla packet cake. Easy. E and I spent the morning baking. She could hardly wait to lick the spoon. While waiting for the cake to cool, I did a bit of crafting and made a pigeon. I would have used marzipan so that it was edible, but that's not something that I keep in the pantry. This way we get a keepsake, anyway. I had bought some craft felt for another project and the rest was all from my 'stash'. I love those big, white buttons that I used for the eyes. They're the reason the pigeon is so large. E and I then iced the cake and decorated it, with plenty of time left before hubby arrived home from work.

-Polly

Self Portraits

...or more correctly: "How to take bad pictures of oneself."

Method one: take touch-screen mobile phone (with inbuilt camera). Add one energetic toddler. Point camera at self whilst trying to hit the "take picture" button. Give up.

Method two: take small, old, digital camera (with broken light sensor). Add one energetic toddler. Point at self and hit the "take picture" button.

The results:

Method three: take husband's DSLR. Find reflective surface (like this here window). Entertain energetic toddler nearby. Point camera at reflective surface. Hit that "take picture" button.

The result:

My parents say that they rarely see photos of me. This could be why.

-Polly

Elephants in the House

For the last couple of days, E has been learning about elephants. We like to have "theme days" in order for E to have fun and learn new things. We coloured a picture of an elephant and pointed out all the different parts: wrinkled skin, 4 legs, big ears, tail, and of course trunk, a new word that E seems quite proud of knowing. We made an elephant's trunk out of an old stocking and scrunched-up newspaper.

<--Here, E is pretending to be an elephant with her stocking and newspaper trunk. Sorry about the blurry photo. It's difficult to get a good shot of an active toddler, especially with only a mobile phone.

We're singing "One grey elephant balancing, step by step on a piece of string...". Can you see the string on the ground? It stretched all the way through the living room, kitchen and dining room and partway down the hallway. Lots of balancing! Maybe we should have been singing "One purple, sparkly elephant...," judging by her outfit. That just doesn't quite fit the tune. :)

Continuing with the elephant theme this morning, we did an elephant craft that I think I've seen online somewhere, but can't remember where. I printed out a page of four large ovals (bodies) and four small ovals (ears), for E to colour in. She chose purple, red and black crayons. Once the colouring was done, I cut out the shapes and E glued them to pieces of cardboard. Adding little cardboard trunks, googly eyes and a couple of clothes-pegs, they became elephants. 

It kind of annoys me that they don't have tails. I really wanted to keep the ovals as simple as possible as E is still learning her shapes. We could probably add tails of some sort. They're not as well balanced as I'd hoped, either. E has trouble making them stand up.

Tomorrow, I think we may just have to do "E is for Elephant".

-Polly

Red Paint

Plenty of paper was supplied, but isn't it more fun to paint oneself?

D...D...Dragon

I have been doing some drawings to introduce E to the letters of the alphabet and have found that I enjoy having a reason to draw again. It's been a long time since art school. Today's letter is 'D' and I chose to draw a D dragon. I was a little worried that the dragon's wings would make it look too much like a "b", but I think it's pretty obvious what it's supposed to be. E always helps to add the colour and we think of words that start with that letter. She enjoys the chance to use "Mum's special pencils". Some 'D' words that she knows are "dinosaur' (she says "dino"), "dig", "diamond", "duck", "dress" and "Dad". Of course, as we were colouring the dragon, E kept reminding me of her favourite 'D' word: "Dora". The theme song "D...D...Dora..." sounds a bit like a phonics lesson, doesn't it? That, or a stutter.

-Polly

Patchwork Dress

As you may have figured out, I love to sew from reclaimed materials. This patchwork dress, that I made for E, is one example. While most of the fabrics in the dress were actually 'new', they were all tiny pieces left over from other projects. I kept them all in a box until I had enough to make the dress. I finished it some time ago, but it was a bit too big at first. Kids grow pretty quickly, so E's getting plenty of wear from it now. There are some licensed fabrics in the mix and E likes to point out "Pooh" and "Piglet" as she's getting dressed.

-Polly

Mum's Apron

Milk and cookies

We've been baking again. We made choc-chip cookies this time. E wasn't too keen on getting her hands sticky when it came to rolling the dough into cookie-sized balls, but she loved saying "Plop!" as she dropped each one onto the baking trays.

Mama's apron

In my last baking post, I spoke about E's apron. Well, here's mine. -->
I made it from an old pair of hubby's jeans. The main part of the apron is one and a half legs of the jeans, stitched together. I made little darts in the top to give it a bit of shape. The neck strap is made from the waistband of the jeans and the pocket is one of the original back pockets, cut out, and stitched to the front of the apron. I added waist ties from another old apron. I hemmed the sides, but left the bottom edge raw. This is a good, tough apron for working around the house.


-Polly

Eggplants

Proud gardener

Lunch :)

Today was another beautiful, sunny day here in Western Australia. No woolly hats required. We sat outside and talked about the sun and E reminded me that we forgot to wear our sun-hats. We did more chalk drawings and we found little bugs in the garden (eating the broccoli!). E spotted a couple of eggplants ready for picking, so she did just that and picked them. It was already midday, so we brought them inside and turned them into lunch. Veggies are best when they're picked mere minutes before they're eaten.

-Polly

Hausfrau Polly

Not cabbage rolls

Last night for dinner, I made cabbage rolls "just like [hubby's] Mum and Oma used to make". Well, not quite. Mine had a different sauce and "Mum's rolls didn't fall apart". LoL. Isn't there some unwritten law about not trying to outdo your mother(or Oma)-in-law's cooking? It was a good way to use some of that huge cabbage that we bought. Hubby and E just like the excuse to eat sour cream. They'd both eat the stuff straight from the tub if I allowed it. Ew.

Chalk drawing

 During the day, E and I played outside some more. The weather's been a bit colder,so we needed an extra jumper and a wooly hat. E asks for a hat most mornings, anyway. She keeps warm by playing on the slide - climbing up the ladder and sliding down again and again and again - or splashing in puddles in her gumboots. She loves her boots. I wonder if that has anything to do with a certain monkey?

Some recent rain had washed all of our chalk drawings away, so it was about time we got out the sidewalk chalk again. We don't actually use it on the sidewalk, but on loose pavers left over from paving our driveway. I drew flowers, butterflies and pigs. E's drawings were more abstract and, in my opinion, more artistic. She just draws, without drawing "something".

-Polly

Lets talk about the weather...

Chinese broccoli flowers

I've been procrastinating on this post for 5 days. I guess I'm just thinking "why bother?" I love my daughter and I love our little veggie garden and our little life, but I'm sure it's all pretty boring to everyone else.

We've had just enough rain to keep everything alive and enough clear skies to be spending a lot of time outside. I really do love this time of year.

<--Here's another photo that I took in our backyard. There's so much beauty to be found without even having to leave home.

So should I keep posting or should I go back to anonymity?

-Polly

Babycakes

Mix, mix, mix

I used to be a purist when it came to baking. Now there are always packet-cake (or packet-biscuit or packet-pudding) mixes in the pantry. They provide just the right amount of steps for a toddler to participate in almost every part of the process. I measure out the ingredients and help to beat the egg(s). E then dumps the lot into a bowl. "Mix, mix, mix" and the batter's ready.
If we're making a large cake, E will pour the batter into the pan. Today we made "babycakes" or bite-size cupcakes, so it was Mama's job to fill the pans and put them in the oven.


Do you see the black apron that E is wearing? I didn't really get a good photo of it. It's made from an old (adult-sized) t-shirt that never fit well. I simply cut straight down the middle of the front of the t-shirt (it had a "v" neckline) and went over the rough edges with the overlocker. The shirt already had ties at the waist, so it was done. The back of the t-shirt became the front of the apron and it's the perfect size for E. Easiest apron ever. And thanks to my sister for the hand-me-down shirt!

The finished babycakes

 <--Here's what the cakes looked like when they were done. They're strawberry flavoured and covered in sprinkles. Way too sweet, in my opinion. With the cakes being so small, the icing-to-cake ratio is all wrong. The sprinkles, whilst pretty, just add more unnecessary sugar. They're a good size for E, though, so we'll probably make "babycakes" again. I think we'll pick a nicer recipe next time. "Babymuffins" perhaps?



The weather here is still quite Summery, although the wind has picked up a bit this afternoon. We spent the rest of the morning in the backyard. It was lovely, just swinging on the swings and watering the garden (which I almost forgot to do - there's a sprinkler ban here over Winter, and isn't it supposed to rain, anyway?).

-Polly

B is for Boots

B is for Boots

E is obsessed with Dora the Explorer lately. That's probably true for a lot of little girls.

Daddy says Dora's a good role model. She's certainly helped E to learn a lot of new things and "Dora yoghurt" is E's new favourite food.

I'm off to enjoy the sunshine.

-Polly

Feels like Spring

Even though it's actually the middle of Winter, the last couple of days have been so warm and sunny, it really feels like Spring. E and I went for a walk this afternoon and noticed a lot of plants in flower. We also saw magpies starting to patrol the park. Our back garden is looking quite nice, too, with flowers on many of the plants and some veggies ready to pick.

Trio of turnips

Baby lime

Homegrown food always tastes so much better. We had fresh-picked spinach for lunch. I may just cook those turnips tomorrow.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my first post.

-Polly