In Bloom

I just thought I'd share a few photos of some of the flowers that are in our back garden at the moment.

There's eggplant:

nasturtium:

purple petunias:

purple onion and zucchini:

and some kind of pumpkin, I think:

We also have lots of marigolds and some chilli plants flowering. They all make me smile. :)
-Polly

Australian Animals

As part of our "Australia" theme over the last week, we did a lot of animal themed activities. Australia does have a lot of unique animals.

E has a block-puzzle that has pictures of different Australian animals and we had fun putting the pictures together. E also likes to stack the blocks and find all the pieces with animal heads on them.

We did some arts and crafts, including a dot painting of a gecko:

and a paper-plate kangaroo with a joey:

I found some animal songs on youtube. This exercise song would have been better if the video showed children doing the actions instead of just pictures of the animals. Don Spencer sings many classic Australian animal songs. I used to listen to the "Feathers, Fur or Fins" album when I was young. The only ones I could find online were this video which includes "Please Don't Call Me a Koala Bear" and the Play School version of "Feathers, Fur or Fins".

E had plenty of fun pretending to be different animals. Her favourites were a bouncing kangaroo and a squawking, flying cockatoo.

We read some animal books, too. After reading "Koala Lou" by Mem Fox, E pretended to be a koala using a mask from Wildlife Fun 4 Kids:

Echidnas were made using play-dough and pop-sticks:

I knew that bag of pop-sticks would come in handy one day. :)
-Polly

Australia Day

Happy Australia Day (for yesterday) to all the Aussies out there!

For the last week, E has been doing a lot of "Australia" themed activities. Here's just some of them:

We looked at maps of Australia in our atlas and E learnt where on the map we, and other relatives, live. She also learned how to locate Australia on her new globe.

E did some Australia themed colouring pages and we read some Australia themed books including "A is for Australia", "Wattle Babies" and "Possum Magic". We, of course, ate Vegemite sandwiches and lamingtons. :)

I printed out a simple map of Australia that showed the state lines. E coloured it a little and then I gave her cut-outs of each state (on thin cardboard) that she could place on the map as a puzzle. This also helped her to start learning the names of each state and territory.

We did some activities based on the Australian flag. E made a paper flag using this puzzle from Lessons Learnt Journal and some glue. I also made a slightly more detailed flag puzzle using thin cardboard.

I printed a series of Australian flags in different sizes so that E could sort them from biggest to smallest or smallest to biggest. She found this activity fun, but easy.

Lovely Living do some great, free printables. They do ask that you donate to one of their preferred charities using links on their page. Together, E and I made their Australia Day Bunting and hung it in the window above E's desk.

Yesterday, which was actually Australia Day, we put on our Australia bucket hats (mine has a flag design and E's has lots of little Australia maps) and headed to a friend's place for a BBQ and a swim in the pool. We also painted our toenails in green and gold:

I printed this little Australia Day book to take along. E and another little girl coloured it together.

I hope all Australians are enjoying the long weekend.
-Polly

Sewing with Orange Thread

I finally finished E's orange dress which I had cut out months ago. Good thing it was still the right size.

The pattern that I used is pattern b (dress with square neckline) from "happy homemade vol.2: Kids" by Ruriko Yamada. Here's a view of the back with it's shiny, yellow buttons:

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and E seems to like it, too. While in a sewing mood, I also made her another t-shirt from one of hubby's old work shirts. The pattern is "Imke" from "Sewing Clothes Kids Love" by N. J. S. Langdon & S. Pollehn. I've used this pattern before and it's a nice, simple t-shirt design. So far I prefer the basic t-shirt (this is actually the 'boys' style) to any of the variations I've tried, although I am yet to try making one with a hood.

Also recently, I finished these shorts for E. They're made from a cute fabric covered in little black bats and orange stars. The pattern for these is from "Girls Style Book" by Yoshiko Tsukiori (pattern K).

E is never short of clothes to wear, but it always makes me smile when she chooses to wear the things I've made for her.

-Polly

Snip, Snip

E is quite proud of her new skill:

We took advantage of the back-to-school sales yesterday and bought some new stationery, including these safety scissors for E. She spent a good chunk of today practising her grip and the open-close action and eventually managed to cut a fringe all the way around a piece of paper.

Snip, snip, snip!
-Polly

Drawing and Colouring

We have finished A-Z of our alphabet drawings and they are currently displayed on the outside of the kitchen island. I haven't come up with a new drawing project like that one, but E has been doing plenty of drawing and colouring of her own.

Here she is using crayons and an 'easel' (a large piece of MDF) to draw:

E got a Dora the Explorer drawing set for her birthday that included pencils, crayons, markers, paper, colouring pages, stickers... lots of things. She'll often get out this set and likes doing the colouring pages best:

I always loved drawing, even as a young child. It's fun (and a little nostalgic) to watch E do some of the same things.

-Polly

PPK Burgers and Other Food

It's been a while since I've done a food post, mostly because I never think to take any photos of our food. Packaged tofu and frozen veggies really aren't worth blogging about, either. E has been helping a lot in the kitchen. She wants to do everything herself lately. Here she is making scrambled eggs:

Our big basket of parsnips was turned into soup... and then risotto... and then veggie burgers. The soup was going to be parsnip and garlic, but then I realised that we didn't have any nice garlic. I added a can of mushroom soup and it was okay, but nothing special. The next day, I used the leftover soup to make a kind of risotto, adding rice, peas and some extra stock and seasoning. We had leftovers of that, too, so after dishing up a second meal of risotto for lunch, I made veggie burgers.

I had been wanting to try this recipe from PPK for ages, but was hesitant because we don't have a food processor. I used a hand grater for the beetroot and made sure the onion was chopped really fine. Using a potato masher to mince everything together worked fine. I used the risotto instead of plain rice, omitted the garlic because we had none, and used curry powder instead of the suggested spices. I also made them smaller than suggested, using 1/3 cup for each patty. These burgers were really good. I served them as cheeseburgers in wholemeal rolls with cheese, pickles and tomato sauce. I would have loved to add some salad, too, but we didn't have any. The beetroot was fresh from our garden and I only used half of one beet to get one cup. We have really big beetroot.

Also, how meaty do these burger patties look?!

So our meals this week have almost all been from one basket of home-grown parsnips, but we've had a lot of variety. The burgers were by far the tastiest.

Have you been cooking anything interesting lately?

-Polly

[PS. My version of the beet burgers was not vegan. I'm pretty sure canned mushroom soup has dairy products in it (and perhaps some iffy additives). Add to that the fact that I served them with a generous slice of cheese!]

Things that make me Smile

Inspired by Kaylah's post over at The Dainty Squid, here's 10 things that are making me smile today (in no particular order).

1. The lovely, cool breeze that lets me have the house open for once.

2. This freshly-picked basket of parsnips from our vegetable garden.

3. E playing happily with her train set.

4. Actually, watching E play with any of her things. She's gaining so much coordination and language skills and all that stuff that kids do. And I'm so happy that she seems to be over her horrible tummy bug.

5. The marigolds that are flowering in our garden. They're so bright and cheerful!

6. Having watched E and her dad build a robot together. And then playing with it.

E did really well identifying gears and placing components. She'll be building robots on her own in no time. :) Her new saying is "That cool robot!"

7. Parcels in the mail. Doesn't E look so sweet in her new dress?

Thanks Maple :)

8. A letter from my sister.

9. This little one kicking me in the belly.

10. Finally getting around to making new bunting for the living room.

I used last year's local map-book. I usually make fabric flags, but this paper one was so easy and looks pretty, too. E was inspired to make a 'flag picture' where she pasted triangular pieces of wrapping paper onto a piece of card and drew in lines for the string.

Having not posted in a week, I certainly had a lot to share. What's making you smile today?

-Polly

Shapes, Colours and Numbers

E's been having lots of fun and learning with her blackboard and chalk lately. She's also discovered KidsTV123 on Youtube. Here's some of the activities we've tried:

Shapes:

I drew some different shapes onto the board and had E identify them. We counted the sides together and spoke about each shape. I specified a colour to use and she tried tracing or colouring each shape, or she'd choose her own colour and name it.

E's favourite shapes song: "Shapes Song 2"

Numbers and colours:

We drew this fun little number rainbow and sang "10 Little Numbers," pointing to each number as it came up in the song. E can name all of these colours and numbers quite easily. Some more favourite numbers songs are "Numbers Song" and "The Big Numbers Song".

I wrote E's name onto the board so that she could trace it, and again so that she could attempt to copy it. She had a go at writing "Mum" and her dad's name, too.

Cleaning the blackboard can be as much fun as writing or drawing on it:

One more favourite song around here is "The Solar System Song".

-Polly

An Unwelcome Visitor

First off, Happy New Year, everyone! (I know I'm a day late, shh! We were out having fun.)

This morning, a silly little mouse got it's tail stuck between my desk and a piece of wood:

Eww, I don't like mice in the house. It was cruel, but funny, watching this fella try to jump out of it's little predicament. After taking the photo, I moved the board and it ran off. Perhaps it was hiding from all the neighbour-cats around here.

-Polly