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

Enjoying the Outdoors

We have been as busy as ever, but I've been living life instead of photographing it. We've been getting some gorgeous Autumn weather and have spent a lot of time at local parks. E loves the playgrounds.

Often we'll take a soccer ball or two out for a kick. E's becoming quite coordinated with a ball. One of our local parks even has a goal. It was also super cute watching E play tennis with us at the local court. She has her own kid-sized racquet.  We're lucky to have so many facilities close by.

E is also rocking a new hair-style:

See the little plaits poking out? Just like her mum. :)

-Polly

Art on the Fridge

Do you have art on your fridge? Magnets? Photos? We usually keep the toddler-height area of our fridge door for alphabet and number magnets. The other day, E decided to decorate a little.

Here she re-purposed parts from her Easter chicks to make a new artwork, incorporating plenty of those magnets:

And here she displayed some collage/drawings she'd done earlier that morning:

And another that we drew together:

There was a time when all that was kept on our fridge door was perhaps a shopping list. It's so much more colourful now. :)

-Polly

Making Pesto

We recently harvested all the basil from our garden, except for the new seedlings just sprouted. Here it is all washed and ready to make pesto:

And into the food processor. I'm loving this new appliance.

It's simply lots of basil and olive oil blended together. We transferred it into jars.

So far we have used it on fried field mushrooms, on veggie burgers and mixed with garlic and chilli for a pasta sauce. Yum. :)

-Polly

More Discoverland

I took a lot of photos on our recent visit to Scitech, so I figured I'd spread them across a few posts. Here are some more pictures of E enjoying Discoverland.

This contraption allows you to complete four different circuits causing either an alarm to sound, a puppet to dance, a robot to blink and flag to spin or a colour wheel to spin.

And with this one, you turn a wheel and it plays a tune pianola-style on a glockenspiel.

There's also a corner set aside for construction toys like this duplo table:

And these big foam blocks:

There's always lots to explore and E seems to learn something new each time we visit.

-Polly

Discoverland

I think I've mentioned before that we have yearly passes to Scitech, so we go there quite often. We went again on Saturday and I actually remembered to take some photos for once.
There is a dedicated area for the younger kids called "Discoverland" and E could spend hours in this section alone.
Amongst other things, you can play with shadow and light:

You can sit by a skeleton:

And you can move foam bricks up and down ramps using child-sized wheelbarrows or pulleys:

It's always a fun day for E.

-Polly

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to me. :)

Earlier this week I celebrated my birthday. I like to keep it simple and just spend a day with my family. Here's the cake that my husband bought:

E insisted that I have a candle and of course the "Happy Birthday" song. :)

We also drove to the foreshore for a picnic lunch and E played on the playground there.

These are things that make me smile. It's worth being officially one year older.

-Polly

Peanut Butter Biscuits

I tried a new recipe recently and it has got to be the easiest biscuit recipe ever. Yummy, too. I can't remember where I originally saw it, but this is my variation anyway.

Here's the recipe:

PEANUT BUTTER BISCUITS
Ingredients:
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup oat bran
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
Place tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto a prepared baking tray. Flatten a little with your fingers.
Bake for 9 minutes.
Let cool on tray for 10 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

Makes about 24 biscuits.

Enjoy.

-Polly

Learning Letters

Here's just some of the activities that E has been doing lately to learn the alphabet and letter sounds.

We bought these flash cards a while ago and E loves them. Sometimes we'll play memory or other matching games. Sometimes she'll make up her own games. Sometimes we use them as a reference for other letter activities.

You may remember the alphabet drawings we did together last year (I shared some *here* and *here*). Over the last few weeks we have started a new series of alphabet pictures. First, E will paint dots on letters like these, although I have been drawing my own for her. When it's dry (usually the following day) I'll cut around the letters and we'll use them as part of a letter collage like this:

We collect pictures starting with the correct letter from catalogues (junk-mail is good for something) and draw and colour some more of our own. They're all cut out and collected together to make each collage and I write the words on little pieces of paper to be stuck on, too. We use A3 size paper, often that's already been painted, such as this one for the letter C that E painted using a carrot instead of a brush.

Another series that we have started is making animal pictures for each letter. Generally, I'll draw an outline of an animal and E will use some creative method to decorate it. So far we've done an alpaca with a cotton-wool fleece, a manatee with crepe-paper skin (and googly eyes), a tortoise with an egg-shell shell and a cockatoo made of paper pieces with a hand-print crest.

We'll then choose a name for our animal starting with the letter we're working on. I'll write it on a piece of paper to be displayed with the picture, writing the key letter (however many times it occurs) in a different colour for emphasis.

E has also been practising her pre-writing skills with her collection of dry-erase tracing books and had a go at using her finger to write letters in a sand-tray.

There's always her giant, foam alphabet floor puzzle and alphabet fridge magnets to play with, too.

-Polly