Beautiful Calling

What We’re Playing Are you familiar with kijiji? I’m well acquainted with it and was delighted to find a tub of Lincoln Logs Great West Express for a steal. I love toys that inspire creativity, require imagination and demand interactive play rather than provide entertainment. We haven’t yet mastered the art of building the actually [...]

The Firehall Dentist Chloe and I had dentist appointments; she was excited. She likes to go to the dentist. This is her second real visit. She looks forward to dressing up for the occasion, a new toothbrush, a prize from the treasure room and a lunch out with mom. Mommy looks forward to a little [...]

Confession time: we just started “back to school” on Friday Jan 21st. Of course the days are still filled with play, toys and books but being “off school” I haven’t grabbed my  camera as frequently. I’m looking forward to this week, with a return to our usual routine. Needless to say, this tot school post [...]

When the post Salt Dough Ornaments by Happy Housewife  popped up in my reader, I knew this was something to add to our holiday to-do list. The littles enjoyed it and now we have lots of personalized gifts for friends, teachers and family. Her recipe was simple with ingredients we had on hand. Simply roll [...]

  My friend Sherri, whom I had never met, sent me an invite to an Usborne party. How could I resist? I love books, especially Usborne books, and we’d get to meet. My very first bloggy friend in real life! What a fun night. Cassandra {yet another blogger!} was the Usborne rep and I can [...]

Beading Gifts Anything craft-like and the littles are all over it. We made bead bracelets for GiGi a while back using different kinds of beads (picked up at a yard sale last summer) and pipe cleaners. They carefully slide the beads on and once they have enough, Mommy helps them twist it and tuck the [...]

Drawing Improvements This week was spent drawing a lot. We now have markers, pencil crayons along with our regular and fat crayons. They’ve been using each of them to make creations and we’ve been looking at how each one helps us make a different looking drawing. I noticed Chloe has improved in her drawing in [...]

One snowy day we drove to Toronto. Actually it was on Saturday. We went to the Art Gallery of Toronto. We perused their regular exhibit at a good pace which is common for our family now that it encompasses two tots. In the first gallery, the attendant gave each of the littles a card (about [...]

“I don’t know my ABC’s” I’ve never taught my children their ABC’s. Not the song, not what they are, what they look like. It’s not a priority for me. Yes, Chloe has friends who know them all, can write them and maybe even read them but I am confident that she won’t be hindered at [...]

   The Schoolroom Earlier this year, or possibly last, as we talked about homeschooling, we talked about converting our office into a dedicated school room complete with desks or tables, bookshelves, a blackboard and more. (We have an office with desktop computers but generally just use our laptops on the couch). But the more I [...]