We've Left The Pre-School Years Behind

Our life is "quiet" right now.  We're well into the school routine, which is going more smoothly than I had imagined it would.  The ballet lessons have been going on for a few weeks, with the girls shuffling around classes so get to the right "levels" for their ages and skill levels.  And I've even made time for baking and cooking a little more often.  Check out my first attempt at making bread!

I feel like the girls are suddenly more mature (most days!) and able to get along without me now.  Okay, not without me, but they know how to amuse themselves.  Some days I even find them reading - quietly on their own, or to each other.  They play with toys, usually together, and then tidy them up when they're done - often without more that one suggestion to do so.  I am eternally grateful for these little things.

The eating in our house is changing now too.  Emma is a little more willing to try new things.  The key, some days, is to let her help out (even just stirring) so she's more interested in the foods.  I made potato soup and after explaining to her what was in it: bacon, potatoes, and whipping cream, she still had no desire to eat it.  After she watched me cook up the bacon, stir in the bits and the milk and cream she wanted to taste it.  Then she ate about half of what I gave her in a bowl - potatoes and all!

Rose's eating (and entire evenings) are much worse right now than I've experienced from her in a while.  She's tired.  School is wearing her out like crazy!  The dinner table is a battlefield, but once you tell her it's time for bed she's happy-go-lucky and bedtime is (usually) a breeze.

The modelling life is quiet now too.  Our "agent" has a rule where she won't submit Emma for anything in Toronto that doesn't pay enough to cover the loss of time (from work) and travel for us here in Kingston.  We peruse the acting submission website occasionally ourselves to make sure we aren't missing anything fun, but a lot of stuff really is not worth the time.  I think we're going to enrol Emma in some community theatre stuff this coming summer and she what she thinks of that.

Overall, life is good.  At the beginning of this post I said our life is "quiet" right now.  I only mean that we don't have a lot of events coming up.  Thanksgiving is our next family function and then we're throwing a Halloween party for Emma's friends since we missed her birthday with the Fashion Show at the mall.  And then, of course, actual Halloween.  Watch for my post about the party and Halloween as the month rolls on!

The busyness I feel right now comes from working, school stuff (like homework that we only have about an hour a night to work on, usually while I'm making dinner), dance stuff, outdoor clean-ups - now that the weather is getting cooler - and the need to get my gardens to bed.  And, I'm trying to make more food instead of buying insta-foods.  That's going ok, but I don't have as much time as I'd like to try more new things!

Readers, are your lives settling into routines now that it's October?  Or do you feel busier during the school year than the summer?  Comment below to let me know how your days are going.  Also I'd love easy recipes for dinners or baking that I can make and share with my family and other readers.  Thanks for visiting!

Is It Swimming Weather? or My Kids Are Crazy!

My kids went swimming today - today is June 7th - no one even looked at the temperature in the pool because us grownups are too cold blooded to even think about getting in.,  Although, the car did say 22 degrees (Celsius) that is nowhere near swimming weather to me!

Sundays are usually good days.  Nanny takes the girls to church, then they often go to their aunts to play with awesome young cousin with a sibling cousin on the way.  After that (while cousin naps) they go back to Nanny's for movie or swimming (when the weather is nice) or park play, then we all gather there for dinner.  Tonight we had pork steaks with corn on the cob, rice and salad.  So delicious.  The kids even ate some.  That's a feat in itself some days.  Everything is quiet upstairs now (8:30 pm).  Time for Mom and Dad to sit quietly and unwind, watch tv, and try hard not to eat snacks we don't really need because we had a perfectly delicious and calorically dense dinner.  I'm about to fall asleep, but I think that's more due to the wine I had with dinner, than the time of day.

Next weekend is going to be more busy, as will the next 2 weekends be.  Dance recitals abound, as well as following family gatherings.  Luckily my families are happy to help out, bring foodstuffs, and help to tidy.  I'm hoping the weather will cooperate for the next two weekends as well.  If it gets hot we do always have access to Nanny's pool to cool off after a hard day's work!

Toodles!

Kids and Food

I don't know about anyone else out there, but my kids are really weird eaters.  And I don't just mean food choices.  Tonight we had the noodles cooking and the sauce heating and Rose knew all this but asked "can I eat something before?"
"No Rose, you have to wait for dinner."
"But I'm hungry right now!" in that perfectly whiny way all kids perfect at some point. "I want letters in a bowl!"  (She means Alpha Bits)
So I give in and she eats a small bowl of dry Alpha Bits, with some help from Emma.  Then she asks for more "but with milk."
Cereal isn't going to hurt her, so I say "Ok, but you still have to eat your dinner," and we put out the watermelon she usually eats with cereal in the morning with it.  (She definitely had some of that too.)
"Ok, I will."
When we look back both the girls have a spoon and are eating out of the same bowl of cereal and milk.
"Emma, why are you eating out of Rose's bowl?  If you want some you can have your own."
"But this one is already here," she says.  Kid logic, right?  So they just happily keep eating out of the same bowl.

Cut to dinner time (about 5 minutes after they ate the cereal) and Emma is whining about wanting to play Play-Doh and they both seem to have forgotten we haven't actually eaten dinner yet.  But, lo and behold, they both eat spaghetti like champs.  Rose had a bowl of noodles with sauce and a bowl of noodles with butter and Emma ate a bowl of sauce "on the side, Mommy" which she then drizzled over her first bowl of noodles with butter.  Then she continued on to have another bowl of noodles with butter and ate a decent portion of the meat sauce out of the "side" bowl.  Why they couldn't have just waited that extra 15 minutes I will never know.  I guess I just don't remember being a kid and being SO HUNGRY that you just can't wait.

Toodles!