What's up with Glenn, Heather, Katrine, and Elspeth
What a beautiful moon there was tonight. I think that it was the first time we have been able to see the rabbit in the moon. Beautiful.
With bellies full of mooncakes the girls headed out for lantern time. They really love their musical lanterns; probably because they are once a year toys. Oh and they come with a later bedtime.
Happy Moon Festival!
The real Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is not until tomorrow but some good friends host a moon festival party each year so we get to stretch out our celebration. It was an Elsa festival because can you guess who came??? Chinese Elsa, complete with white hair. I must say that she was remarkably cute. Her royal highness stayed at the party for about 2 hours, only leaving once dinner appeared. Oddly enough, she showed back up after dinner but her face looked rather different and this time she had a twin! (OK, I must admit that I was biased in favour of the first Elsa but the other two were also adorable).
The girls had a lot of fun crafting lanterns, eating moon cakes and of course going on a lantern parade with their friends.
The hostess even thought of me and made some gluten free moon cookies which were delicious. May need to add them to our yearly tradition.
This afternoon after church, we all headed out to the orchard for apple picking. It was a gorgeous day and we got a bag full of a combination of bakers and small eaters for lunches. I love that the girls have learned to pick apples that are about the size they can eat in one sitting. I hate cleaning apple schmutz off of the inside of lunch bozes. Yuck!
While we were there the girls were snacking on apples. Now Katrine has had two lose teeth all summer. She lost one last week but the other was hanging in there. She was walking along happily munching when she started to tear up. Turns out her tooth had come out and she couldn’t see it in the apple. A quick reassurance that the tooth fairy would still come dried the tears. Before bed she composed a note to the tooth fairy explaining what had happened and politely requesting that she leave something anyways.
It has been a really nice fall weekend. I am hoping that this week is a bit calmer at work so that I can get around to making up some GF apple pies. Mmmm.
When you have a teensy girl who is learning how to drum, you need to find a teensy drum which is pretty impossible. So, what is a parent to do….make one.
Step 1: Purchase a Tom drum and dress it up with black ribbon and glue gun so it looks less toy and more drum.
Step 2: Make hubby design and build a holder for said drum. This will allow teensy drummer to walk and drum when she reaches the level of being able to co-ordinate these two activities.
Step3: Paint holder to make it look professional. Add three dog collars (’cause they are just the right size) and two wrist sweatbands for shoulder straps (sweatbands to stop the bands from rubbing on little shoulders) and waist belt.
Step4: Attach to child and viola! A teensy tenor drum. Now we are just waiting to add the kilt and grandma’s cream socks and we will be ready to play with the band.
Yup it is that time of year again.
It is that time of year again – the CNE is town so off we went for a day full of fun. And it certainly was a very full, aka long, day.
We started in the kiddie section. Big news this year, Elspeth (at 38″) could go on rides without an adult…well, at least some of them. She was thrilled.
From there we headed to the shows. As usual, Superdogs was amazing. Those dogs are really something. They never fail to amaze me. Elspeth enjoyed the cool air so much that she…fell asleep. Woke up in time to see the sand sculptures and floral displays before heading back to the show area for the acrobatic show which again was amazing. Elspeth would call it “daring”.
After some dinner it was time for the parade. Katrine was a superstar big sister because she gave a string of beads to a rather disappointed Elspeth. The highlight of the parade was the Elsa / Frozen float that blew out snow to the delight of the watching children.
Then we explored the displays (one of my favourite parts) before a few more rides. I got to ride the sack slide about four times. Elspeth would have gladly gone more but I refused to carry her up to the top. I love sack slides. Such a simple ride but so much fun.
We ended the day with a fireworks display. Glenn and the girls were on the Skyrider for the fireworks which was a treat. Where was I? Sensibly on the ground of course. I really don’t like being on things that I can fall from (yes I know it is not logical but fears rarely are).
With a cottage this beautiful how could we resist stopping by for a summer visit? (Thank you Karen.)
This summer has been full of rain so mushrooms were out in full force. Katrine was thrilled to be able to share her interest with Elspeth. Last year Elspeth could take them or leave them but this year she began to get into it – the colours, the hunt, the spore prints. It was quite fun to go out walking with them. We had tried to go out geocaching with them earlier in the day and were met by a wall of bugs so this was a welcome change.
Even though it was a cloudy few days, we took advantage of the lake. Swimming, fishing, wading and riding in the paddle boat. The first time down to the lake the girls went prepared with their willies. Well, Elspeth is not so good on depth perception with water and she flooded her boots. Had a wonderful time nonetheless. Both girls actually managed to catch a fish so they were quite happy. On our final day a neighbour invited us down to his beach, much to the girls’ delight, and they dug and waded to their hearts content.
Then we topped it off with an ice cream stop. Loving cottage days.
The girls got a bit bored with the ordinary tea party so they suggested that we should do a dim sum party instead complete with food on carts. Â So we did; although it was a touch more picnic style than traditional restaurant style. Â Berries became dumplings, cheese stringers became tripe, crackers became taro cake. Â Their creativity was limited only by the number of small snacks that were available to fill the small plates. Â I was elected to be the server who refilled the teapot and pushed the chair, sorry cart, full of dishes for them to chose from. Â Even the stuffies appeared to enjoy themselves. Â One moment their little plates were piled high with dumplings, rice cakes and assorted goodies and the next they were empty. Â No one complained about the bill either and this here waitress got some hugs as a tip so everyone left happy.
Elspeth has been enjoying her drumming and making good progress (says a proud mom). She was recently given a pair of snare drumsticks in addition to her tenor ones (the hot pink ones have gone away and she has moved on to real sticks). She has been having a lot of fun.
http://youtu.be/jDOcjj2DBO0 – just playing with her snare sticks
http://youtu.be/mEefJBBXOIo -doing some flourishing with the band
Katrine had to settle for ice cream this time though as all of the close yogurt places have closed and Elspeth was fading fast.
Katrine and coaches have been working hard this summer and have all earned a well deserved break. She has done her first two Pre-Juvenile competitions yet I have never seen her solo in person. You see, I was voted out of the competitions in favour of Baba. Apparently he makes her less nervous so how can I argue? She has worked hard and is gaining confidence. At the end of the day, that is what is important. Proud of you!
This year we were lucky to have Grammy come for a visit on her birthday. While she was here, we picked her brain on making bread. Way back in my previous gluteny existence I could make cake, pastry, cookies with the best of them. I never made gluteny bread though. When I began baking gluten free it was a whole new ballpark for those things that I was good at previously so I never tackled bread. Recently I was asked by my sister in law if I knew of a good gluten free bread recipe as she was hoping to enter a loaf in the local fair this fall. My immediate answer was no but the girls and I have been having fun playing around with food this summer so I thought that I would give it a go….with some help. This is where mom came in. Unfortunately, even with her insights the loaf came out looking good but tasting YUCK. Oh well.
