Family – Page 23 – Attwood Family

Horsecapades

While looking into what is going on at the CNE this year I came across an ad for Horsecapades.Â Most importantly it is FREE.Â Now who can turn down free activities?Â In this case it was free-tastic!!

The girls got a chance to ride a mechanical horse (which is as close as they will get to riding a horse for a while).Â Elspeth was ready to go until she learned that one of us would have to hold onto to her because she is so small.Â Katrine decided to name her horse Blackie.

There was also a couple of educational displays about horses (with the exception of a section with general farm activities – hence the pig photo cause they were so very cute).Â Elspeth was quite pleased with her horse hat and pretended to be Baby Horse for the rest of the day.Â Katrine enjoyed looking at the life-sized insides of a horse display and was thoroughly grossed about by the section on horse parasites.Â The girls also got to touch and feed various horses.Â I think that the Minature Horse named Pablo was their favourite.

The highlight was definitely the horse show.Â What gorgeous creatures.Â They both loved the unicorn being ridden by a fairy.Â Elspeth enjoyed the lasso and trick riding portions while Katrine enjoyed the horse races and musical poles (aka chairs) game.

We topped it off with some peddle sulky rides.

New rooms for the pair

First, some random cuteness which I could not bear to leave unposted.

Glenn has a few weeks of holidays this summer.Â This week the girls are up at their grandparents for a few days and we are not relaxing.Â Nope.Â We are painting bedrooms – pink.Â Before dropping off the pair, we put them to work helping to tape the trim and then paint the closet.Â Pain got in the hair, on the hands but they had a bit of fun until they lost interest.Â I will post some photos of the finished rooms.

"Mommy, I got some on my hand." — “Mommy, I got some on my hand.”

Totally into it until she almost stepped in the paint tray. Oops.

Sunny Afternoon Fun

I am going to start by sharing snapshots of my two beautiful daughters.Â Just love them.

I am loving having the afternoons free for fun; especially on sunny days – outdoor fun!!

Shortly hereafter, Elspeth flipped herself over and finally managed to completely dunk herself for the first time.

Catapults – Phase 1

When searching for ideas for school in the spring, I discovered this website (http://www.housingaforest.com/simple-catapults/).Â Now I have already posted about creating the bubble snake blowers and the pop bottle sprinklers.Â This afternoon’s project was foot catapults.Â The girls were super excited because this process involved the use of tools as well as sending things flying.

We needed to cut some wood to create the second catapult. Don't worry, this was staged for the blog. — We needed to cut some wood to create the second catapult. Don’t worry, this was staged for the blog.

This weekend, weather permitting, we will launch phase 2 of this project – the castle siege.Â At Katrine’s suggestion we have settled on water balloons as the ammunition for the backyard attack on Chateau K&A.Â I expect it to be an epic battle but we are hopeful that our troops will be victorious.

Rock Climbing Time

Elspeth has made a new friend at swimming class over the past few weeks.Â We have had some playdates at the park post-pool but today we tried something a bit different – indoor rock climbing!Â The jury is still out as to whether she enjoyed it enough to go back but she did exclaim over how much fun she had with her new playmate.Â At the end of the day, that is what is truly important.

Swimming Lessons

Elspeth is back in the pool at swimming lessons.Â She is full of smiles and is enjoying herself….as long as she is not being asked to put her face in or jump in.Â Yup, she will not be passing this level but that is fine with us.Â Slow and steady, slow and steady.Â Thinking that she will need to redo this level but at the end of the day there is no shortcuts. And yes, in the final photo she is actually putting her face in the water.Â Baby steps, baby steps.

Simple Pleasures

This past weekend the girls worked with Glenn to create a homemade sprinkler out of a pop bottle.Â Elspeth donned her goggles and actually got herself a bit wet.

There was book reading, cloud watching and learning to slide down the pole at the playground.Â Loving the summer.

Popsicle Update

We have been so much fun making different types of popsicles.

Here are the diced cherry with cherry yogurt ring pops.

We also made up watermelon creamsicles.Â Super simple because all we did was mix pureed watermelon with some greek yogurt.

The favourites so far have been caramel greek yogurt and banana fudgesicle.Â Literally mashed bananas and cocoa.Â A fun treat for breakfast.

Tim Tam Slams

Have you heard of a Tim Tam Slam? Â It is, according to the girls an “awesome treat” from Australia. Â I’d heard about it previously, but then I saw a demonstrationÂ and I knew I had to find some Tim Tam’s for me and the girls to try. Â Luckily they are available in Canada in many supermarkets so a couple of packs later we were ready to try.

Step 1: Assemble the Ingredients

Milk
Tim Tams
Some willing participants

Â Step 2: Bite off 2 corners

forgot to take a picture of this step

Â Step 3: Use Tim Tam as a straw

Â Step 4: Eat Tim Tam

If you need a more detailed demonstration, hit up ZiggyD’sÂ How to Tim Tam Slam like a True Blue AussieÂ for all the details.

First Week of Vacation

Canada Day:

After watching the second Star Wars movie (finally convinced the girls that it wasn’t a boy movie and they both enjoyed it.Â Now they are asking for their very own lightsabers.Â Anyways, after the movie we headed out to enjoy some sunshine before coming home to make ring popsicles.

This past weekend we started to make popsicles.Â I was cleaning and found some molds.Â Our first batch was plain juice and when they were chosen over freezies we kicked it up a notch by adding cut up melon to the juice.Â Another hit.Â So, when I found these fun ring style molds at a dollar store I snapped them upÂ and we broke them in.Â Our first batch was diced cherries (the ring’s jewels) topped with a mix of black cherry greek yogurt and apple juice.Â Another hit.Â The girls are asking to try banana fudgsicles next.

Weekdays:

Other than Katrine’s skating and Elspeth’s swimming lessons, we have been spending a lot of time crafting, playing in the kitchen and going to the park.Â It has been relaxing except for the day when Elspeth developed a stomach bug…well that was relaxing considering it brought more screen time.Â That said, the four or so hours we spent at various parks today were much more my speed.

Kites:

This evening there was a nice brisk breeze blowing so we broke out the kites.Â Unfortunately we were not able to coax the really cool dragon shaped kite into the air.Â The girls took it in stride and had a fabulous time flying the cheap Care Bear one.