Category: Skating

Adventures in cooking class

I have been able to take Elspeth to cooking class the last two weeks because they have not  made anything gluteny.  It is nice to see her learning by doing and then enjoying the fruits of her labour.  She has a great time; can’t you tell?

She made cheesy apple melts and fruity coleslaw last week.  The highlight of which was getting to cut and cut and cut until everything was practically diced.  Great week!

This week apple mock-tinis, apple cookie pizza and stuffed apples were on the menu.  She had fun.  The class started off well…

Looks yummy doesn’t it?  All of the chocolate-apple-cinnamoness topped with caramel sauce simply had to taste great as did her mock-tini.  Elspeth finished the class enjoying her apple stuffed with cheese, sunflower seeds and raisins.  Yippee!

Didn’t need lunch because she ate it all (not exactly balanced but oh well).  There was however, an unfortunate mishap on route to the creation of this edible delight.  It involved an apple and a corer.  Oh, and  my thumb as well as a trip to emerg.  Luckily I didn ‘t need stitches (lucky me, I had pretty much sliced the skin clean off so there wasn’t anything to stitch) but I do have a pretty inpressive bandage right now.

Now no need to worry.  Katrine had her skating competition simulation tonight and even with the bandage I was able to do reasonably good hair.  Thank you to Ashley (her coach) for tieing her skates. :-)   Another special thank you to my hero of the day – my wonderful mother-in-law.  She came right away when I called.  Went to the ER and kept Elspeth entertained for almost two hours while I was being taken care of.  Helped fasten and unfasten car seats, containers, bobby pins and snaps.  Mom, you rock. 🙂

 

Skate tape

I didn’t discover this product until Katrine had sliced and cut up her first pair of new skates quite a bit.  Now I love it.  It doesn’t prevent all damage to the leather but it certainly helps to keep them looking nicer, and when you spend as much on them as we do you want them to look nice as long as possible.

New tape: Doesn’t it look nice and shiny and smooth?

Old tape:  One word – UGH (Particularly like the toe of the skate.  Notice how it is all torn up.  Even with the tape, Missy Katrine managed to slice out a small chunk and we only got these skates in August.)

It is so easy to put on too.  You simply unroll it onto the skate and then smooth down.  Simple but effective.  It even peels off easily when you need to put on new tape or polish up the boots for a competition.

Another skating dress

Bet you were thinking that this would be another dress for Katrine.  Well…wrong.  Our little Elspeth will be doing her first skating competition in January and so needed an outfit.  Katrine’s first one being too big that is.  Here it is.

Added these details to the skirt just for some fun.

Cute isn’t it?

Halloween

Wow, am I ever behind.  Okay Halloween.  Lets see…we will start with the pumpkins.  Both girls had fun working on the pumpkins.  I think that it helped that our pumpkins’ guts were more solid than stringy so the girls were willing to touch them.  We grew the pumpkins large enough this year that we did not have to buy pumpkins but were able to use our homegrown ones instead.  After cutting it open we actually scooped out large chunks of flesh with these giant seeds imbedded in it.  The seeds were so nice and plump and large that we rinsed, salted and roasted them.  Man are they good.  Seeing as how we had two, each girl got to design and carve their own pumpkin which made it much more enjoyable for Glenn and I (no bickering).

The night before Halloween Elspeth had her skating lesson and they were allowed to come in costume.  She was so excited to have yet another excuse to wear her EB sheep costume.  Halloween morning saw her baking up a storm with my mom at a local cooking class.  They made spider buns and black cat(chocolate) cookie pops which were half the size of her head.  After nap, she was off to her nursery school for their Halloween party which she enjoyed until an older boy came in with a mask and she hid, quaking, under a table.  This week she is still nervous to go back to nursery in case he walks through the door again.  I am looking at the positive.  She will likely never be a fan of scary movies.  Yippee!

Katrine missed out on a lot of the Halloween activities in her school due to concussion related issues; which seem to have resolved themselves (thank goodness).  She spent a large chunk of Halloween afternoon at home with her grandparents and I playing board games infront of the fire. I think that basking in a sea of undivided attention helped to take the sting out of missing out.

After a quick dinner, my mom, Glenn and I took them out in the drizzle trick or treating.  The girls had fun and came home with too much candy which is slowly being eaten.

 

Getting caught up

1. Concussion:  Well, Katrine is better…mostly.  She is back at school full time and skated again for the first time last night, just some stroking but something.  She was mortified because doctor’s orders were for her to wear her helmet this week to make sure that she didn’t rehurt herself.  If that was not bad enough, she had to borrow her sister’s helmet AND as I was putting it on, Patrick Chan (her hero) walked by.  Poor thing.

Thank goodness that she is able to get up and get moving again.  It is really hard trying to get that girl to sit still without TV or computer to distract her.  The first thing she told her teacher upon going back to school was that I had spent the week saying “Stop jumping.”, “Don’t run around.”, “Put that book down.”  Sigh.  The photos below show how I tried to make the time less trying for all of us.  The best was the mani pedi.  Two hours of having to sit still.  Well worth the money.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that the last few things resolve themselves and she can be ready for her first skating competition in four weeks (she will be crushed if she isn’t).

2. Elspeth skating:  Okay, that girl loves her skating.  She is doing really well but the smile on her face when she puts her skates on and her reluctance to get off the ice makes me happy.

3. Halloween:  We decided to get out this past Sunday for some pre-Halloween fun at the zoo.  We took our black  cat and our E.B. sheep as well as a friend and his kids along with us.  The kids had a blast trick or treating (not for candy!!!) through the tundra section but the highlight was definetely watching Hudson swim in the water.  They were able to get right up to the glass with him diving and paddling infront of them.

I hurt my back lifting Elspeth up to see the gorrillas at play but it seems to be getting better gradually.  Katrine enjoyed going in to the Critter Cave to look at all of the bugs; particularly the giant snails.  Elspeth on the other hand absolutely refused to set foot inside – not a big fan of bugs. 😎

We ended up doing a costume parade where each of the kids got a giant panda flag which was the highlight of the event for Elspeth.  Overall great family fun.

First Skating Lesson

Elspeth had her very first skating lesson on Tuesday – Preschool Skate.  She was soooo terribly excited about it.  She insisted on wearing her “skating princess” t-shirt to nursery school.  While at school, she showed off her “skatey” moves which are adorable but have little to actually do with skating.  Then she simply couldn’t stop smiling when it was time to put on her skates.  I don’t think that the smile left her face the whole time on the ice and I know for a fact that she didn’t want to get off.  I spent the time taking photos and just enjoying as Katrine ran around playing with a friend whose younger brother was also skating.  Can’t wait to go back next week.

What does Elspeth do when Katrine is skating?

By now, you all know how much time we spend at the arena each week.  This season there are multiple or extended visits in a day.  If it was just me, I would easily find any number of ways to relax and have some fun.  But what exactly can a two year old do to kill time for an hour or more in an arena when she is not allowed to skate.  I am posting some of my favourite photos to give you a snapshot of what life is like while Katrine skates.

We have a very simple daily schedule:

1. Snack

2. Read a book (I mean, you can never do too much to encourage vocabulary growth and a love of books)

3. A page of “homework” which is really a page of colouring, cutting or such.  One of her favourite activities right now it to practise copying shapes.

4. Some other activity from her bag or the ipad or her Calico Critters house.  On very long days I lug that as well as as the other bags into the arena and we spend the time arranging the furniture or making food or giving baths.  We thought that we needed to branch out and try to incorporate some imaginative play along with the other activities.  I really miss the Duplo wall which was at the arena we frequented this summer.  It got daily use at both drop off and pick up.

Now I am hoping that once December comes, Elspeth and I will be able to hit the ice trail while Katrine is skating.  That would nicely change it up.  The trail is there right now but there is no way that I am trying to pack a scooter or trike along with everything else.  Even I have my limits.  Check out the photos and if you have other simple, and light, suggestions for activities please share.

Superhero Day

Katrine has really been enjoying skating camp.  One of the things the do is have Feature Fridays.  Last week it was Wacky Tacky day.  When Elspeth saw Katrine’s funky hair, well she just had to have some.  This week it is Superhero Day.  When trying to get Katrine to pick a superhero I knew that I would also have to create something for Elspeth.

I tried hard to get Katrine to pick Jubilee from Xmen.  I mean, her costume would have been jean shorts, a t-shirt and sunglasses – simple.  Apparently having the ability to shot fireworks from your fingertips is “not cool enough”.  Okay, Jubilee is out.  X-23 (also easy as she dresses in all black) out.  “She can only fight.”  Okay, next.  “How about the White White moms?”  Hmmm, NO.  If you have ever seen a picture of the White Witch you will understand why she was out.  For those of you who are not familiar with the Marvel Superhero Universe I will explain it this way.  Most female superheros, and villians for that matter, dress a certain way which would appeal to the primary audience of young males. (In all fairness, a number of characters designed with young females are also scantily clothed).  Anyways, no White Witch.

Keep looking.  Finally she settles on Polaris who controls the power of magnetism because then she will be able to control what everyone’s blades are doing on the ice…oh and fly.  I will still have to modify the outfit to make it more conservative but it is duable.  The original has green hair and wears a green body suit with cut-outs along with green tights.  Here is my version.

For Elspeth, we went with Super Toddler or Super EB.  Super Toddler is Polaris’ new sidekick.  She has the power of distraction – she can make a mess in under two second flat and her power tantrums have been know to drive villians to run away screaming.  When using her powers, she cries “POWWWEEERRRR!”  They make quite a team.