It's been a busy one

It has been a busy week - in a good way thankfully. We've had Swimming and horse riding and Brownies, a playdate for each kid, plus square roots, Settlement of New France and it's economic, political and social life, themes of geographic inquiry - locations and environment, Eco-systems, antonyms, synonyms, addition, subtraction, < > and =, animal classification, how animals eat and move, compass points, map legends and Magic Treehouse books among other things. Tomorrow we have co-op and another playdate for T2.

Tonight for dinner I made a curry and it was delicious. I made enough to have some for another day. I love to see things I have made each time I open the freezer : ) The curry recipe came from an awesome blog featuring so many plant based recipes.

Lesson 7 of horse riding and T2 is mounting the horse without hesitation and is confident trotting with her arms outstretched like a plane. She can do 'around the world' without being held (completely turning 360 on the horse while it is standing still - a great way to stretch at the end of each lesson) and jumps off without a second thought. It is so fun watching her confidence grow each week and she just loves this 14.5 hand horse Cruise (Control). She is doing a great job with horse grooming before and after each ride as well and loves to feed Cruise a treat at the end.

 T2 made a doll out of craft supplies

T2 and I did a craft a couple of days ago using a dollar store picture frame. We took out the back and discarded it and took the glass out of the frame. I printed off some leaf images and T2 arranged them under the glass and using a glass marker she drew the leaves on the glass and painted them using glass paint (we got our paints at Michaels). When the paint was dry I put the glass back in the frame and hot glued around the edge to hold the glass in place. It looks really pretty when the sun shines through it.

The weekend

A pretty good weekend even though I still feel terrible. A trip to our local Alpaca farm, a Fall craft in progress, buffalo cauliflower , a posing horse, another Treehouse book, yay for PJs from last winter that still fit, boo that we need them and a visitor to our garden - a Northern Flicker I think.  Not pictured - me coughing a lot, T2 having 3 play opportunities with her best friend M, our very messy house, me taking a rather long nap.

Pity Party

Having a bit of a pity party over here. Yesterday all of a sudden my throat felt like it was lined with glass shards and my lungs seemed to shrink to the size of raisins. Today I feel the same only I've added sleep deprivation to my list of woes because my sore throat kept me awake much of last night. I figured I was coming down with a cold until I noticed the calendar. I get sick the last few days of September every year (since I turned 33) and the culprit is ragweed grrr. Hopefully I'll avoid the full blown asthma deal of previous years - the one that sends me back and forth to emergency when puffers no longer work and they drug me up so much I shake and my heart feels like it will beat itself right out of my chest. Hopefully I'll avoid that this year. Strangely my symptoms were worse when we lived in a large town than now we are in the country.

Not a lot got done around here today except some independent science for T1 and some self directed art for T2. This means over the weekend we'll have a few things to catch up on to avoid adding more to next week. I had everything planned but a quick errand this morning finished me off and I was pretty useless the rest of the day.

I made pizza rolls tonight - they might not look pretty but they were really good. I just made a batch of pizza dough, rolled it into a rectangle, spread with some sauce from my freezer stash and spread over that some sautéed veg - no cheese because I was going to eat some. Then I just rolled it like a jelly roll, sliced it and baked the roll slices until they looked ready. I drizzled a little warmed sauce over the top of  each piece. Yum.

T2 and I took a brief break from the Treehouse books and I read her a book I enjoyed as a child.

It was fun to read it with her. I had to explain quite a few things because it is very old fashioned and British and she has no idea what a tuck box is for and that tea can mean a meal as well as a drink. I have to say that I never said the word 'shan't' as many times in my life as in one chapter of the book! I have the next naughtiest girl book ordered from a used book store (I try not to buy new books whenever possible - preferring to give a home to a previously loved copy). Yesterday we were back to the Treehouse once more with a trip to Baghdad

Tonight if my throat can handle it we will read the next one. When we read these books with  T1 this next books was the most up to date in the series but I think 8-10 more have been added since then so we have lots to look forward to over the next week or two.

T1 and I are continuing with our WW1 reading with 

We also watched a DVD this afternoon which had some surprisingly clear film footage from 1914-1918. Seeing real faces at war makes it so much more real - knowing those faces were of sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, uncles, cousins of people waiting at home wondering if they were ok. We have read plenty about the conditions of the trenches but to see how narrow they were, how unprotected the soldiers were from enemy attack as well as the water and filth they had to stand in with inadequate clothing and foot wear was terrible. WE have 2 more DVDs in the series to watch over the weekend.

Dinner tonight

We are having this  and it smells so good right now

Update - it was delicious. Will definitely make this again.

World War 1 continued

Current read aloud with T1 is another from the Dear Canada series

Book club this afternoon - T2 and I are excited.

Tuesday

Getting back into routine and schooling like crazy, busy week of activities this week too. So far so good!

I tried a new recipe today and it was so good. Vegan loaf from this recipe