Our Monday......a few snapshots....

Sam continues to do great with his reading.....all 5 of my children have now learned to read using the Ladybird 'Peter and Jane' books.  We have been doing a lot of work on reading, alphabet, spelling and writing since Sams teeth fell out :)  

Sam's book pile from the library this week:

My Daffodils are now flowering beautifully:

Daffodils are so pretty...love how bright and cheery they are after Winter:

Abby tried a new craft - tie-dye using sharpie pens and rubbing alcohol:

I am loving my new tray - little touches of Spring and Summer in the house:

And rediscovering my love of crochet - after a refresher course:

Rosie has been trying to catch the squirrel.  He lives in our bus shelter but is a regular visitor to the bird feeders.  No wonder the bird table is empty so fast these days:

Susannah's friend came to stay.  We had supper together, the girls made their favourite fruity popcorn and then we had fruit and chocolate fondue again and played a game of Clue:  

A close-up of Abigails tie-dye.  A tie-dyed an old handkerchief that Sam uses when he has a cold.  

Rosie fell asleep on my arm:

It was a busy but fun day....everybody had something fun to do and some one on one time with me or a friend - I headed in to town to pick Laurence up from his friends, we grabbed a few groceries, had a coffee together and spent some time chatting, then in the evening worked on his resume etc...

Games, crafts and school work with Abby and Sam, cooking and games with Susannah and her friend....reading, games and playing with Sam....

All in all a good day :)  

So needed this :) Love you Brave Girls xxx

:)

Five Questions.

1. If you were free to just hop in the car and drive, where would you go? Or, if you could hop a plane and go anywhere, where?

Canmore

2. What's your most recently read favorite book?

The Three Little Pigs - with Sam - the version he has is soooo good :)  "He was mad ane he was BAD"!!  :)

3. What's your favorite Spring Break memory?

Well we had Easter Holidays - two weeks off over Easter, as opposed to 'Spring Break, but I remember Easter 1983...I recorded Roller Boogie and watched it all Summer long...I also remember being out on my bike all holiday and meeting Garry Harris who was on his bike over by West Coker stores...and we ended up cycling all the way back to East Coker with him...and I totally fell in love with him:)  My whole year was obsessed with him and hanging out with him until he moved away to Charmouth with his Dad who drove the fish van lol...yep his Dad sold fish from a van that went door to door in our village.

4. What do you put in your child's Easter basket? Or, for those w/o kids, what was put in your childhood basket?

We don't do baskets here, or 'the easter bunny'...BUT we do hide a BIG chocolate egg for each child as well as in the afternoon we have a HUGE egg hunt with plastic eggs filled with candy hidden all over the acreage.  I also get some little toys with an Easter or Spring theme and hide those - and we colour eggs and have brunch out on the deck if it's nice.  I love Easter - it's such a wonderful holiday.  At some point over the weekend we will also go to The Prairie Gardens for their Easter Festival.  I got an annual pass really cheap again :)

5. Do you get a summer haircut?

No - but I get my hair cut regularly anyway.  I'm thinking of growing my hair or changing the style....not sure - I love it and it's super easy to do, but I'm wondering about getting a change....

bits and pieces....

Love this:

Sam's jelly crystals he's growing and blending colours....

Little posy of eggs in a jug on my windowsill:

Games night and chocolate fondue!

Tonight we played Junior Monopoly and had chocolate fondue with strawberries and banana.  

Totally delicious and fun:

ewww stinky brother too close to Abby hahaha:

Abigail won the game...although she WAS also the banker...hhmmmmm!!  Hahahaha!

Supper at our place....

We were all still a bit full from our brunch, so I didn't want to do a huge supper tonight.  I decided to use up a few leftovers from brunch though, to make this recipe for Cheesy bacon oven chips:

I served them with spinach and a cheese, onion and bacon dip:

The dip seasonings were a gift from Trish (Epicure) and I know I am going to HAVE to order some because the kids LOVE them - with chips or with a supper like this!  I love making my own dips in this way - and so easy!!  I want to be able to make the dip I tried at Kerri's party the other week too:

Library afternoon...

Sam always grabs either a big Star Wars book OR a Guinness World of Records/ Ripleys Believe it or Not style book....today he sat with me and we looked at some yucky gruesome pictures but he LOVED it:  

Abby Banana picked another pile of books and got stuck straight in...she is almost done her 5 books for her pizza.  She has a class at the library this week and I am pretty sure she will be picking up her pizza coupon then :)  So proud of my little book worms - ALL 5 of my children have grown into avid readers now....Laurence is currently reading Terry Pratchetts 'The Hogfather'.  

A few pictures to make you smile, think or laugh :)

Sunday brunch at our place....

I saw two amazing recipes over on the Paper Turtle blog this week, and knew I HAD to try them...with all the farm eggs we get from Trish, and my kids love of cheese and ham...I knew these recipes would be a BIG hit!!

I made the mini quiche muffins - which are like a savoury muffin with ham, cheese and green onions in them.  They were yummy hot from the oven, but we had some as a snack when we got home early evening, and they were AMAZING cold too!!  You can freeze them as well!  Perfect!  I doubled the recipe and it worked out GREAT!  

Eggs cracked by Abby and Sam - about to be beaten by me and added to the mixture above:

Abby helped me make the second recipe, which was called 'Egg Boats'.  It is basically a hollowed out baguette, and you add the excess bread to the mixture of egg, bacon, cheese etc and then mix it up and stuff it all back into the hollowed out baguette and bake it for 3o minutes.  Yummy!

These are the savoury muffins I made:

This is a wedge of the 'egg boat' and served with sour cream.  It was good too.  we were all definitely filled up ready for our day after our brunch.  Especially with Sams fresh lemon juice:

The kids all want me to make these recipes again.  I am also bookmarking other brunch ideas...trying to decide which to have for Easter Day.