Agribition 2017

It's the most wonderful time of the year! It's the third week of November and that means, AGRIBITION!!! I have always loved Agribition but it's even more fun taking the kids. Roman had a blast last year and has literally been talking about it since then. Every night before bed for months he was telling us how the "horsies popped balloons" (cowboy mounted shooting) and the "guy fell off the horse" (full contact jousting), and how he and Grandpa ate hot dogs. This year will be another adventure because it is Bianca's first Agribition and she'll be old enough to enjoy and react to everything we see. I'm actually pretty excited to see what she thinks of cows because she loves the book "Are you a cow?" and loves when I make the toy cows moo. Normally I don't go to Agribition on Saturday because it's usually pretty busy, but this year it was the only day there was cowboy mounted shooting. So Saturday it is! Bring on the fun!!!!

Obviously we had to start our day by checking out the cowboy mounted shooting. Roman was in love all over again, and Bianca really liked watching the horses in the arena. That is until the guns started going off. It isn't overly loud in the arena but I think the sounds itself just startled her. She was fine for the first few shots, neutral for the middle, and angry by the last four shots. Then she'd calm down and start the cycle again. Once Mom & Dad arrived we decided to head off to find some animals!

Roman was pretty intrigued when we came across this first critter, and even more excited when he was asked if he wanted to take a ride on him. Well, he didn't actually move so I guess it was more of a sit. Now you might be asking, "is that a real bull?". The answer; sort of. It was a living breathing bull at one point, but in the current day it is a stuffed head stuck on a metal body, draped in a hide. Cool, freaky, and interesting all at once!

Roman always loves seeing/petting horses, but particularly loves these giant beauties at Agribition each year. Bianca didn't hesitate at all when I lifted her up to pet the horse. Maybe between the three of us we'll finally get a horse. Although, I'm not banking on it.

Conveniently located beside the horses were the dairy cows. This year I decided that Roman was old enough to understand where his food comes from. Roman was pretty surprised to learn that the milk in the fridge came from that giant bag between the cows legs. This is also were the obsession with feeding the animals at Agribition began for this trip. He wasn't quite sure why the cows weren't interested in the straw he was attempting to feed them, but I assure him that there would be more animals that he could feed later on.

But before we could make it to any more animals, Roman was distracted by the vast array of equipment set out and ready for him to explore. I'm pretty sure Roman's butt touched each and every seat in the building. The only let down was that none of them had a horn.

These little guys quickly made up for the lack of horns in the equipment. One of the pluses of getting to the show early is that you get first dibs on all the fun toys! At one of the exhibits they had these farm hoppers on display. At first I thought they were just for show, but after I saw how well used they were I figured they were to keep the kids busy while their parents looked at the steel gates. I didn't take much coaxing to get Roman to give it a shot. He was up and down the isle in a flash. Roman loves doing things with Bianca so luckily there were two cows. Bianca was spurring that cow like a bronc rider and got it bouncing pretty good. John and I had originally thought about getting the kids these for Christmas, but we weren't sure if they would really enjoy them. Looks like we might have to get some of these guys.

Onto the Indigenous and Family pavilion! We arrive just in time to listen to some drumming and watch a round dance and crow hop. I've always loved watching these performances and seeing the beautiful costumes. With all the happenings around the world lately with racial and cultural divides, I've been making more of a conscious effort to expose the kids, particularly Roman, to different people and ways of life. I've been thinking about sharing a list of books that we've been reading on this topic as well. Let me know in the comments if this is a post you'd be interested in!

When I was little, one of my favorite parts of Abribition was going down to the lower level of the Agridome to visit the kids section to touch all the different animals. It's awesome to be able to experience this again with my own kids. Roman is extremely curious and has no fear what so ever, so he jumps in feet (or hands in this case) first. I even pulled up my big girl panties and pet the chicken. It's not that I hate birds, but their jerky random movements freak me out. It's like a mouse running through the house. I'm a firm believer in not passing on my fears or preferences to my kids when it comes to things like this, so I just fake like I'm superhuman even though I want to stay clear. On the chicken note, I would LOVE to have a chicken coop and have fresh eggs, but there is no way I'd be sticking my hand in there to get them.

Poor Roman tried so hard to pet those sheep but there were not moving for the life of them. He was reaching with all his might, head squished between the bars, but still couldn't quite reach them. Luckily this 1,600lb bull was more than happy to oblige Roman. Last year they had a cow in this pen and it was the friendliest cow. Roman fed her and scratched her ears. He tried his darndest to get this bull to eat from his hand but it just wasn't working. He did get to be up close and personal with this gentle giant, and even gave him a nice scratch on the leg. Bianca was pretty neutral about the bull, which surprised me. I thought maybe she wasn't putting two and two together so I mooed at her and pointed to the bull. Lightning bolt moment for Bianca. She squealed with delight and tried to reach into the pen. I think both kids would have happily stood at the fence all day watching this big guy. Maybe I'll have to give up the dream of a horse and settle for a steer or cow. I'm okay with that!

Roman is such an awesome big brother to Bianca. After he had his turn sitting in the saddle, I asked him to hop down so Bianca could have a go. He scooted back in the saddle and patted in front of him, "Bianca can ride up here with me!". Way to melt my heart tiny man.

Roman has been looking forward to having a hot dog with Grandpa since I told him Agribition was coming up. Of course, this hot dog needed to be consumed while watching cowboy mounted shooting, which Bianca was having no part of. So while Roman and Grandpa sat in the Agri-dome (technically the Brandt centre but I'm old school and can never remember the name) Bianca, Grandpa and I sat on the floor of the ticket office with our lunch. Not the best view at the show but it served it's purpose. When Roman and Grandpa found us, Roman was saying something that Dad couldn't understand. Of course, after lunch, Roman thought it was time for dessert. He wanted cotton candy! A request to which Dad responded by buying him an enormous bag of cotton candy. And we question why he's the favorite?

Mom and Dad have very few requests when they come to Agribition with us, but one thing Mom had to have was peanut brittle, caramel popcorn and mini donuts. So after lunch we headed over to the trade show section. It was getting close to nap time for Bianca and I knew if she didn't nap, life was not going to be enjoyable. Putting a 10 month old to sleep in a loud and busy place like this can be tricky to say the least. I found myself a chair in the mini food court and hunkered down with Bianca while Mom and Dad went in search of sweets with Roman, who insisted that he carry his giant bag of cotton candy with him.

The last thing left to see were the animal barns, always a favorite. The only down side is that the barns are currently under construction and we had to go outside to get into the next building; with a sleeping Bianca. I bundled two blankets around her, slipped her toque in her head, and laid her coat on top of her with the hood covering her face. It was a pretty decent day, about +2 Celsius, so I figured we had a good chance of making it. Halfway to the barn and she was still asleep, I couch taste the victory! Thanks to a lovely man who held the door for us, we made it into the barn with Bianca asleep! What I hadn't counted on was the extremely rough dirt floor in the barn. The bumps were too much and she was awake. This could have been a total disaster, but you can't be mad when you wake up to sheep!

Bianca thought these fuzzy little creatures were pretty cool, but Roman ecstatic! Finally an animal that would eat from his hand!! It was like the heavens opened up and the angels began to sing. He went from pen to pen offering snacks to any ewe that would look at him. He did take a short pause to ask why the sheep had pooped in their water dish, but didn't discriminate and continued on his feeding quest.

After the sheep we headed into the cattle barns. I didn't snag any pictures in there because I was too busy making sure the stroller didn't impede the flow of animal traffic. The sheer size of some of these animals never ceases to amaze me, and Roman found it just as interesting. Almost as interesting as the size of their testicles. Of the joys of having boys.

With all our bases covered we started making our way back to the car. But wait! We forgot the MINI DONUTS!!! Poor Mom didn't get all her boxes checked but I'm sure there will be another event soon that with dispense the tasty little morsels. Roman had put a lot of miles on and didn't even make it out of Regina before he was asleep. Bianca on the other hand. Don't you had when kids have 20 minute naps and think they are regenerated for the day. Me too. Luckily she slept like a rock that night.

Meal Plan - November 25th - December 9th

After conversations with a few different friends over the last few weeks, I thought it might be helpful to people if I shared my meal plans. This won't be a very long or details post, basically just a list of what I have planned for the week and links to those recipes if I have them.

If you've read my Meal Planning post then you're already kinda familiar with how I meal plan, but for those of you who haven't I'll give you a quick rundown. I meal plan for two weeks at a based around paydays. I do my big shop on Thursday or Friday (depending on which flyer has the better free item at Superstore) during the day with the kids, or at night after they've gone to bed. I don't assign meals to particular days because I like to have a bit of flexibility in the plan. I will however set aside a couple easier meals for nights like Sunday when Roman has his skating lessons. He is on the ice from 5:30-6:00pm so I need to have a meal I can leave in the crock pot, or something I can easily whip up.

For breakfast we usually alternate between toast, eggs, oatmeal, and pancakes (that's John's thing on the weekends). We have a few go to lunches; chicken wraps, grilled cheese, sandwiches, and I'll occasionally whip something different up. Without and further ado, here is our two week plan!

Sausage Mac & Cheese
Egg roll in a bowl
Spaghetti with homemade alfredo sauce and mushrooms
Homemade pizza
Tacos
Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken thighs with swish chard & mushrooms
Waffles

How to live without paper towel!

I'm almost positive that you can find paper towel in just about every house in North America. It's become a staple but I HATE it. Why? Well for starters it's never as absorbent as they say. Whenever I watch a paper towel ad on TV I'm constantly reading the find print at the bottom of the screen so I can point out how their experiment is bogus. So you end up using a giant wad of cash (essentially) to wipe up cat puke. The other reason I hate paper towel is that I can't keep a big enough supply in the house. I feel like I'm constantly buying paper towel and it lasts for all of a week. Even the gigantic Costco bales of paper towel never last as long as I think they should.

My hatred of paper towel grew to such an extreme level that I decided I was done. I wasn't buying it anymore. Which left me asking, now what? I obviously still needed something to wipe up those spills, pet messes, and to clean the house with. I was watching an episode of Clean My Space when it hit me; microfiber cloths!! Why had this never occurred to me? I had considered using tea towels, but they aren't very effective at cleaning and I don't have a massive stash of them.

So I headed out to Canadian Tire and bought a bundle of 15 microfiber clothes (similar to these - affiliate link). *Money Saving tip - look for them in the car care section, they are usually WAY cheaper there than in the home cleaning section! The cloths ended up working out to about $0.75 per cloth, which I thought was a great deal! The tricky part was figuring out how to store these bad boys. I knew that if I tossed them into our black hole of a linen closet I was never going to see them again. I also didn't want a vomit rag lounging amongst my laundry for the week waiting to be washed.

Dollar Tree to the rescue!! I picked up these colored bins, one for clean cloths and one for dirty and labeled them as such so there was no confusion and because I'm just a little obsessed with labels. I stuck them under my kitchen sink with the cleaning supplies and voila, my very own cleaning centre! Now I can use the cloths to clean up any mess I have, and when they get too dirty to use, I pop them into the other bin. *NOTE: Let really wet towels dry for a bit before tossing them in, or you'll have creatures growing in there! When the "dirty" bin gets full, I toss it in the wash with our microfiber mop head.

This system has been working extremely well for us. The best part? I will never have to buy paper towel again! Take that you evil, lying, Sponge Pockets!

Pumpkin Pie Playdough

Let the pumpkin theme continue!! Since we are eating and drinking everything pumpkin this time of year, we might as well play with pumpkin too! A friend shared one of those Facebook video tutorials that had this recipe ( if you can call it that) on it and I knew I had to try it. It's super easy to make, extremely inexpensive, and who doesn't want it to be okay to play with pumpkin pie!

To make this delicious smelling dough, all you need is pumpkin puree, cornstarch and pumpkin spice! We mixed the cornstarch into the pumpkin puree 1/2 cup at a time until we reached the dough consistency we wanted. It ended up taking 6-7 cups, so I suggest doing it 1 cup at a time. Then we added in the pumpkin spice. To jazz it up a bit, I dug out some sugar leaves that I had in the sprinkle basket and tossed them in too. *TIP - because you need such a large amount of cornstarch I suggest buying it in bulk from a store like Bulk Barn.

Roman lost interest in mixing pretty quickly when I told him he had to mix gently and keep everything in the bowl, so he stuck to scooping and dumping. In hind sight, it probably would have been better to just let him mix however he wanted to. Bianca is currently in the "everything must go in my mouth!!!" stage, so she just watched us from the sidelines. As you can tell from the pictures, she was impressed with me....

Of course the first thing he did was run off to get his construction trucks so that he could "build a construction site". I always cringe when he puts cars with small pieces into dough like this because cleaning them can be a nightmare. Not this time though! I rinsed his tractor under warm water for a few seconds and voila! A squeaky clean tractor!

Roman had a blast playing with the dough! Once he had enough, I stuck it all into a freezer bag and popped it in the fridge. It's been about a week since we made it and the dough is still usable. When it's cold it is pretty crumbly but once you work with it and it warms up a bit, it's back to normal. I don't think I'll hang on to it much longer though because I don't want things to start growing. Oh, and those sugar leaves. Yeah, they basically dissolved. Not surprising since the dough is pretty wet and they are in fact made of sugar.

Have you made any scented dough for your kids to play with, or is there a scent you'd like to see me attempt? Comment below! I'd love to hear your ideas!

2016 CF Snowbirds end of season show

Normally the CF Snowbirds end of season show is only open to friends and family or the Snowbirds and 15 Wing Moose Jaw, but this year our family was invited to attend because of my mom's work with Quilts of Valour and a Snowbirds quilt that she recently designed (keep reading to see it!!). Before I get into the show I want to talk about Quilts of Valour.

QOV is a non-profit organization that recognizes ill and injured Canadian Forces members for their service and commitment to our country, by presenting them with quilts to comfort them in their time of need. These quilts are made up of blocks that are sewn by quilters from across the country and assembled to provide a hug across the nation. If you know someone that has served for the CF and is ill or injured, or if you would like to purchase and sew a block to be included in a quilt, please contact your local QOV representative!

 

First order or business for our visit was to get the signatures of all the Snowbirds pilots on some quilts. We were escorted into the Snowbirds hanger by Honorary Colonel Gould and then Chief Warrant Officer Fleet took us to the Snowbirds lounge. It was only a few hours before the show so the lounge was pretty busy. Luckily Roman is pretty small so he got to accompany mom into the lounge while the pilots signed the quilts. While they were being all high-roller in the lounge, Dad, Selby and I hung out in the hanger and watched as the planes were rolled out onto the runway. It was actually pretty entertaining because you can tell these guys were having some fun. I had no idea those little tug machines (at least that's what I'm going to call them) were as agile or fast as they were.

After all the Snowbirds signed the quilts CWO Fleet escorted us to Lieutenant Colonel Wintrup's office. While Lt. Col. Wintrup was signing the quilt Roman meandered around looking at the different plaques and photos he had hanging and leaning against the walls. One of which he promptly bumped with his head and knocked right off the ledge it was sitting on. Thank goodness my reflexes are on point because I managed to save the photo before it hit the floor. I think Mom and I both just about heart attacks, and I was quite happy when we made our way to lunch room to wait for the show to start.

Roman was starting to get hungry so I unpacked the stash of food I had in my purse, because that's what mom's actually carry in their purses. Hon. Col. Gould popped in to check on his new buddy. Roman was more than happy to take a picture with him. Although he wasn't so great at his salute. This was pretty much the coolest lunch room ever, never a dull moment when the windows look out onto the runway!

After Roman was refueled we headed out to find our seats for the show. We were extremely lucky with the beautiful weather, considering the week before this day we had almost a foot of snow on the ground. There was just enough sun to keep everyone warm and allow you to see the planes without completely blinding you when you were looking into the sky. Roman really enjoyed watching the techs and pilots march to their planes, in fact he marches around the house for days afterwards. After the planes paraded past the crowd.

 

 

Once the planes were in the sky, it was Mom's turn to take the stage. Poor woman was so nervous. Probably didn't help that we gave her a hard time about it all day, but that's what family does! She was shaking like a leaf but she got her entire speech out without a hitch. Everyone was super impressed with her quilt and she was inundated with questions and requests for quilts and the pattern.

Shortly after Mom's heart stopped racing the show began! Now I will bombard you with pictures and video!

 

It's a little hard to see in the bottom top left photo, but there is a heart written in the sky with the smoke from the planes. One of the techs earned himself so brownie points and surprised his now fiancé by proposing to her mid show. She was absolutely stunned. It was such a cool thing to see.

 

It's been many years since any of us have been to a Snowbirds show and this one didn't disappoint. We all had a great time, especially Roman. The poor guy was so tired though that Uncle Selby had to carry him from the runway back to the hanger. Then it was time to head home for a nap. Roman's regular nap time is 1-3pm and we were at the base from 11-3:30pm. He was one tired panda for sure, but still had the energy to grunt out "team snow cat!" with Uncle Selby on the way home. Whatever that means....

Home Preschool - November 2016

I don't know how it's possible, but I think October went by faster than summer did. I swear I just finished writing the October post and now I'm working on the November post. I'm so not ready for this! So not ready in fact that as I'm looking at the things to include it occurs to me that I have done zero prep for this month. None. Nadda. I really need to get my butt in gear! First, an update on how October's activities went!

I have to be honest and tell you that we didn't get to all the activities I had planned. Between all the activities Roman and Bianca do during the week, getting ready for Halloween, and starting to plan for Christmas and Christmas presents, we just didn't have the time. There were also days that Roman just wasn't interested in the activities, or wanted to continue on with an activity from the week before. A prime example of this was the moon dough. I swear Roman played with this stuff at least once a day for a week, and my poor white (now grey-ish) table can attest to that. The only advice I have for this dough is to only add a tiny amount of paint. The instructions say to add paint to the baking soda and then water. I wasn't sure how much to add so I gave it 3 big squirts. Bad idea. Roman was black, the table was/is black, and even the toys he used in it are stained black. Food coloring definitely would have made things worse so I am glad I used the paint. Overall a very successful activity that I highly recommend you try.

If you're looking for a quick activity to burn a few minutes, Roman really enjoyed the Apple Tree ABC. I printed out a few trees; upper case letters, lower case letter, and numbers. Roman loves stickers so this was right up his alley. Roman had a hard time a first when there were so many letters to choose from, but once he eliminated a few he really started to have fun. If I did this again I maybe wouldn't do then entire alphabet but choose a handful of letters and just repeat them.

We also made the pop up ghost craft, which Roman LOVED, and we started the Eyeball Topiary but didn't quite get it finished. The styrofoam balls I picked up from Dollarama didn't take the paint very well and will require a few coats to get them covered well. Roman quacking grew tired of painting the same balls several times, so we abandoned the project and I'll finish it up eventually. For now, it will sit in the "half finished" pile in my craft room.

So now for November! I'm a little overwhelmed just looking at my list of things that I planned on doing and thinking of when/how I'm going to get these things done. I think it's important to be flexible with your home preschool plan. In my case it isn't necessarily "preschool" more just a list of preschool type activities to entertain Roman on the days that we don't have other activities going. I think I get myself into a bind sometimes when I think to myself that these things "need" to get done. The reality is they don't and they are supposed to be fun!

1st-5th: Chicken dramatic play, Grow your own geodes
6th-12th: Cupcake liner poppy craft, Animal track painting
13th-19th: Muddy pigs, Ocean clip cards
20th-26th: Pumpkin spice latte playdough, Matching color wheel
27th-30th: Felt button chain busy bag

There are so many fun things planned! It's fun to look at these plans and see what's coming up. Because I planned it so long ago it's like a surprise even to me every month! I think Roman will love muddy pigs and I'm particularly excited for the pumpkin spice late playdough!