An Afternoon at Science World

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to plan things.  In fact, throughout the day you will often find me with my daytimer (yes, paper daytimer, I know, I'm a dinosaur!) in my lap flipping through the pages planning and scheduling things for the weeks and months to come. 

I've been making a point lately of trying to book at least one after school play date a week with one of Sydney's buddies from school as the end of the year is approaching all too quickly and I want to make sure Syd spends as much time with her beloved friends as she can!

This afternoon I had planned to take Sydney and her friend Sophie to the aquarium for an afternoon outing but poor Sophie came down with something last night and was home from school sick today.

When I picked Sydney up from school I broke the news to her and offered to take her on her own anyways, but she said she wanted to wait until next week to go with Sophie and that she'd rather go to Science World this afternoon instead.

Sometimes the spontaneous, unplanned days are just the best and today was one great example of this.

Sydney had the best time playing with the gadgets:

Then headed to the room with the Keva Planks to do some building:

Before completing a little craft, fashioning her very own vehicle using pieces of scrap material:

Then taking in the amazing Lego exhibition:

This wall hanging, made specifically for the Vancouver run of the Lego displays, was made entirely of over 80,000 Lego pieces!

No trip to Science World is complete without a wander through the gift store.  Sydney decided to come home with a package of water balloons (the only thing in the entire store that didn't cost a zillion dollars!)

We filled a few and she had a blast throwing them until they burst in the backyard when we got home.


Not a bad Thursday afternoon!

St. Patrick's Day

I love having a child for many reasons, one of which is it gives you a great excuse to really ramp up the holidays, even those that seem minor like St. Patrick's Day.

Sydney loves having what she calls a 'special breakfast' more than anything.  Every so often I will surprise her by setting the table with fancy dishes and flowers while she's sleeping and she'll discover it in the morning.  It's such a nice way to start our day together!

The night before St. Patrick's Day I set up her breakfast in the family room so that she could watch her very favourite TV show while she dined on breakfast.

I hung up the vintage crepe paper decorations in the bay window:

And set up a place setting with all things green.

Syd was all smiles when she saw everything set up for her in the morning.

I even made Shamrock pancakes for her, tinted the pancake batter green and everything!

What fun we had celebrating the day before heading off to school.

Sydney had another riding lesson yesterday afternoon.  It was yet another gorgeous, sunny blue-sky day, although it was way cooler than it looked!

Sydney went on her longest ever road walk this time expertly guiding the horse all the way. I love how she's all smiles while she's riding!

My favourite part of the walk was when we got to go down the secret alley on our way back to the farm!

Today was Sydney's last swimming class for the winter season at Aquaventures.  She has officially graduated from Starfish on to the Turtle level next term.  She got a report card and orange ribbon to take home today:

I've been doing a little shopping the past few days and have found some great finds!  Check out these very sweet spring dresses I picked up for Syd:

And my best find of the day was this old English cake plate that I scored at a local antique shop.  Can't wait to host another high tea to be able to use it! 

Paul came home today with a special gift from Danny and Heidi, a Purim basket stuffed with treats for us.  Syd was very happy to rummage through the bag and dig out all the treats!

What a nice way to end our day!

Purim Weekend

Purim may well go down in history as my favourite Jewish holiday ever.  What a fun week Sydney had a preschool preparing for Friday's long anticipated Purim party in her class.

All of the children arrived dressed up in costume.  Sydney decided that she wanted to be a butterfly princess for the second year in a row, and fluttered into class ready to celebrate.

The children had such a fun day filled with dancing and treats and a very special Shabbat time together with the other preschool and daycare classes upstairs in the atrium.

At the end of the day the kids came home with a misloach manot basket filled with goodies, one of which were the hamentashen that I had baked earlier in the week.

I had the pleasure of baking these special treats with the kids in class on Tuesday but the end result wasn't exactly the tight triangular filled cookies that they were meant to be, so I whipped up another batch to send home with the kids.  It was a fun filled week of baking for me around here!

This morning we headed to the Purim Carnival at Sydney's preschool.  What a fun event filled with bouncy castles, cotton candy, face painting, crafts and more! 

Sydney was thrilled to see Jen and Carmen there and made a little basket together with them in their craft room.

Before heading straight to Claudia to get her face painted.

Then off to the photo booth for special shots of her and Jen to keep forever.

Followed by more crafts, necklaces, capes, crowns and puppets.  Sydney was in heaven!

I love how Sydney got herself dressed in costume for the party this morning in what she called her "wedding head", which was a tutu pulled over her entire head and face!  Kind of did look like a wedding veil come to think of it...

Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of seeing our little friend Sienna perform in Vancouver Performing Stars rendition of Seussical. 

The show was amazing!   The kids did the best job and Sienna was the cutest sassy baby kangaroo you ever could meet!

I love this shot of Sydney and her friend, Sienna's sister Addi, waiting for the show to start on the tippy seats!

After the show we met Sienna in the lobby to give her a bouquet of flowers, one of many that she received from her adoring fans!

Friday afternoon our friends Saskia and Myrtle and Tracy, Alexis and Avery came over for a visit.  Sydney was at the end of herself when they arrived.  She had had a very busy week and wasn't in the mood for socializing...as a result Myrtle and Alexis had a great time playing together while Syd stayed upstairs for a while.  She finally warmed up enough to come downstairs only to accidentally walk head first into a lever style doorknob and give herself the hugest shiner on the side of her head.  Poor girl hit it so hard she woke up with a huge black eye the next day!  What a way to end our week!

Saskia and Tracy both brought lovely gifts when they came over.  Saskia gave me a gorgeous white orchid which looks absolutely amazing in my kitchen window.

And Tracy brought me a box of David's Tea, my favourite, along with a Melissa and Doug craft kit for Sydney.

We ended our weekend off by joining Zach and his girlfriend Danielle at a curling bonspiel at the Arbutus Club as a fund raiser for their upcoming Ride to Conquer Cancer.  It was a fun time and Sydney had the honour of choosing the winning ticket for the 50/50 draw at the end of the event.  I was so proud of her sitting perched up on a table waiting for the moment to fish out the ticket!

Happy Weekend!