A Hidden Gem...

Isn't it weird when you discover some random cool place in your city or surrounding area? I was reminded of this farm by another mommy blogger in her blog. When I read about her trip there I remembered that I had heard of this place a couple of years ago but had completely forgotten about it. It is the Brantford Twin Valley Zoo. A much smaller zoo than the Toronto zoo, but an easier place to walk around with a 3 year old who won't ride in a stroller, and much less busy, and much much cheaper. It was $35 ish dollars for all 3 of us paying guests, and that included a free pony ride for Paige. There was barely anyone there and it was a nice warm sunny day that wasn't disgustingly hot. We even watched the animal show in the company of only about 15 other families. Every single kid got to touch the animals they brought out because it was such a small crowd (except Paige didn't seem to want to touch them and I didn't push her). The fact that there weren't any food stands, which forced us into bringing a cheap and healthy packed lunch from home was a nice treat. Like I said last weekend, Paige won't eat fast food. The zoo is about 45 minutes west of our house down the 403.

Right as you walk in you can purchase peanuts to feed the bears and monkeys, and grain to feed the goats and deers. This goat area was as soon as you walk in. The goats were a bit aggresive and would jump on anyone with a bag. Paige was treating them like Abby and saying "Down!"

Here she is telling Daddy that she wanted to get out. It was a bit intense. After the 1 gate they are going out, there was another gate, and 2 goats had gotten in the enclosure. It was bit better for Paige to feed the 2 goats in there than the huge group of swarming ones.

Tiny baby baboon....

Paige's favourite part...riding the pony (horse I would think, it was huge). She kept slipping and I would have to straighten her out.

Big smiles-- she's definitely into pony rides now.

Rose had a little nap after lunch (ours and hers--the "nursing area" was sitting on a closed toilet seat in the family washroom). She does much much better in the stroller by itself rather than in the car seat strapped in the stroller.

Bears make me a bit scared, but their fence seemed high enough. There were a bunch of trees on the one side of their enclosure though, and I dunno, I thought they could climb trees...

We got to chuck peanuts in there which seemed kind of mean, but they ate them. And I guess the zoo isn't crowded enough for them to eat too many.

Apparently the zoo is 25 acres, including a 1km nature trail (clearly we didn't attempt that). It was a really fun day. If anyone is interested in going, remember to bring food, water (although they sell drinks at the front), and leave time to see the creatures showcase, and go for an over-sized pony ride. The rides are only at certain times.

LOST!

On a non kid related note, Mike and I started season 1 of Lost!!!!! We are loving it and every night Mike says, "Do you want to grab the cookies and tea or do you want me to?", and the other person pops in the DVD. We are hooked! It's nice to have something of quality to watch besides ahem..."Bachelor Pad" which is the only other show we watch. We'll probably whip through season 1 really fast and need to rush out for season 2. To the people we exchange Christmas gifts with--take note...we may be in need of a season by then, unless we have already finished it!!

2 Teeth!

Rose has been drooling a ton, and I checked in her mouth the other day for teeth but there was nothing. I looked yesterday and one has just popped through (I can feel the tooth with my nail) and the other one is just under the surface! She has been a bit fussier in the evenings, but I assumed she was just more hungry, and would be ready for cereal sooner rather than later. Now I wonder whether she was just looking for comfort to deal with the pain of the teething. It hasn't effected her much otherwise, and she has been sleeping a bit better at night actually, only waking up to eat sometime around 5:00 in the morning and then going back to sleep again.

I wonder how long they will take to fully come up. She seems too small to have teeth yet!

Sick...

Paige has a cold and icky cough. Really sucky when it is the first colder week and we could have gone to the park without sunscreen, gone to indoor playgrounds with other mom friends (had to cancel a playdate), gone to the library, gone to the indoor craft center, etc. So many plans I had come up with for the week went out the window.

Paige has some new fall clothes she has wanted to wear despite being sick. She didn't want to smile for the picture. This is her mad pouty face. And her hair was so tangly that I could barely brush it and had to put it in a ponytail with hopes of the knots coming out in the bath later (mike forgot to take out her hair elastic at bed last night). She was into the dresses with leggings this season. And of course sweatpants. I made sure to take her with me to a couple of stores to see what she wanted and would promise to wear.

Ontario Science Center....

For labour day we decided to go somewhere we'd never been before...the Ontario Science Center. They have a massive kid area for children under 8. There were water play stations, a pretend grocery store, build your own roller coaster, musical instruments, etc. We don't have many pictures as we had to carry Rose around quite a bit, and hold Paige's hand at all times since it was super busy. Paige actually had quite a scare when a large group of people came inbetween her and us and she couldn't see us. She started yelling Daddy!! and crying.


I had to post this next picture as when we went into the kid area, they asked us to leave the stroller at the front...it was soooo busy and they couldn't have had 60 strollers in there. I had Rose in the Bjorn anyway, but as we were leaving the stroller behind we needed to carry around my purse as well...and guess who was carrying my super heavy gold Coach bag...obviously me. So I had my arms full, needless to say.

After the kid area, we had some lunch at the cafe, and looked at a small fraction of the rest of the place. It was huge and too much for us to see in one visit. And not all would be very exciting for Paige. She really liked jumping on some motion sensored fish holograms on the ground. And there was some sort of cave thing that she went through with Mike. She said that was one of her favourite things. Also, as I was off in the parents room with Rose, Mike and Paige watched a presentation with a live bald eagle. Apparently she got to see it close up.

I really have to be more diligent and bring her a lunch to these things. She doesn't like burgers, fries, chicken fingers, or any sandwiches besides peanut butter....so that basically cuts out all cafeteria food. She had a couple of bites each of a banana and an apple, and maybe 2 bites of a chicken finger. I should have brought our own fruit, and some yougurt at least.

The funniest part of the day was when we were looking at a skeleton puzzle. It was laid out on a table and you were supposed to put the bones in the right spot. As soon as we walked up to it Paige chuckled, grabbed the Tibia bone and smashed the skull with it! REALLY don't know where that came from, or what she thought it was. I think she thought the bone was a bat and the skull was a funny shaped ball!? Odd, and very amusing.

Tsukihoshi Fall Shoes!

I wanted to get Paige's fall shoes a little bit earlier this year. I always find that when the new season hits there is so little selection in the kids shoe stores. Parents seem to snap them up so early and then we are left with like 1 pair that actually fits. I like to buy good quality shoes for her main pair. Her feet are still developing and all that. At least that's what they tell you at the store to guilt trip you into buying good quality shoes. It has started to turn slightly cold and rainy lately and there were a few days where sandals didn't seem appropriate, and rain boots were a bit overkill. So off we went to Olly Shoes (www.ollyshoes.com .....little plug for Mike's client) and found these awesome shoes. They are a company from Japan...Tsukihoshi. They are super super light, flexible, and washable in the washing machine. They don't have suede or any of those materials that seem to attract and absorb dirt. These are my favourite shoes she's had so far. And i just love the bright pink.

We've been so lucky with Paige growing so slowly that shoes last forever...even though a pair might cost $60, they last for twice as long as most other kids' shoes!! Usually for an entire season. Paige is lucky this year though as she actually gets a new snowsuit! She's had the same one every year since she could walk.

Rose's 4 month stats...

Good thing I was excited to have Rose weighed and measured at her 4 month doctor visit, because she wasn't able to get her shots again and we will have to go back! You may remember that at her 2 month visit the air conditioning was broken at the doctor's office and the fridge wasn't working and she wasn't able to get the shots. We had to return 2 weeks later to get them. This time, we couldn't get them again as it was too close to her last shots. So we have to go back in another 2 weeks. Between that and the pinkeye we constantly had, we have been there more than I would have liked!!

At any rate, here are the stats:

Height: 61cm (24 inches) ---Grown almost an inch in the last 2 months.
Weight: 15.8 lbs ---Grown about 3 lbs.

This puts her in the 50th percentile for height and 90th for weight! She definitely looks healthy!

Homemade Fun....

I promised Paige we'd make our own playdough again when she decided to pull out the last batch that I had made over a year ago, and it was dark bluey green (not too far from the original colour actually) but covered in mould. Sick! We happened to have guests over at the time (Matt and Christine from Edmonton), and they were quite disturbed. At the time when I made the playdough Paige was too young to participate in the process, but she quite enjoyed it this time. Especially the prospect of dying it with the food colouring. I wouldn't let her do much since it involved stirring it in a pot over the stove, and then of course there's the highly dangerous dye (you should have seen my hands after). But she liked to dump the ingredients in as she does for baking. She has come to realize that baking pretty much involves the same old standard ingredients for everything. She assumed there would be sugar in the recipe. No sugar, but a ton of salt. Enough to make your hands sting a bit when playing with it. Here's the recipe if anyone is interested....

2 cups flour

2 cups water

1 cup salt

4 tbsp cream of tartar

2 tbsp oil

food colouring

Mix ingredients in a pot over medium heat stirring constantly. You will know when it's done...it will just look and feel like playdough and will be in a big ball in the middle of the pot. then take it off the heat and wait 5 minutes to mix in the food colouring. I take it out and put it on wax paper to kneed the colour into the dough.

I witnessed another roll over!

You may remember this back when Paige was 4 months and 6 days old. Now at almost exactly the same time (4 months and 3 days old--August 27), I saw Rose roll over the first time while I was on the phone with Jen! I just knew that she was gearing up to roll over, as she wasn't sleeping well, was waking up a lot in the night, and seemed to be going through a growth spurt. There was no physical indication that she would roll over as she hadn't been trying to do it. She just did it. Same thing with Paige, it just happened. I learned with Paige that when she was learning a new skill she would practice her moves in the night and wake up a lot. I haven't put it on the blog yet as I have been meaning to capture a video, or a photo at the least, but I haven't been succesful. There are witnesses though, so it is true! She has rolled a whole bunch of times. If I manage to capture a picture today i'll post it and delete this part of the post!

Ok! I got a video...

Sisters...