Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy

On Saturday I had a job at Superstore, so the kids and I headed out along with my lifesaver, the mini-dvd player. Aidan is almost too big to fit in the bottom of the cart beside Keira, so there were a few squabbles over squishy-ness, but I was very impressed with their behavior.

Pineapples were on sale and I was going to buy a small one, but of course, those were sold out. Then I saw that coconuts were on for $0.99, there was a carton of super juicy strawberries 50% off, the massive pineapples looked nice and ripe and Aidan was interested in a furry little kiwi. So I bought it all and figured we'd have a tropical lunch.

Let me say again, the pineapple was MASSIVE. And is VERY tasty.

When I was a kid, we used to buy coconuts once in awhile and then throw them down the back porch stairs to try to break them open. I have fond memories of this. However, we do not have porch stairs and it is also still winter up here. So I looked it up on the internet. This is what I found:

"Note the seam that runs between the "eyes". Follow the seam to the equator of the coconut. Using the blunt edge (not the blade) of a heavy knife (for example, a chef's knife, meat cleaver, machete) tap firmly around its equator as you rotate the coconut in the palm of your hand. Continue to tap and rotate until the coconut splits completely open. If it's done right, after just a few turns, the coconut will break open into two equal halves."

Let me first point out - my google search was "how to open a coconut at home". Who has a machete lying around?!? Or a meat cleaver for that matter?

At the store, I thought "Oh! A coconut! I remember having coconuts when I was a kid and it was so much fun! I'll bet my kids will love it as much as I did!"

At home I thought "Oh crap, how do I open this thing??" and then I remembered the internet - you can find out how to do ANYTHING on the internet. So I found the little blurb and thought "Oh, this won't be very hard at all!" Then I spent about 8 minutes whacking the thing with the blunt edge of my knife in the sink until Aidan came up and said "What are you doing Mommy?" Good question. Then I went outside and whacked it on the concrete step until it opened. Who needs the internet??

A horrible picture of the gross coconut 'milk'. Aidan tried it, made a face and then tried it again which made me laugh. Keira wouldn't try it at all

Half the coconut - looks so cool!

So after about 3 hours, this is what I had. And after I had opened the coconut, pried all the 'meat' off the shell and cut the brown skin off I wondered what I was going to do with all that coconut. Superstore really should have paid ME to take the coconut off their hands!!

This is what we had for dessert - Ice Cream Fruit Salad with freshly grated coconut. It's not a very good picture but the kids pronounced it 'very yummy!'

Yum!

Double yum!

Aidan wanted me to take a picture of him making a funny face and then he did this. I wasn't sure whether he was really cold, had just bitten his tongue or had a brain freeze. Turns out this was his funny face ...

And then of course Keira had to do a funny face!

I think we're going to be having freshly grated coconut on EVERYTHING from now on because I have a lot of coconut left!!

Vancouver 2010 - Latham Style

The boys have been back from their Olympic trip for almost a week now, though it seems much longer. Michael is already away again for work (boo!) and Aidan has been back to school and is off for Spring Break (double boo!). I wish the Olympic trip and Spring Break could have coincided, but oh well. They left here at midnight on the 17th (or 18th if you want to be technical) and arrived back home at around 3 or 4am on March 2nd

Okay, here we go. And brace yourselves, there are a LOT of pictures!!

Aidan cuddling with Miga a few days before the trip. Between Miga and the Power Rangers outfit, I think that's the best $20 I've spent in a long time!!

The place where Michael and Corey arrived to see the Victory Ceremony (medals) and hear their favorite DJ play - Deadmau5 (the 5 is supposed to be an 's', so when you say it, it sounds like Deadmouse)

Michael is SUPER excited, he's been trying to see this guy for a couple years now. They arrived very early to get good spots, but then had to wait for a long time - without mittens. They tried to buy some red Olympic ones, but were told the whole country was sold out. By the time I went to our local Zellers to buy some, all they had left were youth sizes.

Deadmau5 arrives!

Doing what he does best. You'll notice he's wearing a large mouse head with the eyes x-ed out. Michael wants me to make him a 'hat' like this and even found a step by step guide online, however I am not sure how well it would turn out. If I do attempt it, I'll be sure to post pictures!

Apparently there were cut outs like this all over Vancouver. Just begging for people to do silly poses inside of them!

Armin Van Buuren plays the nightclub Gossip! In addition to Deadmau5 at the Victory Ceremony, Michael was able to see a number of other DJ's while he was in Vancouver including Calvin Harris and Armin Van Buuren. He even got to see Deadmau5 again at the same club (Gossip) after the Olympics were over. He told me a funny story about a guy who tried to climb up on stage and make off with the mouse head - seriously?!? How did he think he was going to make it through the crowd and out the door?!?

USA plays the Swiss

Michael and Corey, very excited to be at the game!

A crazy crowd of people entering the arena (I think)

Another hockey game. Michael had tickets for 3 Mens quarter-final games (all on the same day too!), Womens bronze and gold and the Mens semi-final between USA and Finaland

Another picture of the crazy crowds - with Science World or Telus World of Science in the background

And another crowd - if you can't tell, I think the crowd pictures are great. It's fun to look at all the different people and all the red and Canada stuff

Squatchi, Michael, Corey and Miga. This was the day before the semi-final game that Aidan would be going to and Michael planned to track Miga down and get a picture with Aidan. They were able to find Miga and Aidan was able to touch her, but weren't able to get a picture which Aidan was really disappointed about. As soon as I can get my Adobe Photoshop working, I am going to photoshop Aidan into this picture though, so it looks like he was there :)

Hey! It's George Stromboulopolous!

Women's gold game - USA and Canada

Two - Nothing!!

Yay! We win gold!!

More excitement!

And more excitement!!

Lining up to get the medals

'We're number one!'

Finland gets Bronze!

The WHOLE crowd is red!!

Group shot

Michael had 4 tickets to the semi final game and brought my brother Luke along with him, Aidan and Corey. Aidan is wearing his Cheerios Vancouver 2010 Olympics t-shirt

This is Abbotsford in February. *sigh* Grande Prairie still has knee high snow.

My mom loves to walk around Mill Lake in Abbotsford, so Aidan got to go along with her

There are always lots of ducks and geese - most times too many - and Aidan had fun feeding them

There are a couple parks on the way, and of course Aidan had to stop and play

He found a boy who had the exact same Please Mum brown polarfleece pants as him which was extremely cool.

All in all they had an AWESOME trip!!!

Four Princesses

I finally got my scanner to work and was able to scan the picture of Lily and Keira with Cinderella and Belle. Not the greatest picture, but still pretty cute!!

Winter Walk

I had a job out in Beaverlodge to do so after vainly trying to find something fun and exciting to do in Beaverlodge ... besides stand and look at the ginormous beaver ...

It really is enormous! Whenever we drive past it on our travels I always tell Aidan that if he's not good, it will come find him and bite him. I don't usually tell him things like that ... so the first time I told him I think he kind of believed me ... hee hee!!

Anyways, I couldn't find anything exciting to do in Beaverlodge, so I decided to take the girls to Saskatoon Island Provincial Park. I went out there in the summer with a friend, hoping to let the kids play in the water on the beach. When we got there the kids had a blast playing on the awesome playground, but when we went down to the beach, there was a sign advising people not to swim because of health hazards. The water itself looked completely disgusting. It was quite a disappointment, but I did remember they had a fun playground.

There's this HUGE merry go round - and yes, it's as heavy as it looks!! When Jen and I were trying to push the kids around on it in the summer we figured it had to have been built to slow down and not retain speed because it is SO heavy and SO slow!! I think it is even worse in the winter with the snow. The girls had a blast on it though ... sitting and then as they got braver, standing and walking while it moved.

Keira decided she had had enough and said she was 'stuck' ...

... so Kylie went to help her. The snow was pretty deep, probably knee to thigh deep on them but they got 'stuck' quite a few times!

Then I decided we would go for a walk. It was at this point that I realized that I had become my parents. As I said "Let's go for a walk on the trail!" and dealt with the unexcited responses from the girls and the non stop complaining from Kylie. Every time we would go out to a lake, my dad would say "Let's go walk around the lake!" or "Let's go for a walk on the trails!" and I would think "NOOOO!" And now the roles are reversed!

As we walked along the trail, Keira saw a tree and determined she was going to climb it. She tramped off the trail and over to the tree, hugging it and asking me to help her climb it. It was so absurd and so funny I had to take a picture. You can see Kylie in the corner of the picture saying "You can't climb trees like that!"

The girls holding hands. Kylie has really warmed up to Keira and I'm very thankful for that! It's funny that they're almost the exact same size, but just about 2 years apart

Our walk ended up being about 3 times as long as I had wanted and the girls, Keira especially, were really not impressed. It really made me anticipate the summer and daytrips out to parks, walking on trails (without snow) and splashing in streams and rivers. One of my friends told me about a lake about 45 minutes from here that they took their little boat out on and I am particularly excited to drive out there and see it - as well as the many beaches and lakes in BC we'll get to visit on our holidays. Bring on the warm weather!!

Keira's New Haircut!

This is my second attempt at cutting Keira's hair ... and like last time, I took off more than I wanted. But, it appears straight, which is the most important thing! Last time I did bangs too, but they're still growing out so I'll leave them alone. Her hair is so wispy thin, I'm hoping it will grow in a little thicker ... I'm not sure it will, but I'm still hoping!!

A recent study ...

My March issue of Today's Parent arrived the other day, and as I was paging through, this caught my eye:

TV = babysitter?

A new US study reports that preschoolers in home-based daycare watch two hours more TV per day than kids in centre -based daycare (2.4 vs 0.4 hours). The study also found that in home settings that had staff with college degrees, kids spent 1.4 fewer hours in front of the tube.

Is it just me or does that sound slightly offensive?? I have a home-based daycare, and don't have a college degree so perhaps I'm being a little sensitive. I think there are different expectations involved in centre-based daycare vs home-based daycare. In a daycare centre, there are employees and lots more children and I would expect the environment to be stimulating enough that tv is not needed. In a home-based daycare setting there would most likely be less children, fewer adults to supervise and perhaps less toys. Which is not to say that tv should then be the substitute. I usually have the tv on treehouse after Aidan gets home from school and I use that time to get dinner ready. Sometimes while the boys are at preschool and it's just the girls at home (or just Kylie, if Keira is having a nap) I'll let them watch a princess show but I do try to keep the tv watching to a minimum. I've actually been thinking about putting on one show and then turning the tv off after Aidan comes home from school because most of the big kids head into his room and are busy there anyways.

I do resent the insinuation that if childcare provider doesn't have a college degree that they will then be more likely to turn the tv on more often. I guess on the other hand it's gotten me thinking ... and that's always good!!

What do you think??