Most of the kids playparks we’ve visited are home to a collection of battered toys, donated by people in the neighbourhood and left in the park for anyone to play with.
I guess some of them get taken away, but they get replenished from time to time.
Seems like a great idea anyway!
A crafty birthday
04/11/10
Trawling Flickr for vintage postcards for the redesign last week I found this great collection of vintage “large letter” designs which I used for this card. I put the flowers in to try to stop it looking like a birthday card for an 8 year old boy. Ah well…
Christine made this great caterpillar birthday cake with the kids: after dinner they each had half a caterpillar head for dessert – nice!
Halloween pics! (not many…)
03/11/10
UPDATE One month on and the sweets are still going strong…
All my shots of the kids actually going up to people’s doors were blurry and terrible but at least I got some of their costumes, plus the finale of the evening: a visit from a mysteriously silent, enormous and friendly cookie monster.
We only went around the block but we have more sweets than anyone could reasonably expect to eat in a month without needing extensive and costly dental reconstruction.
October catch up
01/11/10
The last week or so saw many firsts:
October 21st
Lily’s first playdate, with her school friend Isabel. I accompanied her, and Harry accompanied me.
October 22nd
Harry’s first visitor, his old nursery friend James was in town with his mum Sarah. Sarah is originally from Toronto and her parents still live here. James & Harry had lunch together, reminisced* about their nursery days, and collected pine cones in Queen’s park.
* ok perhaps I’m slightly embellishing, but they certainly had fun!
October 23rd
Lily’s first school fair was today, and we were eager to help raise money by eating cake. But, just as we were getting ready to leave, Harry rolled down the stairs and bashed his head on the newel post.
After a couple of minutes crying he recovered and didn’t seem bothered at all, but then I noticed a 3cm gash on the side of his head. Caroline was away so I called Gordon, our landlord, and he kindly gave us a lift to the children’s hospital “Sick Kids” for our first hospital visit.
After triage Harry looked like Jack with a broken crown. We waited 3 hours (not bad for Sick Kids apparently), bought some mini Winnies (see photo), then they put three staples in his head and we went home on the tram, via our favourite pizza shop.
October 24th
Lily’s first Canadian birthday party, for her school friend Crystal. I accompanied her, and Harry accompanied me. It was fun though. I managed to slip away from Lily for long enough to drink a beer, and the musical duo were very entertaining.
October 26th
Our first house guest arrived, Caroline’s mum. The kids went wild and stayed up far too late.
October 27th
First stomach bug shortly followed by first sick day off school! Poor Lily was the unlucky victim.