summer fun - part 2

I figure I'd better finish up our summer fun memories!  Autumn in here, as I am reminded by our morning walks, collecting "signs of Autumn" as Charlotte puts it.  Although the weather has been deceivingly warm, we were all in shorts and t-shirts on Saturday, it felt like the high 20s out there!

The summer is always full of lots of books for us.  It's no different than the rest of the year, really.  We do love our library dearly and always come home with a bag full of books.  The challenge becomes getting through all of the books before the next trip to the library!

We love play times with friends, I even got to babysit this sweetheart this summer!

French braids with Auntie Anna... lovely!

Lila tried a whole corn on the cob, and loved it.

Daddy turned 30!  We had a lovely birthday party at the lake, swimming, supper and games.  Here we are playing pass the parcel.

"Pin the roof on the house", Charlotte's idea for a rendition of pin the tail...

Two big birthday cakes!

 A spontaneous puppet show!  (I loved their creative use of a car as a puppet theatre.)

Some lovely gifts!

A "fishing buddy": Tim's real life fishing buddy and his son made this for him.  Funny and bittersweet as they were in the process of moving to a different city at this time.

A game of dominoes before heading back into town for bed!

Lila became really confident in her swimming this summer!  The girls always wear life jackets, but Lila was attempting to swim and kick on her own.  

Happy Hollisters and "Goofy Minds the House" were two of our favourite cottage reads this summer.

I think I will have to save the girl's birthdays for a third post.  We did have many lovely photos this summer, capturing our wonderful times with family and friends!  

Our preschool homeschool rhythm

We are in our second week of homeschooling, and it has been wonderful and challenging.  I love the intentional rhythm and structure that homeschooling has brought to our days.  The summer was full of lots of park time, visiting friends and family and days full of busyness.  I love that.  I think I thrive off of social interaction with other adults too.  I also love the intentional plan to stay home three mornings a week and do fun preschool activities with the girls.  I really like not feeling guilty about just staying home, but relishing in the routine we have built in just two short weeks.  It is wonderful.

It is a huge decision about what to do for preschool for a 4 year old.  Most of Charlotte's peers are in a 2 to 5 day a week preschool.  There is only one person in our immediate play group circles that is homeschooling for this year before Kindergarten.  It is a weighty financial and educational decision.  After much discussion this summer we decided to homeschool for this year.  I plan to homeschool for preschool three mornings a week, attend a Mom's group one morning a week and then keep one free for drop-in library program, groceries/errands or just a "stay home and relax" morning.  Our afternoons are a bit more unscheduled at the moment, but I am focusing on our morning rhythm right now.

The theme for the first month of school will be getting into the routines we have set together.  In the morning, that starts with our Morning High Five.  Each of the girls have a "High Five"... five things that they do in the mornings, and then sometimes we do actual high fives when they finish everything.

Charlotte's consists of: making the bed, checking Ava's water dish and filling it, setting the table/eating breakfast, clearing her dishes/washing the morning dishes, and getting dressed/clothes in laundry & brushing teeth.

Lila's consists of: eating breakfast, clearing her dishes, wiping the table clean, getting dressed/clothes in laundry/brushing teeth and getting Ava's leash and poop bag for our short morning walk.

This is quickly becoming part of our morning routine!  I love it, and it's frustrating at times. Children doing their own chores and having responsibility in the house always takes longer. (Especially when they are two and four!) I try to remember that this is important, and they are contributing to our family unit.  I also try my very best not to clean up after they are finished!

I also am not going to push it, I try to enforce our High Five on school mornings, if it happens other mornings, then great!  If we have a morning like this morning.... I just let go and let the girls play, play, play.  That's what they really wanted to do this morning, and so I changed gears, and decided to write instead.  That is the joy of what we are doing.  It's a flexible structure!  I am trying to take on the "usually not always" mentality, I am challenged by Renee's writing and I'm realizing that it is freeing to think this way!  Yes, we have a schedule, and no, we don't always stick to it.  And that is okay.

I keep everything organized using a Weekly Homeschool Planner.

After our "High Five" we go for a morning walk.  We take Ava, and we are working on taking better care of our pet, giving her more walks and exercise.  Usually the walk turns into running and the girls get some wiggles out before our circle time.

  This was a family hike we went on. I still need to capture a photo of our morning walks in our neighbourhood!

After our walk we come in, get a drink of water and sometimes a piece of fruit and start our circle time.  Our rhythm for circle consists of prayer (we all take turns thanking God), songs and rhymes (two or three), memory verse, calendar time, weather, stretching and balancing (to get moving again) and stories.

During calendar we sing about the days of the week, talk about yesterday, today and tomorrow, count the numbers for the days and talk about the colour pattern (blue, blue, red this month).  We count the days to learn which number is the day for today.  We review our birthdays and special days and sometimes read the names of the months too.  We talk about our season and decide what the weather is like today.  Then Charlotte fills in our weather graph!  It sounds like a lot, but it goes really quickly.  If the girls are restless I move along quickly.


Our stories (and memory verses) follow Sonlight curriculum, the pre-Kindergarten package. I love the books in Sonlight, and we were very blessed this year to be able to borrow all the books from a friend! There are a few activities in the curriculum and I will pick and choose these as we go. We read our Bible Story during breakfast. Our favorites so far are "Uncle Wiggly's Storybook" and "The Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Nature and Science".

photo by Charlotte

After our circle time, we do activities together. For now, I am taking ideas from a Letter of the Week Curriculum and we have worked on the letter S and T so far. We do literacy, fine motor activities (including writing), movement activities, math, art, science experiments and baking during this time.  I will share more on this at another time!  I think we will start a fall unit next week.

Then it's lunch, more stories and quiet time.  (I'm still working on implementing a quiet time, it is turning out to be a challenge!) I will share more as we go!  We are getting our rhythm, and allowing lots of time for free play. The magical stage in which the girls play together has begun, and I absolutely love it!

“It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.” Leo F. Buscaglia

I am still on a learning curve through all of this but truthfully, I love it.  I love the planning and I love the teaching.  I am challenged by being mom and teacher.  

there's a new restaurant in town!

I was so pleased to be contacted by a representative of St. Hubert regarding an opportunity to review their new restaurant in town!  I am excited to be entering a new area of blogging I have never touched before... food and restaurant reviews!

In return for a review of their restaurant, we were given a discounted meal at the restaurant.  All of the opinions written below are my own.

                                                                              

St. Hubert Express is located at 22 Trinity Ave. in Fredericton New Brunswick.  St. Hubert has a 60 year history and its first restaurant was opened in 1951 in Montreal.  They now employ 10,000 people at 116 restaurants and service points in Québec, New Brunswick and Ontario.  It is truly a Canadian company!      St. Hubert is very well known in Québec, and the owner we spoke to indicated that many francophones have been visiting the Fredericton location.  The St. Hubert Express in Fredericton opened August 8th, 2012.  The owners are Dennie and Barry Pope, they are co-owners of the franchise and brothers who grew up near Sussex, NB.  The restaurant manager is David Smith.  I met with Barry Pope and he was very willing to answer all of my questions, serve us great food and even take me behind the scenes in the kitchen.

The parking lot was packed when we arrived which is always a great sign!  We met Barry right away (an employee led us to the kitchen area) and we were offered to sit and order food first.  This was great, as the girls were hungry and the restaurant was busy!  I brought up our gluten and dairy allergy and this issue was dealt with in a very professional manner.  (Rather than, "I'm so sorry for you, here is the one thing on the menu you can have."  I have come across this almost every time we go out to eat.)  

The restaurant sends out a red alert when they have an allergy indicated at the cash.  In fact, Barry was going to take our orders personally, but he led Tim to the cash to do this in order to put the red alert through the system, so that the chefs were aware of the allergies.  Each chef changes their gloves in case they have come in contact with bread.  The allergy alert shows up on the receipts.  Barry advised me not to have any of the special sauces (served at the condiment station, not automatically with the meal) and he advised me that the chicken, fries, potato, rice and dairy-free coleslaw (!!) were safe.  Yes, they make two kinds of delicious coleslaw (with local veggies!), one with dairy products (which Tim really loved) and one without (which I loved).  It was great to have a choice to order from as most of their dishes are chicken!  

Did you know that the St. Hubert chicken mascot was originally designed by Disney animator Jack Dunham?

Tim ordered the chicken and ribs, I ordered the chicken breast and baked potato, Lila has the chicken thigh kid's meal and Charlotte had the chicken nuggets. I would order Charlotte the real chicken next time instead of the processed nuggets.  She isn't used to processed chicken anymore and the real stuff is so much better.

We all loved our food. The chicken portions were big, and although the pricing may be slightly more expensive than fast food, it was so much better.  It was filling and the homemade coleslaw added the perfect meal addition.  The chicken was moist and full of flavour.  The girls received apple sauce with their kid's meal, which was a nice touch.  The Express version of St. Hubert is set up like a fast food restaurant in format, but it has a nice quality atmosphere inside the restaurant.  When I asked Barry why he chose the Express version as opposed to the sit down restaurant he explained that it was more affordable to set up and run the Express version.  (It is one third of the cost of the traditional St. Hubert restaurant.) Also, it allows for people who work in the Knowledge Park area to have a quick lunch option.  Moncton has a full restaurant option, and the Express option is going to (hopefully) become more popular in the Maritimes.

I asked Barry why he decided to open a restaurant in Fredericton.  He was living in Halifax at the time and his brother, Dennie was living here in Fredericton.  The two choices they had were Fredericton or Halifax and they had accountants look at the numbers.  The cost of operations were lower in Fredericton so it made more sense to open a restaurant here.  

I asked if they had any practices in place to promote environmental sustainability in the food industry.  They have an eco station in the restaurant.  The customers bring their trays to the station and the employees organize and separate the waste into recyclables, plastic, compost and garbage.  It is a system that is working well for now, but Barry indicated that it might not be an easy thing to continue with forever.  Their napkins are made from 100% recycled paper, which was a good thing as we went through a lot that evening!  A huge milk spill... need I say more?

I asked Barry if they take any action to source their products locally.  I really was not expecting a positive answer for this question.  I was pleasantly surprised!  They currently buy their produce from Fresh Choice in Fredericton area.  Their produce is not strictly local, but understood that their cabbage and carrots are.  They receive 50 lbs of fresh cabbage and carrots every morning and process and make their coleslaw on site.  Barry and Dennie's father is actually a cabbage farmer in Belleisle!  They are hoping to switch and use his cabbage for their restaurant.  It surprised me how local and family based this restaurant is.

Their raw chicken comes from Nadeau Poultry near Edmundston.  It is air cooled in the processing plant, not cooled using water.  Barry explained that at Swiss Chalet, the chicken is water cooled, which causes it to look more white, but less flavourful and moist.  The chicken goes through a double cooking process at the restaurant, they have two huge ovens that cook over 100 chickens at once. They are hoping to give back to the community in many ways but they are still deciding strategically how to go about doing this.

In conclusion, I was pleased with the restaurant.  I loved the food, the atmosphere, and the precautions took to ensure that Lila and I had a safe meal to eat.  I didn't like that we had to pay 50% under the presumption that our meal would be provided for!  We are on a very tight budget and would not have otherwise spent money on food at a restaurant.  (We also choose the expensive options, before realizing we had to pay.)  I didn't like that the floors were slippery, I saw one lady slip in heels and then Charlotte fell coming out of the bathroom.  Also, there is not a change table in the women's bathroom, only in the wheelchair bathroom.  That could be inconvenient at times.  We were served by the owner, so I'm sure a regular experience would be a bit different.  But I was really pleased with all that I observed.  I am very thankful for Thomas Ledwell for setting up this experience for my family, it was a great opportunity!

Now... go try it out for yourself!  Tell me what you think in the comments.  Have you eaten at a St. Hubert Express before?  Did you have a positive experience?

summer memories - part 1

We had such a lovely summer this year!  I wasn't nine months pregnant, in the midst of home renos (well, we are always in the midst, but I mean, bathroom torn apart, no toilet etc.) OR dealing with a newborn!  It felt like summer... the weather was hot, and we spent a ton of time at the lake and visiting with family.  We played at the park a lot, went to free live concerts, had swimming lessons and generally had a lot of fun together!  Here are some of our summer memories:

Remember Fred Penner?  His television show "Fred Penner's Place" aired from 1985-1997.  He is a Canadian, and very well loved!  I have such fond memories of Fred Penner, how he crawled through a log to get to his little place in the woods, and word bird.  Looking back at shows on Youtube, I realized just how respectful and lovely his show was.  It was calm and had gentle music.  He spoke to his audience (children) like they were important and had the ability to learn important things about the human race.  For example, how to respect all people and how to solve problems.  I just love the ending song to the show: "Take care of each other, that's what friends like to do. Let your sister and brother help you learn that it's true. We all need to feel wanted for the people who we are, so take good care of each other."  Fred Penner came to Fredericton for a concert and Officer's Square was packed!  There were many families, and many young people without spouses or children... just with their peers, singing along to all the songs they remembered from their childhood.  Thanks Fred Penner for putting on such an incredible show!

(Sorry for the sideways and very amateur video!)

We had lots of outdoor play, and although we don't have a wading pool, here we are on a hot summer afternoon playing with bowls, toys and water, learning about floating and sinking and measuring!

Tim and I had our very first overnight.... ever since we've had kids.  The only other time was when I was in labour with Lila in the hospital!!  (That doesn't count...)  Charlotte's been on sleepovers after Lila was born, but we have never left both girls.  I had no idea how it was going to go.  But my very brave sister-in-law and brother-in-law agreed to take them both!  Lila still nurses to sleep and wakes up to nurse in the night so I really expected a middle of the night phone call.  But.... they stayed!  Tim and I went tubing on the Nashwaak river.  You can't take kids under 5 tubing and so it was the perfect time to go.  Neither of us had been tubing before and it was fun!  The river was so low... we had to get out and walk at times!  We had coffees at Starbucks and went out for dinner. Fun summer memories!

We had the privilege this summer to receive a full veggie box and a dozen eggs from Strawberry Hill Farm a few times.  Our friends are a part of the program and this was our test run, to see if we wanted to pay for it while they were away for a longer time in August.  It was AMAZING!  The veggies and fruit were delicious, we enjoyed it so much. We had signed up for another program with a different farm, but it didn't run this summer.  So it was a treat to pick up farm fresh veggies. We had the opportunity to try new (to us) things too.. like ground cherries, kohlrabri and summer squash.  And oh... the corn, the BEST I've ever had.  The tomatoes?  Divine. They even have a bi-weekly winter box program which looks great too.

My parents and sister, Anna came for a wonderful vacation to their camp this summer in Harvey.  We had such a great time visiting with them and spent many days driving back and forth to the lake (and they came into the city to see us) to spend time together. 

Sarah and her boyfriend, Tanner came for a long weekend too!

(Charlotte's become resistant to having her photo taken!)

There are so many wonderful photos, I will stop there for now and continue later!  More to come from summer 2012...