Grade 6 Graduation

I've just come back from Jacob's grade 6 graduation ceremony.  It's rather confusing, in the UK he would have just finished his first year of high school, in Burlington he would be continuing at elementary school for 2 more years but here he will spend the next 2 years at middle school.

Anyway, the kids are expected to make a bit of an effort for graduation.  Here is what Jacob thought of me making him wear an ironed polo shirt instead of one of his usual grotty numbers.

I don't know how he'd cope at a school with a uniform having to wear a shirt and tie everyday.  Imagine, Jacob in a blazer.

The ceremony was very uplifting, they all walked in to Land of Hope and Glory so I was a bit confused about that too, good job I didn't have any Union Jacks on me so didn't make a fool of myself.

Here is Jacob afterwards with his teacher.

He's bucked up a bit.  Cake probably helped and maybe the prospect of a dance which is what he was supposed to be doing for the rest of the afternoon.

Made by Me Monday

Yes I know, late already and only the second post.

It's the end of term already and teachers gift time again. This year we went down the Canada day route again with these little triangular pouches.

I made the pouches with this Crafty Gemini tutorial and the kids embellished them with beaded key rings inspired by this tutorial from Art Jewelry Elements blog.  Everything was made from bits and pieces I had lying about apart from the cord on the key rings.

Here is Rose demonstrating scale.

This week I'll try to write something else before next Monday, maybe we'll resurrect Techno Thursday for the summer. 

Made by Me Monday

This post is inspired by an old friend of mine.  I should be clear that I do not mean she is aged (no more so than me anyway) but we've known each other for a very, very long time.  Shes super crafty, a brilliant photographer and has a great blog and a fabulous Instagram feed, if you fancy a slightly off the beaten path view of London, England you should go to marthalovesblog.blogspot.com or look for akamarthaloves on Instagram and take a look around.

Anyway, she has done a post called Made by Me Monday and I am borrowing the idea...

A few weeks ago Rose lost her hat at school.  It wouldn't be such a big deal but it's the only summer hat I've ever been able to get her to wear.

I panic bought her a new one for the zoo trip but it is way too big so I replaced it with this one which is almost small enough.

Rose is not best pleased about this hat as she says its boy's hat so she stuck sparkly butterfly stickers on the peak to make it acceptably girly.  Apparently that didn't work and it's been riding around in the bottom of her backpack so I spent some time girly-fying it further.

Ta da, Made by Me hat embellishment.

And wouldn't you know, as soon as I was done her old hat reappeared.

Demolition

The other excitement at the weekend was the beginning of the mini kitchen reno-project.  I say mini as we decided not to get new custom cabinets that cost the same as a mid-size car and to paint the old ones.  We are also upgrading the countertops and back splash.  Here's what they look like right now.

Yuck

And here are the men being manly and taking off the rubbishy oatmeal tiles.  I did some too honest, but I wore flowery gloves.

They also took down the cupboard by the window which makes the room look loads brighter.

I've already organized handles and hinges so next week I'll be out looking at tiles and countertops.  Might need help choosing so watch this space.

Sod It

Despite the fact that Ontario is a part of Canada where English is the main spoken language there are some differences in terminology that it takes a while to get used to.  I'm sure I've mentioned this many times before, boot/trunk, plait/braid, swede/rutabaga, bum-bag/fanny-pack (I really don't know which of those is most offensive) etc, etc.  In Canada one doesn't lay new turf, one puts down new sod, hence we get lots of flyers like this round every spring.

Being pretty unsophisticated and juvenile in the sense of humour department they always make me laugh.  Fancy, if you have a 6 foot new sod installed they remove the old sod for free.  What a bargain, I'm sure there are many ladies in Britain who would jump at the chance.

Enough of that, quite some time ago Tom and Gary removed an old stump from the middle of a flower bed for me.  So I dug out all the swamp monsters/Hostas and concrete edging, dug it over and levelled it and waited for some cool wet weather. This has not been very forthcoming so I've taken the plunge and resigned myself to using the sprinkler a lot for the next week or so and at the weekend Gary and I laid new turf, or sodded it depending on where you are.

As per usual I have failed to get a before so here is a singularly rubbish after photo of the new grass.

A Gardening First

About a month or so ago Rose and I planted up some troughs with marigolds, tomatoes and runner beans.

Here they are just after completion.

Today I am very excited because not only have the tomatoes grown quite tall but they also have teeny, tiny fruits on them.

Rose is grudgingly demonstrating, you can't really tell but her crazy hair is in tact, despite gymnastics at school.

I know that this doesn't really count as a great horticultural success yet but I've tried tomatoes before with zero results so now I'm going to be really gutted if something eats them before I get to them.

A further note.  I wrote all that yesterday but thought 3 posts in one day was a little much.  This morning Rose went to visit the tomato plants and even though she only touched it 'really lightly' somehow the tomato she's holding in the photo just fell right off.  I hope some of them survive the over enthusiasm to reach maturity.

Kitchen Thursday and Crazy Hair

I confess that I could have blogged this with the last post but I had photos on different devices and couldn't get my head around getting them all in the same place.  Technical support was at school so here we are on post number two.

Jacob made fries and his own ketchup last night at cooking school.

I know he doesn't look happy here but he was actually enjoying them, Rose and I did too although they were very salty.

We all got up late this morning and forgot about crazy hair day at school.  Rose was threatening to have a complete melt down about it when we remembered (10 minutes before heading out) but thanks to a quick Pinterest search we came up with this rather bizarre arrangement.

I'm not sure if she looks like she's caught in a fishing net or a really big string vest.  She was pleased with it and even managed to get all the way to school  without cartwheeling as I wasn't sure it would survive.  I wonder how it will look when I pick her up this afternoon.

Arghh, what happened?

I didn't take this photo but am told that it is blog worthy, I'm not so sure.

As you can see we had a visitor.  He breezed through yesterday afternoon like a slightly inebriated hurricane, wound up the children then took my husband out drinking.  Must make sure I get something out of it next time.

Sorry Metin, love you really.

Toronto Zoo

On Friday we used Rose's Christmas zoo trip. It was a long, hot day, I think we walked about 50 miles and the drive home was brutal but it was fun.  Here is some of what we saw...

The biggest picnic umbrella in the world.

Rose discovered she's the same height as an emperor penguin, mustn't let her get into one of those big huddles in Antarctica or I'll never see her again.

I thought that for sure I would get a close look at a moose but alas, no, they were hiding in the shade well away from nosy visitors.

The same thing could not be said for the snow leopard who was squashed up just about as close to the glass as it could get.  Good thing too as it was one of Rose's top picks.

We had to queue for ages to see the pandas but they were super cute, especially the baby who went for a really slow climb while we were watching.

So that's it for the photos, my phone stayed in my backpack most of the time and I didn't take too many kid photos as the other animals were more interesting.