fishing for fifties!

Have you ever dove for small change?

To this day I credit my strong swimming skills to hours of holding my breath searching for pennies, nickels and dimes on the bottoms of pools across Saskatchewan. Although probably not invented by my brilliant parents, this simple genius game where the adults toss small spare change (quarters would only be found on rare occasions) into a pool kept us 4 kids busy and happy for hours.

Yesterday was a new chapter in pool treasure hunting. The Nana was tossing in $50's! In hind sight, rolls of toonies might have worked a little better but the floating fifties put big smiles on each of the grand kids faces just the same.

My niece carefully laid out the bills to dry only to return to find the pink bills replaced with blue ones of much lesser value.......Yoda tried to explain that's what happened when 50's touched salt water, everyone knows that they turn to blue fives don't they? Very funny Yoda.

(the money was really a yearly passing the grade gift for the grandkids)

new tupperware!

top secret....I love Tupperware!

McDreamy said that boys don't have tea parties so The Sprout and I called up Lori our favorite Tupperware lady and she set us up with this great "lemonade" mini serve set! It is PERFECT for our outdoor picnics. The Sprout can pour as much water on himself as he desires and we eat muffins and watermelon all day long without worrying about crumbs everywhere. (this is all before we race cars, fight ninjas and crash boats of course! See McDreamy, Sassy knows how to do boy stuff too!)

Readers help.......I need more summer boy-ish things to do!

secret summer play spaces

...have you ever felt like you've found a secret garden that no one else knows about?

...a place so quiet and peaceful and safe it feels like you are a part of a secret world? a place where you can pretend you are a king, a world famous athlete or a speed boat racer?

...we've found a wonderful summer paddle pool that is surrounded by soft green grass and shaded by big trees.

...the Sprout and his little buddy were the only 2 in the whole park for 2 hours on a perfect summer day earlier this week. I know we'll be spending many hours at this park a 10 minute walk from our home.

Want to come to our secret paddle pool park?

Bugs in My House

This was The Sprout's first butterfly experience.

He was in awe of the beautiful creatures and I was impressed at how very kind and gentle he was. Raising butterflies is a great family tradition now which teaches the kids very important values about respecting and loving nature.

From caterpillar to pupa to butterfly, each stage captivates me over and over again.

Yoda laughed at me having "bugs" in my kitchen. He said he thought I'd be the last person he'd know to have bugs in their kitchen. It must be the tough wilderness woman in me(underneath the layers of cupcake icing and cookie batter of course!)

Goodbye flighty friends! Be safe!

kinsmen park

.....a kid sized pool
.....a warm summer day
....tons of kids small like me
.....my sharkie swim trunks
.....my Mom AND Dad splashing with me
.....a banana and my OWN water bottle
LIFE IS WONDERFUL!

Happy Birthday Canada!

After breakfast yesterday The Sprout and I heard an ad for $1 Canada Day T-shirts at Old Navy, lucky for us Old Navy is on the way home between our house and Yoda's Restaurant.
We arrived promptly at 9:31am to find several large tables with a sparse few XXL shirts-just a little big for The Sprout, good thing Mommy had a Canada T-shirt all washed and ready to go at home for The Sprout. XXL or not, the $1 shirt deal was too good to pass up so we found 3 of these

and turned XXL into XXL-ovely!

Step 1
find any old t-shirt, cut off sleeves and neck

Step 2

turn inside out, serge or sew bottom of the t-shirt

Step 3

turn right side out

Step 4

use your wonderful new bag for groceries or for collecting other treasures

* different sizes of shirts make different sizes of bags. McDreamy saves his old t-shirts for me, you know the ones that "shrink" in the dryer. Children's shirts make great kid sized bags for lunches and toys. Wouldn't this be a fun activity to do for a kids "green" birthday party.

honeyberry recipe

mmmmm Honey berries!

Good job sassy blogger Tara-you are one berry smart Gal!

Above is an easy muffin recipe for honey berries that my family really enjoyed.

I was extra happy to treat our house guest Nana II -my super savvy Aunty from Alberta-to a batch of these homemade muffins. Above is one of 4 photos I used for a centre piece for Mother's Day Brunch this year, I did one for each of the Mom's present. Nana II just luurrves sharing a muffin with The Sprout with her Tim's coffee each morning on before her visit with The Nana and The Sprout just lurrves Nana II!

The Nana is doing well. She is on day 10 of her hospital visit with hopes of being let out for good soon.

The Nana was let out on a visitors pass for a few hours the other day (for good behavior!) and we enjoyed having her over so The Sprout could show her all his tricks in the pool.

The Nana is not allowed any flowers or baby visitors right now so we send her Well Wishes and Luluemon outfits. The Sprout says he wants his Nana to be the best dressed Nana in the whole hospital so he picks out the outfits himself. We also send daily Well Wishes. Do you know what well wishes are? Well Wishes are quite possibly the best invention since telegrams-because they are telegrams! The Nana just loves to get her well wishes hand delivered each day. Click here to send Nana (or anyone else you know who may need a cheer up during a hospital stay) The Nana's room # is 6102 at RUH, tell her Sassy and Sprout sent you!

Click here to send a wish now!

do you know......

Do you know these new fellas in town?

Seriously, how many of you smart bloggers can name this berry?

It was Yoda who first introduced me to this delightful little berry at Anglin Lake.

(If you have a plant question, Yoda is your man. What doesn't that man know!)

Like Yoda, these berries and their ancestors are originally from Russia.

A super hardy bush that needs minimal TLC and yet yields top quality product- Do I sound like a farmer yet Uncle Derele?

McDreamy treated me to 6 of these bushes last summer and to be honest this spring things did not look very good for our new twiggy friends. Forward a cold spring and a summer that seems like it will never be here and just look at how my bushes blossomed! I picked 4 cups of berries off of 3 bushes tonight. A bumper crop if I do say so myself. It must be all the TLC and kind words The Sprout and I say as we pass the bushes a thousand times a day doing laps with me pushing his tricycle in the backyard.

Coming soon........a delish recipe for those of you who have access these yummy fellas!

(oh yeah.....the office reno is delayed slightly while the Nana needs our attention. I'll be sure to post after pics!.....of the office that is, not Nana!)

the office

I am going into the unknown, the abyss, the deep dark uncharted waters and territories of .....the office!

I have a project, a personal mission really. I am not sure when I will return. If you have any pointers feel free to share them. My mission is to organize Yoda's office. Yoda loves stuff. Yoda is part squirrel. He squirrels stuff away like he is going into hibernation. He has roughly 10,000 pens and even more utility knives.

Yoda is also always prepared like a boyscout ready to whittle a hot dog stick or even drumsticks from a branch in seconds or to rescue a damsel in distress with an unsightly tag or thread hanging in seconds with his handy utility knives. We have challenged each other to see who can stay away from Dollarama the longest. I will visit dollarama this afternoon for the last time to stock up on organizing supplies.

PLEASE SHARE ORGANIZING SECRETS BELOW!

swim night and strawberries

I think Wednesday nights will officially become swim night at the Fourneys! Come one come all, the pool really is way more fun with more people.

My gal pal Des and her two extremely well behaved kids popped by for a splash last night and we had a blast!
They also let me try out a new dessert on them......thanks guys!

McDreamy devoured his just about as fast as The Sprout.

The dessert was just plain old angel food cake topped with fresh strawberries, whipped cream and served with a side of milk chocolate pudding. It took less than 10 minutes to whip up and presently so nicely I think I might use it again for our Father's day BBQ.

It's another hot one today, I think I'll try to do a few laps while The Sprout rests his little eyes.