Coffee & Carnivals

JBay day 2

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JBay day 1

Our winter break is here and we’re playing with Instagram stories…..here is day 1

This little piggy

Too much cuteness

TV slippers

Grace found some slippers to match her beloved monkey

They were marked as “TV slippers” – for those days when brushing your hair and going out is just too much effort.

Science centre

Adam was feeling better today so we were off to the science centre for our postponed visit.

All we need is, another brick in the wall

Is Addy eating the fruit or is the fruit eating him?

Family hands

I love our bunch and they all had fun this morning.

Happy 9th birthday Grace!

Our little munchkin turned 9 today….9! It is incredible that she has been around for 9 years, our sushi loving, board game playing, mountain bike riding, book reading, early waking, super girl.

She played happy birthday for herself

It was a chilled out day at home watching movie and making sushi for supper. Adam has been sick and vomiting so we were home bound even though we had plans to go to the science centre.

Grace did say at the end of the day that she had really enjoyed it.

May it be a blessed and wonderful year ahead for you.

Grace’s Masterchef party

Grace decided she wanted a Masterchef party this year, so after much brain racking we finally figured out what our “pressure test” and invention test were going to be.

Grace was asking about it (we kept the challenges a surprise) so I told her we’re making tuna with rice. She thought that tinned tuna was a horrible idea…..but it turns out our was perfect.

And the challenge is….sushi!

Workstation, ready for action

Instead of a true pressure test, they had to follow and keep up as I demonstrated. There were two teams of five and they each made a roll of sushi and then rotated out.

They did really well, with some of them making excellent sushi

My demo sushi (2nd time making sushi, with the 1st being the previous night)

Eli and Adam judged this as the winning team (it was a presentation challenge)

But both did well

And everyone enjoyed eating it

Next up was a blind tasting to determine which ingredients could be used in the invention test. Yummy things like cocoa powder, choc chips, oats, banana, cinnamon and more.

Donné gave them a basic muffin recipe and they could then mix their own choice of ingredients into the muffins.

Some serious planning to decide what goes in

Then time to work quickly to have the muffins mixed and in the muffin tin before the clock ran out

Grace’s team made choc chip lemon muffins which were delicious and the winning choice. The other team had oats, choc chips and a “hint of banana” (which was a single slice) – good muffins but not quite a flavourful as the choc chip lemon ones.

Cake time!

Grace has really made some wonderful friends and built on those relationships this year.

Grace, Nyasha, Anna, Natasha and Famke

Grace really enjoyed it, was super surprised and excited about the sushi, and the other children seemed to have a great time too. Lots of smiles, fun and laughter for them and for us.

And we now have the skills to make our own sushi…..

Ballet Addy

When you come upstairs for a show and leotards are the order of the day…

He went on to do a bum wiggle dance which I tanked by taking a photo instead of a video. Oh well, there’s always next time.

Birthday circle

Grace had her birthday circle at school today – the last one in lower elementary! (This is her birthday circle at school, her birthday is next week Friday)

She had everyone laughing with her stories and in particular with her picture of Eli and the Moustache.