Mobile Remodel

Kim over at A Girl and A Glue Gun recently put a call out for our favorite crafts EVER! That's a tough one but I picked Dawn's cute felt owls over at Not Just a Mommy. When I saw this tutorial I bookmarked it and started slaking Dawn daily.

I took off a few weeks before my daughter's due date and kind of thought about the whole "nesting" thing but choose napping and daytime tv instead. Then one night I panicked --"OMG, the baby's mobile! I only have the (ugly) sports one my husband picked out for our son! This just won't do for my baby daughter!!!" So with my glue gun, Dawn's tutorial and some scrap felt from my mom, I made this mobile in ONE night:

My nesting instincts were satisfied! So satisfied that I went into labour that week! There's a picture of me IN LABOUR with the mobile here. My daughter was born three and half hours after this picture was taken...with no drugs. True story. LOL

The before (as seen here in Logan's nursery):

The after:
Just hot glued the felt pieces right over top!

And here it is over her bassinet. The football was an odd shape -not really like an owl. I just took cotton balls and glued them on to make a cloud.

Cute, eh? Now that she's pretty much over the mobile stage I can just snip them off and put them on the bookshelf. :D


Linking up to:
Lemon Tree Creations
&

Splash Pad Review 4: Millikin Mills

The fourth splash pad we went to was the hard to find Millikin Mills Splash Pad. It's on the south side of 14th Avenue, just west of Kennedy Road, east of Birchmount. I would check the Google maps for this one before you go. You can either park at the Millikin Community Centre or go to the parking lot closer to the splash pad. If you park at the community centre and library, then you need to walk the pathway past two parks until you get to the splash pad. There was some construction when we went, so we went to the library and then drove to the parking lot by the splash pad. For someone not familiar to the area, this parking lot is hard to find! I didn't see any signs posted either. You need to turn off 14th Ave where the Trillium private school is. At the very back of the school is the parking lot.

Features:

*Washrooms!!!!!!!!!!

*Larger trees for shade
*Picnic tables and benches
*Large gazebo with picnic tables
*Sponge floor on park
*Great park for younger and older kids
*Lots of open space -soccer fields and baseball fields
*Awesome large splash park but with a concrete floor

The splash pad and park:

Picnic tables!!! And under large trees too!

Bathrooms were open on a weekday! There is also a snack bar there too. There weren't any signs but I'm guessing it's open on weekends -I'm sure with all the baseball and soccer fields this place gets busy!

The large splash pad has lots of well timed jets and floor squirters. There is a pole with three buckets that fill and drop water and the "mushroom" water thing.

The gazebo and picnic tables are just past the washrooms and splash pads. This would be a great spot for a birthday party! When we went there was a summer camp having their lunch there.

Kalia liked the park too!

Washrooms, shade, a large park and splash pad! This place was great! If the splash pad had a sponge floor it would be close to perfect! It is worth trying to find the hidden parking lot as this is a hidden gem in Markham!

Splash Pad Review 3: Benjamin Marr Park

We went to Benjamin Marr Park Splash Pad, which is at the corner of Gowland Road & Pascoe Drive (east of ninth line) in Cornell. It's at the north end of the area around Cornell Village Public School so there are soccer fields and paths around it.

*Okay park for both big or smaller kids
*Sand floor in the park
*Concrete floor for splash pad
*Okay splash pad: Two water squirting bulrushes and three floor squirty things

The small park area

Smaller kids can get to the slides by the stairs and there are maybe four different climbing things for bigger kids.

There's a gazebo for shade

Logan really liked this climbing part of the park. I was worried that it would be too hot but it was coated in something so it wasn't.

I think the problem with this splash pad is that the slant to drain is pretty steep. Add in the sand tracked over from the park and kids can easily fall when running around.
Given how many awards Cornell has gotten for planning, you'd think our splash pads and parks would be awesome..but they're a bit disappointing. And yes, I have written my Ward Councilor about it and if you live in Ward 5, you should too!

Splash Pad Review 2: Mingay/Bur Oak

The second splash pad we checked out in Markham was the one at the northwest corner of Mingay Ave and Bur Oak Ave.

Some highlights include:
*HUGE park with sponge floor
*Separate areas for bigger kids and smaller kids
*Medium sized splash pad with three water cannons
*Lots of covered benches for parents to sit
*Park on the street--bring your stroller as it's set back from road a fair bit

On the side for the older kids there were these cute saucer swings, a climbing area and then swings.

On the other side, there was an area for smaller kids

Past the little kids play area and swings is the splash pad

The trees are very small but they have plenty of covered benches

See those house in background? That's where you'll have to park, so bring your stroller to lug your stuff!

And here's the splash park! A mist tunnel, two spraying spouts, a few floor sprayers and the big draw -three water cannons at the back. Given that the park was so awesome this was a slight disappointment. I was hoping that at least the floor would be sponge too but it was cement.

Logan really liked the mist tunnel and the water cannons -and it had lots of seats in the shade. But it was further from the road and the splash pad wasn't as big as we were expecting given the size of the rest of the park. I could see this getting really busy on weekends, so I think we'd pick the Swan Lake splash pad over this one.

Splash Pad Review 1: Swan Lake

Logan has Fridays off of daycare for the summer so we're doing a Markham splash pad tour. I Google mapped all of them and did the "street view" and satellite view to try and pick the best ones.

The first one we checked out was the Swan Lake Splash Pad. It's on the southeast corner of Williamson Rd. and Swan Park Road.

Some highlights:
*Gazebo and some benches in shade but trees are still small
*Concrete floor for splash pad
*Large splash pad with lots of well timed jets and sprays
*Sponge floor for park
*Park aimed at 3+ but there are baby swings
*Trails around the pond for walks
*Park on the street

Logan really enjoyed trying the new stuff at the park. They had this circle that spun around on a slant like a merry-go-round.

Logan liked the park as there were lots of climbing. There wasn't simple stairs up the the small slide -there are ropes and a rock climbing thing- so not so great for smaller kids.

"Mommy, where's the sand?"
There was a sand table like we have at our local park but this has a sponge floor -no sand. Logan was a bit confused how he was suppose to play with this.

We brought a blanket for a picnic but there wasn't enough shade by the grass as the trees are still small. So we had our picnic on the bench by the park.

What a great day!

Our view: park, gazebo and splash pad.

Our Youtube Super Star

Kalia and I had breakfast with Lolo and Lola on Wednesday. Every time I said "smile" to her she smiled like crazy. Very neat that she recognizes that word and can respond but what a smile! LOL

She's actually smiling here and not crying!

Allan's parents were killing themselves laughing, so I took a video:



And our videos are put up for mostly family or friends....so when I went to grab the link to the video to post on the blog, I was surprised to see almost two thousand hits! Looks like she might be the next Youtube Super Star:

UPDATE: We had a good laugh that Kalia was a Youtube star when we had 2,000 views...but the next morning it was 18,000 and then 35,000 and then 90,000. It's been an interesting experience to see this go viral. She's now "the baby that smiles on demand". I'm sure Kalia is going to have a good laugh about this when she is older. What a moment to get 15 minutes of fame for! LOL

Kalia also enjoyed playing the piano while we were there.

Oh, man! That crazy smile again! LOL