One of A Kind Show

Yesterday Grandmama, papa, C Monster and I went to the One Of a Kind Show. It's running at the Exebition Center until the end of the weekend. This is one of my favorite places to shop and to get ideas from.

C Monster was a champ and listened very well to us all morning and afternoon (well until he passed out in my arms during a nursing break. For those of you with kids big or little the show is ready for you. First little ones get in free. They have a nursing room with lots of chairs and change tables; they also have a microwave for those of you that are bottle feeding.

For the kids 2 and up there is a complimentary child care center (you get 1 1/2 hours free) it's a first come first serve - keep that in mind. We talked about dropping C Monster off for a bit but I just could not bring myself to do - he was having lots of fun running around with his papa.

What did we get?

• A Watch from Patina Canada for me.
• Extra funky underwear for Geoff by the candi factory.
• A wooden tractor for C Monster from Thorpe Toys. - let's talk about Thorpe for a second. I love their toys C Monster now has the tractor, the plane, the boat and the car. You can really only get their toys at shows (you can order them via email but the shipping is more then the toy) The plane was around 13$; the tractor 10$ and the one person car was under 5$, the boat was around 13$. The quality of the toys are fantastic - C Monster is pretty rough with his stuff and these are all surviving very well.
• A Nugs for C Monster. - The gut selling them said they were extra solid as long as you stayed away from the ones with the long legs and arms. So far it survived many throws... lets see if it keeps up. These were just so cute and C Monster really loved them.
• A modern and stylish tea cozy from Tenacious Life. - This is something we had been looking for, for what seems forever.
• A Dragon puzzle for C Monster from Sleepy Hollow Creations. This is C Monster 3rd puzzle from Sleepy Hollow. They are mode from wood; and when I asked her about her paints she said they are all food grade. If I remember correctly the dragon was 24$ - the quality and hours of amusement C Monster gets from the puzzles make it money well spent.
  
• For our sweet tooth we got honey and honeycomb from Honey Pie. I want to try to make honeycomb ice cream.

Worth a mention

We would of loved to buy everything we saw that we liked but at-last our pocket books and the environment can not handle that. So here are a few things we though about getting but did not - some of wish I did buy, but the good conscious consumer in me told me I did not need them.

• L'Atelier du cheval de bois; he has some of the most beautiful hand crafted toys I have ever seen in made in Canada. We stared at them for a very long time but could not justify buying C Monster any of them as he already had tones of everything.
• billy would designs; innovative and creative jewelry and accessories made from recycled and reclaimed wood. I so wanted the EarWings.
• Stand Up; not only is this clothing company trying to make a difference in the world with donating a portion of each sale to help various causes world wide - they offer very fashionable funky designs for t-shirts. We both wanted one of their shirts but could not justify adding another t-shirt to our already overflowing dresser drawers.

If you live in Toronto you should definitely try to check out the show, I now actually try to wait till the show to buy stuff we need - I just finished going without a watch for 3 months because I wanted to see what would be at the show.

Ah Mondays..

Smells Like Home Continued...

Yesterday I mentioned I was making maple baked beans well 3 meals later they are all gone. They were not my best beans yet or my worst. It's been 3 years now that I have been trying to find the perfect baked bean recipe. Do you have a favorite? If so please share...

Toronto Botanical Garden

Thanks to my awesome friend Debra and her pint size companion F Monster; the C Monster and me got to hang out in The Children Center at the Toronto Botanical Garden and drop in on a Sprout Club day.


Every Monday (except next week due to March Brake) the Toronto Botanical Garden has a free drop in Story Time in their library at 11am. Their story teller John is so amazing with the kids definitely worth to check out. C Monster quite enjoyed it today; however as always his short attention span for anything that demands him to sit down caused him to wander off after 2 stories.

They also have a Sprout Club for kids 0-3 on Monday mornings at 10am; cost is 55$ and registration is required due to limited spaces. We arrived half way threw their class but from what I saw C Monster would definitely like this. The Children Center were the Sprout Club is an Attachment Parenting dream; lots of nature themed activities; crafts; nature items to play with; dirt play; sand play; and on and on... I think I might sign him up for the May session.

After the story time in the Library John (on of Debra's friends) opened up the Children Center for the F and C Monster to play; they had so much fun.

Thank you Debra and John for a great time.

One of the many reason I love of husband....

We compliment each other in many ways...one of these is that we both think it's important to keep things simple when it comes to home life. We do a lot of baking as we try to limit the package goods that we purchase - I make muffins, scones, biscuits, deserts and so on; however the only bread I have patience to make is in the bread machine. Geoff on the other hand loves making both bread and crackers the old fashion way. Geoff for every time I have complained that the kitchen exploded after a baking adventure by you - remember I love you and the fact you make bread the way it was always meant to be.

Sprig Toys

Most of you know that I love Sprig Toys, toys manufactured in Canada made from a combination of reclaimed wood and recycled plastic. This great company recently got bought out by Wham-O and the rumor mill has it that they will be closing their Canadian plant and moving the operations to Mexico - reason to cut down on cost. Just another company that fell casualty to the big corporations - once the toys are label made in Mexico I will no longer purchasing them for the C Monster. We have nothing against purchasing toys made outside of Canada; however we do not purchase any toys made in countries that do not treat their workers ethically.

Everyday Something New

I just realized today that C Monster can fully complete this puzzle all by himself. He has had this puzzle since his first birthday and used to put the pieces in all mixed up; then he started matching a few of the obvious ones. Today he got them all - when he got to the cat he looked at it brought beside the fish and said "Ummm No" then put it beside the cat. How I love you C Monster.

Toy Thursday

I love chunky puzzles they are fun and bright and make for great educational toys. They help with motor skills and if you describe all the pictures language skills. It hard to find puzzles that a suitable for little ones that still put everything in their mouth (you need to make sure they have no small pieces). Melissa and Doug has this great series of chunky touch and feel puzzles; each puzzle piece has a textured surface and is quite large enough for little hands.

Thank you memere and pepere for the great puzzle.

Toy Spotting

Great educational wooden puzzle to help your wee one learn there body parts and organs; available at Honeybunch.




ABC flash cards to satisfy the geek in you; available at Etsy.