Onto November and possibly getting my blog up to date before November of 2018 comes around… maybe? Summer gets so busy for us and I have let it snowball a bit. So enjoy the post and the look back at way cooler temperatures. A head’s up… December is already up and posted along with seasonal links HERE.

Ken spoiled me with a new tea mug!

Anyway, November… the month of chinchilla and workout pictures… wait that is much of my life the past year. I do love the Fluffy Overlord and working out has become second nature with me now.

Talking about chinchillas, November marks Neko-chan turning 1 year old!!! check out that post HERE

Emanuel went through a bit of an image change with a fancy new hair cut.

As did Echo. We have some rather spiffy looking kids!

The 3 younger kids went to Home Depot for the craft and even convinced Dad that PAINT should be involved.

I crocheted up a storm and we blocked this year’s special mom and grandma gifts… shawls! Plus matching hats for all 3 of us girls.

The kids dressed up in their finery for Santa. We went with the Schwartz family to their mall Santa of choice since our traditional one no longer exists after a store closing.  You can read all about that HERE.

I found winter boots in the children’s section of Target – something that made Ken laugh and entertained him and a few other people for days!

We had dinner with our wee niece Maevowyn… and her parents too, but we all know who the star of the show was!!!

I may be biased.. . but that face just makes me melt.

Echo LOVES her cousin

With Mom, and Dad photo bombing in the back

I also got in some quality kitty time, and pictures.

Silly Snoopy

We had school time.

Themed crafting continued.

A whole set of Halloween themed cupcakes that were out past the date.

Gavin made all of our cards this year.

Christmas Art

A Christmas mouse

Gavin the solemn crafter

Christmas mug cozy

Really all the babies babies were seen.

A poppy was worn, sent straight from Canada for Remembrance Day.

And I photographed my chinchilla from pretty well ALL possible angles…

All the junk in that glorious trunk!

Close up with lighting!

Yup that was November in a quick scan through images… hope you enjoyed!

We baked!

Whole family!

Well, you can already see pictures from Halloween HERE, as usually it was a fun time.

Neko-Chan and her Halloween prop

Echo’s wedding dress photos are HERE.

October was also Ken’s birthday… his 40th if you can believe it! We kept it low key, just as the birthday boy requested. He is not a big party animal. But he also was given an award for his hard work involved in getting his mental health under control and advocating for the association that helped him. We got to dress up and everything!

New outfit and all

It was a fun sort of duo season month with time to jump in leaves (and rake them up, slightly less fun)…

Gavin

And a bit of snow to toy with as well.

We even had TWO foreign visitors, Jeff flew down from Canada to hang out. Never a bad thing, friends and family flying down when we still can’t return ourselves.

With Jeff there is ALWAYS yummy curry.

And Karyn!!! A shorter visit than her normal yearly visit but we packed in the fun and hugs and … shopping of course!

UNO

So we may enable each other… just a little… and we like it that way!

We had our yearly pumpkin patch trip with our friend Trish and her two kids. Always fun and thankfully on a day when the weather mostly cooperated.

I am so grateful that Trish is willing to embrace our loud and crazy family.

Ken made pumpkin pie from scratch.

The twins took on acolyting at church.

We worked on all sorts of school stuff from crafts to book work and more.

We had the Novaks over for VR fun.

I continued my obsession with Neko-Chan pictures.

We had a bonfire with the Schwartz family and I got my cat fix.

I worked my buns off at the YMCA, with the family in tow, of course.

Emanuel and Trinity even got their YELLOW belts!!

And I crafted, my sanity is very closely tied to crafting it seems.

Seasonal!

Of course more images to enjoy. Fall really was pretty last year!

Face painting!

…asleep

Chinese New Year has great meaning for our family. Please enjoy my resources and recounting of our yearly celebration a few months late.

It is that time of year again, when we celebrate as we were taught by our dear friends who are family back home. I have already sent off my red envelopes and this year special knots to my god daughters and their sibling. This is actually one of the big events that brings me right back to that homesick state of mind.

Neko-Chan got in the groove with Kai Lan as well.

We cleaned the house and sorted out many containers of clothes and toys that we donated this year. We decluttered and made some big choices about broken or half forgotten items. Nothing motivates this brood like the realization that we need to clean for the lunar celebration. It is a reminder of home and love and tradition that the whole family enjoys.

Each of the kids had a trim or haircut, and received new clothes. I lucked out hugely on Amazon with a momentary sale on Qing Dynasty dresses for the girls’ 18 inch dolls. Echo’s new dress matched her doll nearly perfectly. There are other Dynasty reproductions the girls have hinted at wanting. (not hugely subtle hints)

Gavin on left

We had a lovely home made lunch. Zander basically put together the festival rice solo (Gavin helped him with ingredient prep the night before). He used the recipe out of the Runaway Wok book which is a family favourite, minus nuts.

Trinity tried making rice balls from a recipe off Educaton.com, though it struck us more as a Japanese rice ball and was too heavy on the rice wine vinegar for anyone to fall in love.

I made a sweet glutinous rice cake from a recipe shared by All About Ami. I think I will make it again in a larger pan to make thinner slices. I enjoyed it, the kids are only half sold.

After lunch we had our sweets, as usual I tried to branch out to new options. I couldn’t find moon cakes so I picked up something called Wife Cakes.. nope, and the almond cookies didn’t quite cut it.

Don’t forget the red envelopes.

I have been working on my knotting skills and made lucky knots for my god daughters back home using Chinese cord and had the kids make their own very simplified braided version with a charm that represents their Zodiac symbol.

We did our t shirts the day before since the day of we also had homeschool friends coming for a visit.

Then that evening I went to my class as usual, so much fun! And then Ken and I got take out from our favourite Chinese restaurant, Rose Garden. A great way to end the day.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!!! Welcome year of the dog!!! 新年快乐 / 新年快樂 (Xīnnián kuàilè)

Resources for this year were varied and fun, but since I have shared a lot in the past years this year I am going to give you the best books we found! No links just titles so give them a search and enjoy!

• Fortune Cookies Fortunes by Grace Lin… I loved this book because she discusses how fortune cookies are an Asian American food in her educational blurb at the back. We also read as a family her book The Year of the Dog. Grace Lin includes fun illustrations along with her entertaining reminisces in this one.
• The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine… we loved this one enough to purchase it brand new. We also have his the Runaway Rice Cake which was a lucky library find in their booksale.
• We had 3 Magic Tree House books this year… A Perfect Time for Pandas (for Emanuel and his panda report), Day of the Dragon King and the companion to this book China Land of the Emperor’s Great Wall. Our landmark report lined up beautifully with our unit study – The Great Wall of China was fun to research.
• You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Great Wall of China! By Jacqueline Morley was helpful, of course.
• We briefly talked about Mulan with the book Mulan by Li Jian, I was gifted the book Mulan by Shiamin Kwa and Wilt L. Idema which I am determined to make a summer read. I have really been in the research and expand the mind feel lately.
• Another family favourite that is on the to buy list is The Nian Monster by Andrea Wang.
• Videos…  Celebrate With Kai Lan and Nature Pandas (an older film by NATURE) were fun. I am sure we used a second Kai Lan dvd but it isn’t coming to mind.

I hope these inspire you to check out the library. Researching and enjoying other cultures is such a privilege.

Our Chinese Characters work.