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One Week Closer to Halloween

Fall is here to stay! Though Wednesday topped off at 16 Celsius or so today was a traditional rainy, overcast and chilly fall day. Of course, that did NOT stop my boys from heading back out to their sandbox. Ken let me sleep in in the morning as the night before I seemed to have a rather frustrating and minor stomach bug. While I was sleeping they… well they must have done SOMETHING as everyone seemed in relatively good spirits but for once – no massive mess for Mommy! AND Ken cleaned out the dishwasher!!! Don’t get too excited though everyone – he didn’t start the refilling process but emptying – breakthrough! 

Thursday marked the end of our chapter by chapter read of Stuart Little. Each of the boys did a last chapter sentences and illustration and a favourite thing out of the story page. Now all that is left is the title page for their mini book! Very exciting, this will  be Emanuel’s first mini book. 

Final chapter

Their favourite thing in the story

To celebrate they took a nice big bowl of popcorn downstairs and watched the movie “adaptation”… well the twins did, the younger two got bored and came up here to hang out with me, play Play Doh and work on workbooks while I slowly replaced the Velcro on diaper #2. Have I mentioned recently how much I HATE hand sewing on Velcro? Cuz I do! 

Popcorn and a movie

Another diaper done

We played a new game in the afternoon that I found on Education.com. A little TOO easy for the twins but they enjoyed it anyway. And of course, I enjoyed the dice assembly. I think it will be mainly a Trinity and Emanuel thing but the boys are always up to try something new. I clicked on the link on their site to follow them on Facebook and got to download free activities (Halloween) in book form. Always a bonus! Seriously if you have NOT checked them out do! I am finding them a great resource along with EnchantedLearning(you need a membership for them though) and our UK site! 

Dice game

Trinity and I got in some mommy/daughter crafting time and we made her an 8X10 scrapbook page. I just need to get my hands on a frame to put it up on the wall! I picked the pictures, she picked the paper and the ribbon and I found a metallic paper die cut I had lying around. She helped pick out lay out, drew a picture and was so excited the whole way through! Each of the 4 kids has pictures to do the same way. 2 each, though we couldn’t get the lay out to work with both of Trinity’s! I think it turned out rather cute really. 

Trinity and her page

Ken got his first birthday present Wednesday night! It was rather spectacular really – a LARGE rice maker! Oh is he ever in heaven… and guess what we had for dinner tonight? No leftovers BUT we all ate at once, instead of the kids and then steaming more rice. He is so happy!

Almost birthday boy

I ended Thursday with a visit at Karyn’s to do some crafting. I didn’t finish the project, but I will try to on Saturday when I have friends over to do a nice big craft session. I am really looking forward to it. We made it to Dollarama where I got most of what was on my list… and another pair of socks! Addicted I know. I am now on the look out for GREEN socks… on request of my nephew. 

Oh, since I have not hunted down my 2 foot tree, and I am rather sure I have NOT shared the last of my Halloween decorations… here is our Halloween WREATH… basically all of it is done in Perler beads except the little bear that we picked up at the Dollarama one day. The kids loved the idea and I can take it apart and use it for other holidays. I am already thinking of having the kids make ornaments specifically FOR the wreath for Christmas. Though I already have to find room for the two trees we have for this year… I am thinking of having our usual big one upstairs and the small white one my mom got for the kids in the basement. 

Wreath

Today was a bit of a rough day though we tried to keep everyone as active as possible. Fall weather made the kids shudder but the twins made a great attempt to stay out as long as possible. It was a Halloween themed work day otherwise. The big visible completion was Trinity colouring her own Happy Halloween banner to hang for display. 

With banner

I filled their folders with Halloween worksheets, colouring pages, etc mainly from Education.com but you can find the colour by numbers on the UK site here. The goal was to have them work at their own speed doing their own time as long as they completed basically everything before bed. We did pretty well with only one or two fits and some great leaps in comprehension. Above all we were creative and tried to have as much fun as possible! 

Of course there was the added bonus of a COMPLETED COSTUME! Today it was Emanuel’s turn to show off his outfit… I have promised Zander he can go on Sunday… and then by middle of next week it will be group photo time… so what do you think? Did I do a good job???

PENGUIN

With tail

Trinity decided to wear her new shirt from Aunty Karyn. This was an amazing Winners find that absolutely makes her look grown up! She is so close to being a full big girl with very few accidents and all! 

Purty shirt

Our gifted Play Doh has renewed the interest in playing with it for the whole family. Even Echo is interested in it right now! 

Playing with brother

Tomorrow is going to be busy and fun with a bunch of friends coming over to craft. Company is always a blessing and this time we are themed for Halloween. 

That just leaves cleaning, crafting (well finishing of some projects) and laundry for yours truly, oh and trying to bring some Kijiji ads to sale. There are at least 3 or 4 people who have contacted me this week but have not confirmed a pick up or said they don’t want and with company coming it makes for an interesting set up… here’s hoping I can get everything figured out BEFORE we are tucked into the mess that is my kitchen on a crafting day! 

Popcorn baby in her new togs

This entry was posted on 21/10/2011, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Mid Week Already!

We have gotten the news… my beloved (and relatively new) camera now dubbed Blotchy Screen shall be going on a trip to the Olympus repair centre that may just take 3 weeks! GASP! But fear not, Old Grindy is here to fill the spaces with 8 mega pixel (GASP) pics… oh the horror! No, seriously though, they want us to ship it there and then if it is NOT deemed an issue due to dropping it it will be fixed under warranty. The person on the phone was hopeful so so are we! In the meantime, I took the opportunity to photography the first of my owls to fly the nest… AND his little ladybug chum! 

Ready to fly the nest!

We had another reading morning with everyone picking their own book. Echo is still in a bit of a cranky mood and now Emanuel is runny nosed and slightly miserable. So we added comfy blankets to the mix and curled up on the only bed upstairs big enough to hold six. I figure until we are 100% we will work on our enjoyment of books… so we sit and read as a family and then send those that need to to nap and rest and others to work. 

STORIES!!

Activity of choice – playing Starfall! They have changed their backgrounds to suit the seasons which has everyone absolutely excited about RECHECKING the site out! 

Time for Starfall

I made myself some korker ribbons of the Halloween theme…  We worked on worksheets printed from education.com and had to contact our contact email there to get an answer on a “what it” for a dot-to-dot… the answer, an unexpected one – a TAPIR! I really do enjoy education.com and would highly recommend them if you are looking for a variety of worksheets!

A Tapir!

Today was quite the day for mail! I got my Velcro from the baby store I buy my diapers at… so starting tomorrow I have to start replacing the worn with new… by hand of course! I need to find my stitch ripper it seems. 

Velcro

Trinity’s ribbon came from eBay – Hello Kitty themed of course! I figure she would love a little bow for Christmas with it. And I am sure I will have enough  for a few other little girls!

Ready for Crafting

And then there was the surprise envelope – apparently I have been doing the scanning with nielsen for 2 years now! They sent a lovely pen. We can always use another pen!

New pen!

We also sent Ken out on a special mission – someone on Freecycle had some boardbooks up to about grade 1-2 books they wanted to send along to another family! Well we are ALWAYS all for that. Storytime tomorrow will be all books we have never read before as a family! And Echo inherited a nice pile of boardbooks  to play with. We are always happy to add to our library – new or used.

New books!

 To fill our time there was some play with markers… each child made their own special picture! And for once with minimal marker mess on themselves!

Emanuel's artwork

Trinity's - note the hole in the middle where she over coloured!

Zander's campfire

Gavin's train station

We also did some beading with our new (thanks got Grandma) pony beads. Those are to be tied tomorrow morning by daddy and worn proudly I am sure!

Making necklaces and bracelets

Now to return to the world of crafting, cleaning and hunting for printables online. I have to gather my receipts and tomorrow work on my expense form for our school board, get a bit of shopping in to complete our receipt listing. Oh and then there is the dreaded camera drop off… oh well it is all for the greater good!

Playing with ABC magnets

Internets I Miss You So

So we continue our silent home situation past Sunday night and into Monday. That of course stopped SOME things but helped others to progress. The owl army has grown, Ken and I got started on sorting out the most awful of closets and, thanks to Karyn – a new craft. She lent me a book that her brother had given her called Felties (How to Make 18 Cute and Fuzzy Friends). So I am now in need of some brown felt… and MORE duct tape… and and and…

Last night we moved onto the external hard drive and our DVD collection (which is not overly extensive). IT Crowd and Nero Wolfe. We have the entire series of each (though I think there may be a 5th season of IT Crowd coming in the future… well I hope!).

I made another duct tape bow from memory. This time using the traditional duct tape… much easier to bend. Oh to have all the colours and patterns available at my fingertips. Ken is already committed to get me more colours and such, just need to wait until time and money line up. I have a couple more patterns online I want to try out!

The kids are rather aware of the lack of internet. Trinity wanted more fairy pictures to colour and I was unable to get her some more until going to Aunty Karyn’s (something she was VERY excited about at bedtime) and then there was the questions about things I could not yet answer due to a lack of search engines, but we managed. That definitely directed the focus for Monday’s lesson to anything we had on hand. So no possums or researching into local recycling policies yet.

We filled our morning with Perler beads, always something of a adventure. I do believe Trinity had her piece made FOR her by a brother and Emanuel was the slowest ever. He started and aborted his little leaf AT LEAST 3 times before completing.

BEADING

Didn't they do a great job?

My Monday was mainly spent (around the kids and cleaning) working on two little felties. I made the Babushka and the Panda (less his bamboo as I had a lack of brown). They are so much fun and rather time consuming but I am so pleased with the end results.

Babushka

The kids were go go go all day really… missing their Daddy who was at Karyn’s to use her internet (once he figured out WHICH apartment was hers – thank goodness her internets reach all the way to the parking lot and he could contact a friend who could in turn text me). So as a consolation after lunch we packed up and made our way to the convenience store where I emptied my change purse for chips and a slurpee. The day wasn’t too cool but rather sunny so it was a pleasant walk and a welcome use of energy.

Bench picture

This was also Trinity’s first opportunity to wear the hat I won for her last month. It is beyond cute! She was so proud of her outfit – we found the top and bottoms in a box I had yet to go through post move. Thank goodness I did as there were more than a few pieces in her size or to grow into that have been added to her dresser. I cannot wait to get the internets back and send one of these pictures to the store I won the hat from! You can check out the creator HERE.

Pretty flower

So pretty

So grown up

Three of the 4 big kids spent a portion of their time working on their jump rope skills. Gavin chose to sit inside and work on a book he is ALMOST completed. I was quite impressed with how hard they tried and very glad that NO ONE was injured in the attempt (although there were a few close calls). We only have 3 skipping ropes, all too short for Mommy and Cars themed so Trinity has explained to me it is VERY important that I get her a PINK one… a bit late in the season but I will definitely keep my eyes open, or make one of our own? I wonder if there is a good way to do that that is cost friendly… oh for the internets to have been back.

Jump!

And Jump Some More

Our Popcorn gnome has entered the Harley-Davidson Wetness Protection apparently, as she was proud to announce loudly on Monday (we tried to tell her that is something that best works in SECRET to no avail!). Popcorn has become an all time favourite in this house!

Wetness Protection!

I have to admit that facing TUESDAY without internet was a wee bit daunting. With Ken gone to Karyn’s once again and a cell phone I limit only to texting out of affordability it does get a wee bit lonely. We do depend on the internet and technology so much now! But it most certainly was NOT the end of the world and we are a well stocked, kid friendly home (though my children may dispute that as it always seems there is “nothing fun to do.” It makes you take a moment and imagine how homeschooling must have been without internet and all our technology. How much more work had to go into finding information and doing research. I am so glad we have not gone to a lot of online classroom and programs. Workbooks are awesome when you don’t have those outside lines. The kids are quite excited to watch our felties appear… and Monday night while watching Nero Wolfe I completed another – an alien.

ALIENSSSSS

Today Polar-roo (seriously cute – A feltie polar bear with marsupial tendencies – their words) and Pensive Rabbit (slight alteration with the colours as I have a limited supply). The addiction is complete. In a way I am lucky to not have the ability to find MORE instructions than I already had. And sadly (?) I found MORE felt on the hunt for fabric for Trinity’s barrette holder wall hanging. Brown has been found along with some more wonderful colours… I now have a nice sized Rubbermaid tub full of felt. Of course some colours are still missing but I can always alter colours for specific critters OR purchase some more! In fact I finished MORE than the two listed above. They rather consumed my spare time on Tuesday.

Cute cute cute cute

O-M-G the cuteness

Working the way to cuteness overload!

The boys started a pretty big project themselves and began to learn to cross stitch on Tuesday as well. That is AFTER Stuart Little had another adventure (did you know it is easy for a mouse to end up stuck in a fridge?). We had a few tears shed by Emanuel over drawing a bird – they ARE quite difficult to get the way you want them, but all 4 drawings were completed.

Stuart and his adventures (plus some Dora Stickers)

I made up some simple patterns for the boys on grid paper and set them at it. Zander started with a cat and Gavin a flower. Sadly Zander didn’t take the time to double check his counting so I did have to alter the pattern a bit. He has taken the full x at a time approach and was still working on his kitty at the end of the day. Gavin was much more interested in doing it my way… half the x from left to right and then the other half of the x from right to left. He finished his flower and was onto a cat by the end of the day. He LOVED it! They are already talking about making their OWN patterns!!!

First cross stitch in progress!

DONE!!!!!

So we stitched, we did some math, some sight words (Math Gavin, words Zander)… the other two coloured and such… it is amazing how quickly time goes by. A very quiet day without the landline or internets… a little too quiet for Mommy so I took a break and watched a nice chunk of the IT Crowd Ken had on his external hardrive.

I finished a page for Emanuel’s book, it was a picture I had had laying around for ages so it was nice to get it all done up and put away. Lots of layers and relatively simple but it was fun to make. There is a stack of pictures still waiting for me… and now that I have a desk and a corner to work in I can actually set out stuff and come back to it whenever I want!

BLUE

Ken seems to have solved our Shaw problem, it only is costing us a savings in our bill and a new phone number… we are changing providers and I will try and alert everyone of the new number as soon as possible. So this is a bit of a blessing in disguise – not only did I get some cleaning done that had been crying out for attention BUT we are now saving a nice amount with our phone and internet bill! Now to just await both the hook up times.

With Wednesday’s morning call and news I really have let much of the schooling slip. Ken stayed with the boys for a nice chunk of the morning to get started on their science though – they are learning the basics of programming… or so I am told!

Sciencing it up

We spent the bulk of our day while Ken was gone to Karyn’s to work doing crafting, playing and generally pretty much goofing off. I have to admit I was in no mood to do any work with the kids and they were really not in the mood to settle down to much. However, we did sit down long enough to work on Get Well Soon cards for Grandpa Reinsch. The distance has made it more difficult for them to see him but we talked about WHO Grandpa is to Mommy and how we are related and looked at pictures from our last visit. They want him to get better VERY soon and wanted to send cookies down to him…

Making Get Well Soon Cards

I am not sure how the rest of my night will play out but we should have our new phone number all sorted soon, internets by Friday.

A little bit more cuteness... just cuz I can