Ok so with all my complaints about the government lately a trip to the provincial capital may seem odd… maybe gutsy? Well, not so much! But first… our craft of the day!

Today’s craft was off of a website my cousin in BC actually alerted me to: One Minute Crafts.com and was called Sunny Dais Foot Art… Very simple really (though there was a video to watch first which was nice!). First you trace out your foot (or in our case each child’s foot) on a piece of white or scrap paper and cut it out.

Gavin getting his foot traced.

Then you cut out the feet and trace them onto your coloured paper – 4 for each colour – yellow, red and orange… We did orange for Emanuel, red for Gavin and yellow for Zander… as well as trace a cd on yellow paper for your circle and cut out.

All the cut out shapes!

Next you place them in an alternating pattern to make your sun rays… and glue the circle over the middle… I actually added a second circle on top of that as my white glue dried kind of lumpy to make a smoother finish. And then we placed it on the wall above our tree!

Finished Sun

Lots of fun for the kids, and then we talked about what a sun does for us and whether or not it is warm or cold when the sun shines right now. They were so proud of their feet being the things traced out and used! Would totally suggest for anyone to do BUT we DID cut out all of this ourselves and make the pattern.

Now onto my playdate – while we could not co-ordinate with any of our friends who have children we did plan an outing to the Legislature with Chris and Chris… not to complain about the government – even better – to play in the fountains! There were 3 that you are allowed to go into, one a calm pool we skipped, another with little tiny waterfalls and then a huge one that is a nice deepness and great fun to sit in and float around! Next time I need to bring our floaty we have for babies for that pool! It wasn’t too deep for Trinity to stand in but too deep for her to do anything but hold onto us.

The Leg and the Pool You DON'T Play in!

We brought the boys some of our Ikea kids’ bowls to play with and a cup for Trinity and let them loose… they climbed all over and splashed and played for about 2 hours! Even Trinity got in on the fun a little, though she was not interested in getting anywhere close to the waterfalls and really did not want to wander too far from us where we were sitting and cooling our feet.

Chris, Trinity and Me 🙂

Gavin sitting in the Waterfall!

Zander in the Waterfall!

The deeper pool was great fun for the boys, and hopefully next time we can spent more time over there and actually sit in and relax! The water was surprisingly warm and very clean.

Ken, Chris, Trinity and Emanuel in the Deeper Pool

Emanuel, Zander and Gavin

Snack Time! Emanuel, Gavin and Zander!

I am very happy with my day, it got hot in the house but we had fun in the morning and a BLAST in the evening… a good day to remind oneself that you make your OWN fun and there ARE things to be done on a shoestring budget that don’t FEEL like you are cutting corners! Well it DOES help that the company was terrific too!

Sign of a Successful Outing! Fast Asleep!

Today was an exciting day for the kids. The twins started their morning making the number 7 and then drawing 7 of  things… they were quite creative about it really! Zander was copying some of his images from the number banner I picked up at Dollarama and though Gavin copied Zander and made “7 grass” he also went his own way and made 7 flowers. It is so nice to not only have them do exactly what I asked but enjoy it as well!

Zander and Gavin's 7 of Things

After they did the number 7 the day was just too pleasant to keep them tied to the table so I tossed all 3 boys outside to play. Definitely NO complaints there! Ken and I decided to take the kids to an all produce store called H & W Produce… so before lunch we headed over there. It is a really neat place with tons of options and VERY good prices. For a little over 20.00 we came home with a bag of potatoes, garlic cloves, a bag of apples (they has multiple kinds all for 99 cents a lb… we got red delicious), two packages of snap peas, bananas (amazing price of 47 cents a lb!), a cantaloupe, a bag of romaine lettuce  and a bag of onions. I signed up online for their weekly flyer to watch for sales and will DEFINITELY be going back! The boys were amazed by it all and it gave us the opportunity to talk about variety and the fact that all this great food was grown on a farm by farmers.

Trinity, Zander, Gavin and Emanuel at the Produce Store

Lunch was a simple affair and then quiet/nap time.  Sadly our afternoon fell apart a little. Zander and Gavin were playing Legos and when told to clean them up proceeded to play around and now are grounded off of said Legos for a month (this is NOT the first time they have done something like that!) I am hoping this will make a REAL impression on them as Legos are a favourite and get them to realize that they DO need to follow through on tasks when Mommy and Daddy tell them to… the joys of stubborn children!

We did one more family activity today… Ken finished up a birthday card for my nephew Jimmie and we packed up everyone and headed off to the post box. There isn’t a post box close to us so we did have to go a couple of city blocks to get to one but it was great exercise. Trinity and Emanuel rode in the wagon and the big boys walked. We checked out all the trees with their branches broken from the storm and enjoyed the sun. By the time we got home everyone was ready for dinner and then soon after bed.

The only problem is our walk wore out Ken and myself enough that our evening plans of cleaning and lawn mowing are out the window and TOMORROW we plan on heading off to another fountain to meet up with Chris and Chris again. This time after 6pm so if anyone is on their way to the Leg let me know BEFORE we leave (no cell phones) and we will plan to meet up! We would love to see you!!!!

Trinity

Well not much to discuss for a Monday in July… But I have managed to get a nice amount done on the stocking I am stitching for one of the Novak boys (our godson’s youngest brother). I am planning on working on this particular project for another day or two exclusively before moving onto the 3 simpler projects I am planning for my brother and his family for Christmas. These 3 have to be self designed though I am thinking my brother’s will be more the saying and maybe a VERY simple top and bottom border. Thankfully Ken has come up with a simple way to take the block lettering I prefer for these projects and do it on the computer. Sadly I won’t be able to post them on here until AFTER Christmas but at least they will be done and sorted to be framed as gifts well in time!

I am hoping to make a nice and complete list in the next week or so of the people we plan on sending/giving gifts to for Christmas this year. It is my plan to once again make most of our gifts… only this time I want to head over to Michaels with the kids when we have the spare funds to pick out some projects for them to make for friends and family. Maybe this year we will make ornaments and bake cookies! I know Zander in particular has asked me a couple of times if I am going to MAKE him a gift this year. I hope that sentiment never changes, there is nothing more heart warming than a thankful recipient of a gift I have made by hand! There are other options like special mini albums or scrapbooks for godparents and grandparents… and kitted up projects for the kids in our lives so they can make their OWN little item. I definitely will be sharing my ideas here in the future!

So the stocking pattern I have chosen is called Christmas Surprise Stocking and is part of the Stoney Creek collection.

Christmas Stocking

I have been working on this pattern since soon after we returned from Minnesota.. granted with breaks while I worked on some other small projects… this has been my focus and I am aiming for an October finish date!

Work To Date!

Our plan for tomorrow is to make a sun out of footprints! I will post the link later with the pictures from the site I found the pattern on. We also plan on heading out to a produce store and maybe even FINALLY getting a start on the zoo scrapbook I have all the supplies for from our trip to the local zoo way back in December! The weather projected for the week is warm to hot so it is not looking too favourable. It really does take a rainy day to get the kids interested in any craft project that takes more than a few minutes!

So Ken and the twins made it to the library to see the police dog and the two wee ones and myself headed out for our own little walk. My raspberries are starting to turn red but the apples are not yet ready. The ones  that fell off from the storm are bitter as can be and tiny so a bit of a wait yet to go. So while the larger world is not exactly happy happy joy joy for our little family there are plenty of lovely moments to savour when I head off to bed tonight… and in the end isn’t that what is important?

Bedtime Prayer With Trinity, Zander and Emanuel