Archive | March 2010

Mid-Week Movement

Mid week already – where did the time go? Today was our weekly trip to the produce store where strawberries were on sale – 4.99 for 8 lbs. YUM! So my plan is to freeze some and take them to mom’s to make strawberry ice cream.

Our pile for our spring/Easter lapbook is becoming towering! So many mazes, word sheets, colouring pages and handmade flowers. Not the most technically difficult lapbook but one where the boys have enjoyed virtually EVERY activity. We went over butterflies and their life cycle again, talked about signs of spring and the boys did some wonderful activities dealing with Easter in Sunday School. We have dealt more with the egg decorating and hunt for candy angle of the holiday.

Last night Ken and the boys put the finishing touches on the hand lilies. The plan is to give Grandma one of each of their efforts for her very own Easter bouquet. They actually turned out quite lovely. I would have done a couple for Trinity but she is firmly against the concept of having her hand traced right now.

Hand Lilies

I have finally had the opportunity to put together the syllable game I got for free off of Currclick this week. Eggceptional Sounds, Early Skill: Syllable Sorting. It is put out by Ingles 360. I have not checked out their website yet but plan to this week. We decided to create an envelope on the second page to tuck the mats to save on paper.

Ready to start playing!

The Perler bead spring creations have been ironed and have pride of place in one of the front windows in the living-room. I am spending some of my remaining week doing up Easter eggs to add to the festive feel. We do not decorate too much for Easter but I do like a touch of something to make the holiday feel more special. I also have a little basket of cross stitched Easter eggs – one for each family member that gets pride of place on the kitchen table every Easter. I am at the finishing point of Baby #5’s egg already though I need to come up with the spare cash to purchase the Mill Hill beads the pattern calls for. Thank goodness I have a year to finish it and send it along to my mom how makes it into an egg shaped mini pillow.

Spring and Easter Decor

I am waiting on a call back from the nurse at Public Health that is in charge of carseats and their recertification. I am REALLY hoping we can keep using the ones we have from when we had the twins back in 2004. Graco says on their site they are responsible basically for 6yrs of normal use. We are right at 6 yrs used so I looked it up and there is info in regards to re-certifying up to 10 yrs. What a saving on the wallet if we DON’T have to buy a new one (don’t get me wrong I would LOVE a new carseat BUT finances say NO if we can avoid it.). I am also looking into posting our DIKTAD newborn to toddler bed IKEA crib on Kijiji – we have three of them after all. I figure if I can make a bit of money selling that then we could in turn buy something the baby needs. So if anyone knows of someone local to us who wants a crib and is willing to pay around 150.00 for it, please let me know!! This is the version previous to what IKEA is selling now… when we checked out the new ones they seemed much less sturdy and ours has a slightly different curved look to the head and foot of it. Originally around 300.00.

3 more days until Easter… two more sleeps til our egg hunt and dying… Saturday Michaels and a possible playdate… have to keep those kids busy busy right?

Full of Heart (Gavin)

Happy Birthday!

Today is my brother’s birthday! He is my only blood related sibling and 3 yrs younger than me!

Happy Birthday James!

My brother and his own little family 2009!

A Familiar Appointment…

in a familiar office… a little under 2yrs since our last appointment in this local OBGYN office we are back, with the same doctor who was in charge of my pregnancy with Trinity (though he was not the doctor who delivered her). Same office, some of the same nurses just a slightly different and more streamlined way of doing things. You weigh yourself (117.8 lbs), do your own urine test (I have to get an official one done next week for my first), and then the nurse does your blood-pressure (low as usual). All of the toys were removed from the little play area sadly so it was very lucky that the toy bag we  take into church was sitting in the van. I am really happy with Dr. Brown, he was great with my previous pregnancy and this time is definitely sharing our concern about my going into labour and it moving too quickly if we let it just happen. So at 2 weeks to my due date they will most likely induce – the last two pregnancies have been VERY short labours once my water broke! My next appointment is in 4 weeks, AND I have an ultra sound scheduled for the month of April as well. 15.00 for a cd at this place for the 2D picture. Everything feels nicely taken care of!! Great feeling!

Sunday was a rather special day for our family – the twins were involved in the Palm Sunday service – they were in the procession proudly waving their palm fronds and then sang their Hosanna song with the adult choir. Ken used our camera to get some pictures and some ok video (digital camera). Sadly our camcorder is still experiencing difficulties from way back in December (pout pout pout).

The video, a little shaky. Zander is on the left.


Then they had Sunday School and Emanuel, Trinity, Ken and I spent the rest of the service colouring with Colour Wonder paper. Trinity in one of her new dresses purchased LAST summer (gotta love a sale) and Emanuel already in his BROTHER’S fancy wear! (why are they growing so fast???)

Waiting for Service to Start

Keeping the kids busy!

All 4 kids in their church clothes (Zander left)

I have a legitimate reason to make tutus this week as well! I am excited about this for some silly reason – the last one I made was for Trinity’s Halloween costume (strawberry). This time I get to make two for a little girl who is 4. Her mom wants two different ones… so I am going to go through my colours and see what I have that would be suitably girly! I figure one with both layers the same length to be more “ballerina” and the other in the style of Trinity’s previous which to me is much more “fae”. I have to admit the idea of a different craft really appeals to me from time to time and since I finished Trinity’s Lucky Stars this weekend all I have in hand is cross stitch… pictures on order to pick up on Sunday for more scrapbooking of course!

The last tutu :)

Speaking of cross stitching – lately I have had a burst of momentum with Baby #5’s stocking… the familiar shapes are becoming ever clearer and my pattern a sea of highlighted yellow for the completed stitches! I am leaving the top portion undone as if this is a girl baby it will be done to match Trinity’s with the more shiny top and fake fur, a boy it will follow the lines of the boys’ 3 by the pattern versions.

Stocking to date

The twins were hard at work this afternoon working on more flowers for their special aunties… of course this led to the inevitable beading activities! We have a nice supply in regular colours AND glow in the dark, now if I could just find a way to keep them accessible for the boys but out of Trinity’s grasping fingers! Fine motor skills, counting, pattern recognition and reproduction as well as imagination and creativity… SCORE. I just LOVE Perler beads – can you tell??

Beading! (Zander blue)

And of course – the completion (FINALLY) of our coffee filter butterflies. We used an unpainted one to make a butterfly for Trinity. Tomorrow morning the boys will finish their hand lilies and then I think we are all caught up!

Finished butterflies (Gavin middle)

I got a freebie today from Currclick for an egg beginner reader game which I will link and take pictures of tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon is my appointment for my contacts. Apparently you are supposed to WEAR contacts to it… ACK, mine wore out last week. But the person who called me said that it should be ok. Better be, I would rather NOT put my now slightly foggy contacts back in!

A pretty decent start to our week, Spring Break for the area school wise – not too much of one for us… keeping busy as usual!

Busy busy in our house!