Archive | August 2010

Ikea, Babies and Other Fun

The week is progressing, and to me it seems too quickly. I blinked and Tuesday was over… ok maybe not blinked – I slept til 11:30 (was up past 2 am so Ken could have a nap and a snuggle with Baby Echo before buckling down to do some power working while the house was silent), and then had my usual bath/shower before girding our loins and getting the twins back on track with numbers. Apparently GAVIN likes to learn his numbers BEST with Lightning McQueen… what in the world am I going to do when he finishes burning through the oversized workbook we have for him???

Gavin and his McQueen book

And then there was the nifty first day of school sheet a friend made up and was gracious enough to share with us! Each of the boys filled it out… now we just need to head over to my mom’s to borrow her scale. Weight and height are no yet recorded but each of the boys worked through the sheet on their own and came up with refreshingly DIFFERENT answers… except for their favourite word – each boys’ favourite was  their own names! Figures!!

Zander working on his sheet

Gavin and the finished product

Emanuel spent his time with me working on his workbook again but is VERY adamant that he needs his own Cars themed workbook and since the ones the twins have were gifts earlier this year I am going to have to hunt down something “like” them.

Instead of craft time the boys spent a nice chunk of the lovely weather this afternoon out in the backyard, picking up apples (good and bad) and playing at the picnic table!

Enjoying the sunshine (Gavin left)

Our afternoon was topped by a visit from Chris and Chris AND a trip to the “meatball store” aka IKEA… after all until the end of December Mon-Thur (after 5pm) the 15 meatballs plate is only 2.99. This means that to feed our family it cost only 25.00! (we splurged on some soup for me and a cinnamon bun) Refillable drinks means 2 cups and the family’s thirst is quenched!

Waiting on food (Zander front)

A little bit of shopping later and a stop off at 7-11 for slurpees (trust me I am making up for lost time there!) and then home in time to put the kids to bed! YAY!

In the mail today Echo’s binky (soother) holders came – talk about a necessity!

Binky holders

And last night I managed to do two more scrapbook pages before bed. Independance Day 2009 and Easter from the same year! Now to get the Birth day pages done for Echo and I can clear off the table – in THEORY! I am feeling quite proud of my pages though!

ID Day 2009

Easter 2009

Tonight is mainly taking time to tidy here and there, working on Echo’s stocking and hopefully getting completely caught up sorting my laundry. Although Echo is doing her share to make sure I stay nice and behind – she overfilled a diaper this morning – adding a sleeper and onesie to the pile and this evening spit milk all over my yoga pants.

Our girls

So back to work!

This entry was posted on 31/08/2010, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Beginning of 2010/2011 Schooling…

The start of a new week, the last few days of an old month… while we are not OFFICIALLY starting our homeschool year or anything (we are faxing our forms tonight and will find out about funding this week), I made my first go at pushing a few more educational activities to our day. Of course all this AFTER Echo and I slept in for a while.

With Emanuel and Trinity in nap the twins were settled down to do math pages and then moved to their Cars  themed number workbooks. Gavin, for once decided to continue on well past the couple pages I expected him to do! Zander lost interest and was sat down with a lined book to continue review on the alphabet. My goal is to get them all through the ABC’s and then work on everyone’s names and other words of interest. Anything to  get Zander interested in reading and have Gavin move into using his lower-case letters more while he writes (he is already reading more than Zander).

Numbers! (Gavin left)

Oh and don’t forget getting started on the Gardening Lapbook assembly! Ken just needs to add a page to the folder and we are done!!

Lapbook assembly (Zander left)

When Emanuel woke up from his nap he settled down with me to work on his PreK workbook which covers a variety of topics. Willingly doing more and more pages until we ended with colouring a fish picture together.

Emanuel at work

I sent all the kids to the basement and set up the big excitement for the day – FELT PUPPETS! All 4 kids got their own puppet, glue and whatever bits and bobs they wanted to use to create their own little puppet. Messy, stuff everywhere, which means TOTAL fun! Now they just need to dry overnight (or longer depending on the amount of glitter glue all 4 kids were very free with).

Creating the Puppets (Gavin)

Completed Puppets (Emanuel, Gavin,Trinity and the yellow Zander)

Once the kids were bundled off to a relatively early bedtime (oh my did they need it!) I got in a tiny bit of scrapbooking time (before Baby Echo announced her wish that Mommy NOT leave her side) and did up Emanuel’s Canada Day 2009 page and his page for Nathan and Ada’s Canadian wedding. I still want to get Echo’s hospital pages done… but I want to do those two pages with Ken’s help. End of the month is simply not the best time to corner Ken on crafting time!

Nathan and Ada's Wedding

Canada Day 2009

In-between helping with numbers and letters I got most of my post baby thank you cards written out, the next step is to find envelopes for all the ones that need to be mailed and then sorting through whose I can hand deliver (always preferable with the cost of stamps now!!). Baby Echo has been welcomed so sweetly by people in person with hugs and kisses, compliments on her pictures and even lovely cards in the mail. I hope everyone knows how much we appreciate the support, compliments and love. One of the reasons our not so little family feels so manageable is due to the love and support of friends and family.

Thoughtful Sleeper

Of course I REALLY should put my attention to Echo’s stocking, I have 3 more time sensitive projects that I am waiting on patterns for but I have yet to miss the date on our baby’s first Christmas stocking and am determined to buckle down and get things done. Well, at least trying to be! At least the photos are ordered for the Great Grandmas and our long distance god-parents. And I have pictures already printed out to make 2 more scrapbook pages for Emanuel. So it is not like I have nothing to do, just much rather snuggle with the baby! Can you blame me???

Trinity and Anna :)

Whirlwind Weekend

What a weekend! And I seem to remember saying this weekend would be a QUIET one, NOT!

So Friday night was not bad, Saturday morning we took the whole family out to the free craft session at Michaels. They used a new Crayola product – a sort of clay type thing called Model Magic. They simply softened it up and then pressed their hands in to make a handprint. I loved the way they turned out and am planning on picking up a container of the stuff to use to make prints of Echo to give to a few people for Christmas. Lightweight and nice and durable I definitely think it will make a nice treasure.

Crafting (Gavin blue)

After our craft we ran out and about shopping… Dollarama, Bulk Barn. Which I must say is THE PLACE for spices! Add to that a 3.00 off if you spend 10.00 coupon and we were sitting pretty with treats to boot. I think we will head back soon enough to get more. They have cake and cookie and brownie mixes that I have Christmas present plans for… potentially!

After a nice nap (for Echo and myself and I think Emanuel and Trinity) the big excitement arrived – after over a year AUNTY ESTHER was on our doorstep, as fabulous as ever!

Fabulous Aunty Esther

She was in Grenada for a year to get her masters and we missed her dearly. The boys remembered her and Trinity warmed to her before too long, but it was Miss Echo who stole her heart this visit with her willingness to snuggle in for a nice cuddle and her tiny little frame. Ken and I were just so glad to see her in the flesh and have the chance to really catch up. She stayed the night and left late this afternoon so all in all it was a terrific visit.

All 5 Kids (Gavin left)

We sit and wait now – to see if she gets a job here in the city we live in or elsewhere. No matter what, having her back in Alberta means we are able to see her much more often. Something all 7 of us (I am sure) are VERY thankful for. Emanuel was quite sure Aunty Esther didn’t NEED to leave… after all how could she WANT to?

While Esther was still here we had Yoyo, Jon and Yoyo’s mom come by for a visit to meet baby Echo. Then Yoyo’s mom and Jon took the boys (all 3 of them!) out to the grocery store to get snacks! So kind of her. Which let me get in a little bit quieter visit with Yoyo. Apparently her mom is staying longer than originally planned – until October, so I am sure we will get in a couple more visits! The kids do love it when people come by.

Yoyo's Mom

Yoyo and Jon and Echo

As Esther was preparing to leave Nathan and Ada arrived with Baby Anna. So we got in a nice long visit with them too. Anna is almost 3 months old now! And certainly makes Echo look tiny! We are still keeping fingers crossed that the weather will warm up one last time so we can go out for a picnic with them. Last year the weather held into September, but this year… who knows!

GodMommy Ada and Echo

So TONS of visitors this weekend, and activity… this upcoming week looks much less hectic so far. We are still trying to get in that first paediatrician appointment for Echo, and Ken has a laundry list of beginning of the week calls to make (nothing new there). I am still rather surprised that the end of the month is here! Where did the time go? Ken and I are working on making up the basic bodies of some felt puppets for the kids to decorate tomorrow using a template, and I have the last of our gardening stuff to wrap up and the lapbooks to assemble… the forms are basically ready for faxing for our board registration tomorrow and life is certainly moving on at a fair clip! I am hoping I can sneak in some time to bring up my pre pregnancy clothes, sort through the baby girl box for anything newborn (still too big for Echo) AND get a bit of the downstairs cleaned… my brother and his family are supposed to be coming by beginning of September for a visit after all.

And don’t forget photos of baby… definitely want to take more of those! Oh for more hours in a day!

Two of my girls 🙂