Another week begun and of to a halfway decent start. One of the benefits to having two capable 6 year old boys – chores! Before starting on their sheets the swept the floor and cleaned their table.

blurry cuz they would not stop cleaning for a picture!

Gavin spent almost all of his school time working on a rather complicated word search – dinosaur themed of course! The words were varying and unfamiliar but he trucked through them. And then after I read the list to him and we talked about each one. I am not sure how much he retained but it was a great start pushing past pictures of dinosaurs and simple concepts into archaeology and dinosaur types.

So proud (Gavin)

We also had a bedtime story tonight – Dinosaurs! by Gail Gibbons. Lots of big words but the kids enjoyed it.

Storytime (Gavin left)

Echo and I have been in a battle of wills today.She is absolutely sure I don’t have anything to do other than hold her and I disagree. So the compromise as included lots of snuggling and as much sewing as I can sneak in between binky retrieval and 2 hand required holding.

Oh and in a big surprise we were working on our calendar and trying to figure out what day today was… I said there is a 2 and a 0 so what is that number and TRINITY piped up TWENTY!!!! What ???  And before anyone else got a chance to say anything and then repeated herself again when we asked… the boys said THEY have been teaching her… I guess that must be it, we have done a TON of counting with me doing a lot of the 1 through 20 with them so maybe she caught on? If so she is doing best out of all of them! CRAZY

Checking out September (Zander left)

Sadly Ken did not meet his deadline though I think I am winning him over to the Lisa way of chores, AKA not leaving everything to the LAST MOMENT! But he has made great inroads on what he has worked on and hopefully by Wednesday will see some final results. But now that I am free of little miss cranky pants for a few minutes (Ken is taking a turn) I will post this and get to work on completing her stocking.

Mommy's ring

Our year of Sunday School has truly and officially started. Today was the boys’ first class of the year (and Emanuel’s first ever). They came back excited and happy and Emanuel with a beanie baby in hand. Apparently all the kids got one but they had the little ones bring theirs home. Ken didn’t even have to stay for the whole class, he just got Emanuel settled and was able to leave which is excellent. I got our schedule for the rest of the calendar year which shows that NEXT Sunday is a no class day which is PERFECT as it is also the city attractions FREE day.

Emanuel and his Sunday School teddy

This left us girls home alone in our pj’s. A great excuse to give Trinity a treat and let her watch cartoons while I either stitched or scrapbooked.

PJ's and snack

Sisters

I actually got a few pages done today!

With Trinity

Faerie wings and rose petals

Muttart

God-parents

Family together

We thought to have guests over today but their prior engagement ran late so no visitors. This cleared up Ken’s schedule to do the cleaning he HAS TO have done tonight to make his cleaning deadline and get his week of gaming. Currency!

Much of my late afternoon and evening has been spent working on Echo’s stocking. I am actually coming to the end of it ahead of schedule, though I had to take some time out to hunt down the lettering list… for some reason the new copy went missing so I had to hunt down my old one.

To date

The weather has gotten so chilly I am already on the hunt for the carseat cover we used with Trinity. This  time last year the weather was still rather warm and the kids are being VERY contrary when it comes to wearing jeans. I am going to have to  go through all of the drawers and pack up those shorts soon! At least Trinity can wear her little leggings and keep hers out year round.

Snuggling is the best way to keep warm

Ken and the boys played a rousing game of 3D snakes and ladders before bed. I got a bunch of dinosaur themed worksheets printed out to get them going in the morning as well as their copy books with words – names of the family members, ready to go. I am determined to get the boys working on those apple lapbooks. Last week it completely slipped my mind while they were working on their Lightning McQueen books and sorting through stuff left around the house.

Gaming (Gavin front)

So back to sewing for me!!

Little baby fingers

We are over run with Thomas freebies. Of course we got into Toys R Us and were faced with the inevitable – I want to buy… even though we sat them down and talked them through the – we are only here to get the freebies and see what is there NOT buy talk. Thank goodness the freebies included colouring pages, stickers and posters and each of the 4 big kids got a set. We didn’t manage to time our drop in at the store well enough for the short story time but we did have fun looking through the Babies R Us section. A friend sent us a gift card (I finally got her thank you card popped in the mail on Friday) and right now is sale time in that section, but we were unable to settle on anything just yet.

Trinity and her stash

The next stop – Michaels with a 40% off coupon and a mission – to find out yearly Halloween foam project. Last time we did a pirate ship, well Ken and the boys did. This is THEIR project with Daddy so I don’t get to make the choice but I have to say I think this year’s project looks like fun!

Haunted treehouse!

I finished all of the stitching on the needle case kit last night. Now I have to sit down and figure out assembly. I love the look of it… and cannot wait to have it all done.

Ready for assembly

Ken made the kids up a meal using their tomatoes from the little garden we attempted this summer. Eggs, tomatoes and sausage and all 4 seemed to approve!

Mmm (Gavin yellow)

Tomorrow is Emanuel’s very first Sunday School class session EVER… VERY exciting. Which  leaves Trinity, Echo and myself home to hold down the fort. Ken suggested we watch Shrek and I am planning on snacks… or stickers and paper… or well whatever Trinity wants. She HATES being left behind though!

I have taken full advantage of our toner and gotten to work on the dinosaur lapbook print outs. Gavin finished his Lightning McQueen’s workbook today, I think I have finally gotten through to him what subtraction is, but he is a very visual learner and definitely cannot just look at the numbers and figure it out. I am trying to find ways to work us up to the number 100… that is my year’s goal – 1-100, addition and subtraction for basic math, working on money and time, weight/scales… I am still working on my write up to show the facilitator. It makes me VERY glad we are starting at the beginning… at this age there is room for wiggling and trial and error.

Gavin subtracting

So the kids went to bed around 8… and Echo has grounded me to my chair for the time being… so either gaming or labelling of pictures but this blog entry should be posted!

The result of an afternoon's work (no parental assistance!!)