So the Tooth Fairie is destined to make ANOTHER trip to our home tonight. Gavin lost his second tooth this morning during breakfast. He now has lost BOTH of his front bottom teeth (this time it is his right front bottom). It is not as noticeable as it could be as the adult teeth are already growing up behind. But talk about EXCITEMENT, everyone had to tell me he lost a tooth and that he would put it under his pillow tonight (time for the tooth fairie to make a run to the store I guess). Our boys are really growing up!

TWO missing teeth

Our trip to The Mall to check out a hat (when I have the cash I am so getting), see the fish (a success) and wander the Chinese grocery was fun. Well up until we got through the till at the grocery and had to face the Hello Kitty display at the gift shop while putting our mittens back on. I DID see a compact there for under 10.00 that I think I may have to go back and get her for her birthday! And they had watches and stationary supplies and and and… Mommy and Trinity were in Kitty heaven (not to mention all the food items that were branded Hello Kitty – so cruel to our almost 3 yr old Hello Kitty fiend).

Fish watching (Gavin middle)

Our goodies

We made paper flowers today as a family (well besides Ken who was working). Ken cut out our pieces of paper and then we assembled them together. The instructions for the Heart Flower Craft are right here. We have just sort of slid into spring crafts a little early (after all the weather got cold again and snow has been coming down lightly all day). We have decided to make another poster. I am thinking this one will be ringed with handmade flowers.

Heart Flowers

Gavin and Emanuel spent some time with our new foam pieces my mom gave us making flowers on stems. Before that Zander and Gavin just made flat ones to put on the poster. Glue, foam shapes and pipe cleaners and so much fun with a little imagination. It has not been explained to me who all was going to get these new flowers but I am sure there will be some gifting of flowers before February is done.

Foam flowers

Oh while remembering Hello Kitty – I got another of my eBay purchases again today (wow is stuff coming quickly from Hong Kong this month!)… Hello Kitty lucky star papers. I have some folding to do, and some instructions to hunt back down. I did up a bunch for Trinity for her first birthday – so she could have as many wishes as there were stars. They sit on her dresser now!

Hello Kitty

So that leaves one more order. also from Hong Kong… maybe I will luck out and get more mail tomorrow? It is always nice to get fun mail like this!

It was game night tonight – we played Monopoly Junior. We didn’t finish the game but got the hang of it! Lots of counting and turn taking!

Game night (Gavin red)

So the rest of my evening should be at least a little crafty and a lot resting. Still have to find time tomorrow to take pictures of Echo and if Ken can trim the twins’ hair, their pictures on Friday!!

6 months old, can you believe it?

…#2! One day late but I rushed that entry yesterday so I could have time with Ken to celebrate Valentine’s Day! So sometime in the near future this will be the photo gracing our family wall!!!

5 yrs old!

I cannot believe he is so grown up! Looking back at his baby curls and pudgy cheeks he is so big now!

I can also finally share what I made Ken for Valentine’s Day… a Welsh Love Spoon. I found the directions to make a VERY simple version here. Some day I would love to buy him a REAL spoon like the amazing ones in this gallery. I used the symbol chart included on the UK site…

My Welsh Love Spoon for Ken

For Valentine’s Day supper we had delivery Chinese. I tried onion cake (yummy) and we had won ton soup, spring rolls (so good) and then a beef or chicken and lemongrass bowl with vermicelli. It was so filling, we had enough left over for the kids to enjoy as breakfast  this morning!!! Our usual special date tradition – a picnic in the living room.

Valentine's Day supper

Another of my eBay purchases came today. The most expensive one actually. I spent around 8.00 on lengths of coloured ribbon. 15 different colours that I am already concocting hair clip plans for.

Echo stole my ribbon!

So, the step by step instructions for yesterday’s coffee filter flowers:

First you need coffee filters, markers, a towel, spray bottle and pipe cleaners. You take your coffee filter and on one side colour a design or pattern.

Colouring

Once that is done you lay the filter flat on the towel and spray it with enough water to dampen the whole thing and make the colours run.

Spray bottle

After the water dries we rolled or squished it together and then tied the centre with a pipe cleaner.

Finished

I think this would be a neat way to talk about absorption or even to show colour mixing. We used these flowers to talk about giving presents for Valentine’s and how the ones we made looked like other flowers – like roses.

We spent the bulk of our homeschooling time finishing up our frog activities. I found two site with some wonderful frog information. Weird frog facts, and All About Frogs for Kids and Teachers (although there are some word and sentence errors on this second link as well as some dead links). We did most of our frog learning online this time round due to an issue with my library card but it has been fun. YouTube is full of videos (once you weed out the ones that are just cruel or stupid) and we have had fun looking online at pictures of different frogs. The plan is to make our way to the zoo on Sunday to see what we can learn about their frogs there.

The kids have been using the books I got everyone for their birthday party. Zander’s is a colour by numbers which has him practising sounding out the words for the colour names so that he knows on his own (for the most part, I mean BEIGE how is he going to get that one?) what colours he needs for his pictures.

Zander and Trinity

I finally have all the information I need for my stepsister’s wedding sampler. The logo for the portion of the air-force her husband is in, the colours she likes, the names they use… the date… now to find a spare minute with Ken to sort it all out! Oh and a trip to the local thread store to pick out some blending filament (what can I say I love the shimmer – it is so worth the frustration). My goal is to mail it off in enough time to allow for framing if they want, but basically to be SURE it makes it in time.

We are planning on taking advantage of the meatball deal that starts on Thursday at IKEA – 10 piece meatballs with mashed potatoes only 99 cents! The kids (and Ken and myself for that matter) LOVE their meatballs! Tomorrow we are supposed to head to The Mall and wander around T&T and check out different Asian foods. I need more soy beans and the kids would love a dragon fruit. Now to just get through the evening without the kids coming out of their rooms a dozen times… please?

Yours truly on Valentine's Day

I am not sure if anyone is aware, but Emanuel was SUPPOSED to be a Valentine’s Day baby! He, in the fine Reinsch-Johnson tradition, simply decided to make his grand appearance early. Valentine’s Day for our not so little family of 7 does not mean a huge celebration or crazy event, rather we spent it relatively quietly here at home. Last year we combined Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day into one party and had everyone over. As this year we were working hard to have a larger birthday party Valentine’s Day was secondary. We had a quiet morning as I was up off and on quite a bit more last night with an over stimulated baby girl so I had to sleep in. The kids settled in to watch a bunch of their new videos (I still need to find the translation on those) and then did the dot-to-dots off the UK site that were Valentine’s Day themed. I love when they have them set up according to difficulty so we had 3 different pictures that they could choose from. We put those up on our holiday wall.

Holiday wall

I printed off each of the boys a Valentine’s Day themed mini book to work through. These were off of the Enchanted Learning site. You just need to click on the Valentine’s icon on the main page.

Gavin and Zander

The twins taught ME our craft for the day! Since the flowers they made at Sunday School were so pretty and relatively simple (Gavin gave his to Aunty Esther) I figured I would have us do them at home too! It was very simple – all you need is a coffee filter, markers, pipe cleaners and a spray bottle of water.

I will include step by step instructions tomorrow!

Today in the mail I got the first of 4 eBay purchases (I had a tiny bit left on a bought credit card and WOW can  you get a lot when you are picky and hunt around on eBay). The 50 new hair clips I need to make more hair things for the girls. I am just waiting on the ribbons I ordered – I managed to get a decent variety of colours for a nice price. There are some specific barrettes I want to make – like a Christmas tree, that need specific colours. Of course I will share the instructions as I make them!

Clips

Of course the kids all dressed in pink or red and we HAD TO take pictures! I am so proud of the twins and how careful they are when we have them hold Echo for photos like these. I am waiting a couple days to do the twins’ yearly photos as Gavin still has a scratch on his face and Zander got bonked on the cheek yesterday. Note the brand new shirt Trinity has on – an Aunty Karyn pick! I just can’t pass up a chance to photography our little ones all together. This is (hopefully) going to be my week of photography. I have the twins to do, I need to take some more of Echo AND I want to do some pictures myself.

All 5 of our sweeties

I got 7 pages done scrapbooking last night! Quite proud of myself on that one, but I am definitely running out of solid 12X12 paper as well as certain themes in the same sized sheets. I am hoping to go through the paper I do have and use more of that before breaking down and buying any paper packs. My goal is to get as much of the back stuff done before we move as I can so I don’t have to scramble with loose things and risk misplacing pictures and items.

Sticking out her tongue

Trinity's Halloween pages

Muttart for Trinity

Echo's stocking

Trinity's Christmas Eve page

Pumpkin carving for Echo

I have pulled out an old project to finish as I am still in between projects until Ken gets some spare time to design. The rest of our evening is our own. The kids are in bed, the baby (hopefully) going down for a nap, all in time for our Valentine’s Day meal – Chinese delivery! So Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Our Little Canuck