Archive | March 2011

Sick Kids, Sewing and Other Time Fillers

So I PLANNED on working on cash and the idea of currency… Gavin’s stomach had other ideas. He woke up feeling “icky” and spent most of the day on the floor doing pretty much a whole lot of nothing. So with the blessed flexibility of homeschooling, we put in a NON educational movie (GASP) and let him have his sick day (Nightmare Before Christmas for the win).

Poor sick Gavin

We had a visit from (She) Chris who came bearing Tim Hortons coffee (Ken) and hot chocolate (me). I won a donut on my roll up to win. We had a wedding planning visit which gave her the opportunity to let go some frustration (He Chris is working further away and long days so their planning time is cut down to nil) and me to give her some tips. Hopefully once we are moved and settled and her new car is out of the snowbank it is firmly implanted in we can get together and nail down some of the niggly fine details. Zander spent his time during her visit productively and made her a picture to take home… of course I didn’t even get a good peek at it!

I took advantage of only one vertical twin to get Zander going on his mini math book. He has been dying to complete it since Gavin did last weekend. Our interests have definitely focused mainly on Math over reading. BUT it amazes me time and time again how much the two are intertwined. Like colour by numbers – you still have to READ the colour codes.

Work in progress

I tried to take some pictures of Trinity… but she was less than enthused… lately it has been quite the challenge to get her out of pj’s and into clothes but we managed today. Tomorrow with the trip to the zoo planned it should be a snap but today… not so much.

Relaxed

/pout

She has quite the little posse that she takes along with her into the livingroom lately! Note the two Hello Kitty toys Aunty Xinny gave her (they were ones Isabella had but never played with). They have replaced Baby as her new favourites! The one in pink goes EVERYWHERE with her.

So many dollies

I have started hand stitching a bunny as a present for a little someone. Since I won’t be giving it for some time I won’t say who. It has been a fun project. I absolutely adore hand stitching things and avoid the sewing machine if I can. There is something about creating as even stitches as I can and having the knowledge that each little bit is 100% me that I love. I used this pattern for my bunny. I used a lovely, fluffy yellow fleece that I had from my mom’s stash. I love fleece. It always reminds me of hugs and snuggles and love.

Ready to turn right side out

I HAVE gotten back on track. The pieces for the card I am going to include with the wedding present are assembled… so now all I have to do is sort out the card… and make the gift of course.

You can't really tell but it is metallic paper

Now if I could just get my back to stop aching. For some reason I threw my back out this afternoon and it is VERY distracting. So time for a nice long soak.

Emanuel and his workbook!

Well it isn’t Warm Here Yet…

So we have dug into our Easter/Spring themed craft and decoration bucket. I am doing limited decorating as we ARE moving the weekend after Easter, but could not resist the lure of the pastel and cute. We are not planning anything excessive when it comes to our Easter celebrations, in fact, I am unsure as to how our yearly egg hunt is going to play out but I am sure something will be planned. Just once I would LOVE to have the snow melted and the ground dry enough to have it OUTSIDE but I am not overly optimistic about this year. After all, for all that SOME of the snow has melted MORE keeps coming down!

Bucket of stuff

So instead of a focused bunch we were all over the place with our Easter and spring themed games, crafts and other fun items in the bucket. I did find some worksheets for the boys to do: a maze that seemed to have them totally stumped for a while, a simple wordsearch (they instantly recognised the word EGG) and a colour by numbers (UK version). Here is a link to a series of spring worksheets of varying complexity. Tomorrow I have a couple poems to teach the boys as well as a more difficult spring wordsearch

Gavin and the colour by numbers

I have actually revamped my links on the right side of my blog. I tried to include my favourite homeschool related links as well as my personal sites and (which will be developed over the rest of the week) a series of craft links.

Hugs!

I am attempting different ways to complete my Velcro bows for Echo. The first one I used a regular needle and thread and after using the adhesive backing stitched the Velcro to the ribbon. Time consuming and a couple of times painful. After a while my needle got sticky from the adhesive and bent from the pressure of going through the ribbon and the Velcro backing. I also did one that had NO stitching across the lengths of Velcro, just to pinch the end together like a hinge. So I will try BOTH and see how they work (wouldn’t it be GREAT if the non stitch version worked??).

Two completed (stitched Velcro is the white one)

There was a bit of excitement with our little Echo – today with MINIMAL help of her nursing pillow she was sitting upright! We are so close to her sitting on her own! I took as many pictures as I could and wished I had my blue sheet up. BUT what is important is I captured the moment.

Working on sitting on her own

A friend edited one of my last pregnancy photos for me, I finally got around to getting it from him and posting it on my deviantArt account today. Hard to believe that was almost 8 months ago!!

38 Weeks

My goal is to do this exact same pose this summer NOT pregnant. I figure half way through summer, once I have had some quality time with the stroller and getting to know our new neighbourhood.

So Fat Sheep has a new adventure – she has come up with a new form of YOGA on the suggestion of my Cousin Veronika (thanks for the idea!!!). Wooly Yoga, you can read all about it HERE.

I spent my evening off the track when it comes to FINISHING projects… Hello Kitty has a SILHOUETTE setting… oops!

Hello Kitty!

But tonight I am going to finish the last of the Lucky Stars AND get started on that pattern Ken keeps teasing me with! Wish me luck.

Ooooo

What a Day

We are trying something new this week… not a whole lot of organized, plan ahead schooling, just a lot of what falls in our lap. I am going to spend THIS week working out some money stuff for the twins to focus on next week. But first of all – ANOTHER new dice game – Mouse. Again, they learned it from me and then taught Emanuel. And with this game they had to at least TRY to read what each number meant they had to do. I am surprised every day with how they are progressing with their sounding out and word recognition.

Teaching Mouse to Emanuel

At lunch we tried a new food for Echo – Rice cereal with raspberry. She was somewhat impressed but has spit a little up over the afternoon. Maybe a less frequent treat for now? I made it without the fortifier this time as well. I have to say I do LOVE the Milupa brand cereal. This flavour is new since Trinity was a baby. They seem to have changed their range but Echo is certainly NOT complaining.

Our favourite brand

We spent some time on Easter and Spring themed colouring pages. The most complicated was this one, where you could count objects after you were done. We counted the flowers (44), butterflies (7) and hearts (7). I actually had to print off another picture and put a mark on each flower so we could be SURE we got them all, but each boy did it with minimum prompting on the numbers! There has been a request to know what Emanuel has been getting up to – well today he took a dig through our scrap-paper and found some pages of old dinosaur worksheets, cut them up and created a lovely picture! He wants to save it to hang up on the new house!! He is rather consistent with his love of dinosaurs.

Emanuel and his Dinosaur art

Today I got a package in the mail for ME! I ordered Hello Kitty themed earbuds off eBay. They were under 2.00 and the ones I had (the ones that came with my iTouch) hurt my ears. I am really happy with these. They have a soft plastic piece that goes into your ears that is much more comfortable.

Cute AND functional

Having those appear in the mail meant I had to try them out – which ended with us turning on the music and having a bit of a dance to Adele. I would have gotten video but as soon as the camera went on things got a little too wild. Maybe tomorrow??

Hug break

I made up Trinity’s birthday card today. While I have to be patient about getting my OWN Cricut I am unashamedly enjoying Karyn’s machine. I am planning on spending tomorrow night making a wedding card. Right now I am in a quandary – I need to find paper to write my toast to my sister and her husband on their wedding day… of course I have absolutely NO stationary. Figures!

Birthday card

As it is Ken and I are now trying to agree on a birthday present for Trinity and what sort of cake (and how) to make. At least we have 2 1/2 weeks still. Though that time will go by quickly. No word on a finalized rental yet. BUT we are working on multiple leads! So fingers crossed everyone!

Starting them reading young