And we have breakthrough – on TWO fronts… first off – Zander is starting to click when it comes to sounding out words… we are working on the rule that if you have a vowel has a consonant and then the letter e after it it says its name. He has jumped in with both feet on his new workbook, though it does span grades 1-3 so we can only go so far before true frustration will set in.

Working on those words

After much juice, some tears and lots of celebration Trinity has peed in the potty. She has to sit there FOREVER it seems but we have started with some clear progress. Today she peed in the potty and was quite proud of the fact that she did NOT cry. I am not sure if she was scared to do it but yesterday she held those three cups of juice as long as she could!!

We started a new cereal with Echo today – wheat and pear… I love these combinations… She is actually rather willing to try new things.

Today we worked on our sewing skills. You can find the template and instructions for our chick here. For some reason the colour instructions on the template do NOT match the instructions on the site but you can always make a chick any colour you like. We had enough yellow felt to make TWO chicks. The boys sewed the bulk to the edge, but after they stuffed I stitched in the feet when I stitched the bottom closed. We glued the eyes and beak on with fabric glue. I think they are adorable!!! I think we need to move onto stitching BUTTONS!

Stitching away

Completed Chicks!

I got another package today from the lovely lady out east! More felt (with yellow so I can make chicks for the younger two) and some craft books! I feel absolutely spoiled! I am looking forward to when Trinity will be able to make friendship bracelets with me, my mom taught me how to make them when I was a little girl too!

Thank you so much!!!

I am trying to get a sweet Easter themed picture with Echo and our favourite bunny doubles… but Echo (I think) thinks they are not trustworthy… I may have to keep trying over the weekend.

Take 1

Try again

Gavin did another page in his story. This one is all rainbow bright. We are slowly working out way through as we want to make sure the story makes sense to more than just Gavin. So each page is REALLY well thought out. I am hoping to tempt Zander into working on his Fat Sheep and Mommy story. He has only gotten so far as the cover page but again is all in on the new workbook.

They both look so happy!

The big excitement over lunch was the loss of another tooth! The boys are now tied (well the twins) with two teeth missing. The tooth needs to be cleaned so will be left for the tooth fairie tomorrow… I will get a picture of Zander then!

Potty training, sewing, teeth falling out… never a dull moment! And since we were WAY too busy to get out the door today, tomorrow in the morning we hope to make our way to bulk barn to get supplies so we can make snacks before Gavin leaves in the evening. OH and cupcakes on the weekend… after all our Trinity’s ACTUAL birthday is the 26th which means cupcakes and candles with just us. One of my favourite traditions.

Well the snow is ALMOST gone

Only two more nights until Gavin heads to Grandma’s as he has been quick to remind me and FIVE days to Easter… apparently he is keeping our countdown. He is VERY excited to get his  turn to go, his brothers have both gone before him and according to Gavin it has been FOREVER! So I sat the boys down during my bath  time to colour Easter cards I printed off of our favourite UK site… you can pick from the list here. Apparently Gavin’s is going with him to Grandma’s and Zander’s is heading south… we REALLY need to get Ken to mail his package to Minnesota before it becomes HUGE.

Card colouring

I bought a box of ABC Easter themed letters with bunnies, eggs and chicks last year… so out they came again this year to work on our spelling and recognizing of letter sounds. Each of the twins had to come up with THREE spring related words and then together we sounded them out and found the letters to stick on the pages. I am finding that it is finally starting to click – things like if there is a vowel and then a consonant and then the letter E the vowel says its name. After finishing their sticker portion each then drew a mini picture representing their words. Emanuel and Gavin worked together with a little help from yours truly to put Emanuel’s name on his and Trinity… well she filled her page to the brim with brightly coloured stickers!

Stickers!

Completed pictures

Emanuel and Trinity worked together on the favourite Dora puzzle – a giant map of Canada. They are not overly interested in what is going on in the puzzle but the teamwork and the speed they can get it together was quite impressive. Of course it was EMANUEL who did the lion’s share but Miss T did put a few pieces in herself.

Puzzle building

All done

We read two stories today – both Christian based. The Best Thing About Easter was actually pretty fun as it included the secular activities we enjoy as well and did not demean or diminish their fun, just made it clear  that the REASON for EASTER for CHRISTIANS is JESUS.

Easter

The BEST Thing About Easter

Gavin was right on top of his 3rd page of his story. Apparently so far Echo has had fun… we are still brainstorming page 4 as he is being VERY careful with this story and its direction. I am not at all sure it will be completed before Thursday night and his leaving for mom’s but I am sure we can keep going once he gets home.

3rd page

4th page

Today has been a happy Echo day… lots of smiling, playing, teasing her siblings… and a few quality naps. In fact she and I had a GREAT sleep from about 1 am until close to 8:30 am a first for her. She was wearing an outfit of Trinity’s today, though I now remember WHY Trinity never wore it that often… I really do dislike where they have put the tags on it… but it is soooo cute!

Such a smiley baby today

We are pushing the potty today… lots of juice, potty and tv… but… well it is a work in progress. I am starting to think our only recourse is to go straight to the undies… she just thinks the Dora pull ups are too cute.

Juice on the potty

We are working hard on taking care of things that are cropping up left and right right now. It has forced us to face one of our persistent little relationship issues – agreeing on a speed and plan of action on small but important things. I have ALWAYS been a do it RIGHT NOW kind of girl while Ken is more quickly overwhelmed with that sort of philosophy. So now it is dialogue and working together. I have to say with every little (or big) bad/wrong thing that has occurred it has led to the betterment of our relationship. Let’s just hope the older we get and the more years together the BETTER things will get… after all, NICE stuff can help our relationship grow too – of that I am sure!

Now to spend the rest of my evening trying to relax… maybe get a bit of cleaning done…

Always time for a story

In an effort to avoid the usual Monday blues we started our day a little differently – immediately after breakfast which came after a Cyberchase (which is in HIGH demand right now!) we brought out our selection of paint colours (though I forgot all about the massive container of TEAL I have in the cupboard… I boxed up our other paints and left the box open for convenience sake). The goal for today – to create a painting from the story we read last night before bed – The Velveteen Rabbit. I am not sure that is what Trinity was painting but she had fun doing it and managed to get a lovely amount of paint on herself in the process.

The top left picture is a plaid piece Gavin worked on in the end and I am sure you can guess which is Trinity's!

Creativity unleashed

After cleaning up paints, including a bath for Trinity we had enough time for some quiet play before lunch. I love it when they take their time on painting pictures… the creativity is wonderful. The boys also started a new science project with Daddy. They put TWO eggs in vinegar to see what happens. This is a craft that was suggested on this website when I hunted down Easter and egg related activities. There is a work sheet they will do tomorrow when they remove the eggs from the vinegar. You can print that off here.

Note the foam... ewwww

Our afternoon was full of fun activities. Since I did Legos with Gavin on Saturday it was Zander’s turn today. So we made a little village together. I personally like to do my houses all in organized colours where Zander is more of a smack them together rainbow kinda guy. Though he did build a house like mine to “try it out.” I don’t know why but I really enjoy making the peeked roofed homes.

Our little town

Another view

While we we working hard on our construction skills Gavin started a project of his own. Each of the boys is making his own story. Gavin’s is titled Daddy and Echo and he is determined to make each page chalk full of colour and activity. He got two pages in before he wanted to leave it for the day (which took him almost 3 hours of work!).

Gavin's Cover Page

First page

Zander's cover page

Emanuel made me a bit of Easter art. Two eggs decorated in glittery flowers and connected with some sparkly leaves.

Emanuel's gift

The boys also coloured and then we assembled mini books late last week. You can print off a black and white copy here. Folding instructions for this type of books can be found here. A nice simple Easter (religious) activity I wanted to be sure to share with everyone.

The completed book

The rest of the week we are going to work on our stories, math and reading… There are some Easter colouring pages, mazes and the like to do… and I am debating just grabbing all of the craft supplies I have in the cabinet that are not packed and telling the kids to GO NUTS. Imagination is always a great thing to cultivate.

We have been rather insular lately. It has just felt like we needed to circle wagons and spend some time as our not so little family of 7 I guess. Sometimes you just need that reinforcement, that we are all together and loved and happy. Sunday was amazing for me for that reason alone – after the boys and Ken got home we spent our afternoon as a group with games, crafts and lots of fun. Today I was on the go for the whole day which has completely burned me to a socket (the weather is still chilly so the boys were out only briefly in the backyard and for some reason all 5 kids had amazing amounts of energy, enthusiasm and NOISE)… I think tonight it is time for some Mommy time…

The very serious business of chewing on a star