So we continue our silent home situation past Sunday night and into Monday. That of course stopped SOME things but helped others to progress. The owl army has grown, Ken and I got started on sorting out the most awful of closets and, thanks to Karyn – a new craft. She lent me a book that her brother had given her called Felties (How to Make 18 Cute and Fuzzy Friends). So I am now in need of some brown felt… and MORE duct tape… and and and…

Last night we moved onto the external hard drive and our DVD collection (which is not overly extensive). IT Crowd and Nero Wolfe. We have the entire series of each (though I think there may be a 5^th season of IT Crowd coming in the future… well I hope!).

I made another duct tape bow from memory. This time using the traditional duct tape… much easier to bend. Oh to have all the colours and patterns available at my fingertips. Ken is already committed to get me more colours and such, just need to wait until time and money line up. I have a couple more patterns online I want to try out!

The kids are rather aware of the lack of internet. Trinity wanted more fairy pictures to colour and I was unable to get her some more until going to Aunty Karyn’s (something she was VERY excited about at bedtime) and then there was the questions about things I could not yet answer due to a lack of search engines, but we managed. That definitely directed the focus for Monday’s lesson to anything we had on hand. So no possums or researching into local recycling policies yet.

We filled our morning with Perler beads, always something of a adventure. I do believe Trinity had her piece made FOR her by a brother and Emanuel was the slowest ever. He started and aborted his little leaf AT LEAST 3 times before completing.

BEADING

Didn't they do a great job?

My Monday was mainly spent (around the kids and cleaning) working on two little felties. I made the Babushka and the Panda (less his bamboo as I had a lack of brown). They are so much fun and rather time consuming but I am so pleased with the end results.

Babushka

The kids were go go go all day really… missing their Daddy who was at Karyn’s to use her internet (once he figured out WHICH apartment was hers – thank goodness her internets reach all the way to the parking lot and he could contact a friend who could in turn text me). So as a consolation after lunch we packed up and made our way to the convenience store where I emptied my change purse for chips and a slurpee. The day wasn’t too cool but rather sunny so it was a pleasant walk and a welcome use of energy.

Bench picture

This was also Trinity’s first opportunity to wear the hat I won for her last month. It is beyond cute! She was so proud of her outfit – we found the top and bottoms in a box I had yet to go through post move. Thank goodness I did as there were more than a few pieces in her size or to grow into that have been added to her dresser. I cannot wait to get the internets back and send one of these pictures to the store I won the hat from! You can check out the creator HERE.

Pretty flower

So pretty

So grown up

Three of the 4 big kids spent a portion of their time working on their jump rope skills. Gavin chose to sit inside and work on a book he is ALMOST completed. I was quite impressed with how hard they tried and very glad that NO ONE was injured in the attempt (although there were a few close calls). We only have 3 skipping ropes, all too short for Mommy and Cars themed so Trinity has explained to me it is VERY important that I get her a PINK one… a bit late in the season but I will definitely keep my eyes open, or make one of our own? I wonder if there is a good way to do that that is cost friendly… oh for the internets to have been back.

Jump!

And Jump Some More

Our Popcorn gnome has entered the Harley-Davidson Wetness Protection apparently, as she was proud to announce loudly on Monday (we tried to tell her that is something that best works in SECRET to no avail!). Popcorn has become an all time favourite in this house!

Wetness Protection!

I have to admit that facing TUESDAY without internet was a wee bit daunting. With Ken gone to Karyn’s once again and a cell phone I limit only to texting out of affordability it does get a wee bit lonely. We do depend on the internet and technology so much now! But it most certainly was NOT the end of the world and we are a well stocked, kid friendly home (though my children may dispute that as it always seems there is “nothing fun to do.” It makes you take a moment and imagine how homeschooling must have been without internet and all our technology. How much more work had to go into finding information and doing research. I am so glad we have not gone to a lot of online classroom and programs. Workbooks are awesome when you don’t have those outside lines. The kids are quite excited to watch our felties appear… and Monday night while watching Nero Wolfe I completed another – an alien.

ALIENSSSSS

Today Polar-roo (seriously cute – A feltie polar bear with marsupial tendencies – their words) and Pensive Rabbit (slight alteration with the colours as I have a limited supply). The addiction is complete. In a way I am lucky to not have the ability to find MORE instructions than I already had. And sadly (?) I found MORE felt on the hunt for fabric for Trinity’s barrette holder wall hanging. Brown has been found along with some more wonderful colours… I now have a nice sized Rubbermaid tub full of felt. Of course some colours are still missing but I can always alter colours for specific critters OR purchase some more! In fact I finished MORE than the two listed above. They rather consumed my spare time on Tuesday.

Cute cute cute cute

O-M-G the cuteness

Working the way to cuteness overload!

The boys started a pretty big project themselves and began to learn to cross stitch on Tuesday as well. That is AFTER Stuart Little had another adventure (did you know it is easy for a mouse to end up stuck in a fridge?). We had a few tears shed by Emanuel over drawing a bird – they ARE quite difficult to get the way you want them, but all 4 drawings were completed.

Stuart and his adventures (plus some Dora Stickers)

I made up some simple patterns for the boys on grid paper and set them at it. Zander started with a cat and Gavin a flower. Sadly Zander didn’t take the time to double check his counting so I did have to alter the pattern a bit. He has taken the full x at a time approach and was still working on his kitty at the end of the day. Gavin was much more interested in doing it my way… half the x from left to right and then the other half of the x from right to left. He finished his flower and was onto a cat by the end of the day. He LOVED it! They are already talking about making their OWN patterns!!!

First cross stitch in progress!

DONE!!!!!

So we stitched, we did some math, some sight words (Math Gavin, words Zander)… the other two coloured and such… it is amazing how quickly time goes by. A very quiet day without the landline or internets… a little too quiet for Mommy so I took a break and watched a nice chunk of the IT Crowd Ken had on his external hardrive.

I finished a page for Emanuel’s book, it was a picture I had had laying around for ages so it was nice to get it all done up and put away. Lots of layers and relatively simple but it was fun to make. There is a stack of pictures still waiting for me… and now that I have a desk and a corner to work in I can actually set out stuff and come back to it whenever I want!

BLUE

Ken seems to have solved our Shaw problem, it only is costing us a savings in our bill and a new phone number… we are changing providers and I will try and alert everyone of the new number as soon as possible. So this is a bit of a blessing in disguise – not only did I get some cleaning done that had been crying out for attention BUT we are now saving a nice amount with our phone and internet bill! Now to just await both the hook up times.

With Wednesday’s morning call and news I really have let much of the schooling slip. Ken stayed with the boys for a nice chunk of the morning to get started on their science though – they are learning the basics of programming… or so I am told!

Sciencing it up

We spent the bulk of our day while Ken was gone to Karyn’s to work doing crafting, playing and generally pretty much goofing off. I have to admit I was in no mood to do any work with the kids and they were really not in the mood to settle down to much. However, we did sit down long enough to work on Get Well Soon cards for Grandpa Reinsch. The distance has made it more difficult for them to see him but we talked about WHO Grandpa is to Mommy and how we are related and looked at pictures from our last visit. They want him to get better VERY soon and wanted to send cookies down to him…

Making Get Well Soon Cards

I am not sure how the rest of my night will play out but we should have our new phone number all sorted soon, internets by Friday.

A little bit more cuteness... just cuz I can

A slight change on the blog entries from my original plan… but I want to ask you all to say a prayer, think a positive thought, anything, for my dad. I got a phone call this morning from my step-mom down in South Carolina letting me know that my dad had had a minor heart attack last night! He complained to her that he was not feeling well and needed to go to the hospital early last night so they rushed out the door.

They were admitted immediately and apparently he had the actual heart attack AT the hospital which was the best case scenario as they were able to get everything under control so quickly his heart is showing no damage in regards to the attack. However they DID find two arteries clogged – one 90% and the other 70-80%. By 6:30 or so this morning they did the procedure to unclog the 90% one. With it taking so long to do they decided to wait on the other which is non life threatening at this point. So he will be in hospital for at least another day or two. Then he is home for 2 weeks off work, just in time for the next procedure. So it looks like a month off work.

Luckily my stepsister is home with them for now as well – her husband was deployed to Kuwait on Monday (so think kindly on him as well please) so I know that my stepmom has someone on hand to help out and lean on. I cannot afford the trip down which is really hard to take and right now dad does NOT have a phone in his room or anything ( he was in the icu this morning). BUT my stepmom is working on it, along with getting the internet to him. So I could always make a video message for him from us and the kids.

So like my stepmom said – the news is good and bad – the good news is everyone is OK, the bad news is how they got to being ok. They are in a terrific hospital that has been right on the ball the whole time, from them walking in the door of emergency onwards… he has gotten through the first procedure with flying colours and is resting well… but so scary!

What the doctor has said is that he needs to make a dietary change (seriously you do NOT want to read about his favourite food choices, not heart friendly) and start an exercise regiment. These are all easy things to deal with. He will also be on some new medications and actually HAVE TO go to the doctor more regularily (another fun fact we will leave out is when his last visit to a doctor was). So some common sense changes and he should be just fine! Funny thing – same basic procedure as what our Echo has to go through in a couple months!! Go figure!

Quite the harsh reality to wake up to, as a total Daddy’s Girl it is hard to have to face the reality that your dad is growing a wee bit older and is rather human. So I am sending all the love I can, hugging my babies tight and praying he will go home in a couple days and then this is the start of a much healthier and LONG life. Please please keep us all in your thoughts!!! It has been well over a year since I have seen my dad in person and with this, it is looking like it may just be another one! 

So as far as I know he is in the hospital for a few more days and then home to REST. I hope to Skype or something with him soon. Love you Daddy!

Our visit with Grandpa Reinsch back last July for Canada Day!!!

I have become aware, over the years, that Ken is NOT the luckiest man on the planet… I mean he IS lucky – look at our family and our life (we BOTH are lucky) but when it comes to bills and random events… they do happen TO him a lot. Thus why there was NO post, NO email and NO Twitter from yours truly for the bulk of the weekend! Yup, Shaw strikes again. To be fair, we TRUSTED them… but on the flip side – THEY are the ones who can’t seem to figure out how to work out a new account in a new location that is connected to an old account. And of course they come on a SATURDAY! When the bank cannot help us, Ken was less than impressed to be sure! So an entire weekend with no landline, internet or tv (Netflix)… what is a mommy to do? Well… CLEAN!
Best place to start – the kids’ rooms. Trinity’s has been crying out for a good full out tidy for over a week now so Gavin and I sat down and did it. She has so many kitties, dollies and other random things that it is difficult to truly put everything away but we did our best. Bedding was changed, toys resorted, papers that apparently MUST BE KEPT were stacked relatively neatly on the dresser… I give it one, maybe two days BUT it made it possible to do a good vacuum.

Clean but busy and somewhat cluttered... just how she likes it!

Emanuel’s was next and included his personal “junk drawer.” He is not horrible about keeping things once questioned but he does like his bits of paper. I do love his room, it is so… snuggly though I want to change the curtains to something a bit bigger that covers the whole window and we plan on getting him a smaller mattress (his bed he had at the old place simply does NOT fit in the room but the new mattress is not the highest priority… he LIKES it the way it is I am often told).

Ok so his bedding was in the wash but tidy!

We completed our quick but thorough clean with the twins’ room… Kijiji items were reboxed to clear up their closet, drawers and boy made hiding places cleared and put away. Their room is not huge but they do manage A LOT of hiding places!

I still need some shelving in here ... and curtains!

Crafting is always easier without distractions… and with not even the tv (beyond movies we already have and boo on those this weekend… not in the mood) to do the deed I was free and clear – around kid issues and such – to do as much as I wanted! First project – refurbishing a dress Trinity was given in a set of handmedowns from another homeschooling family. It is a lovely blue velvet, mom already repaired the ribbon base border it was just up to me to do the rose removal and replacement. Not the easiest task as I have misplaced my stitch ripper and the manufacturer felt TAPING them on as well was a good idea!! So no matter how sad these flowers looked they were definitely on for the long haul.
After ripping out the flowers I went through my ribbon collection to decide on the stacked bow to use. It is a hard choice sometimes as some of my favourite ribbon does not have enough left to refurbish a dress AND make a matching hairthing but I found a premade (by yours truly) hairthing that was laying around in my finished box and enough ribbon to mimic the colour scheme enough to match. I am always surprised at how much ribbon I have and yet not the colour/pattern/theme that I want at the time.

So much tape

Time consuming as it was it was rather MY fault on that point – I chose to use the 1/8th inch brown as I was out of the 1/4 inch brown I had used in the hair thing I was basing this on. The 1/8th is just that little bit too slippery when it comes to making the last bow easily. But I am rather happy with the finished look!

With matching hair thing (on left)

Breaks with working with ribbons lead to bread being made in the breadmaker, dishes being done AND my plastic storage containers cupboard being tidied (I even matched lids with containers… and as per the rules of the world found at least ONE container without lid and vice versa).
With one dress done it was time to move onto the other. This one had an iron mark on it (mom got it at her store for a song due to the damage), I am rather sure I showed it before… anyway no before picture… just an after! This one was done entirely on Trinity’s preference! She wanted PINK… I figured (and with Karyn’s texted urging) it best to go with her choice and it actually wasn’t half bad! But then who doesn’t love a pink butterfly?

The back with flaw covered

Front with tiny butterflies

That reminds me of a couple crafts I completed Friday night. First of all – a duct tape rose! You can find the instructions for this on YouTube and all over the place. I watched this onespecifically… apparently he consistently adds new ideas and tutorials so I am 

Looks great from the top... just don't look at the side.

And then there is the much awaited and beyond adorable – sock owl!! I made this sweety out of 2 pairs of Dollarama fluffy leggings. Not the best choice as the socks shed dreadfully when you cut them BUT it worked out in the end. We stuffed him with an old shirt of Ken’s that was on its way to the bin anyway, cut up into tiny strips. His face was all felt scraps and I used DMC floss for all the hand stitching. I am looking forward to making a plethora of these. After all if the heel runs out of the sock it is still owl material! I have a BabyLeg that is missing its buddy that I am debating sacrificing for the owl cause. It could be a lovely Christmas present for Trinity made out of something she wore as a baby!

OWL CUTENESS BE BLINDED BY CUTENESS... LOVE IT...

We had a second set of wings to try out (someone else read the tutorial and did it slightly different). I would love opinions on the two variations. Ken loves the second version with the vertical wings.

Wings of choice and further cuteness...

Now continuing the lack of internets theme I also did some scrapbooking… this time a series of Echo pictures. I have the same shirt in blue for Emanuel and another in pink for Trinity as they were ALL born at the same hospital. The twins were supposed to be but when I showed up in an ambulance at 29 weeks they passed me along as fast as they could to a better equipped hospital for preemies.

Caterpillar!

I got my laundry done – including bed linens on ALL beds (yay!!), even the quilt we took camping that was sitting waiting on getting into the washer. This machine is smaller than the one previous so that quilt is a solo wash. I am seriously thinking that once a month we need an internet free day for the whole family! Though Ken did do work and then go to where he could get wi-fi and upload it.
…and back to crafting… and a new craft for you to try out as well – chalkboard coasters! First is the necessary hunt for 4X4 inch ceramic tiles (or in the case of the ones I got – 3 3/4 inches squared???). I tried Freecycle first but it ended up being the local Restore(Habitat for Humanity) that had them at 25 cents a piece. And then of course the chalkboard paint… and felt scraps you can cut down to the same size as your tiles for backing. Follow the instructions on the can (and the site linked HERE) and 2 coats later – COASTERS! Trust me this will only be the BEGINNING of things I plan on spraying with this stuff… not nearly as awesome of duct tape it DOES have its place in crafting in this house now!

Supplies

COASTER!

I forgot to mention last entry but we THINK Echo said her first word on Friday – Mama! the M sound HAS been her favourite for ages so not a huge surprise but super cute. So proud of her, she is standing alone for more and more short bursts now too… Ken is just dying for her to start walking with this tiny stature.

Sitting like a little lady

There have been some Fat Sheep updates lately, I hope everyone has been checking them out! There is quite the backlog of interesting incidents and adventures so there will definitely be more action on the site this month. I think the latest installment is the final piece in the wedding saga! Don’t mind that the links are odd… Ken is still working on sorting out why the site has decided to show my addy first and then add on the tag to the site. We are still on the look out for more adventures for Fat Sheep to have. This summer she has crossed off TONS and the list is looking a little sparse! So email me or leave a message on Fat Sheep’s Twitter, site or Facebook account!
Today was Sunday School – their first real session. Ken took the boys as Echo and Trinity were no where near ready when it was time to go (slow breakfast for Miss T ending in oatmeal in here hair!), instead we played in Trinity’s room and the girls had a bath.

Sunbathing in the bedroom

A third variation on the owl to share as well… I think we are rather happy with the second set of wings, now here he is with separate eyes.

Ken likes these eyes best

We hope to have the internet etc sorted out tomorrow but no promises. Either way, when Ken is able to check and do whatever he needs to do he does check my email for me! So it won’t be forever, but I doubt there will be a blog entry tomorrow. Either way we will be keeping busy here os when there IS an entry to share it will definitely be full of going and coming and all sorts of fun stuff!

Jr. Princess