And so another week begins… and with it our new plan of action in regards to Zander. I have to admit it was… odd… to be down a kid for the majority of the day. Zander and Ken had the basement to themselves and Mommy was told to strictly stay out of it. Though Zander DID escape Ken a couple times to come up and “show someone something”…

Both hard at work, pardon the mess!

In the meantime those of us left upstairs kept busy… there was math to be done, workbook fun… and then we read a book on celebrating Chinese New Year. That of course spurred the interest in creating pictures for our poster… Emanuel made TWO! 

Original illustrations

There were dragons to glitter up too… We had originally planned on doing them the way the craft suggested HERE but the cutting out of a template took so long we decided to do a  group dragon and decorate it as we pleased. VERY flashy!

Dragon decorating, final stages

The one on the right was 100% Trinity

In the back of the book was instructions on how to make relatively simple paper lanterns. Coloured paperr, tape and staples… oh and scissors… so simple!!

Lanterns

I am still so excited that Gavin WANTS to cross stitch, so this afternoon we had son and mom stitch time. Not quite a stitch’n’bitch but we did stitch’n’chat! He was much more cheerful than I was as I realized I had made a colour error LAST night that had to be redone. 

My stitching buddy

Gavin and I also worked on coming up with sentences and then him writing the words either from memory or by sounding them out. It is slow going and frustrating yet again… but we managed 3 sentences before I determined he was getting a little bit stressed and let him off (I do believe we went back to sewing or something). He is catching on, though it may not be until the summer that he will be writing his own paragraphs fluently! 

Quiet time creations - it is hard to tell, but the one on the left is a bowl of Chinese food on a table and then he is holding the chopsticks!

OH on the tooth front… for the first time EVER I am PLEASED that the twins were wrestling past bedtime. Gavin bashed his mouth on Zander’s head and out it popped! About time! It has a long root though (shudder) so once we get our dental coverage it will have to be mentioned to the dentist. BUT the other tooth is in and down. Straight and nice. He says he thinks he looks funny… I had to giggle at that – NOW he looks funny, when before he had a tooth hanging out of his mouth! BUT we are excited. The tooth fairy MUST be called (I had to remind them that she would NOT be coming tonight as Mommy had NOT alerted her to the loss)… again the massive surprise that MOMMY has the tooth fairy’s PHONE NUMBER! Remember it is a TWO toy tooth!

Pre tooth out illustrations!

Spontaneous space picture... he had to look up Jupiter.

So the excitement of a lost tooth, the weather being cold, the kids coming down from their visit with the uncles buzz… it has been quite the long and drawn out day!

Buttered popcorn baby

Another weekend comes and goes and with it… COMPANY! This time we had Ted and Sean over for Saturday afternoon/evening and much of Sunday. They had driven down to help Chris and Chris unload their things into their new home which is a smaller city just outside of town (about 10-15 min away). Though they also needed Ken’s help and came to collect him (no way we are taking van out of town right now) earlier in the morning so I had the kids solo for a large chunk of the day.  We are finally seeing true Alberta winter weather which means being stuck indoors due to cold, so the kids were not in the best of moods… and in turn could not figure out a way to get along well enough to keep the house quiet and the baby sleeping. Poor Echo was up  for most the day and NOT an impressed baby! 

Quality time with Uncle Sean

We have been brainstorming ways to deal with Zander and his personality clashes with the rest of the family. I KNOW he can be an absolutely loving and compassionate child, a great leader and an amazing helper but… and that is the problem – BUT… he has not WANTED to be one lately. Time outs have not changed attitude, in fact he has had a time out and came back out complaining about the same thing that sent him in in the first place. BUT we have a plan! For the next little while Zander is going to do his math, his independent stuff and a special lapbook in the basement each morning with Ken’s supervision. I am hoping that a change in teacher and work space AND a special tailored to Zander activity will help a bit. I would love to have his love of learning back!!!

Everyone likes time with Daddy!

Chris and Chris came by and cooked hamburgers as a post move thank you but had to head back to unpack relatively early in the evening. So with a late night run to Walmart for a box mix for cheesecake and a call to Karyn to join us we made an evening of it. Cheesecake and wine (thank you Chris and Chris) and then some cheese later in the evening… we watched Ken play a computer game and then watched the newest episode of Big Bang Theory that Ken had downloaded. Good friends, fun tv and yummy snacks… what a great weekend!!! Oh and we used Skype on Karyn’s iPad to chat with Esther and I got to play with dragons on Ted’s so add in the technology too!! Ooo May is so far away!!

Cheesecake

Ummmm

All 4 of our big kids went to Sunday School this Sunday. Talk about EXCITED… it has been quite some time since we had Sunday School and all of them really do look forward to it. Though Trinity was less than enthused when she realized that meant leaving Uncle Ted’s iPad at home. She has to miss next weekend as we will be with Cousin Veronika, but I think it is a fair trade off! 

High 5 for playing frogs

I have started a new project, though this one should be sent off at Christmas to someone special. It is a combination of cross stitch and embroidery stitch… and a fairy! I will post pictures when I am a little further along!  Ken linked me this video from Fydo. This Halloween when the Halloween store opens up I am so spending the 20.00 and getting myself some wings! I want to dress up too!!

Who was that masked man?

And so we end the week. WHAT A WEEK! Yesterday was a bit of a slow go, but we managed to work on our workbooks and enjoy each other’s company… oh and make DRAGONS! This is a fun craft made out of cut out hands. You can find the instructions HERE. They recently added some new dragon crafts so hopefully with a run to Dollarama this weekend we can make another one before the girls and I head out for our 4 day retreat at Cousin Veronika’s!

The boys' dragons... they cut EVERYTHING themselves!

Trinity's

We are working hard on our math and our reading. Today we tried something new. This time the boys came up with 3 sentences each and then had to write them down, without my copying them first. I sat down with each of the twins alone and we sounded out words together and talked about WHY certain words were written the way they are. There was some frustration but some successes too! Gavin had the topic of our family and Zander was to write 3 sentence describing himself. Then they picked their favourite sentence and drew a matching picture. I am so proud of them, writing is NOT their favourite activity but they persevered. We forgot all about taking a picture of them so will have to share that tomorrow!

We have two books on China and Chinese New Year out from the library right now. The kids love the bright colours on the covers and the dragons. We also read the story of the Zodiak from the Activity Village site. You can find it HERE. I always seem to end up at Activity Village for our special occasion activities and crafts!!

books!

The twins were in charge of sugar cookie creation today. I premade the dough, cleaned up the blue table, had them wash their hands and go at it. Only having to man the oven is so much easier than doing it all myself!

Cookie time, Emanuel joined after his quiet time and the 3 of them worked through the entire batch of dough.

Cookies

I have a link to share with you all. The site is called Babysitters and not only helps you find sitters in your area (if you are in the US) but also have some interesting blog entries on dealing with having sitters, parenting, etc. I have not taken too close of a look at the site yet but was able to find listings for my in-laws’ area AND read a couple interesting blog posts. THIS is the one they sent me to link. I would love to hear from anyone who has used this service OR hear your opinions post reading it after following my link. Yesterday night was a girls’ night out! Karyn, Kristen and I went to our favourite Indian restaurant and ate until we were completely full and then went back to Kristen’s for some visiting. She lives like a block or so from the restaurant! I even got to leave Echo at home as we decided that another trip in the carseat would be a bit much after Wednesday’s saga.

Appetizer

Mains

Ken has spent much of his phoning time working on getting the van fixed… AGAIN! Canadian Tire here in town has consented to fix the coolant system if that is what wrong and were a little embarrassed that less than a month later we are already calling back with a concern in the same area. Seriously FOUR TIMES! 

It seems like we cannot get away from the medical this month. Next week is Zander’s eye appointment, then the following week my bloodwork AND another appointment for Ken (he is changing a doctor that was back home to a local one) and then the next week is Echo and my check ups… Maybe February will have a move of focus AWAY from the medical for a while? Would be nice! But, so far everyone is coming back healthy!

Breakfast together (Echo needs a matching chair... and to learn to sit down!)

I have spent some time on Tinker Bell today but not much… I am almost done the first Tink, well the stitching portion and will share an image when that is done. It feels good to cross stitch again!

And tonight Ken and I finally get some alone time together… today was a rather good day – groceries were procured in the limping van, Canadian Tire contacted, appointments made, work completed, children educated, fed and loved… we even got to see Chris and Chris on their way to their new (closer) living situation. Tomorrow Ken will  be gone for a chunk of the day to help them out and I will be flying solo but we have another dragon to glitter up, a backyard to enjoy and of course our library books to read through. We have turned this week around, at least somewhat I think. And that is the trend that WILL continue! 

Some days I wonder if her names should not have included JOY as one of them...