Well it is that time again – our traditional visit with Macy’s Santa with Nana and Baba. We actually went early this year what with Nana and Baba’s visit being over Thanksgiving. (Zander is in blue stripes)

I cheated and ordered our two new dresses off Amazon, and at the last minute! They got in the morning of our trip to the cities. 

The boys lucked out with a combination of new Walmart sale find shirts and an old favourite for the boy who misplaced his new shirt. 

Some photos, Dad and Baba done their work and off we went.

The display at Macy’s is basically the same thing every year with small additions. We figure this year there are a few new animals out. 

We took quite a few photos. Though every year we find it takes less and less time to go through the display. 

The real draw is SANTA, of course. 

Official Santa pic.

After Santa was letters and snacks and more photos. 

We have one final tradition – after all the seasonal fun it is off to Culver’s for dinner. 

We were so glad Nana and Baba could be here for something that this year marked the beginning of our Christmas season.

Well, the obvious comes to mind right off – Canada Day and Independence Day. We celebrate both, of course. Canada Day (HERE) always makes me a wee bit homesick. July 4th (HERE) was fun as well. July is also Grandma’s birthday up in Canada. And full blown summer fun here in Minnesota.

We lucked out and managed to make Home Depot where the kids made little bowling alleys. Which were PERFECT for the 18 inch dolls, I am told.

I managed to finish a prayer shawl for the Catholic church down the road, along with a pocket prayer shawl.

We spent TONS of time at the YMCA.

Emanuel got over his fear of the slide

Walked back and forth for ClubY.

We hung out in the hammock.

Played outside whenever we could.

Had movie nights.

Ken made the girls a reading corner in the sunroom out of fabric and a hula hoop!

Hung out with our homeschool friends at the park as often as we could.

Made sure to document all the pretty flowers.

Visited our godson Anthony after emergency appendix surgery.

Met a brand new baby! Congrats Cory and Karen!

We even snuck in time for homeschooling.

Echo even went to Evan’s birthday party SOLO with dad!

We watched soccer.

Watered our garden.

Celebrated Alex’s birthday.

Experienced the County Fair. (see the county fair blog post)

Were ditched by the boys who went to the cabin (too many mosquitoes for our allergic girls).

Even on our day off we made the walk to the YMCA.

Mosquito bites

Basically we made this month COUNT and then some!!!!!

Our track star.

Gavin working on art.

Yup totally clear and concise that title is… anyway!

On the suggestion of a good friend due to mass mosquito annoyance I decided I would love a bat house. How better to expedite this than to do a BAT UNIT that ends with Daddy and kids making one such thing? Yup totally being devious here! Enter the book Stellaluna. And all the resources here in. Which I will now share with you!!

First of all the book – Stellaluna… check it out HERE. Now onto the fun stuff. I managed to find a free lapbook on Homeschool Share HERE, and more helpful pages:

• Teachers Pay Teachers thanks to Promoting Success HERE
• About.com finger puppet craft HERE
• KidsSoup.com printable for counting HERE
• Classroom Fun has some resources HERE
• Little Miss Glamour Goes to Kindergarten has some helpful printables HERE
• For the pages I printed off on Education.com you can check my collection HERE
• We also used EnchantedLearning HERE
• And of course Activity Village, they are our go to place for printables HERE
• First Grade Wow has a fun printable HERE

For Halloween we really just went with the flow. Trick or treating… decorating for the season… We watched Room on the Broom of course. And of course, read the book HERE. I have a Halloween collection on Education.com HERE that you can check out. Oh and of course, Activity Village – HERE.

We had a few bat books we used for our unit!

• Bats by Michael George
• What’s Awake? Bats by Patricia Whitehouse
• We Both Read About Bats by Sindy McKay
• When I lived with Bats by Faith McNulty
• Outside and Inside Bats by Sandra Markle

I let Emanuel and Trinity assemble their lapbook as they pleased with minimal interference. It was a great wrap up on a unit they got really interested in! Seriously, there are so many interesting bats out there – our favourites were the fruit bat and the bumblebee bat.

We did a mini unit on Owls right after to continue our nocturnal animals/Halloween theme. You can check out my Education.com collection HERE. And of course, go to Activity Village for their printouts HERE. We had a few interesting books:

• National Geographic Kids Owls by Laura Marsh
• Owls by Josh Gregory
• Snowy Owls by Ruth Owen
• And a lovely story called Owl Babies by Martin Waddell

We printed out all the fun and interesting pages we could find and worked on a full on folder of interesting owl facts.

Of course all of this culminated in HALLOWEEN and COSTUMES! So enjoy the images! This year Zander was a wizard, Gavin a pirate, Emanuel a Storm Trooper (he demanded the light saber), Trinity Dorothy off of the Wizard of Oz and Miss Echo the Queen of Hearts thank to costume components from Aunty Shandai.

We trick or treated with our homeschool buddies for the first time! And did quite nicely.

All in all, a great Halloween!