I have to say the biggest accomplishment today was the completion  of our first major lapbook… Colours and Shapes. This one has been worked on for weeks… doing a bit here, a bit there and mainly just going over concepts we had covered the previous year when we used the Calvert PreK curriculum. We covered everything from specific colours to colour blending, from simple shapes to making pictures out of shapes. I don’t know that I would let another non seasonal lapbook take so long but for our first truly major project I am very happy with it.

I am not sure if I have ALL the links but I do have some for sure:

The match the colour pockets, make a train from shapes seen on the top, mixing colour mini book, our colour mixing experiment, the rainbow the boys coloured, I can draw shapes book and then you can do a search for a colour wheel. We had a lapbook I got for free from Currclick to make up more of the activities and the rest was made up by us. I am sure I can hunt down more links if someone is interested! The next book will have much more organized links I am sure!

We did not make our projected mini field trips to the library and the thread store but made a family run to Michaels to check out the Perler bead options and to stealthily pick up a small kit (1.50) to go into Emanuel’s stocking this year (pirates!) and a set of tweezers (under 3.00) for the twins. I also ran into Toys R Us where I got a terrific deal on some Word World merchandise. If you get the chance and live in Alberta do go check out for clearance items. The Word World big sets are still 30.00 but the 3 bird characters – owl, duck and bird and their eggs are marked down from almost 8.00 a piece to under 3.00! So I picked up all 3 for a little over the price of one originally AND of course caved and got the bag. It still blows my mind that gift bags are 4-5.00 but these reusable shopping bags 99 cents. Granted it has the store name on them but they are so cute! This is Zander’s Christmas present since he is the most vocal about words and letters… I hope he still is when Christmas comes around!

With the weather chilly and the boys restless we sat them down at the table and had them bead to their hearts’ content. Emanuel messed about but decided not to leave anything to iron – he wants a Pocoyo though, but done WITH Daddy. Gavin and Zander each made leaves to paste in their Fall lapbooks… and then got creative – Gavin reproduced the two dinosaurs I printed out in his own colours and Zander started the first of 6 pieces to make his very own 3D cube!

I was mainly busy baking today – Trinity’s Oatmeal applesauce cookies, another batch of beans, sugar cookie dough and a new recipe!! Banana chocolate chip muffins… of course a hit! I found the recipe online so here you go:

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)

1 large egg

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup milk

3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 12 muffin cups with liners. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in a medium bowl. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not over mix). Stir in chocolate chips.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs, about 32 min. Transfer muffins to rack; cool.

Banana Chocolate Chip!

Ken managed to put together an ornament kit we had received a few months ago in a package of craft supplies. I plan on putting it with a mesh bag that is decorated with the mini cross stitch I did and give it to out god-daughter. Apparently it was a bit of a pain in the bum to make but I think it is rather cute (not too sure on the mouth though!).

I did some beading myself late last night, a larger piece that I can’t show that is a Christmas present for a dear friend… all the pieces to assemble a die for a little boy in California, another top (though I REALLY need better, pointier toothpicks) and another dinosaur! Tonight I am hoping to get a start on furniture and a lion.

The big excitement tonight was a new game to celebrate the finishing of the lapbook – red light green light! We all won! And of course ALL got excited. (that is symbolized by the traffic light symbol in their labook)

Red Light Green Light (Zander left)

Trinity’s accomplishment for the day was to give it a go with a baby fork… she seems quite enamoured with it, almost enough to relinquish her ever ready spoon. She is growing up so quickly!!

I have started a new stitch, I don’t think I will post it here as it contains basically a swear or at least REALLY obviously hints at one… BUT I will post it over in my patterns when I have done it up – as one of the ones for sale (I think we figured 2.00). That is another bit of excitement for me – Ken is hoping to get my free patterns up by tomorrow with the for pay ones following close behind. He thinks he has finally resolved the problem with paypal and the site. I will be announcing this over Twitter and Facebook. If you want to follow me over Twitter I am: Ayjah on Facebook Lisa Reinsch-Johnson. In fact, I post my updates on this site each night on those two sites as well! So feel free just be sure to send me a message on Facebook saying that is why you want to be added!

I am still waiting on Ken for the ok on my pumpkin and apple pies recipes. He is determined to find a pumpkin one from scratch… but with time running out we shall see – I am partial to using the one in the Company’s Coming Holiday book. That will mark the end of our pumpkin unit and shift us into the Halloween fun! Where has the time gone???

Can You See the Frost!! Brrr