Mondays for this family are always mildly bumpy but we managed quite well today! I printed out what I could last night for our Halloween unit and the boys burned through it in no time! So we did some beading AND stringing of tri-corner beads… but I will get into more detail about that later.

I spent a nice chunk of last night finishing up my pieces for our advent calendar… now all I need to do is assemble the actual calendar and apply some velcrow to both the pieces and the calendar. I am hoping to use this to get the kids a little more aware of the passage of time before an event! Oh and to celebrate getting ready for Christmas of course!

All 25 Pieces!

I have been working more on the ornament as well… I am about one colour away from starting on the beading. I am seriously debating budgeting in another perforated paper project… around the Christmas etc. projects I already have lined up.

Santa!

So Halloween preparation in the Reinsch-Johnson home… well we started off with the letter for the book – B is for Bat! We sounded each letter out and then put them together and of course coloured carefully!

B is for Bat

Then on to the letters – each boy got a Halloween themed letter to colour – THEIR letter. This is always exciting for Emanuel who absolutely loves saying that HIS letter is E. I figure that can be on the front cover of the lapbook.

Halloween Letters

The big activity of the morning was our 3rd Halloween one – hand puppets! I found this great UK craft site. They have stuff for all occasions… and 3 different Halloween hand puppets – the boys just didn’t chose the witch one (thank goodness it had a whole extra page of things to colour and cut out!). Zander spent the most time with his scissors being as sure as he could that there was NO white left around his ghost. I am really impressed how far they have advanced with their small motor skills.

Proud Puppeteers! (Gavin right)

In the afternoon we worked on two different kinds of beads… just like their mom the boys are addicted to the Perler beads. This time Zander worked further on his box sides and Gavin chose to make candy corn – in his own colours. I love the time they take to do it properly and the creativity. They are already coming up with more ideas for later!

Candy Corn and a Box Side

And of course the old stand by from last Christmas – tri-cornered beads! This time in Halloween colours. Even Emanuel got in some stringing time. The plan is to make up ones  tomorrow to give away so that the boys can keep the ones they made today. Which of course pleased them to no end!

Busy Beaders (Gavin left)

Ready to be Tied Off

So for once I have NOT got a complaint about a branch of the government… Keep in mind I mean that I can complain about MANY MANY others, BUT the Student Loan people – they are my friends today. I finally got my repayment reassessed and for once – in MY favour! I swear I about fell over in shock… of course I WILL be calling them later this week to make sure I understood everything in their note. This came on the back of the bank once again screwing up with payments to 3 things. Just because Ken went in with MY bills and numbers… at least this time the manager is looking into it further to ensure we do not have to go through all of this  again – lesson to everyone – SAVE RECEIPTS! I am so glad we did!

Off To Bed We Go!