Well we are officially living in 2011 and… well it doesn’t feel all that different! Our New Years went much as planned. Trinity, Gavin and Emanuel stayed up until midnight! We had pop, and watched Kiki’s Delivery Service while eating cereal.

Kiki!

After midnight Gavin got to stay up a little later to learn how to play our new Wii game Epic Mickey. He actually didn’t do half bad! Still it was odd to only have one of the twins here.

Karyn managed to make it to our house in time to head to The Mall with Ken, the kids and myself to do a little post Christmas shopping. Our timing was great – one of the stores Ken has always enjoyed visiting (a hobby store) is moving to the south end of the city and out of The Mall so they had a 30% off all items in store sale going on. Of course this was enough of a sale for Ken to justify buying an expansion to one of his favourite (German) boardgames. I have lost track of how many expansions and add ons we have for this series!

New game

I  indulged a little at the Body Shop and got my favourite lip balm (the sales girl had set one aside for herself and was willing to sell it to me!) and a bar of Christmas scented soap that was on sale for 2.00.

I love The Body Shop

With lunch in the large foodcourt and a walk through the Chinese grocery store I think we spent a little over 2 hours there.

Checking out the fish (Gavin)

Our evening was spent gaming, the guys on their computers and Karyn and myself on the tv playing Epic Mickey with pizza for supper and ending the evening with some episodes of Dr. Who. Definitely a fun way to start the year. AND we managed to get Echo back on track with her peeing and pooping. I have faith in our system and she is LOVING the bananas.

Sleepy baby

Karyn had to head home today to celebrate a friend’s birthday and we have post holiday cleaning to do so there wasn’t much to do in the way of going out and about. I am hoping we can make it to the conservatory tomorrow if Ken is not swamped with work. The next focus for our homeschooling seems to be going in the direction of the local zoo and the wolves there. I am going to spend much of tomorrow sorting through internet links to find things for the boys to learn about wolves and make up a lapbook out of. Hopefully Ken can work out the issues with my library card so we can head over there too.

In fact, we got in a bit of homeschool fun today – Gavin worked on his ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Lapbook. I love when we can find an all inclusive file to use, even though we could  have added more but for the busy Christmas season it was about perfect.

As for resolutions we have two really – 1. That we finish EVERYTHING we start… homeschooling, personal projects, etc etc… and 2. That we have a working vehicle in our possession for 12 CONSECUTIVE months. I figure those are two admirable goals to shoot for!

I have started a new project, a gift for an unsuspecting family member… I was given a set of threads by Kathy and her mom that came with free instructions. The patterns just totally suited someone so I figure I will stitch it in-between my other projects and then eventually send it off as a surprise gift. It is coming along rather nicely already though I am altering it slightly. For some reason they do not do half stitches… just empty places which I am never pleased with the finished result.

Tonight marks the beginning of the first of 3 weeks with (she) Chris staying over. She will be gone on the weekends but here to finish her practical work. That means that Ken and I can go on an actual date!!! To the Mongoli Grill I think, Echo in tow of course.

OH and yesterday we started Trinity on the Easy Ups – diapers you pull up like undies… they have Dora on the front – she is VERY excited.

She was so proud she has been carrying around the package!

So tonight we settle in for gaming and hanging out… which means time to go! Happy 2011 everyone!

Our Christmas babies

Gavin's creations made from the pictures on the box