October 22-23

I swear this is some sort of born in trigger for kids that Mondays HAVE TO be rough. For some bizarre reason every time I had something for her to do her leg hurt or she was tired or she didn’t want to. The joys of trying to get a 4 year old to stick to a routine. I think the lack of a nap after a VERY busy zoo trip on the Sunday just did her in on Monday. And then she refused to nap on Monday as well. 

What we did accomplish  though, in hindsight, was not half bad. We started with the usual work books, spelling, etc etc and then moved onto my list of to dos…

1. pen pal letters… Gammie (Jimmie’s Grandma) wrote back once again, she truly is like clockwork. Each of the kids had a letter to respond to and they all coloured pictures for her. 
2. journal pages about their Sunday zoo trip.
3. doing their paperbag scrarecrow zoo trip craft

Emanuel and I were over the moon that his monthly project series FINALLY started! We are doing the Little Passports2 year program. One country per month. The first package was just a starter – suitcase, special passport, story, questions to answer and of course a way to figure out our first country to learn about – BRAZIL! I think Emanuel is VERY excited. We still need to find a place to put the map we got in our package, maybe over his bed?

Gavin and Zander channeled their inner artist with the Art for Kids site and their continuing AMAZING Halloween themed step by step instructions on how to draw. The big question in our home is what will be the next to be uploaded.

Gavin opted to go outside and clean leaves in a rather interesting and picturesque way. The trees out back have RED leaves and they are gorgeous! So of course we had to take a few pictures!

Poor Ken spent 5 hours at the DMV only to find out that his information that he got from the SAME OFFICE was wrong and there was one more step to changing his license over to American. He really did NOT come home a happy bunny! At least he came home with a plan and an APPOINTMENT in hand for Tuesday. Government + Kenny = NOT HAPPY pretty well consistently.

Miss Echo has done some work on her own as well… lots of colouring…

And watching of Pocoyo. I guess now I have to hunt down MORE merchandise. Sadly the US is NOT the place to do that so if anyone has any ideas… HELP! I am amazed we are now 5 for 5 for loving that show!!!

We have learned a new dice game as well. You can find the print out and instructions HERE. We love a good dice game. I think I will have to dig out some of the ones off this site that we played in the past, I don’t think Emanuel has learned any of them yet! 

Tuesday was a SPECIAL day… Ken’s 35th birthday! Yours truly already gave him his gift – my very first granny square lap blanket. The kids all made him bits and bobs and a special card! 

Add to the birthday “fun” his taking of the drivers written test to transfer his license to an American one from Canadian. Sadly that has not been simple as of course there are steps that they did not realize had to be done until he WENT IN! Happily, on his birthday he PASSED we just need to wait on a verification!

We are working our way through spelling tests, reading practice (almost to the end of our first pizza month), pen pal responses and dinosaur knowledge. I am determined to get back onto our math and maybe learn some more about our new home. Science is dinosaur flavoured right now… and I have come to the realization that we are sneaking in our learning everywhere more and more.

We had a very exciting completion by Gavin as well – he finished his cross stitched joke card which he gave to Ken for his birthday! His next project is way more ambitious, we are collecting colours and such for it now.

Add in a yummy birthday dinner of Ken’s favourites and we managed a pretty spiffy day!