February 13-18

Slow but steady, our family motto when it comes to all things is – if you start it you FINISH it! So Thursday the 13th we got right to work on our RED poster for our Chinese New Year unit. I think we did a rather good job on our assembly and quickly realized that this is a poster AND a binder unit! Sometimes we are caught off guard as to how much we really do as 5 kids all working on portions of a unit.

For our Olympics unit we printed off snowboard templates and each of the kids designed their own. We talked about how some will have slogans, labels for selling things, images they like and enjoy seeing and then used their imagination and got to work. This was found on Activity Village under their snowboarding section HERE.

Further proof that Art for Kids drawings are amazing – Miss Trinity was well pleased with her results drawing her own snowboarder. She had to do a second for Echo. I just love how accessible he makes more complicated drawings for kids (link on right) and adults !!

Emanuel made us what he told me was a Chinese style building out of Echo’s wooden blocks… quite nice! She liked it.

We have been working on our Valentines Day themed worksheets. They are really helping the confidence with numbers and colour words!

We also set up a table so the kids could take a week or two and just bead up a storm! Perler beads are simply a family favourite!

Friday, of course, was Valentines Day! And so we had our cards and such to exchange. Ken and the kids had TWO cards for me and a bag of cookies and cream kisses! How spoiled am I?

I made Ken his very own crocheted Kiss… you can find the pattern itself HERE. This site does not allow for sale of completed projects but has a lovely list of free patterns to make of different kinds of food.

Of course we dressed up in red and pink and white to match the theme.

We spent our morning on puzzles and games. Lots of team spirit!

Lunch was full of pink and white and red… we had waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, red jello with whipped cream, pink juice and heart shaped cookies. Add in some suckers and hugs and the kids were over the moon with the variety of snacks.

Our centerpiece!

In the afternoon the kids got white t shirts and fabric markers and made themselves up some fancy t shirts. No theme on those just what they wanted to make but they had a blast working on them.

Supper was the kids’ Pizza Hut reading coupons! I am so proud of the effort they all make to work on their reading! 

We had a VERY quiet Saturday… mainly due to my getting sick. Mommy is ALWAYS the last to get sick… and by then the germs have mutated.

That did not stop the kids from going to Sunday School on Sunday and then heading out into the backyard and all the snow we have out there to enjoy. Yours truly went to nap. I have not been so ill in a very long time. I think I lost days to sleep if you count up all the hours I napped and or slept in.

I went for a bath in the early afternoon to try and clear out my sinuses and came out to my whole family cleaning up the boot room! What sweeties! They all worked so well together!

The evening ended with a Skype visit with Nana and Baba all the way in Roatan!

On Monday it was back to beading – Gavin has an especially large pattern to work on thanks to some of our Christmas money (we purchased the largest peg board we could!)

And then back into the snow. You will see this as a February pattern – any day that is not too cold is spent outdoors. I figure we need to burn off that winter snoozy feel!

Tuesday we were back to family storytime. I cannot tell you how wonderful it feels to see the twins reading to their siblings. They are doing so well… so smoothly and so amazingly coherent. I am hoping they will love reading as much as I always have and Ken has grown to.

Trinity, Echo and I read a favourite book – Guess How Much I Love You.

The boys drafted Ken out to help them with a rather impressive structure in the backyard. They started off with a rather half hazard structure and went from there with Ken’s help. Out came the snow brick maker and a piece of wood for the roof. Imagination and manpower… priceless.

I think these moments with Ken out in the snow are going to be amazingly lasting memories for the boys!