December 2-4

Time to start Advent in earnest with the first Monday of the month. But first we had to finish off our Thankful poster. It is now full of things we are thankful for. One item for every day in November leading up to and including Thanksgiving Day. It will now make its home on a wall in the boys’ room.

I am so glad I put our Perler bead Advent calendar where I could find it this year! We have had this one for years and years and the kids just love taking the different shapes and putting them on the board each night. THEY remind ME! For those keeping track, this is Advent calendar #2!

We have jumped into our Christmas/Advent themed worksheets with both feet. I am getting MOST of these from our favourite crafting and print out site – Activity Village. Their link is on right.

It also gives me a chance to introduce our THIRD Advent calendar – a paperchain we tear the rings off each night. I printed off the Activity Village version that had the numbers and lines to trim on ready to go but you could just cut the papers.

We hit midweek with weather that allowed the boys outside to play in the snow. It is funny. Alberta has been hit hard by cold and snow… us way less so!

Of course we had to enjoy a Wild Kratts that covered an animal we had not yet made a mini poster for!

Burrowing Owls

BUT the big excitement stemmed from our assembly of our Thanksgiving unit into a lovely duotang. There was so much to enjoy revisiting and a lovely stack of finished work to compliment each other over. You can find our resources HERE.

Completion in wake of beginning Advent… the best of both worlds!

Remember to check Art for Kids for thematic how tos on drawing and more… link on right.

November 29-December 1

Well, here in the US Thanksgiving is on a Thursday… so confusing. Why not a Friday or a Monday? While it is not a government holiday the Friday after IS a holiday for many places. And of course it is BLACK FRIDAY… a huge shopping day when a lot of deals are there for the grabbing. Ken and I did minimal shopping with a quick trip out to our local and honestly not so busy (comparison wise) Target. Yesterday’s post of the lovely Christmas matching dresses (HERE) was one of our finds as was a couple gifts on the kids’ Christmas list that were must have and long requested and on sale!

We did our minimum of basic schooling  before the cousins arrived for a weekend visit. Of course we put the willing and somewhat willing hands to work making more little hats to go on the Christmas tree. Nana sure can motivate!

On Friday

And again on Saturday

Echo snuck her time on the computer playing Minecraft… though I am not sure how far she made it, she did enjoy it!

On Saturday the girls enjoyed a cozy tea party.

Echo dressed up for the part in one of her favourite “blue dress” dresses.

Bit of an Alice in Wonderland feel

The weather held out long enough for the kids to spend some time in the backyard. Coats are now a definite necessity!

We started December with the whole family heading to church. There was no Sunday School as it was Thanksgiving weekend. It was not a full service but we enjoyed it. Sitting in the back with crayons and paper and attempting to be patient is always a bit of a struggle but I think we didn’t do too badly.

They had a fair for Advent the day before and there were special treat bags for the kids left over so they gave them out at the end of the service. We had 5 very excited kids when that happened!

With it being the beginning of Advent we started our calendars counting down. We have THREE! Trinity’s is a Santa face where you fill in the beard with cotton balls.

The girls got their Christmas vibe on with some pretty picture making. I love stickers and buy up the 1.00 books whenever I come across them!

Super fuzzy sorry!

And that was that. We are done with Thanksgiving (resource and book work to follow) and onto Advent and the days to Christmas are ticking by!!! Where has the time and the year gone?????

NOTE THERE IS A PICTURE ENTRY THAT GOES WITH THIS ONE WITH THE REST OF THE PICTURES!

Has officially come and gone and was, I figure, a success… the kids are well toyed, family has been celebrated with by the end of the week we will be back to the Reinsch-Johnson normal!

Ready to party

Goofy excited kids

Let’s start with the Mandyke side of the family (Ken’s mom) and Christmas Eve… A rather traditional Ukrainian dinner with perogies, potato soup and gunk (no one seems to remember the “real” name for that one) oh and OUR traditional Chocolate Candy Cane cake only made into cupcakes and iced with cream cheese icing instead of cool whip.

The table

Sitting down to supper – with T.J.

Cupcakes

Ken’s uncle Paul, aunt Colleen and cousins Melissa and T.J. all came for supper and visiting… and presents for the kids! The twins each got their own ant farm, I am not sure who is more excited… them or Ken!!! Emanuel got a bowling set and Miss Trinity a drawing one with those dry erase crayons. When we first purchased that product over a year ago in Canada I was unimpressed… they were REALLY hard to erase… now over a year later they are much better. Though you do still need to work a little at the erasing.

Gavin and the bowling set

Echo got a bag full of BALLS! Which of course created the catalyst for a massive ball explosion. There was also a SILLY STRING WAR! Do you know, I have never seen silly string in person before? Just on tv… it is much less… wet than I expected. The guys went all out on that one… but I think Nana won with her sneak attack on T.J.

Silly string monster

There was lots of visiting and reminiscing. T.J. is in grade 8 and on the VARSITY wrestling team (I am told this is a big accomplishment), I do believe tentative plans were being made for some of the family to go see some of his competitions. I know our nephew Zachary has just started wrestling so I am sure he would enjoy and probably learn something from going to some of the events.

Wrestling

Trinity and Emanuel went out and spread their reindeer food before dinner. (Remember their making it HERE?)

Feeding the deer

After saying good bye to family it was time to get in the Christmas pj’s and get those Santa cookies and milk out and ready. Though I am kicking myself, I forgot all about setting up our Advent set (the Little People one)… When we were digging out the table decorations and such Nana found a special plate and mug for Santa so we had a great set up with all the stockings in a row. Of course we had our yearly complaining by Ken about how PLAIN his stocking is. I really need to sit down and find a suitable stocking pattern and get one done up for him as well!

Matching

Ready for Santa

With our Canadian Christmas set up in the basement – gifts mailed in from friends and family, the presents from Ken and myself to the kids and the Santa gifts WE had a hand in and of course the ones to each other we were rather good to go. There were packages from Canada, Texas AND South Carolina under there, quite the full and pretty tree!

Ready for the kids