And the Halloween costume saga has come to its amazing completion. We have FIVE (count them FIVE!) complete costumes, 4 of which are in some way, shape or form handmade by myself or someone we deeply love and appreciate. Whew! Echo’s costume was most certainly a group effort. First is the lovely skirt/apron combo that came all the way from NOVA SCOTIA!! Then Ken was our hero and made our crook. He used much the same stuff as Gavin’s tail. And then under the skirt was a tutu of Trinity’s. Add to that the lovely Fat Sheepas her second half and I am pleased as punch. 

Little Bo Peep has found her sheep!

And apparently knocked said sheep over

Look! A sheep!

Happy Halloween!

Sunday means Sunday School and last night we had full intentions of ALL going… that is until Emanuel spent most of the evening sniffling and waking up periodically in his room while I did my usual diningroom table work. So instead we saw Ken off with the twins and Trinity and retired to the basement to watch The Cat in the Hat Knows All About That. Echo was SUPPOSED to go to nap but has a runny nose herself and is loathe to sleep right now so all 3 of us snuggled on the couch. 

Sunday morning snuggles

It has been an odd day, with the rush of costume making done, the cleaning of the basic household upstairs clutter also completed I am sort of… well… without pressing “to do’s”. So I snuck in a 15 min nap that turned into an hour… downloaded a game trial or two from Bigfish Games… 

We had some crafty kids today – Emanuel and Zander both sat down to do some Halloween themed painting. We have a lovely selection of colours so it is rather easy to convince the kids to do up something bright and fun. 

Painting with Halloween colours

Completed art

I found a Christian Halloween themed mini book for the kids to colour when they felt like it, of course once I put out the markers the younger two were quick to jump in and do theirs. You can find this mini book right here. I figured we should have something to do that is Sunday related but still falls in with their main interest of the weekend – HALLOWEEN! 

Pumpkin prayer

Trinity and I found a set of paper dolls for her to colour. I did these on regular printer paper as she is really not old enough to get the colouring neat and tidy or even more than like 3 colours, We chose the first dolls and then the clothes sheet with dresses. You can find the dolls we used here.

Just need to cut them out

The day may have started out chilly but by the afternoon it was absolutely GORGEOUS! So the kids went out and ran and ran in the backyard. The weather report is actually quite favourable for tomorrow as well! 

Swinging

I took advantage of the fall leaves and nice weather to finally take some pictures of my felties. Though a baguette went missing so I had to make up a new one for my wolf.

Whole group - a little too much sun on the white ones though

Ram

Wolf and his basket

OH Trinity wore my penguin headband today. I am actually rather pleased with how it looks. I have two waiting for their alligator clips still, but I am still debating the angle of the birds on the clips. A dragon pattern is on the docket next… I am looking forward to that one!!

Penguin on a headband... This headband is a Goody brand one so it fits Trinity AND me... What does everyone think?

Gavin has made some nice progress on his new cross stitch. Another self design! Can you tell I am proud as can be? 

So far

That leaves the baking for tonight… the prep work for taking FIVE kids out to trick or treat at two malls and a couple neighbourhoods. I have already made up the two dozen cupcakes a certain amazing cousin requested. bread is in the breadmaker (first of TWO loaves as sandwiches and the like are the theme of the day tomorrow for simplicity sake) and dough for my bannock bread awaiting Ken’s touch with the grease cooking… now to convince Ken to get started on a chocolate to die for brownie, cake thing!! 

This is how lovely it was today - no socks, no sweater and warm and happy... well except when leaves touched her feet.

Today we worked on what I consider to be a VERY important and relaxing skill – sewing… a basic embroidery stitch really and an opener to next week (I hope) and the big project – a first cross stitch! Can you feel my excitement? There are potentially two more stitchers (immediately at least) in the house ready to go!! Time to pass along what my mom taught me as a child. Want to make your own felt leaves? Try this link!

Leaf making supplies

Busy stitchers

We had our Stuart Little chapter as well in which he is rescued… of course after his brother George goes off on endless tangents! 

Trinitiy's is a mouse making pancakes... not sure on that one!

Emanuel has been practicing his “careful colouring” lately as well… we are ALL working on patience. Some days are definitely harder than others! 

Careful colouring

Are you a mom or dad who collects the Pampers Points? We are, though our points have slowed HUGELY since the twins were out of diapers and we made the leap to cloth for our Echo… wipes and Trinity’s Pull Ups keep them trickling in (though I am hoping the pull ups will ALSO soon be a thing of the past!)… well if you do there is a wonderful site that has a bunch of codes listed that you can use to add to your points. Some ARE expired but be sure to check them out and give it a go! 

I am attempting to tidy through things still… stuff has gone up on Kijiji, other things on Freecycle. I am also starting my “kids need” list… anything they are grown out of… things that aren’t going to work anymore and need replacing… top of the list – a new swimsuit for Emanuel! I will hopefully complete the list by tomorrow… the hope is to find used, on sale or hand-me-downs instead of having to put forth a whole bunch of money on full price new. I shudder when I think of the potential lack of sweaters! 

I have been sorting through links online this week as well to get going on our Christmas crafting. Another year where I want to make everything possible for our friends and family instead of purchasing. The sad thing is that for almost every idea I find online I have maybe one or two of the needed items and not all… Dollarama is certainly calling my name! But then when doesn’t it? I am going to share my ideas and links as I go through them… so be ready!

With the apples Kathy picked up for us at H&W I made applesauce… the bag of apples made enough for some to go in the freezer and the rest to be used… today – applesauce cookies. This is Echo’s first time with them and she LOVES them! I hate to think how many she had today!

Cookie Monster

Are you interested in winning a microscope for your homeschooling family? Check out this SITE for a free giveaway! It sounds like an amazing piece of equipment, I know our boys would go nuts over it. I plan on checking out the site further and if it is as good as it looks in passing I will definitely link it permanently! And the best part? This is open to Canadians too!!

It is a big day for yours truly – I decided to give it up and send out my maternity clothes to new homes. First I had to divide them up into piles – Kijiji, Freecycle, Mom’s work and the pieces that could not be given or sold (ie old undies)… that was an adventure down memory lane! I ended up with a nice pile for each (except the trash which was tiny) and hopefully will be seeing them all out the door in good order. It amazes me the size range I had – XS all the way up to L! Funny how a shirt can fit differently depending on cut, fabric and pregnancy! 

That actually took up most of my evening so there went my crafting time! Oops. I have a new idea to keep our busy kids occupied that is going to take up the rest of my evening – I am looking for fun and different worksheets to put in the binders their Uncle Wayne got for them so that when we hit boredom there is something they can pick and choose from! Here’s hoping this works! I have started my search at education.com. Of course they have plenty of the fairy pictures our Trinity absolutely LOVES.

Now no more procrastination… time to post and then move on!

Sunshine!

Our sunshine girl!

We are having a froggy kind of day today. And after last night it is a guardedly happy one… I was cleaning in the livingroom while baking the sugar cookies for the party on Saturday and chanced to look into Frogger’s tank. Talk about HEART ATTACK… he was UPSIDE DOWN… now for some people that may not be an issue but Frogger’s short lived and highly lamented froggy buddy went that way. We left for Mom’s on the 23rd of December and came back on Christmas Eve to one frog upside down and very much DEAD! Now keep in mind that today is our last day of Frogger observations and you can imagine how freaked out this mommy was.

So Frogger has caused more than a little trauma amongst the elders of this family. We were already talking about what to do about his demise, should we show the boys? What do we do about a replacement pet – is our luck just too bad to do so? When I walked BACK past the frog only to see him swimming around happily and floating mid tank as African Aquatic Frogs seemingly do! You can only imagine the bad words teasing my mind to be let out. And then to add insult to injury when we did our frog observations this afternoon he had the audacity to be SITTING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TANK DOING NOTHING!!!! Bah!

Frogger

Frog time was nicely interrupted by an extended session of play in the backyard. Minus the snowpants and all! Gavin’s winter jacket is holding onto the stains from the paint he got on it from a drive home carrying his Sunday School craft so I had to being out Emanuel’s spare jacket for him. (we are so luck TWO families gifted us with their outgrown winter clothes in his size. I don’t think people realize how much that helps us out!) The weather is absolutely lovely today. A balmy +3 Celsius here in central Alberta. It is not supposed to drop below -10 Celsius until next Tuesday!

Gavin and Zander with snowman

The timing for their outside play was wonderful – corresponding nicely with the younger 3’s much needed naps. Of course a night still somewhat interrupted had me sleeping in this morning and the boys watching Cyberchase and Word World with Daddy. It looks like glasses will be a tomorrow thing as Ken is driving my Uncle Wayne to his eye appointment nearby (for eye dilation), perfect timing for Zander and Ken to head to OUR glasses place to get the new specs.

We started something new with Miss Echo yesterday – a straw cup of water! We figured since added fluids (HEALTHY fluids) are not a bad thing why not! She has yet to quite get the hang of the straw but we are considering it a work in progress. These little cups have come a long way since we got them for Emanuel or Trinity. If you gently squeeze the cup a little bit of water comes up the straw for her… AND when you flip the cover for the straw IT STAYS CLOSED!!! My biggest beef with all previous cups was that either failing or being too hard to slide either way.

Sippy Smiles

Right now all the boys want to work on workbook wise is MATH. The deal was once they finished the comprehension section in their gr. 1 overview book they could continue on with their big book AND work on a smaller book on their own. I am still a little shocked and impressed that Gavin was so easily able to count up to 105 with minimal prompting when we did our dot-to-dot. I am hoping this trend continues. Right now we are looking for all of our strengths and focusing on those while still working on the other stuff. After all if every day we accomplish something GREAT the harder stuff feels a little less desperate! Our reading IS coming along but at times we just have to walk away in frustration and come back later.

Math work (Gavin is on the bigger book)

We are trying to decide how to spend Family day (February 21st). I don’t want to stay home just us 7 but don’t want to go out and do something that is going to cost a lot of money. So far one of the options is a Chinese New Year themed event put on by the China Institute which is part of the University of Alberta. I am not completely sold on that one but it is an option.

Tonight the plan is to finish the tutu, all except the waist which is waiting on ribbon that Ken is picking up tomorrow, then to prep the frog stuff that needs assembly for placement in our lapbook. I will share a picture of the tutu tomorrow. I finished the sugar cookies last night and plan on icing them later tonight or tomorrow, maybe baking a batch of applesauce muffins with the applesauce I made up last night… so of course lots to do… which means I need to sign off and do it!

So much snow! (Zander left)