So I SHOULD have gone to bed MUCH earlier last night than I did… I blame it on Ken and Ted and their dangling or a new “carrot” in front of me – 3 episodes of Dr. Who with Dr. #9. And Rose, don’t forget Rose… I have to say – very engaging. I remember watching early early episodes of the series (no clue which doctor but I remember the scarf…) with my dad and being thoroughly confused but loving the show regardless. So I didn’t get to bed until well into Saturday morning… which in turn had me UP at way later than I expected. Thankfully the only real Saturday “have to be at” activity was Alex den Otter’s 3rd birthday party at 2.

Not without a picture at the “picture tree” first of course. (What in the world are we going to do when we move and don’t have the silly thing??)

Gavin left

The kids had a blast playing in the backyard at the den Otter’s. And of course playing with all the toys inside.

Birthday boy and Zander

There was a potluck snack/meal that the kids enjoyed, but we had to leave before cake and presents. Trinity and Emanuel had missed naps (even though Trinity had slept in until 11 when Ken woke her – I think she is going through a growth spurt)… and I was wearing out too…

Time for food (Zander red)

Anna and Mommy

It is hard to do afternoon events sometimes, the kids just burn out faster, especially on an overcast and rainy day. Funny how much we love the sun!

When we got home it was a nap for Ken, then supper and bed for the kids. So I took advantage of this time to get in a couple scrapbook pages for Echo – one of my favourite pictures from her first week AND the piece of art Emanuel made for her book.

Emanuel's art

Sleeping Echo

Now I need to focus on apples – we are WAY behind on applesauce and I don’t want to waste and of the free apples we have in our backyard. Not only that but I want to give some to friends and family. This time round I am putting the sauce in the sandwich sized ziploc bags – smaller amounts but perfect for cooking or snacks.

I have started on the outlining of the parts of Echo’s stocking that ARE completed. I am hoping to get as much done as possible this weekend before Ken gets me another pattern to complete. Thankfully Echo is happy to snuggle in my lap or beside me while I work.

To date

Tomorrow the goal is to make it to church. One of our ministers called today to check in about the baptism but she is on holidays for 2 weeks and we can’t plan until Karyn gets back (she is now in Ireland) after the 10th. It was nice to touch base though and she totally understands why it is hard to get FIVE kids out the door and to church. Sunday School registration is next weekend so we will DEFINITELY make that!

Other than that I have to get the house tidy, apples picked up from outside… organize some crafts for next week’s schooling and get ready for Mom, Mike and Harley’s visit on Monday (Labour Day) – since we can’t have toys out or Harley will eat them in the backyard. Definitely not a overwhelming weekend but certainly not totally laid back.

3 weeks old now!

Friday started slowly for the Reinsch-Johnson family. After yesterday’s excitement both Gavin AND Mommy were late to rise. I have asked him a couple of times and he has assured me that his head only hurts a little bit. With the tape firmly covering the glue I have no idea what exactly is going on underneath the bandage but am keeping my fingers crossed.

Echo has spent her Friday grounded to mitten patrol. She scratched the side of her face as soon as I changed her this morning into a sleeper with no finger covers.

Mittens!

I didn’t push the schooling today in order to keep a better eye on Gavin and how he is feeling, luckily the twins volunteered to do their unfinished old workbooks. Each of them completed on – one colours and the other numbers. I love the glow on their faces when they FINISH something. It is very special.

All done! (Gavin left)

Since Emanuel and Trinity were still in the middle of much needed naps I sat the twins down to colour a Birthday Card for tomorrow’s birthday boy – Alex. I love the FisherPrice site.

Colouring the card (Zander left)

While Ken took Zander and Emanuel out to run errands (Gavin decided he wanted to stay home), the rest of us settled down to watch some educational tv – Grandma Anna’s favourite show – The Dog Whisperer and then one of my favourites – Things That Move. So while not exactly our most productive day we certainly did not waste all our time. We did choose to keep the kids in though – with the wind today came apples – off our tree… and the idea of Gavin (or any of the others) taking an apple to the head after we went to emergency once this week… no thank you!

They came back with the big treat – SLURPEES for all 4 kids!

What a treat (Gavin yellow)

Tonight we had guests over – Sean, Ted and Chris and Chris all came by. This is the first time in ages Sean and Ted have been over for some gaming (Chris and Chris were more of a fly by). Kinda makes it feel more like life is back to our version of normal. Gaming, potluck and good friends… all at our house!

Meeting Sean

Meeting Ted

Tomorrow is Alex’s birthday party – Ken and the boys picked up gifts for him on their errand run. I have a few errands to run myself on Saturday along with a massive amount of applesauce and tidying to accomplish so I do not know how long we will stay at the party. Sunday I want to ATTEMPT church and then go from there… and of course it IS a long weekend…

So much love in the house

The week is quickly coming to a close and I think I have FINALLY determined what we are doing this week – finishing! I found a couple of the older Prek workbooks the twins have been working on in the past and put them in their folders. We are actually trying something slightly different, last night I filled up a folder for each boy with their name on it with math pages, some dot to dots, unfinished PreK workbooks and such and had them choose what they wanted to do and how much.

Gavin went all out on his unfinished number workbook from Sesame Street and almost finished the whole thing, proving that his grasp on the number 13 is improving (for some reason when they count often they leave that number out??). Emanuel is continuing his work on his PreK lapbook!

Working hard

Zander did considerably less but volunteered to go out and do part of their daily summer/fall chore and pick up all the good apples and some of the bad. The hope is to get as many as possible cleaned up this week BEFORE the leaves join the apples on the ground. This also has me hopping on the applesauce trying to use up what are definitely BIGGER and REDDER apples this year. All that rain has done wonders on the apples but the raspberries… not so much.

Zander and Emanuel picking up apples... sort of

Trinity and Echo have done some more bonding, mostly Trinity discussing where Echo’s nose is, and telling me all about her. During my bath Echo spit up all over herself so she got an impromptu shower with Daddy that went rather well.

Explaining where her nose is

I left out a craft today in favour of another trip out to the fountains at the legislature. The weekend weather report is looking rather nice but with so much other stuff stuffed into it as well as the inevitable busier time at any of the “fun places” in the city we opted for today. Tomorrow I have promised (as long as the weather is nice) to put the sprinkler on and refill the pool… oh and slip them some freezies IF the apples are mostly cleaned up.

Emanuel, Zander and Gavin

Me and My BIG Girl!

Of course 5 min into that event – on a perfect day – no one else around at the little fountain and only one family over at the “pool,” Gavin starts crying… he jumped off of something and fell and hit his head! With swim shoes on and everything and right after I had said – be careful! Luckily we got him sitting down and holding a wipe to his head to see if the bleeding would stop, which gave me the time to get Trinity into the fountain for some play before we left or we would have had a 6 yr old in tears AND a VERY angry 2 yr old. It pretty much stopped bleeding but looked total ick so we packed everyone up, went through McD’s drive through (no supper yet of course), dropped the other 4 kids and myself off and picked up something for Gavin and Ken to do at the hospital and sent them off to emergency. Gavin was actually MORE upset about not getting to play more at the fountain than the wound. With our weather quickly changing I am not sure we will make it back but we will make it up to them – either the park or zoo or something!

Watching cartoons and waiting for Gavin

After a couple hours at emergency they were able to head home with the injury glued together (?), if that holds we are golden, if not he has to go back in to emergency and get one stitch. So fingers crossed the glue is the solution!

All glued up, Ken took a picture of the wound but I won't share that one here.

In order to keep my mind off the one child that was NOT here, I did a bit of crafting – one more page for Echo done and ready to go into her book…

Brothers and Sisters

and some dishes, tidying and chasing of the 3 that are here and mobile. Thank goodness for PVRed tv!

We got some mail today from my brother and his family. They were planning to make the trip up this weekend but Holly and my nephew Jimmie caught colds. Which is totally too bad – we have not seen them since last Christmas. But I have high hopes for us making it 3 hours south of here SOMETIME in the foreseeable future.

New clothes for Echo

Scrapbook and a movie for the big kids

So a relatively sedate day totally went wild by the end! But we are all in basically one piece and home for the evening which is a definite plus. The rest of the night I have to get back to work on that stocking and hopefully talk designs with Ken, who is now hours behind on HIS schedule for the evening. Serves us right for making an evening timeline when we have 5 kids!!!

I just can't help but take more pictures!