March 24-26

The 23rd ended with a lovely birthday call to my dad catching us up and just generally reminding me of how much of a Daddy’s Girl I always have been and always WILL be. Half a country closer is not close enough but it is nice!

Warm fuzzies gave way to MORE snow! Come on Mother Nature!!! Can we please have that spring now??

So instead we worked on enjoying not only what we did on the weekend…

But new art to draw thanks to Art For Kids (link on right)…

And afternoon snacks. With our regular schoolwork and some together time, not a horrible start to a new week.

Our Tuesday was quiet and full of written work. We are trying to write more stories, reflect more… talk about things more… and of course continue reading together, alone, to each other. Cooperation is something we are really working on, an patience of course.

Wednesday was a special day – FAMILY FUN DAY! Which meant first doing our basics (spelling, math, reading) and then moving onto games.

Emanuel, Trinity and Echo got creative and found all the little hats they could find and the Easter Egg Bunny that they got last year from Gammie and cornered me to take pictures of a bunny hat fashion show! It may not have been hugely educational but it WAS highly adorable!

The willing (?) model

With the bunny done showing off its amazing runway skills it was time to head out for the FUN portion of our day – a trip out to Sam’s Club. The kids LOVE going there… samples, wandering the aisles, talking prices (the twins are starting to catch some of the prices as deals or expensive).

We rounded off our day with a great Freecycle find – a toy chest for Echo and Trinity’s dress up and doll clothes. It needs a little work but that is what a good weekend is for!

I figured it was also a great time to bake a box cake. After all kids who are freshly over a cold and have been working hard on their schoolwork need a  good snack, right?

We are all feeling much better this week! And now the countdown is on to Uncle James’ birthday and HIS birthday call. I miss my brother and his family!!!

March 5-7

Midweek sunshine had the kids out in an extended recess. This has been a wonky winter… huge spans of too cold weather and the snow just not being packing friendly. So anytime they can get out and run run run it is worth it!

Baking sugar cookies is a two day thing so Wednesday was baking… the result was absolutely delicious as usual.

That evening Echo and I had fun playing with baking soda and vinegar. I saw this as a toddler idea on Facebook. You take a baking tray and put toy cars and baking soda on it. Add vinegar and let them play. I decided to strip her down to her pull up and put it in the tub to minimize mess. The cars were nice and clean and Echo thought it hilarious. Boy did we use a bit of vinegar though!!

On Thursday we assembled our own kaleidoscope from a kit we got for Christmas from Grandma. It was a lot of fun putting it together and then reading about the history of them thanks to Wiki HERE. And a short video with some information that we sat through.

Mr. Emanuel is wowing me with his increased wish to read harder and harder things!!! Way to go big boy!

Friday marked the start of a new portion of our homeschooling routine – learning to use Google and the internet to answer our own questions. First we made a list earlier in the week of things we just wanted to know and then the twins took turns writing the questions into Google to find answers. I would screen the sites that come out and then the kids would take turns reading out our answers for me to record.

Back to Legos…

And then baking again… we could not show up empty handed at the Novak’s!!

Which is where we went that evening. We had a dinner and playdate sort of day… we brought the side dishes and Darcy got pizzas.

The kids played games and hung out and watched movies (Depp Wonka’s Chocolate Factory – I brought my copy) while Darcy worked on a birthday cake for her god daughter and I played supportive friend. Not that she needed much of a cheering section. Darcy does AMAZING work!

In fact the girls are no ADAMANT that she make their cakes this year too!

So we ended our week with an amazing evening of play time for the kids and an adult visit that included some amazing artistic creativity for yours truly!!

March 1-4

First Saturday of the month was also the FIRST of the month. Talk about a quick start to the third month… Home Depot of course! This time it was making a Trojan Horse piggy bank! Not the strongest piece and definitely not a family favourite but cool.

We had visitors over lunch for a play date. Last week it was the Schwartz family – Chris and Renee and their kids. This time it was the Schwartz family Matt and Fran and their twins Henry and Izzy. They are between Trinity and Echo in age and most definitely NOT identical. I was so thankful Fran was able to come. It was great to see yet another adult woman in person. Sometimes the snow and cold really does isolate you.

The next day it was Sunday School as usual. We are really seeing the benefits of a church that has Sunday School virtually every Sunday. The kids do love going to class.

Then nap time for a Mommy who still had the vestiges of a cold. While I was snoozing away the kids and Ken were doing some necessary ground work on the tools used in making their own pinewood derby cars. Familiarity breeds understanding and SAFETY! What was absolutely brilliant was that it was TRINITY who was the last one working away with the tools. Very serious business.

We also enjoyed some girly time doing up the first of I am sure MANY scrapbook pages in Trinity’s Hello Kitty scrapbook! We do love a good sticker!

And of course in order to prove she could pull her own weight Miss Echo took a go at the vacuum. What a good helper!

I would love to say March started with lovely spring weather and sprouts of green but… well more snow once again.

The twins and I did our first animal reports. We are starting with books and internet searches and then hoping to move to bibliographies and paragraph form!

We had a complicated combination of swimming lessons for the twins at 7:30 and Scouts for Mr. Emanuel at 6:30. With the distance between the two It was a whole family all evening affair. We lucked out and Darcy’s older 3 were (semi) willing to watch the girls for Aidan and Emanuel’s session. I think that was my first experience with real babysitters!!!

The next day it was back to work… we are especially working on the concept of chores and how they are a part of being a family and NOT the means to money or reward. Mommy does a lot for the family that there could be help with. So why not pitch in and let us have more time to have fun TOGETHER?

We are all about the Lego lately. With the table out for Perler beads or the Lego game the kids have gravitated to the kitchen and together play time more and more. It is nice!

But more importantly… the family also have been enjoying more baking time together. I don’t know why we don’t do this more often! Especially with Nana’s awesome mixer at our fingertips (and yes it was unplugged before Miss Echo started her tasting).

Our focus in March really has gravitated to stuff we do TOGETHER!!!