January 6-10

The weather has gone cold cold cold… so cold in fact, that it has been declared ARCTIC! SO of course we had to try the boiling water thrown into the freezing air. Yes, instant steam and an impressive sound to boot. Ken was the adventurous one who ventured outside to do so. We also did up New Year’s Resolutions and pictures of some of our favourite Christmas moments in our journals. We did ATTEMPT a balloon left out in the cold but we did not see a dramatic change in its shape sadly. It was worth a try. The kids and I did an afternoon movie in bed – BRAVE! It was fun to snuggle and hang out together in our own little world. The twins also did another Christmas related drawing from Art for Kids. Seriously, click on their link on the right and enjoy the free art lessons! The next day we started storytime up again. I am determined to keep us reading. We lucked out over Christmas and ended up growing our book collection and of course there are always random stops at the library to find some seasonal gems. And lately, our day is never complete without a fairy! With all this cold weather we decided it was time to take on our next Little Passports country – Mexico! I did order some extra books from the library:

• Mexico in Pictures by Janice Hamilton
• Mexico by R. Conrad Stein
• Christmas Traditions Around the World by Ann Ingalls
• Countries of the World: Mexico by Beth Gruber

And of course we used Activity Village (search under Mexico) for some print outs.  We found this great Animal Planet show – Treehouse Masters. After watching a few episodes the boys decided to create some joint masterpieces of their own using their imaginations and Gavin’s art book.  On Wednesday Trinity figured she would come up with some dreams for 2014 and did an amazing job colouring the page up afterwards. In fact, everyone did some winter or New Year’s themed papers. All printed out from Activity Village (link on right). Emanuel and I took on reading about dinosaurs from a Christmas present. I have sorted through all the books I could in the house and have put everything dinosaur into a box. I am hoping we can vary up our dinosaur learning. Of course I still have backlog to share once I get off my bum and link everything up and all that fun stuff. Emanuel’s love of dinosaurs has not faltered. We are just reaching the end of our easily researched dinosaurs. Time to get more creative!  We had more storytime and more treehouses. Both Wednesday and Thursday. As well as a closer look at the amazing microscope bought with Christmas money. I cannot wait until summer when it is easier to get specimens for slides! Ken and the kids took on one of their new science kits and cracked open the magnet box.  We also got a good start on Chinese New Year. This year we are making a poster with our findings again. Lots of books and online hunting. This is one of the kids’ favourite celebrations. And this year it is the year of the horse.  With cousins coming Friday afternoon we rounded off our school week with the creating of our own ice rink. A really simple craft you can find HERE. We also made our own little critters out of magic clay and spent some time discussing how they would skate together and play.  Treehouses of our imagination… magnets… Chinese New Year… add in some interesting government stuff to accomplish – American passports, Social Security numbers and various medical appointments for Ken and we are keeping our 2014 active and exciting!!! 

And we keep on reading!

November 23-24

I don’t normally allow a true four day weekend but with this being the first weekend with Nana and Baba back from Tulum it seemed like the best thing to do. Of course that does not mean we DID much. In fact, Friday was definitely a sit about and relax kind of day. It was at MIDNIGHT Thursday that Ken and I did one more rather “American” thing. We went out for my very first Black Friday.

Apparently it is not the same as it used to be as some stores opened as early as 8 pm on Thanksgiving day, but we decided to wait til midnight with the hopes that the lines would be shorter as well! We only went to two stores – Walmart (crazy lines!!! Lost a mitten… so sad as it is one of my Canadian ones from the Bay from last year, but we will be going back to Walmart to check the lost and found) and Target (the exact opposite, quiet and no lines, and I bought a pair of stretchy gloves for 3.00 to replace the mitten at least temporarily). OH and Starbucks IN Target… I got a Christmas themed coffee for the fun of it, total yum and NOT cheap!

We didn’t buy much but could not resist the pj’s at 4.00 a piece (I really should have bought double sets)… I did finally find out the reason it is called BLACK Friday though… It is because the day after Thanksgiving is seen to be a good shopping day, the day that stores move from being in the red to in the black due to large sales! Interesting but boring reason. So we drove around a bit and saw the crowds and determined that the big thing we needed to get was better purchased ONLINE! BUT now I can say I braved the crowds! And as I promised myself, only bought the things we needed from a select list,  not just sales for sales sake.

It snowed that night!

Anyway, after returning victorious (we also managed to get a copy of Brave for Nana and Baba at the 10.00 sale price) we had some cleaning up to do, and then bedtime. Friday morning we… well we sat around, the kids played computer type stuff and the adults rested. We really did NOT want to go out on Black Friday and face the craziness. Some places had time sensitive sales but really we didn’t NEED anything badly enough to head out. Family together time was a MUCH better choice.

A Short run in the snow since we needed to get boy boots yet

Poor little bruised face

Zander with his reading. They are REALLY improving!

Of course SATURDAY was slightly different. That evening Ken and I went out to Bath and Body works to take advantage of a limited time sale AND the fact that here in the US we can stack coupons. Add to that an American Express gift card I won online and we spent a grand total of 71cents and got almost a hundred dollars worth of items! That included a FREE candle! (I am sure you can imagine how happy the family pyro is with his TWO Christmas scented candles) We had actually planned on going out to get boots for the boys but when we stopped at a gas station to fill up a tire Ken ended up accidentally deflating it and slowed us down to the point where it was just best to head home and plan for another day.

I saved 53 dollars PLUS I had a gift card I won so I only spent 71 cents :)

Instead the boys played Minecraft and they all played games. That freed me up to sew to my heart’s content (though did mean we did not make it to get the yarn I am missing for some Christmas presents). I am done all the hats for all of the kids, and now am moving onto the other people in our life… lots of light bulbs and various ideas are coming to mind so hopefully I can manage to continue at a fair pace without wearing out my hands.

Minecraft AND puzzles

It is definitely winter here, though nowhere near as nasty as we are used to for November. The snow is sticking and the weather more overcast BUT it is still lovely! No -30 Celsius yet!

Poor Echo, her face looks worse before it looks better!