September 26-30

I absolutely admit to being a garage sale lover. We found a game AND a recorder book… which only makes sense when you realize I bought recorders this summer and intent to start music next year!

We also found an early deal on snowpants at Sam’s Club! 15.00 for 60.00 children’s snowpants. THANK YOU! At the time only Emanuel was with us so we snapped them up for him. I should say, was the only kid with us that needs them. Once I find the winter coat bucket the girls are only down boots. Of course with all the sorting of things I am unclear WHERE that bucket is (fingers crossed the weather holds until I find it!).

We are still totally missing the sidewalk we always had wherever we lived in Alberta… road safety has become paramount as has Mommy’s obsession with watching how fast people drive down our street and at what times. We don’t do too badly but it seems some evenings the speeders come out to play.

On Saturday we had our numbers swelled to 9 kids! Jeffrey and Evan with big brother Nathan joined us for half the day or so while mommy was away at quilting class and daddy out hunting. The kids love having them over. Echo and Evan are best friends and the twins and Nathan are always off playing leaving the rest of us to enjoy wee Jeffrey.

Sunday was Sunday school and probably one of our last chances for shorts and pretty jackets. Where has the season gone??

We set the kids to work prepping our garden fresh carrots as well. I love how our canning and freezing have become a family activity.

Our big excitement for Monday was a visit over at Aunty Judy’s and Uncle Jim’s… or as the kids call it – Robbie’s house! Any excuse is a good one for a visit and this time our visit was based on Emanuel selling his wreaths for Scouts. He has done quite well doing so. So many lovely friends and family willing to help us out with our first real experience with fund raising.

Add in school and such to our week and that is the end of September! Our October is shaping up to be a month of Halloween learning. Lapbooks, stories and crafting I plan. So be sure to check up while I recount that… hopefully in a more TIMELY manner!!! I simply MUST get the blog up to date!

September 13-19

Sometimes you need a bit of a quiet weekend, especially after the last month or so of go go go. The twins are still set on playing and collecting Pokemon cards. They have quite the personal stash going and are doing amazing at keeping their cards in their boxes and actually trying to play the game properly. I do believe they have even stopped the copious amounts of cheating! Which means soon we should be able to head to the local comic book store (The Source, though it is so much more than a comic book store) when they have gaming table set up. Emanuel cannot wait to read well enough to be able to start his own collection.

Miss Echo has resurrected her love of her Little People sets… it is quite the sight to see her drag all her sets and toys and the bucket they go into out into the living room to play. Always this must be done ALL BY HERSELF.

All too soon it was back to the daily grind. But first we had to have a discussion about what we wanted to be for Halloween. After all costume creation is never overnight. I do love hearing their crazy and not so crazy ideas, though Zander has opted to recycle last year’s costume and be a ninja two years running.

We have thrown ourselves into our new curriculum books with Echo the ever diligent supervisor.

We have begun our series of volcano learning. The goal for the twins now is to have them cherry pick their own special facts and information from tv while they watch it and record it themselves. The idea of sifting through something to find the important bits. Volcanoes is definitely a SLOOOOW unit, potentially structured over two months. We started with Magic School Bus and their visit to a volcano.

Even Echo got a turn at the worksheets. She uses her pencil with gusto!

Art for Kids (link on right) have changed things up and now are doing a once a week email out to those who subscribe where you get a few of their art instructions in a printable format. The link is good for a week and then gone. I would totally recommend you sign up. These instructions are great for any age!

We are having a bit of a teacher assistant situation going on lately. The twins have become amazing helpers!

This week we also saw off our scout for his second year of scouting!! How exciting. Note the badges sewn on AND the new neckerchief!

The boys got brand new tshirts in the mail from Gammie! They had to strike a pose and take a photo!

On Friday Renee and Jeffrey collected us (minus Echo) and we headed over to the Speltz family home. A hobby farm! We were spoiled rotten with a puppy to play with and vegetables to pick… Thank you so much to Mr. and Mrs. Speltz for the veggies, especially the hand chosen pumpkins! And Renee for the trip!

We got a few green pumpkins that Trinity has guessed with take TWENTY days to turn orange (I am rather certain it will be more than that but what a fun experiment!).

Copious amounts of carrots has us ready to make freezer carrots and enjoy the fresh veg on an everyday basis.

Later in the day Trinity and I walked down the street to a local garage sale. I love it when they are in the neighbourhood.

We ended our week with a birthday cheesecake for Baba and a group of worn out dirty kids. Showers all round and bed! What a week!

 Enjoy the extra images!

August 7

Some of the new season of Wild Kratts have been really interesting… Crocogator was fun… comparing a crocodile and an alligator (Emanuel was later able to repeat this knowledge to a friend! So proud!).

We had another wonderful series of garage sale finds. I love finding books for a steal!!!

The night of the 7th was a parade! In fact, Karen (Renee’s sister) suggested we go to this one. It is a long time favourite of hers and we were more than happy to join here and Cory for the event.

Of course we got there early to get decent parking and lucked out with a Catholic church/school with an adjoining playground. We actually ended up at the end of the beginning of the parade so it was easy to know when to return to our choice spot.

Karen is a HUGE fan of parades and was right there with the kids trying to get the big trucks to honk their horns and cheering on everyone.

She was a great sport, even getting a big black mustache with oil make up that the kids were TOTALLY not going for.

there was a florist handing out roses to all the ladies as well.

And a group right at the beginning that gave out carrots. ECHO loved that as did Ken and Cory.

So many cowboy hats and as usual around here, princesses.

We finished off our evening with dinner and a visit at our house. Talk about an amazing once a year experience (as that is the grand total of parades Ken is willing to go to). Thanks for the heads up and for joining us Karen and Cory!!