June 15-20

Sunday was Father’s Day and a down day for the family… the 16th/Monday our Anniversary. You can see the pictures from the dinner out HERE at the end of the rather extensive Wedding etc blog post!

We did put the kids to work on Monday the 16th cleaning their room and the bathroom.

Which was topped by mail from Gammie… more Legos from the Mixels series she is collecting for them! Thank you Gammie! I got them out of the package and I swear you blinked and they were built!

On Tuesday we were home all alone with Daddy gone to gaming and Nana and Baba in Mexico so we had a junk food dinner with movies and snuggle time.

Don’t forget mid afternoon end of movie dance time!!

On Wednesday we took advantage of the many updates of the Art for Kids site (link on right).

And Gavin finished the first of his 5 projected chapter books for the summer Pizza Hut reading program. Not bad!!! For this book he did a chapter by chapter summary. On the next book he is reading the whole thing and then telling the story to us all in brief

We managed a lovely park visit/Geocache. While our speed at hunting has lessened every time we DO go has been full of excitement and avid hunters.

We left the travel bug and took the handmade dolly

On Thursday Miss Echo revisited her mail with vigor. She is also well into making special pictures she then has me write down what is what and send off.

We printed off some maple leaves from Activity Village (link on right look up Canada) and cut them out. Then each of the kids recorded something they like or remembered about Canada to put on our paper for our Canada Day learning. It is fun to remind ourselves of some of our past enjoyments that are so thoroughly tied to location.

Miss Echo got her chance with the PS3… she is starting to line up the buttons with actions a little more now but there is always some sort of boogie across the floor that goes with her playing. Interpretive dance gaming I think!

She is such a little card.

Of course a local series of garage sales had us out hunting bargains. That is our usual summer plan… hunt for helpful bargains!

By Friday it was back to school.

We are doing a special science report on a Canadian animal. One of the twins did the Moose and the other the Canadian Goose. I am working on them using resources independently to answer their questions with me going over them after to check them for spelling and actually answering the question.

Since we ended up misplacing the plug for last year’s pool and we had yet to make it to Sam’s Club to replace it a sunny afternoon with a good solid morning of classes earned us time with the sprinkler. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out the correct setting on the one usually used for watering the garden but we managed and out came the swimsuits, smiles and giggles. Winter is certainly becoming a cold memory for everyone.

After fun in the sun the girls pulled out the newest garage sale find and played Strawberry Shortcake. Some pieces are missing but 3 of the 4 girls are complete and they made do anyway. For 50 cents it they are pleased as punch.

We had a butterfly to examine…

And visitors to play with – Renee, Chris, Nathan, Jeffrey and Evan all came by to say hello, have dinner put up a light. The one over the sink had been down to one bulb for ages and with it burning out so quickly with each replacement Nana and Baba had bought a new one that needed installing. Ken even had time to make fresh chocolate chip cookies.

Jeffrey

Checking out the onions that grew themselves from last year

Bubbles!

Men at work

Evan and Echo

The best way to end the week, company for dinner and playmates for the kids. So many happy memories.

April 4-6

Now onto the weekend of fun and friends. First our Friday… Miss Trinity finished her dot-to-dot workbook… she is now becoming quite the pro at counting from 1-50!

Emanuel got a book on his birthday on how to draw dinosaurs. So to get a wee bit back into dinosaurs after our relative dry spell he has started a large paper picture using the book. I plan to start posting our back dinos and start new ones soon.

We had all 5 of our fish coloured, named and ready to take back to the consignment store on our way to the Novak’s.

With the fresh dump of “blizzard” snow I kicked the twins out to play and wear themselves out. Apparently it was PERFECT sticky snow but the kids were quick to tell me that they were DONE with winter and would love to go to a lake RIGHT NOW. From near nothing to waist height in one evening. UGH

With another chapter of Treasure Island under our belt and illustrated (I am still not reading ahead… and the kids are still NOT impressed by this fact) we were ready to get out the door… run a few minor errands and go to the Novak’s house.

Darcy once again outdid herself with the cake… this one themed zombies. He actually had a second cake that we ate that night (this photographed one was eaten the next day at his friends’ party).

The kids had a blast playing.

And Anthony loved his ninja. I do love to include a handmade item even if we are giving our now TWELVE year old godson a gift certificate.

After presents Ken and Anthony spent the evening building his new weight bench. I am so glad that we are here for all these firsts and activities. He is growing up so fast!

After a busy day we were up bright and early again for Home Depot Saturday. This time Ken left with 4 kids and came back with 6! We inherited Alex and Aidan Novak for an overnight sleepover so Anthony could have his birthday party solo. The kids were so excited. They had been DYING to have a sleepover.

So that was the beginning of 2 days of wild kid fun. Alex and I sat and crafted quietly at times (he brought his bracelet loom and I brought out ours to add to his supply).

Or they ran outside and burned off that energy.

Second day melt off

Meals were a blast.

Fruit Salad

And that evening we had TWO Ice Age movies with popcorn. 5 boys in one bedroom at bedtime and another day of fun to follow.

We skipped Sunday School in favour of special playtime.

Instead of dropping them off or having Darcy to a run by pick up we had them over for slow cooker lasagna and homemade chocolate chip cookies Sunday evening. Apparently Andrew had fun at his friends staying up all night and Anthony had a great birthday. So all 4 Novak boys were well pleased with our two asking to come again! Talk about a wonderful weekend.

Making cookies

Lasagna

Add to that dying my hair a bright and fun garnet with Ken’s help and I am one happy Mommy.

Sleepovers, birthdays and shopping as a family. With some schoolwork thrown in… not bad not bad.

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!!