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!!!

Back to our new weekday routine. The homeschooling around the weather station and the table is going better all the time. Ken had a talk with the boys about respecting their teacher and decreasing the whining about having to do things as well. There has been more complaints than usual lately. Partially out of frustration of the continuing upset, the resettling at Grandma and Grandpa’s and of course the big one – BEAUTIFUL WEATHER. Doing our daily weather report and watching the Weather Network has taught them how to glimpse ahead at the weather too… smart cookies! So now they are already chatting about TOMORROW’S lovely weather today… one step ahead and excited about it! 

Anyway, Ken started reading a USA themed book with them this morning, but I stuck with the tried and true. We have continued adding to our books, this time with the Sunday School special events. Even Emanuel got in on the work – he drew pictures and wrote some words on each page AND willingly worked on the math section of his workbook. I love watching him catch onto something, he was working his way quickly through simple addition using our counting blocks.

Working hard

Grandpa Mike was home for lunch which was beyond exciting and much discussion was had about Emanuel’s need for a haircut… we have a couple affordable options for tomorrow which he is VERY excited about. There was a list of chores Grandma left us and we all worked together to accomplish them. The twins collected the dog poop out of the backyard, Trinity watered the flowers in the front, we sorted out the recycling and Gavin helped me with mopping the kitchen… 

Creative watering

We skipped naptime and instead the littles had their own movie time in the twins’ bedroom – My Little Pony dvd from the library!

Movie time

Which left our afternoon open to Farmer Boy, and then THE POOL! Grandpa Mike had filled it the rest of the way with air so all we needed to add was children. 

Pool time

After drying off and tidying the backyard Zander spent some quality reading time on his level 1 Scooby Doo book. I am so glad they are each finding books to bring along their interest in reading!!

Reading away

And what is the best way to end an evening? A walk with Grandma and Gypsy… to the SLURPEE store… which meant EVERYONE ended up happy. Emanuel hopped, skipped and ran his way through our walk with a smile on his face. Gypsy is doing so well with the new way of walking suggested by a friend in the city. 

Ready to walk

Stops the pulling

My beloved middle child

The clock is ticking on the craft show… I have a few more things to accomplish before I am truly ready… headbands to assemble, the last of the purses, a float to collect together to make change. BUT the 9th is just around the corner! So if you are in the neighbourhood HERE is the link once again! Elk’s Hall, if you can’t see the link drop me a line and I will get you the info! Come support Arthritis research! 10% off all sales go to the cause! 

Our baby