I know I know… BELATED but I AM catching up and it WAS a special Mother’s Day for me…

May 11

It seems we have set a precedent with our busy May weekends. BUT this was Mother’s Day so it was a special kind of busy… First off we had to head to Sunday School. There was a parent meeting about VBS and the following year’s Sunday School during class. Even Echo came along to enjoy the various people at church. In fact, next year she is going to be in Sunday School for the very first time! And it looks like she will be in VBS this summer (end of June) as well.

After Sunday School we headed home to take our yearly Mother’s Day photos. I think we all looked rather spiffy!

And then it was time to change out of the finery and leave Echo with Nana and Baba for the first part of the really MOMMY centered portion of the day. We got out to Lochness Park (seriously! But no unknown monster in the depths sorry!) to begin what we hope will become a lifestyle change for us all – GEOCACHING!

I have wanted to try out this GPS based treasure hunt for a year now… but until we had to upgrade our phone we really could not do it. Amazingly enough Minnesota has thousands of cache locations for us to find and explore. Some are micro where you just sign a log, some larger where trinkets can be left and taken.

I sat down and made sure to make up a few marshmallows (crochet) to leave at the nicer caches. The kids have also grabbed some of their small and not favourite toys to leave behind as well.

Amazingly enough I was the first one to find a cache!!! Talk about appropriate. And the excitement, the working on keeping our eyes open… the out and out exercise coupled with a treasure at the end has everyone in our family absolute hooked!

We ended our circuit around the lake with lunch in the vehicle out of last year’s picnic bag (awesome purchase from Target). And it was time to head home for an amazing nap and dinner from the family’s favourite Chinese restaurant.

And boardgames with Daddy

Happy Mother’s Day to all you Mommies in our lives… a special call out to those titled ladies in our kids’ lives – Grandma Reinsch, Grandma, Nana, Great Grandma Rapp, the God Mommies: Darcy, Christine, Xinny Karyn, Esther, Ada and Bree… Thank you so much for taking on the responsibility of being a support to the kids. We love you all!!!

My 5

I want to say a special Happy Mother’s Day to our GodMommies – Darcy, Christine, Xinny, Karyn, Esther, Bree and Ada… Grandparents – Grandma, Nana, and Grandma Reinsch… Great Grandma – Great Grandma Rapp and all the other lovely ladies in our lives who have been such a loving support! OH and my godmother too! Aunty Lorraine… I hope Veronika has given you a special hug just from me!!! 

November 25-26

The 4th day of a 4 day weekend feels very surreal to me. I felt absolutely LAZY and it was ever so slightly driving me crazy. Ken and his dad spent a large chunk of the day rearranging the garage so that one of the cars could fit in it. Which also had us drag out and sort  through the Christmas items. I am only using our Advent items and Christmas stockings. It is simply not worth having out our decorations this year only to have to sort them back out when we put everything away. It is an odd feeling, this is the first time since I was 19 that I will NOT have my own tree…

BUT We DO have our Little People Nativity set to have out for entertainment and decoration. Of course Baby Jesus is waiting for Christmas Day hidden away.

Emanuel with part of the “Jesus town” as they call it

Miss Echo is in LOVE she does not remember this set AT ALL

The kids are STILL over the moon with the new snow. I am wondering how long it will last but definitely glad they are still jumping to play out there together.

Out in the sunshine!

In fact, this upcoming week is set aside to finish as much unfinished items going for the kids as possible and get our Christmas and Advent themed learning organized and ready. There are presents to make, Advent calendars to set up and of course songs to learn for our mini concert that we will post up on YouTube. 

Monday ended our 4 day weekend and started our Thanksgiving etc wrap up. We also had a START up… Gavin decided he wanted to make his godmommy back in Canada a book… so paper was cute and ideas discussed and he was off! I gave him the 5 days of the week to work on it so that after the weekend a cover could be made and then the entire thing shipped off. 

Hard at work

Miss Echo has become an iPad pro. Just don’t take it away from her! EVER!

She loves her electronics

We did our last fall themed drawings from Art for Kids. SCARECROWS! I am saving all of these instructions and making them into a binder, they are the best I have seen around! 

Scarecrows

Don’t forget our 5/5 with Gavin and his spelling! Zander didn’t disappoint with only 2 wrong when he did his test as well. 

Well done Gavin

We have given up dinosaurs for the week, just need to get as much done as quickly as possible with a BIG surprise for the kids on Wednesday. 

So sweet and without the war wound look :)