Well, I am back to the land of the living… mostly. After a day of sleeping broken up b breastfeeding and a hacking cough it has been nice to see some sunshine. It seems to be a rule of thumb that Mommy is ALWAYS the last to get sick. Which means the boys are all on their way back to healthy again and VERY unimpressed that I am sick and unable to do things with them. For those of you who know me well – I was sick enough yesterday that I did NOT take any pictures!! Period.. total.. NONE! I am very thankful that today I am feeling more myself, though this hacking cough is so annoying.

In fact, my getting sick proved something to me – we HAVE TO be doing something RIGHT with the boys. Last night when I was vertical enough to have something to eat and feed the baby Zander came up to me complaining because I hadn’t done any schoolwork with him. There is a testament to our homeschooling program working – he was upset about missing time learning. It makes me feel really good that he was upset about our taking a day off… in fact every time I have offered to take a full day off and just have play time they have BOTH said NO. Here’s hoping that voracious wish to continue learning is maintained through out the rest of their lives. Gavin had a pretty nasty meltdown this afternoon so was sent for a needed nap so Zander and busted out a review book (he likes to alternate the harder books with a good review which is fine with me) and we spent a quiet afternoon working on our ABC’s.

Reviewing

I made another birthday card last night. Another Hello Kitty of course (and don’t worry James – if you or Holly are reading this – it is not going to be sent to you as a belated!). I have one more birthday girl in June to make a card for but am torn as to whether or not to take advantage of Karyn’s Cricut and make it with that. After all I have to give it back soon.

Kitty

We were talking to the owners of the home we are currently in via email last night and it seems that we may have until June 1st to find a suitable place. I am still pushing (as is Ken) to find something by May 1st though. We are ready to move – after all over half the house IS already packed. Poor Trinity and Emanuel are slowly being squeezed out of their rooms by boxes but I do NOT want cardboard boxes stored in the basement with all this lovely weather we are finally having. So much snow yet to melt though!

Stories in the sunshine

I am very glad that I managed to finish the stitch for my sister before I got sick, though this means tonight I have to write the letter for the two of them out in its entirety. I am determined it will go out to the post tomorrow. I will share the finished image AFTER their wedding on the 21st of May. That means I have to move onto the next project – a Christmas Stocking for our god-daughter Anna. I want to include her English AND Chinese names somehow, and make it something a little unique. Thankfully I still have some time. But I am itching to get onto a new stitch project after working on this one.

The rest of my evening is going to be centred on relaxing. It is amazing how a harsh cough can be worse than everything else combined!!! Then back on track next week, or so we hope. OH two days ago after much tears and angry crying Echo FINALLY rolled from back to front, now she is a total monkey rocking back and forth, but only when angry or being changed! Figures.

What Trinity calls "kitty bum"

So I PLANNED on working on cash and the idea of currency… Gavin’s stomach had other ideas. He woke up feeling “icky” and spent most of the day on the floor doing pretty much a whole lot of nothing. So with the blessed flexibility of homeschooling, we put in a NON educational movie (GASP) and let him have his sick day (Nightmare Before Christmas for the win).

Poor sick Gavin

We had a visit from (She) Chris who came bearing Tim Hortons coffee (Ken) and hot chocolate (me). I won a donut on my roll up to win. We had a wedding planning visit which gave her the opportunity to let go some frustration (He Chris is working further away and long days so their planning time is cut down to nil) and me to give her some tips. Hopefully once we are moved and settled and her new car is out of the snowbank it is firmly implanted in we can get together and nail down some of the niggly fine details. Zander spent his time during her visit productively and made her a picture to take home… of course I didn’t even get a good peek at it!

I took advantage of only one vertical twin to get Zander going on his mini math book. He has been dying to complete it since Gavin did last weekend. Our interests have definitely focused mainly on Math over reading. BUT it amazes me time and time again how much the two are intertwined. Like colour by numbers – you still have to READ the colour codes.

Work in progress

I tried to take some pictures of Trinity… but she was less than enthused… lately it has been quite the challenge to get her out of pj’s and into clothes but we managed today. Tomorrow with the trip to the zoo planned it should be a snap but today… not so much.

Relaxed

/pout

She has quite the little posse that she takes along with her into the livingroom lately! Note the two Hello Kitty toys Aunty Xinny gave her (they were ones Isabella had but never played with). They have replaced Baby as her new favourites! The one in pink goes EVERYWHERE with her.

So many dollies

I have started hand stitching a bunny as a present for a little someone. Since I won’t be giving it for some time I won’t say who. It has been a fun project. I absolutely adore hand stitching things and avoid the sewing machine if I can. There is something about creating as even stitches as I can and having the knowledge that each little bit is 100% me that I love. I used this pattern for my bunny. I used a lovely, fluffy yellow fleece that I had from my mom’s stash. I love fleece. It always reminds me of hugs and snuggles and love.

Ready to turn right side out

I HAVE gotten back on track. The pieces for the card I am going to include with the wedding present are assembled… so now all I have to do is sort out the card… and make the gift of course.

You can't really tell but it is metallic paper

Now if I could just get my back to stop aching. For some reason I threw my back out this afternoon and it is VERY distracting. So time for a nice long soak.

Emanuel and his workbook!

So we have dug into our Easter/Spring themed craft and decoration bucket. I am doing limited decorating as we ARE moving the weekend after Easter, but could not resist the lure of the pastel and cute. We are not planning anything excessive when it comes to our Easter celebrations, in fact, I am unsure as to how our yearly egg hunt is going to play out but I am sure something will be planned. Just once I would LOVE to have the snow melted and the ground dry enough to have it OUTSIDE but I am not overly optimistic about this year. After all, for all that SOME of the snow has melted MORE keeps coming down!

Bucket of stuff

So instead of a focused bunch we were all over the place with our Easter and spring themed games, crafts and other fun items in the bucket. I did find some worksheets for the boys to do: a maze that seemed to have them totally stumped for a while, a simple wordsearch (they instantly recognised the word EGG) and a colour by numbers (UK version). Here is a link to a series of spring worksheets of varying complexity. Tomorrow I have a couple poems to teach the boys as well as a more difficult spring wordsearch

Gavin and the colour by numbers

I have actually revamped my links on the right side of my blog. I tried to include my favourite homeschool related links as well as my personal sites and (which will be developed over the rest of the week) a series of craft links.

Hugs!

I am attempting different ways to complete my Velcro bows for Echo. The first one I used a regular needle and thread and after using the adhesive backing stitched the Velcro to the ribbon. Time consuming and a couple of times painful. After a while my needle got sticky from the adhesive and bent from the pressure of going through the ribbon and the Velcro backing. I also did one that had NO stitching across the lengths of Velcro, just to pinch the end together like a hinge. So I will try BOTH and see how they work (wouldn’t it be GREAT if the non stitch version worked??).

Two completed (stitched Velcro is the white one)

There was a bit of excitement with our little Echo – today with MINIMAL help of her nursing pillow she was sitting upright! We are so close to her sitting on her own! I took as many pictures as I could and wished I had my blue sheet up. BUT what is important is I captured the moment.

Working on sitting on her own

A friend edited one of my last pregnancy photos for me, I finally got around to getting it from him and posting it on my deviantArt account today. Hard to believe that was almost 8 months ago!!

38 Weeks

My goal is to do this exact same pose this summer NOT pregnant. I figure half way through summer, once I have had some quality time with the stroller and getting to know our new neighbourhood.

So Fat Sheep has a new adventure – she has come up with a new form of YOGA on the suggestion of my Cousin Veronika (thanks for the idea!!!). Wooly Yoga, you can read all about it HERE.

I spent my evening off the track when it comes to FINISHING projects… Hello Kitty has a SILHOUETTE setting… oops!

Hello Kitty!

But tonight I am going to finish the last of the Lucky Stars AND get started on that pattern Ken keeps teasing me with! Wish me luck.

Ooooo