December 20-22

Our last weekend before Christmas had us with one more day of “real” school. AND seeing that Saturday was the first day of winter, a return of more snow and some cooler temperatures.

In our Gammie packages there was a craft kit so how better to end the last full week before Christmas than to get to work making Santas? And when we ran out of beards… elves.

More books of course.

We greatly enjoyed our read by Gammie story!

And then Ken and Nana executed Trinity and my idea of a box puppet house. Activity Village (link on right) put up a previous Advent’s printable Christmas people pages and so we printed those out and put them on popsicle sticks for our puppets. Supplemented by any finger puppets we found laying around.

Ken had registered the kids for a special Christmas Home Depot craft – snowmen made out of paving stones. VERY cute!!!

Sunday was the last scheduled Sunday School session until after the New Year. Miss Trinity wore last year’s finery and looked absolutely adorable. Our family and only a handful more kids were there but they had a blast. And came home with chocolate for all.

We rounded off our morning with cookie making and decorating! So many sweets in the house right now!

There was a reason for the last minute icing. Our afternoon/evening Sunday was our Novak/Reinsch-Johnson Christmas gathering over at the Novak’s. Talk about excitement and chaos… it was PERFECT! We had supper and snacks (oh the variety of snacks including our cookies) and games and visiting. Definitely an amazing way to spend Christmas with friends who are so much more than just friends. Chosen family!

We were there super late and drove home in somewhat nasty weather with kids who were full of Christmas cheer and exhaustion. Now enjoy the rest of the party pictures!!!

Christmas colouring

More present opening

Alex the musician

DINNER

Godson and I

Action hair

Fishing for words

Hanging out

A room of artists

The first 3 were made by me, I am not sure where Aidan’s is (I think he keeps it in his room) but I have cross stitched stockings for all the Novak boys.

July 19-20

One week after planting our beans are AMAZING! Though I am told one set should be bushier. The twins are working together on their charts and the little ones are doing theirs in their nature journals. I think it is time to pot them!

We really got into the manipulatives… those math cubes and pieces are just too much fun for everyone.

Gavin has pulled out his sewing and started a new, smaller project. We are working on getting him going again to make a few gifts to send to loved ones up north. He wants them to have something to remember him by!

Of course, after lunch what is more fun than getting BACK into the pool??? Dirty as it was!

Our Saturday was a special one – Ken agreed to (since he has been injured and limping even not able to drive for so long post soccer injury) take the whole day and just run our errands. So we packed up our list, a picnic lunch, swim suits (just in case), the kids and got out and about.

First to the quick errands and then to Lakeshore in time for the craft of the week – making foam visors!!!

A few more errands and then time for a lake… well RIVER leading into a lake we could SEE… picnic. Lots of running around for the kids…

And finally, the unveiling of the new shoes! I do so love the style!

Emanuel made sure to draw his picture for the tooth fairy requesting a dinosaur item.

I did rather well with my shopping… I got some lovely workbooks from Target for 1.00 a piece and a relevant to the next big focus (lions) Magic Treehouse book… our first! (that was a used bookstore find)

It was an excellent day spent as a family out and about!

May 23-24

After such a busy evening our following Thursday was slowed a little… With her helpful sister in tow Trinity busted through one of her workbooks for a completion!!

Busy together

Complete

We had a penguin craft to work on using hands and feet to make ourselves some adorable penguins!!! Lots of helping each other tracing and cutting and gluing!

instructions to follow in the resource page!

Each one unique

It was finally a relatively sunny day so the kids spent plenty of time outside assisting Nana and Baba in the gardening… pulling weeds… fun stuff! And highly educational!

Progress on the gardening

Wandering the bales

Trains expanded to being under a tent to keep out the sun!

Tented trains

And Echo even sported a braid for a portion of the day!!!

Braid!

Honestly Friday followed suit in gardening friendly weather so we added another day of outside learning. So much work to be done on those days that are NOT rainy!

Gardening in the sunshine

3 of the kids went out to buy soil so Gavin, Echo and I had a lovely snack  together…

Snack

And then some gaming

Gavin even pulled out his long ignored sewing. I am hoping June will be his month to return to it!

Cross Stitch

With our busy school schedule and the gardening going on in the backyard when the weather permits… we are getting in lots of activity AND learning. Spring in Minnesota.

Out in the backyard with Daddy before bed!

Even dolly is having fun!