Tag Archive | Discover Ireland

Green Is Such a Lovely Colour

Well there are some days where blogging just does not appeal and yesterday was one of them. I want to thank my friend Elaine for coming up with the idea of Wordless Wednesday… it gave me the chance to share one of my favourite spontaneous and recent shots of Echo. AND she was in pink in honour of the anti-bullying day to boot! So I hope everyone enjoyed the cuteness (I have to point out that the little hair thing in her hair – felt bow – all me!).

That is not to say that yesterday had us at a standstill! Far from it… St. Patrick’s day is just over a week away and the worksheets, videos and craft ideas keep coming. If you are interested in the bulk of the worksheets I have been talking about here you can check them out in my collection titled St. Patrick’s Day on Education.com. I do love this site as the resources are free and any and all issues I have had with a worksheet or information have been followed up SUPER quickly. As usual I am going by my old gaming name – Ayjah if you are trying to find me, though I HAVE reviewed MOST of the worksheets I used which also pops up on Facebook. 

I made the kids a special poster for St. Patrick’s Day to welcome people. You can get all the info for that HEREfrom the Original Kids Crafts site. 

A Hundred Thousand Welcomes

While watching the Discover Ireland series on YouTube we came across a sports segment that had an unknown sport with a ball and stick involved… and it was definitely NOT hockey, so of course we had to look it up! And found out all about something called HURLING! Seriously! 

I don’t know that we will attempt to play above game when it warms up but they really did enjoy learning about something new. You can find a link to what seems to be an official kids’ club colouring pages HERE. And HERE is the Wiki info. I had one of the twins colour the Hurling colouring page and the other Soccer as they are both major sports in the Republic of Ireland. And then we wrote interesting things about each sport on the back of the coloured sheets to go into our St. Patrick’s Day File. I am seriously thinking about doing their next year in a Notebooking format! They just make too many interesting things! 

I shrank down the template for this craft project as we didn’t have full sheets of green foam, and substituted one sheet of yellow and one of brown for two of them (note to self, need MORE green foam!)… we have rainbow cord (thank you whoever gifted that to us we LOVE IT!) and Ken made me up a simple 4 leaf clover template to use as decoration. I did Trinity’s sewing portion for her and the boys cut her pieces but she had fun being involved in it. You can find the original instructions HERE.

Emanuel at work, he did it ALL himself

Four completed bags

Our little Echo is quickly becoming a rough and tumble girl and has the bruises to prove it! Don’t ask me HOW she got this one, but what I THOUGHT was marker on her cheek smudged mostly off seems to be a bruise (maybe on one of her death defying climbs onto Trinity or Emanuel’s beds???)… I struggle between wanting to wrap her up in cotton and cheering on her adventurous spirit! Size is most certainly NOT slowing her down! She even tried to climb out of the tub to Daddy last night… he firmly told her no and sat her back down but she JUST is tall enough to get that foot up there on the side! 

I have spent MORE time on the WIP… features and fine details are starting to pop out which I have to admit is spurring on my interest greatly! Maybe I WILL get it done and perhaps by June! It will depend on other projects of course… and my focus but I guess if I keep the silly thing in my face more it will get worked on more! 

So February has come to a close… we survived the short month and while the van is NOT fixed (part still on its way grr) and some things are still in the works other issues have been solved! AND we have managed to get out some fun events as well! We have learned about the Inuits… Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day, celebrated Valentine’s Day AND Chinese New Year AND 3 birthdays… Now we face March. My brother and my Father’s birthdays are in March… and this year so is Echo’s surgery. I think that is going to weigh heavy on all our minds for the next 20 or so days. I would like to ask that everything think positive thoughts or say a prayer for Echo as we creep up to her date. We want her to be as healthy as possible beforehand and the surgery to go through without complications. 

Tomorrow the kids and I have to start our paper mache project… and there is a felt project Ken and I are working on altering to make it easier on little fingers. So I will have MORE crafts to share!

Rough and tumble + overalls = CUTE!!!

Monday With a WIP

I am not sure how many of my readers are aware of what the initials WIP mean but for many people it means WORK IN PROGRESS… now I honestly can say the dreaded WIP’s are not TOO numerous here in the Reinsch-Johnson home BUT they DO exist. One of the biggest thorns in my side is a WIP cross stitch that has chased me for YEARS… as in I think I began it back when Emanuel was little… it has morphed from tentative gift to tentative gift and for a while was placed out of sight. With the move to this present location the dreaded project was thrust out into the open (partially due to not having a safe place to store it and partially because seriously I NEED to get it done!) where any and all could see it. This has had the sad repercussion of people actually engaging me in conversation regarding it… Ohhh so it is by THAT artist (it is a Teresa Wentzler) and ooo when do you figure you will have that done… and how are you going to frame it… well, enough is enough… this WIP is officially PROGRESSING. I am at the drawing board for Christmas presents right now so I have no excuse, well until Ken buys me the duct tape he has promised me… but then again who can resist rolls of brightly coloured and patterned duct tape? I know I can’t. So… in keeping with my promise to myself to not unveil this piece until it is DONE DONE, here is a tiny chunk of progress… 

Just a bit

We are in full St. Patrick’s Day learning mode… another story today of course!!

Today's book

Rainbows have been added to our decorations… thanks to Trinity and Emanuel. Trinity cut MOST of hers out and then conned Emanuel into doing the rest… you turn your back for ONE minute! 

St. Patrick's Day curtain

I am hopeful that MARCH will be the month for Gavin to finish his cross stitch. He is making some progress but lacks the drive to go back to it every day. 

Stitching

Of course with fresh Play Doh in the house there are MANY spontaneous creative group moments. Note that in the below picture Echo is given “twisty crayons”… while she is one smart cookie it is not the best idea to tempt fate and give her something that seems so much more… edible!

Around the table (Emanuel was still napping!)

We started with some Ireland related videos today. I found the official Discover Ireland youtube feed last night and had it set up to watch their whole series. We skipped the first one on Bed and Breakfasts and the boys watched 2-13… the one item shared with Mommy during her bath – Ireland apparently has over 90 beaches! 

Each of the kids drew their own special pictures about yesterday’s Sledding and Skating Party. I love seeing what stood out for each kid… Trinity’s was very cute with a picture of myself with a marshmallow in my hand by the fire… with the bag of them on a table! 

Trinity's

Zander and Gavin's

Inside

I love having them reflect back on an event and create some sort of art or other memorandum. 

Emanuel's

We have worked on our mini books… cut out pieces for a couple games (pictures to follow tomorrow) and of course played Legos… I am amazed at how well the boys are sounding out their words now and the excitement that they feel for themed pages. Put a shamrock on most anything right now or a well placed Leprechaun and they are all over it!!

So we made it through our Monday with a minor amount of fuss and bother. I am hoping the rest of the week will follow suit. After all we have a birthday party in the city on Saturday followed by Sunday School. I honestly am not planning anything else until AFTER Echo’s surgery… so if you feel the urge to see our little pixie before it please let me know, we should be home! 

Our little girl

This entry was posted on 27/02/2012, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments