Tag Archive | Dora

Welcome Back Nana and Baba!

July 10-12

Welcome back Nana and Baba! They got home late on the 9th after everyone had gone to bed, WITH the cousins in tow! So the kids woke up to grandparents AND Gabriella and Zachary. Talk about pandemonium….101_3380 101_3381But even more importantly for yours truly – I had PLANS!!! Fun plans… that included babies, Korean food (a first for me!) and shopping! Bree is originally from Korea (born there) but adopted and raised here, so it was so exciting to go to a restaurant her parents took her to to better understand a portion of her previous culture. The food was AMAZING! And FILLING!

So filling, amazing food!

So filling, amazing food!

101_3384After eating it was time to go to Mall of America and shop around… which ended in myself buying some rather ADORABLE and decadent (for me) retro shoes… I could not resist and spent more on one pair than I have in ages (not hard to do as I usually limit myself to as far under 20.00 as I can!).

Walking the mall with Bree and Lily was great fun… we shopped and then headed over to their place to relax until we could avoid the rush hour traffic.

Walking in the sling

Walking in the sling

And now some cute pics... cuz I can!

And now some cute pics… cuz I can!

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Mommy has a nice selection of pretty cloth diapers

Mommy has a nice selection of pretty cloth diapers

Definitely a day well spent…101_3415 Thursday had us down to one cousin. Gabriella had a friend contact her the day before and had left to join them so we just had Zachary here. So the kids played the morning away.

In the afternoon we had time outside in the sun. That playset is a definite boon to our peace keeping.101_3422

101_3424We ended our week off with a lovely walk… just us 6 enjoying the sunshine and flowers. It was hot and we did not come across any garage sales (just one misleading sign) but I think we did good.101_3432

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She looks so grown up at times

She looks so grown up at times

The twins worked with pastels to fill the time. I love when they try harder mediums! And together no less!

Using the Art for Kids site (link on right)

Using the Art for Kids site (link on right)

101_3430The littles had a blast watching Dora. It is fun to see Echo trying to answer the questions and follow along!101_3429

At the hottest point of the day I sat down to work on our advance stuff. Each of the 4 kids has a summer folder now with pages that they can mostly do on their own with a 5th folder of some games. I really need more cardstock and laminating sheets! Can you ever really have enough?101_3444

Ken took a shorter day of work so that the kids could have a full on water fight with him!

Getting ready for Daddy

Getting ready for Daddy

101_3449101_3447101_3452And then he and Baba FINISHED the swingset! Two swings and a teeter totter type one that the twins are too heavy for. The kids are over the moon with the completion.101_3467

101_3471101_3478What else is there to do with a free Daddy but to end with a boardgame??101_3487

Oh and Emanuel graced us with some dinosaur themed sidewalk art.101_3463

I don’t think we had any complaints about our day really!!!101_3456

Mother’s Day Resources

A bit of a more difficult hunt finding out things about Mother’s Day. I lucked out with my lapbook. I had to join the Live and Learn Press Yahoo group and a member there was able to share the once easily attained freebie spoken about HERE.

For Trinity we did the “Are You My Mother?” lapbook. Something very simple and fun for a first lapbook. I found it HERE. I got an additional page from Obseussed HERE. A second matching baby and mommy picture.

Of course there were some choice Wiki pages we used for answering questions for the boys:

  • Mother’s Day HERE
  • Ann Jarvis (the mother the date was finally cemented for) HERE
  • Anna Jarvis (the daughter) HERE
  • Julia Ward Howe (the first person to really make the push for this day) HERE
  • Mothering Sunday (a prior significant day in Britain) HERE
(These are on the lapbook file, but I figured worth posting here.)

And Crafts:

  • Fingerprint flower card (Zander’s favourite) HERE
  • Photo Tulips HERE

And a special page that was also suggested by a member of the yahoo group…

  • DayForMothers.com HERE

Worksheets:

  • Colouring page and rhyme for Miss Trinity HERE
  • Acrostic Poem HERE
  • All About My Mom booklet HERE
  • Trinity’s colouring page of choice HERE
  • Mother’s Day Puzzles (we used the mazes) HERE

Books:

  • Mother’s Day by Ann Heinrichs HERE
  • T.Rex and the Mother’s Day Hug by Lois G. Grambling HERE
  • Mother’s Day by Anne Rockwell (we also made the craft at the end of the story) HERE
  • The Mother’s Day Mice by Eve Bunting HERE
  • No Time for Mother’s Day by Laurie Halse Anderson HERE
  • My Mother’s Voice by Joanne Ryder HERE

And a great short video on the history of Mother’s Day…

Oh and our DVD that included a Dora episode about Mother’s Day… Food With Friends HERE.101_1892

MidWay in Retrospect

So sorry this took so long… videos are apparently harder to upload for us since some youTube update occurred. Sorry for the delay!!!

May 8-10

Mid week and our 3rd walk… though my battery died early on in our play time we did run and draw and hear a woodpecker! It was supposed to rain but instead remained rather hot and overcast for the whole day.

Helpful siblings

A pretty big success… in an hour Ken’s mom managed to teach Zander to tie his shoes! I simply could not sit behind him and do it right handed so was having all sorts of issues teaching him myself.

All 3 days was a bit of a mad rush to make Mother’s Day cards… Trinity AND Echo each have two GodMommies, we have 3 Grandmas and one Great… add in the boys’ 3 GodMommies and that is A LOT of cards. Art for Kids came out with a how to draw bees and the boys thought they were perfect for cards… Bee-cause we love you!

Bees!

More cards

We have made ourselves some Photo Tulips from Activity Village HERE. Pictures to follow eventually… gotta get those pictures printed to glue in them.

We snuck in some puzzle time.

A bit of a tricky puzzle with its hologram shimmer

And Trinity returned to her first lapbook story to tell and retell it to any and all who would listen!

Are You My Mother?

The weather on Thursday was not walk worthy so we were busy with books and more. The dino of the day was a book instead of a specific dinosaur. A rather gruesome in a not so realistic way, book… Dino-Dinners by Mick Manning. Emanuel made a beautiful picture using more than a few of  the included dinosaurs.

Gory

Our Mother’s Day themed book was The Mother’s Day Mice by Eve Bunting. The kids made pictures from the story using their fingerprints…

Fingerprints

When the weather doesn’t work in our favour the creativity really comes out. Echo and Emanuel worked together to create themselves a substantial and impressive tower.

TOWER

And then Emanuel branched out in a solo endeavor and made a man.

Block Man

The twins made an acrostic poem using the word Mother! Very creative joint venture.

Poetry

And then we filled the bathroom sink and had our first trial run with our plastic egg and popsicle stick boat. We hope to make a few more all to test at a lake.

Test time

Friday we added in some cleaning for our schoolwork before Trinity’s party. Zander did an amazing job on the bathroom! But first we had our walk. It was a bit of a chilly morning so we wandered the neighbourhood instead of heading to the park. There is an amazing flowering tree on our street.

Flowers

One of the bike paths (we miss our sidewalks)

We had a very exciting completion – Trinity is officially done her FIRST lapbook – Are You My Mother? was a huge success!!! I am so proud of her. We are going to pick another book for next month, and then go from there.

Well done Miss T!

Reading the book to her sister

We made the tissue paper flowers the little girl in the story made her mother in the book Mother’s Day by Anne Rockwell.

Pretty

The afternoon warmed up nicely and with Daddy home sick we took our noisy selves back outside to play and run and burn some energy before dinner and bed!

Back out in the sun

Need a bigger soccerball!

We had a movie from the library that included a Dora Mother’s Day episode… Food With Friends.

With a freshly cleaned Fat Sheep as well!

What a lovely week, spring is REALLY here… time to enjoy it!

Such characters