NOTE THERE IS A PICTURE ENTRY THAT GOES WITH THIS ONE WITH THE REST OF THE PICTURES!

Has officially come and gone and was, I figure, a success… the kids are well toyed, family has been celebrated with by the end of the week we will be back to the Reinsch-Johnson normal!

Ready to party

Goofy excited kids

Let’s start with the Mandyke side of the family (Ken’s mom) and Christmas Eve… A rather traditional Ukrainian dinner with perogies, potato soup and gunk (no one seems to remember the “real” name for that one) oh and OUR traditional Chocolate Candy Cane cake only made into cupcakes and iced with cream cheese icing instead of cool whip.

The table

Sitting down to supper – with T.J.

Cupcakes

Ken’s uncle Paul, aunt Colleen and cousins Melissa and T.J. all came for supper and visiting… and presents for the kids! The twins each got their own ant farm, I am not sure who is more excited… them or Ken!!! Emanuel got a bowling set and Miss Trinity a drawing one with those dry erase crayons. When we first purchased that product over a year ago in Canada I was unimpressed… they were REALLY hard to erase… now over a year later they are much better. Though you do still need to work a little at the erasing.

Gavin and the bowling set

Echo got a bag full of BALLS! Which of course created the catalyst for a massive ball explosion. There was also a SILLY STRING WAR! Do you know, I have never seen silly string in person before? Just on tv… it is much less… wet than I expected. The guys went all out on that one… but I think Nana won with her sneak attack on T.J.

Silly string monster

There was lots of visiting and reminiscing. T.J. is in grade 8 and on the VARSITY wrestling team (I am told this is a big accomplishment), I do believe tentative plans were being made for some of the family to go see some of his competitions. I know our nephew Zachary has just started wrestling so I am sure he would enjoy and probably learn something from going to some of the events.

Wrestling

Trinity and Emanuel went out and spread their reindeer food before dinner. (Remember their making it HERE?)

Feeding the deer

After saying good bye to family it was time to get in the Christmas pj’s and get those Santa cookies and milk out and ready. Though I am kicking myself, I forgot all about setting up our Advent set (the Little People one)… When we were digging out the table decorations and such Nana found a special plate and mug for Santa so we had a great set up with all the stockings in a row. Of course we had our yearly complaining by Ken about how PLAIN his stocking is. I really need to sit down and find a suitable stocking pattern and get one done up for him as well!

Matching

Ready for Santa

With our Canadian Christmas set up in the basement – gifts mailed in from friends and family, the presents from Ken and myself to the kids and the Santa gifts WE had a hand in and of course the ones to each other we were rather good to go. There were packages from Canada, Texas AND South Carolina under there, quite the full and pretty tree!

Ready for the kids

And with that the BLOG is back to normal. What an amazing 5 days to recount and now reality. What does September hold for the Reinsch-Johnson family? Well, we need to have an educational plan written up… In fact the boys are officially registered as 2nd year homeschoolers. How exciting!! And then there is my hope to have the rest of the unknown boxes and buckets gone through and put away… an end to the settling in after what has become a very positive move. Sunday School starts next weekend for the boys which is a great excitement to them. I am trying to set up a crafting night at least a couple times this month, and Cousin Veronika has suggested a book club… What can I say, I enjoy keeping busy!

Just cuz it is such a great pic of him!

I am not sure what is up with the girls in the family but both are rather pouty this weekend. Lots of sleep for Echo and lots of understanding for Trinity. We decided regardless of attitude we would go out as a family in the mildly temperamental van. It is driving us places without much complaining but we certainly are NOT going out of the city until it has been dealt with! And with it being a long weekend this weekend – well it wasn’t worth rushing out to a service station. Ken wants to contact the Canadian Tire back in the city and complain. This would be the THIRD cooling system issue in as many months… are they not even looking at things??

Anyway we went out to the shopping area and stopped in at Michaels where I picked up WHITE duct tape. The plan is to use that for Echo’s costume – the crook and then if need be use a sharpie for the black on Gavin’s ring tailed lemur costume. Gotta love 50% off one item coupons! (Did I mention the Cricut is on super sale but NOT the size of one that I need?)

And then there is the homeschooling item we purchased there – dry erase CRAYONS! YUP no more dried out markers… another 50% off coupon and the kids should be more than content. Trinity managed to dry out ALL of the markers over the past year by not putting lids on properly. So hopefully these work as well as they say they do. 

Crayons!!!

We finished our shopping at Chapters where the brand of workbooks (Canadian) we use for the twins’ math workbooks were on for 20% off. Emanuel’s BrainQuestall inclusive for Kindergarten was not… so we promised him that AFTER Daddy got paid this week he and Daddy could go and buy his book. (after all I FORGOT one for him and for Trinity at mom’s over the wedding weekend… so busy)

Workbooks!! Now we have 3 copies.. Uncle Wayne was able to find one for us with the first pages gone. So the plan is to have it for backup and redo.

After surviving taking the kids out for shopping and the van making its new noise and minor warning of temperature change we had quiet and naptime for 6 out of the 7 people in the house. I woke up to kids watching tv, Sean at my crafting desk with his computer and Karyn holding Echo. Company for dinner!

Karyn and I ran out for frozen yoghurt and chatting time with Echo in tow. Echo tried some of the snack (strawberry) but it was very cold and she was not overly enthused. We had to play around with Karyn’s new iPhone and take some pictures of not only Karyn’s new shoes but Echo as well. And then late last night we watched Conan the Barbarian (well I went to bed before it was over… it was BAD).

Today Cousin Veronika and Adam came by for some spices we had extra from Ted and asked me to go with them to Michaels and then out for lunch at The Rock (wood fire baked PIZZA noms). I got to check out the car Adam got from a co-worker for free to save on gas to and from work. Adam recently painted it black.

A slight but VERY frustrating hiccup with my email… all of my sent mail is gone and in turn took ALL the threads connected! ACK so if I have NOT responded to you in a while – PLEASE email me back rosereinsch@gmail.com. I know that a lovely lady sent me pictures of her sheep Deichshaf and now I am not sure which of my email addies is hers… thank goodness I saved the pictures to my desktop BEFORE this happened! BUT her lovely UK sheep will be featured on Fat Sheep’s blog shortly. As it is Fat Sheep has been busy blogging about her experiences at the wedding etc. so be sure to check her out HERE.

We spent out late afternoon in the backyard, the shed is now tidy and accessible (well for the most part), Echo spent that time on her blanket in the shade of our umbrella while the kids varied their levels of helpfulness.

Chatting

Once that was done Ken came out and the kids “helped” finish up their playset. Very exciting to have the backyard completed. Though we do need a good mow, that should be tomorrow’s outside activity, and if the weather holds… the little pool filled for Echo!

Working on the playset

A lovely evening for the whole family outside in the sunshine. And now I have the evening to work on scrapbooking and our homeschooling plan.

Bunny baby and her cookie