And without any sort of notice it was over! But not without some exuberant amount of photos… so please enjoy the light hearted overflow! 

Goldie Bloks with Daddy

Hello Kitty for life

Aunty Renee Awesome with Miss E

Impromptu arts center.

Science in the kitchen

A visit at the Novak’s

Lunch out with Ken!

Minnesotan’s REALLY love their Ranch??

Embrace the colour!

Batgirl with homemade weapons.

United Noodle RUN!

AN ENGAGEMENT PARTY!!! Congrats Shandai and Ravyn we love you!

Our play anywhere any time girl

Reading and more!

Sewing!

It has happened… I am nearly TWO MONTHS behind on the blog… which begs the question… are we even INTERESTED in rehashing October? So I think, instead of a day by day reflection I will do an overview of some highlights. Let’s see…

We had a pretty amazing experience with working in pairs on the little guys’ Halloween lapbooks AND solo for the twins on their own. I have made up a resource page for our items. I apologize in advance for not linking up all the books but I am sure if you check your local library or bookstore most could be found! A library card is a wonderful thing is it not? Our Halloween resources can be found HERE.

We started up with the Pizza Hut Book It program once again as well. There is a new app to go with it that we are getting used to. There were a few hiccups. We had to just go by Johnson for their last name. No hyphenating. But the kids are so excited to be earning their pizzas once again. You can check out the program HERE.

Ken is also jumping in to help us finish our long enjoyed VOLCANO unit. He had a really creative way to show the creation of a volcano using wash cloths of all things!

This is another blogged resource page. You can find all of that HERE. We took longer than expected but enjoyed it all the same. Some years we bust through these major unit studies… others… not so much!

Of course in October we have Home Depot! November has TWO since they are not doing the normal one in December. Doubly difficult as we have our swimming lessons Saturday mornings so we have to rush from the pool to the store to make it there  before the program is over!

The weather is cooling and the kids are starting to bundle up. It is always a but of a shuffle to go through all the clothes and find out what fits, what leaks and what is worn to pieces.

our big excitement was having Andrew with younger brother Alex in to BABYSIT for us! Ken and I had one last chance to take burnable stuff over to Chris and Renee’s and wanted to really enjoy it. We brought Cousin Robbie along, had drinks and dinner and stayed out SUPER late. Andrew managed fine and is already agreeing to sit again for us!

The boys’ newest addiction along with playing Pokemon is to play Munchkin.. my boardgame! They are even attempting fair play with their siblings! NOT BAD!!!

To celebrate CANADIAN Thanksgiving we not only called Grandma to say hello but did up a poster of things we are grateful for.

Then to top it off we had dinner at KFC (a Reinsch family tradition). Nana and Baba came as well as they plan to be in Florida over the American one. HAPPY THANKSGIVING CANADIAN FRIENDS AND FAMILY (BELATEDLY).

We had some crafting fun…

A trip to Mall of America to thoroughly enjoy LegoLand and spend some of their Gammie treat money on a container of hand picked lego pieces! Not too bad of a family excursion. We also brought snacks which always smooths the road.

AND a homeschool special for the aquarium in the mall! Everything from jellyfish to sharks to a tide pool you could touch!

We snuck in a babysitting experience or two with the Schwartz boys. Jeffrey and his brothers are a family favouite.

Emanuel, Trinity, Ken and I went to a Scouts day camp that included siblings. Sadly we lost our rocket to the great unknown but did it every FLY!

Indoor games and colouring were the favourite with Trinity now in love with the idea of archery.

OH and a messy snack!

We got another dose of baby time…

Celebrated Daddy’s birthday with PIE!

Carved pumpkins… sort of… and sent the seeds to Future Uncle Ravyn for roasting! Aunty Shandai came over especially to share the good news! Mommy is now to be a part of an OCTOBER wedding! We are so pleased for them! CONGRATS YOU TWO!!!!!

We crafted it up…

You can enjoy our leaf experience in an additional blog entry HERE.

And see our Halloween AMAZING costumes HERE.

Yup basically October in a rather lengthy picture filled entry!

January 12-13

Now what is there to talk about… hmm… how about… KARYN coming to visit? You read me right… we have our first visitor from Canada since our big move last year to Minnesota! Ken and I picked her up at the airport Saturday evening.

Picking up Karyn

Can you believe this is where Ken asked me to marry him??? updated and fancier but YUP

We took her right out to dinner at Matt’s where they do something called a Jucy Lucy. It is a hamburger with melted cheese IN THE MIDDLE! The bar that serves this is certainly not the most pretty and does not have the best service but the food was good and the portions generous.

Eating out

The kids were already in bed by the time we got home so we had to wait to say hello and give them the items Karyn brought down with her. Including CHOCOLATE for yours truly!!! Oh and socks! Gotta love socks!

Sunday was excitement personified. The kids were over the moon to see Karyn really WAS here… we even had a fashion show thanks to two adorable dresses sent to us by Aunty Esther.

With frog (there is a dolly dress to go with this one)

This is actually Echo’s dress, but Esther was unable to find a tiny one so instead Trinity is wearing and then handing down as usual

As Ken is starting his training this week Nana, Karyn, Ken and I went out for some pre work shopping at Kohl’s… Karyn bought the cutest shoes… sadly I was thwarted in my shoe hunt by a lack of my size being available. I have hopes that if we come across OTHER Kohl’s this week I may just be able to get the pair I liked though!

Karyn’s pretty new shoes;

After seeing Ken off with his bag of clothes we went down the parking lot to one of my favourite stores – Target! That left us the evening to hang out and give the kids the chance to get all caught up with Karyn. 

Those pj’s ended up being 3.00 a pair!

Karyn had a few items mailed here as well… including these awesome socks!

Awesome!

It has been almost 6 months since we last saw Karyn… this week is going to rock! 

Brushing Aunty’s hair