April 12-13

Easter is not far in the future and this year we had our official Easter Egg Hunt with the two Schwartz families in what honestly was less than ideal temperatures. Overcast at the house, windy AND overcast at the hunt. We were divided by age so Ken and I sent the boys on their own with proper instructions and he took Echo and I got Trinity. Ken found Renee and Evan right away.

I found Chris, Nathan and baby Jeffrey (well his covered stroller) and then Matt, Fran and their twins.

What a haul! Two of the kids (Zander and Echo) found special eggs that got them little teddies but we did not win any draws. It was cold but it sure was fun! Really the highlight of a Saturday we otherwise enjoyed very quietly.

Sunday was a busier day with Sunday School first (I got to go with this time and had a LOVELY chat with the children’s choir director while we waited on the kiddos). After church we got changed and waited on the one kid who did NOT go to Sunday School… Emanuel went with Baba to a hockey game for his Scouts. Funny how things line up all over the place. That did leave Echo at home with Nana while everyone was out and about.

After we were returned to a family of 7 it was time to head out to Aunty Judy and Uncle Jim’s. Emanuel had called her earlier in the week asking if she wanted to buy a discount card that he was selling for scouts and she suggested we come visit and he could sell her one in person. Why not? After all our afternoon was free and clear! The draw of ducks, Robbie, a trampoline and a favourite aunt and uncle definitely had the kids on board!

Ken and Aunty Judy on Puzzle Dragons

The boys were all over the trampoline and pretty much dragging Robbie out the back door as we walked in the front. It is quite the wonderful backyard.

With a lovely late lunch in our tummies…

And tons of animals to play with…

Robbie and Uncle Jim even took them out to try the fancy skateboard things that we have sitting here at home (a Christmas gift from the same family).

What a great weekend! And to top it off, on Saturday I got a surprise package from Canada — a brand new Canadian flag! I had mentioned during winter Olympics that I wish I had had one. A Facebook friend (Cyndi) sent us one to fly on Canada Day!! Thank you soooo much!!!!

April 1-3

We keep getting chills and snow but spring is finally in sight! However, as in past years, we did NOT do any sort of April Fools in our home. Moderation is not really a great skill among our boys and I really did not want to risk escalation of silly little jokes into tears and frustration in the ranks.

The month started on a Tuesday… so we had the following Saturday and Home Depot to look forward to… in fact we have a birthday party AND a sleepover to look forward to as well! Talk about starting a month with a bang! I am doubly excited about the sleepover as the boys have been asking for AGES to have someone come over and stay and all of a sudden I have two Novak boys fall into my lap. PERFECT!

We do need to celebrate a new month. How better to do so than with an educational video and fresh buttered popcorn? So Planet Dinosaur went into the PS3 and everyone settled in for a few hours of dinosaurs.

On Wednesday the kids worked on playing a game Gavin came up with – combining a Squinky gameboard with their Skylanders. It was not explained to me but everyone seemed to agree on the rules and get along REALLY well!

Thursday was a total fun day for us. We wandered a few stores to run errands including a wonderful children’s clothing consignment store that Darcy showed me where we found a play dress for Trinity and flipflops for the girls at a steal. They have a colouring contest going on right now with pictures of the fish they got for the store where you try to name it. Each of the kids did up one to send back in. My favourite name was Emanuel’s – Swish The Fish!

Dollar store booty

Brand new play dress for a steal

We also had our weekly Sam’s Club run… with lunch there this time! 8.00 and all of us were fed… with a variety of things. Seriously EIGHT DOLLARS for SEVEN PEOPLE… the math is grand!!!

Which led to a FRUIT SALAD BAR for supper!

On the way home we saw the start of the last (we hope) mini blizzard. There were tons of warnings starting on the the Thursday evening until later Friday. Just a big sudden dump of snow! The kids were not impressed.

Started with rain

To this…

Ending like this once again

We also planted our grass for Easter egg pictures… it was a neat idea I saw on Facebook to make real grass for Easter baskets.

And that was that… time to look forward to a fun weekend that STARTS on Friday with a birthday party! And to celebrate the fact that Miss Trinity does NOT need glasses (as was figured out on Monday oops.. forgot  to relay that!).

Ok, Sometime this week I HAVE TO put up the old dinosaur blog posts that are languishing in drafts un-loved and alone. So be sure to check back for some BELATED dino fun! Anyway…

March 27-31

March 30th – Happy Birthday Little Brother!

The twins are really excited about coming up with new questions and then working together to answer them all. We use Ken’s netbook and hunker down and go one by one. It is hilarious as we find answers, sometimes follow links to further information. Some of the questions are an adventure for me too… things like Why are snails slow? Who created the first superhero? Are there more meat eaters or plant eaters on the planet?

We moved on from Google to working on our hunting skills with the I Spy game!

And best of all – a lengthy Skype call to Aunty Holly and Cousin Jimmie. Jimmie was on break from school so he had lots to show and the time to do it.

We ended the week with some creative endeavors. Gavin made some rather interesting cookies out of Play Doh. Trinity made up a cupcake.

The kids all did reflection journals. Working our way through Dirty Jobs episode by episode has been great fun!

We also started a new book for family reading time – Treasure Island. The kids are quite put out with me. I am reading it WITH them so they have TONS of questions I simply CANNOT answer. This is not a classic I have read! I think we will either read Little House in the Big Woods or Charlotte’s Web next (Gavin is quite worried about me reading the second one as he says… I do not like spiders so I shouldn’t have to read it.). For this story we are doing a pictorial summary of each chapter. Drawing out main points and the like. Something all ages can be involved in!

On the last weekend of March we had errands to run and quiet at home time to enjoy. I lucked out and in a walk through Walmart looking at Easter stuff we found FAKE eggs to dye. We plan on still making the real eggs with Nana but the fake ones could be saved and used year after year!

Trinity and I worked on ANOTHER special page in her scrapbook. After all Ken had ditched us for a guys’ only night over at Chris Schwartz after errands so it was time to be rather low key.

We tried something I saw on Facebook – making string eggs and found that we REALLY need to use the small water balloon balloons. (back onto the shopping list they went).

The kids just sat back and enjoyed the day with me.

On Sunday Ken got home in time to take them out to Sunday School.

Definitely a stay at home sort of day after that with a fort to build and music to make.

AND being the 30th a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my younger brother James! So we had a looooong lovely call. I miss the heck out of him and his family!!!

We ended March with a relatively quiet day at school.

And Ken and Emanuel running off to Scouts. I am so glad we decided to put him in this. He and Ken are enjoying it a lot. It is time to work on the extra stuff at home as well to get him I think what is called Arrow Points. luckily a lot of it is stuff we do at home through school. I just have to have us sit down and do some of this stuff we have done over the years again!

There goes March… did you blink and miss it too????