Not an overly structured educational day today – I slept in to try and speed along feeling human again, and the kids spent a portion of time in the backyard creating… something. BUT our afternoon – a lightning trip to the zoo nearing closing time. Our passes are up on Friday and I am still pushing for that trip to the conservatory. BUT the zoo was fun. Of course we ran into a family of 2 kids on the way in who asked us if all the kids are ours (??) and the proceeded to say – and we thought two was hard. Now honestly people, do you THINK I haven’t heard that one before????

Ken and the kids

So we visited some of our favourite animals – the lemurs, the elephant, the llamas.

Lemur

The tiger was REALLY active, walking around and when we were a distance away STARING at us! I wish I could have gotten a picture but he moved before I could.

Looks almost pettable!

It was not a long visit but we even splashed our way through a few puddles before heading home! Definitely a fun way to end our time with the pass and the zoo. We even ran into a mom and her little girl who mentioned they were at the zoo with their pass as well. Funny how for the kids the puddles were almost a bigger draw than the animals themselves. Especially when we have spent the past year going as often as we wanted. Can you believe that for the first trip we took Trinity was in a stroller and now she runs and climbs and is one of the big kids!

PUDDLE

Trinity and Petite Sheepette

Our next stop was the fruit and veg store where I got us a nice selection later used for supper and a fruit salad! Gavin and I worked on it together. So much fun!

Fruit salad

And then the Dollarama. It is going to be a very pink party! With each of the kids picking a special treat for themselves and Trinity getting a pink sheep for Echo we had a nice haul to bring home. Now we have all the decorations together for the party I just need to send Ken out to laminate the kitties.

Briefly trying out the cart!

Oh we did have a bit of excitement at home yesterday – I was brushing out Trinity’s hair for bed and I noticed a tiny chunk removed from the back!!! Only noticeable when you are really looking and brushing out her hair but I was about in tears. I had just the night before put up the scissors where the twins would have issue with reaching them let alone the little ones, they have been in a tupperware container with a LID and everything. Or course when Ken went to find out what happened Emanuel started to take the blame and try and find the hair even though he didn’t do it just to make Ken happy. Which did not… drama! Oh, and the twins’ excuse as to why they didn’t stop her when she got scissors – they couldn’t find her?? Oh dear! And all cuz I had lay down on the couch with the baby asleep and turned on Handy Manny on for them for 30 min!

So I took some time out of my evening and got a few more of the mocked up scrapbook pages filled. I need to get this stuff squirrelled away, moving in May or June or not.

2009 Zoo

2009 Halloween!

Definitely kept us busy today and tonight we do our trial batch of our birthday cupcakes. Thursday night is going to be a BIG baking night in anticipation of Trinity’s party to be sure!

Best ride at the zoo

I have to admit that as much as I am looking forward to our spring move I AM going to miss our local produce store. Where else can you get 10 lbs of apples for 4.00 in the middle of winter? So tomorrow I get the slow cooker out and make fresh applesauce. A family favourite.

Another favourite, at least for the kids is the Dollarama. Where else can you go and let the kids basically pick out anything they want and NOT break the bank? Although sometimes the choosing can take some time. Apparently it is not a decision to take lightly.

With their Dollarama stash! (Gavin right)

The week is over, almost before we could get a good handle on it. One more week until the party, and a mountain of baking to be done. Last night I got in some more scrapbooking, 2 pages for Trinity this time.

First night in the toddler bed

Letter to Santa

In honour of Chinese New Year and some free time I made up some origami bunnies from this site.

Shiny bunnies

Oh and for our frog unit – jumping frogs ALSO from the same site.

A family of frogs

I only have the kids’ version origami paper so it was a bit thicker than what I have used in the past but still they are cute! And the kids LOVED them. I can’t wait til the star paper I ordered for first birthday gifts gets here. I loved making the stars for Trinity’s first birthday. For schooling today I printed out a Valentine’s Day themed math page – they had to fill in the missing numbers to count from 1-100. I sat them down with the Math mini office and let them go at it. There was only 3 mistakes between the two of them. I was VERY proud of them though, they got a little frustrated but kept at it. We took frog templates from the same site and each of the boys worked on colouring some frogs from images Ken found on the internet. All of the ones they did are called dart frogs. Tomorrow we start our written down observations of our frog (who if you remember is named FROGGER). Not sure how exciting that will be, but it will be interesting.

Now to get back to work on the tidying. I have a bag of items from the Dollarama to find homes for. Always a bit of a puzzle.

Had to pop her into this to see if it fit yet... I think she may just wear this out tomorrow!

I would like to suggest that everyone watch today’s Dr. Phil episode or at the least check it out on his website Dr.Phil.com and the episode “Bullied to Death?”. He covered bullying due to sexual identity which have resulted in suicides. Tomorrow is a continuation of the theme and I am definitely going to tape it to watch in case I miss it. It is shows like this that remind me why I have chosen to homeschool – one of the reasons at least. It scares me how bullying has become so media covered… the use of the internet to increase the pressure on our children. I really hope that I am setting the foundations to raise children that are tolerant of differences and unwilling to stand by and watch while others are intolerant.

So yesterday… well Echo was a cranky little thing. I think she has some phlegm in her tummy because she has spit up a lot of milk, and is very determined that it be mommy or no one.

Tuesdays tend to be rather laid back around here. BUT we did manage our painting time. With not enough smocks to go around Emanuel and Trinity ended up in two of Daddy’s old shirts (talk about cute! note the Linux penguin).

So cute

Our theme for today was FALL/AUTUMN so they got colours to match – red, yellow, orange, brown, black and green… the kids were rather good at painting SOMETHING instead of just mushing all the colours together and seeing what happens (which with black – as you can tell on TRINITY’S picture – is a whole lot of dark colour). I was impressed by the lack of mess in the end. Trinity did dump over her water and get Gavin a little dirty and she in turn painted her arms and forehead a little, but they had fun and we didn’t have to spend extensive time on clean up so it is all good!

Painting (Gavin)

Completed pictures!

The weather has been utterly beautiful the past two days. So we have sent the kids out whenever we can. The plan has been revised and HOPEFULLY Ken will get the front leaves raked and piled in the backyard for pictures tomorrow. I want to get some cute ones of our girls at least!

I have finished my cross stitch but can’t share it until it is received. BUT Ken promises me the pattern for Quinn’s stocking this week! I am REALLY excited about that. The hope is to come up with something relatively simple but Christmasy and classy!

This early afternoon there was a bit of excitement – a bunny in the front yard! The past year has not been nearly so plentiful wild rabbit wise to the benefit of our greenery, but the kids were overjoyed to see one and had to have a nice peek before the boys headed out with Ken.

Crouching Bunny no Hidden tiger

Today was the first this year for the monthly gym homeschool meet up. Since we still are not in possession of our van (the mechanic is sourcing out parts!) we only have the 5 seater car my mom lent us. This means only Ken and 3 of the kids can go anywhere which worked perfectly this afternoon. The gym really is for the boys, Trinity was much better off with a lengthy afternoon nap.

Fun in the gym (Gavin red)

While all this was going on I took advantage of the quiet and the fact that the blanket Nana made Echo was finally washed and ready to go and took some pictures.

On the Nana blanket

This left us with a quiet home for Chris (She) to come home to after her 3rd day of her practical. It was nice to sit around with the girls and just relax… until the boys came home and the noise level went back to normal!

Since we have an adult in the house (thank goodness) Ken and Echo and I were able to run out for a couple chores today as well. Superstore for diapers, H&W for our weekly fruit and veg run, and a sit down at Tim Hortons for a snack. Echo didn’t do too badly and Ken and I got some much needed together time OUTSIDE of the house. In fact, I think we will run out on Friday and try and find me a shirt to wear to the baptism on the 24th. And then a game night with BOTH Chrises before they head out Saturday morning and we are houseguest-less once again!

This evening Karyn also came by after work. She had accidentally taken our single stroller home with her on Saturday and with her plans to go to Saskatchewan on Thanksgiving weekend there just wasn’t enough room for it to head out with her. She stuck around for a visit and took over the hair braiding for me tonight so I could snuggle our somewhat cranky baby.

Braids!

Finished Braid

That leaves  this evening for worksheet prep (and a little sigh about our still empty cyan), tidying the house, and of course sorting laundry!! What a life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Our littlest sweety