First and foremost we need to remember what the focus of today is in Canada – Remembering… remembering the troops that are currently active and overseas, the ones who have sacrificed their lives for our well being, the veterans who has seen so much, and those who are still dealing with what they saw. In my generation in my family we do not have anyone currently in the army, but Ken DOES have a cousin on his side that is. She is an inspiration to me, I remember the first time I ever talked to her – well wrote to her – she had been sent over to Iraq and requested emails. And since then I have chatted with her over the internet and even on the phone… I look forward to meeting her in person one day – and her darling little girl.

My own father was in the reserves up until my brother was born. I remember vaguely, going to see dad do drills in his fatigues and the impression of importance and organization. Though for myself personally my fear of guns goes too deep to allow me to enter the reserves let alone the army I am so amazed by the strength of character and courage those that do so have. Thank you!

So I ran out of time last night and was unable to do a full blog entry. Trinity had her first library session – Fun for Ones. It was led by a lovely lady from New Zealand who sang songs from her native country. There was songs and a story and Trinity seemed to have a lot of fun! I am looking forward to next  Tuesday!

Since the Reuse Centre was not open until noon and our library class was at 10:15 we came home and had some quiet time. Our time at the Reuse Centre was well spent though… 4.00 got us ribbons, fabric pieces, tins, more cross stitch magazines (and in turn more ideas!), and a multitude of other bits and piece for craft projects. The boys each picked out a puzzle (one going so far as  to get a 1000 piece one because it has “lots of small pieces.”). I am really looking forward to using these supplies to make more gifts and create some more school projects.

Our Baby Girl Just Keeps on Going!

Our evening was wonderful. Fydo and his Mrs (Kristen), Ted and ourselves all sat down to a lengthy game of Arkham Horror. Something like 19 decks of cards and so many rules and interesting twists but we did it  – apparently it is one of the first co-operative board games – you work as a team to win! And it was so much fun! I would definitely play it again! Not only did Kristen and Fydo come bearing game but they also came with interestingly decorated cookies – everything from Santa to a teenage mutant turtle. Yummy!

Gaming it Up

During the game I managed two completions – my second Apple logo AND the mill hill bead Santa ornament. I am VERY pleased with Santa… Ken painstakingly cut it free of the excess paper and I added the beard and moustache, hanging look and attached the lantern. Now my mind is just spinning with ideas to make more! Ken would love to sit down with the speciality floss I have been gifted over the past few years and design our own pieces. That is one of my goals – to start using all those special items I have never used before. I have not been holding onto them for any reason other  than ignorance of usage. I am not sure what to do with the lovely threads!

Santa

This led to a VERY late night and for me – a very late morning… ok afternoon…. slept in and then a loooong bath later and my day is over before it began! BUT the boys have been busy with colouring and their boardgames and some play in the backyard.

This evening was their Christmas craft time with daddy – beading ornaments onto wire. These 3 are in love with ANYTHING beading add in wire and daddy – heaven! Candy canes and wreaths this time.

Hard at Work! (Zander green)

Very Pretty

I have not planned much for the rest of the week… I think we need to focus on completions… finishing cleaning, finishing projects, finishing thoughts, ideas. I know I always feel more in peace and in control when I don’t have a laundry list of half finished things chasing me around. As it is tonight I need to wrap up my Advent exchange gifts to be sent to the states for the first of December and am slowly working on moving my family gallery to November!

Gotta Make a Mess to Get Things Done Right?

Halfway through the weekend and it has already been a busy one. The weather has been terrific for the kids to basically live outside in the backyard. On the flip side of that all my plans for schoolwork also went out the window. Ken and the boys finished up their teepees on Friday. Originally they were going to use string or elastic to keep the twigs together but with the slippery feel to the table it was easier for them to just tape the twigs to the paper cover.

Attempt With Elastics (Zander far left)

Taping the Twigs

Finished Product! (Gavin in blue)

After they were done with that Ken went out with them and made a teepee of sorts out of twigs stuck in the ground. This then progressed to Zander sitting down and making a sort of fence out of upright twigs  that had a “y” shape to them pushed into the ground with other twigs placed on them horizontally. Very creative!

Fence by Zander

Raspberries are still plentiful though the bushes have decided to defend their bounty far harder than in the past. My arms are starting to look as if I was attacked by a kitten of a cat. Tiny little scratches everywhere but oh so worth it! I am up to 5 or 6  decent sized containers in the freezer as well as a nice glad ware container in the fridge that we eat and refill daily. Add that to the melon I froze Thursday and we are getting a nice back up supply of fruit for the winter!

Ken spoiled me Friday – for lunch we had donairs! Very affordable from the nearby mall and at this point in our budgetless budget an absolute treat. Funny how once you take ALL of something out of the budget you REALLY appreciate it when you do have the ability once in a blue moon. Honestly, in all of the cutting out of extras I really only miss two things – Ken having a cell phone and tv. Thankfully we found an AWESOME deal with Shaw where we will get free months of tv, internet and phone (1 or 2 depending on which you are talking about) as well as extended reduced rates. This means this up coming week we get tv back! YAY! It is near impossible to find the boys’ favourite educational programs online to download and watch. They are beyond tired of the stuff I pvred for them before we had our sattelite cut off, it takes seconds at this point of the show for them to moan and groan about watching the same Word World or Super Why yet again! I can’t blame them, I am getting tired of them also. Thank goodness it is summer and we spend most of our time outside with the tv OFF anyway.

Well we worked on our book some more for our trip to Muttart or as the boys call it: “Visiting the Flowers.” We spent some time on Friday looking through Gavin’s camera. I was quite impressed with the pictures. The ones Emanuel took had fingers over the lens and I am pretty sure Zander’s were the blurred ones but the ones I was sure it was Gavin who had taken them were actually rather good. He took quite a few pictures of the same things Ken or I did and got some wonderfully  different perspectives. He ALSO go a clear picture of one of the statues we have dubbed “the Speedo Collection” which of course I cannot miss posting!

Man in Speedo

I also think he got the best picture of me and the boys as well as one in front of the face in the wall. I am so glad we spent the cash earlier this year to replace his relatively rudimentary camera with this newer one. I am hoping he will continue taking pictures to the point where it may even become a passion, but who knows.

Emanuel and Zander with Mommy

Prickly Pink by Gavin

Yellow Flowers From Below by Gavin

The boys found 28 images they liked from both my and Gavin’s camera which Ken is shrinking down to 2inch square images. I have cut up more cardstock into smaller sheets (8 1/2 by 11 inch into 4ths) using the same rainbow set up as our Summer book. I figure it kind of drums into their heads a bit the proper order of the traditional rainbow… that and those are the colours I have. We also wrote a story (well Zander and Gavin dictated and I wrote it out) which I have typed up on the computer. This is a common activity for us, after a special event we sit down and talk about it and write it up for them to illustrate and then I put a copy of the story and the picture into their special school binder. I have found it makes it a little more memorable. This is the story for the flower trip:

Gavin likes taking pictures of the flowers. Zander likes Mommy walking in the flowers. We saw a lot of flowers. They were orange, red, blue, yellow, pink and purple. There was a bridge and the water went under it. There was fish in the water. There was white flowers.

We saw a boy statue and a head stuck in the wall. Mommy took our picture. Gavin likes flowers every day. We threw money in the pond and made a wish.

There was 2 orange flowers opening. There was a lot of purple flowers outside. We had fun. Mommy, Daddy, Trinity, Emanuel, Zander and Gavin all went to see the flowers.

The End

This I am going to print out and put on the first page of our little book. Of course Ken had some issues shrinking the pictures to the size I wanted so our actually putting together will be done tomorrow. And this book is going to be quite thick so I am going to have to keep an eye out for cheap rings. If anyone has any ideas please tell me! That is one thing I have not had the opportunity to source out yet.

Ready to Put Together!

Friday night Chris and Chris came over for D&D again. While I am getting the hang of the role playing part I am so NOT getting the skills, the spells… the dice names… which I think  may be aggitating Ken… a little. But it IS fun. This session I used Snow White from the kinder style chocolate toys I got back when I was pregnant with Emanuel. This seems to annoy Ken which for those who know us well explains WHY I keep doing it! Love the man but I really do find it humorous when I make that vein in his forhead pop out a bit! I just can’t help myself!

Note the Disney Princess (Ken sure did!)

I made my goal with Fydo’s logo and finished it late last night. Sadly I won’t post pictures but I am very happy with how it turned out. Ken has 3 or 4 lined up to design for me and I am hoping on hearing back from some more friends with their favourite or most used sayings. In the meantime the stocking is calling me… loudly! I am starting to see sections finished off but with all the smaller projects I am doing inbetween it feels as if progress is even slower. I am determined though – it WILL be done in time!

This morning we took the boys to the local branch of the library where there was a professional puppeteer. (www.Kaybridge.ca) While the boys watched the puppet show and Ken read his book in the  back of the room Trinity and I wandered the library. They have an extensive cd selection as well as some dvd’s, limited manga and books. While not as big as the library back where we used to live you can always do interlibrary searches. Ken said the boys had so much fun they didn’t even look back to see if he was still there once and when we got home Emanuel was quite adament that I HAD to know that he loved the puppet show and wanted to go again. Best of all – FREE! And luckily for us a very short drive to get there.

Trinity's Way to Enjoy the Library!

Puppets! (Gavin in red)

Ken was one lucky man this afternoon. He was part of a focus group for Bioware to try out one of their new games. Of course a disclosure form later and that is ALL he can say and in turn ALL I can say – just be aware – Ken is happy!

I have also been at work adding to our original gallery at its new location (see the links to the right of this entry). I am only adding the minimum and the besst and still that is a few too many in Ken’s mind. I have decided NOT to post the homeschool related stuff since I am already doing that there and instead focus on just special pictures of the kids and special events. So don’t worry I have NOT forgotten about  the gallery’s existance, simply am slow to add to it.

As a super special treat for the boys I brought out the bubble machine we bought way back before leaving for Minnesota. Even after the time away from it Trinity is still much in fear of it and still totally NOT on board for bubbles! Which is funny since her brothers are nothing but in love with the bubbles. Oh well, just keep trying I guess. We also have the bubble bbq but it has you sitting there watching the boys as they play with it, not especially condusive when you have a scared infant running around and Ken out of the house doing his thing. BUT the time they did have with the machine was terrific.

Emanuel, Gavin and Zander Popping the Bubbles

Oh and our huge Emanuel breakthrough for the week – the boy finally wants to do puzzles ON HIS OWN. To the point where he sent his brothers away! FINALLY! We keep telling him he CAN do things, and he keeps saying no, so this was big for us! Which of course meant he HAD TO have a picture taken!

First Puzzle Completed Solo!

Tomorrow we are on our way to church finally. Nothing going on and gas in the van so I am looking forward to at least hearing SOME of the service though not expecting the WHOLE thing. Sunday afternoon should find us at the park or walking around our neighborhood… but Monday is where there is some actually planning. We are going to have a family picnic. I figure a fresh loaf of bread out off the breadmaker and whatever is sitting around the house along with our weekly produce run to H&W and we should be able to make a nice spread. So if anyone is interested we can always make it potluck! Just remember – no cell phones!

So while not our most exciting weekend or even our most educational we did have a lot of fun! I have a TON of ideas of crafts the boys are going to get started on to make Christmas gifts for friends and family as well as kits for the kids on our list. So keep an eye peeled, everything we make I will probably post up here, kind of stops the surprise for some people but at the same time I really do like to share the crafts. And you can’t be sure that is ALL that will be in your gift come Christmas.

I could not resist one more flower, this one from our own backyard, isn’t nature grand?

A Backyard Blossom!