September 8-12

Our Canadian guests have come and gone as has much of the summer. So our first company free Monday of September was officially our beginning to a whole new year of schooling. Quite the move up… this is actually the ONLY time we state our grade for the year. Otherwise it is a constant working towards progress. So here is how we start up: the twins are grade 4 and 10, Emanuel 2 and 8, Trinity 1 and 6 and Miss Echo… pre school rambunctious. All posters were decorated by those holding them.

This is the beginning of our trays and binders system. We shall see how it pans out. It is hard to keep tabs on all the papers each child uses.

We had our special lunches in our lunch boxes. The other 4 already had one from last year but Miss Echo got her very own brand new HELLO KITTY lunch box for herself. She was so proud!

We did a special craft for the day – using Sharpie markers to create stained glass style pictures using photo printer paper. Very simple an a lot of fun. We got a bunch of the photo paper a year ago when purchasing toner refills that were saved and never used.

We had a special visit on our week of the new year… Renee brought the boys over for an afternoon visit. Who doesn’t love a gaming and baby break?

Echo and I had fun doing sticker craft… a little early on the winter season stickers but they were what we had on hand. We are trying out different ways to keep her occupied. Daily to do boxes have not worked… she buzzes through them too quickly. But stickers, if only we could keep enough on hand, seem to work a treat. She did these without any assistance whatsoever.

One thing we did keep from the previous year was the clipboard with our daily tally on what we did and completed. I got the print out from the Back to School section on Activity Village (link on right).

We played magnets…

Dressed up for pretend fun…

Created art for our pen pals (of which we have a few new ones!!)… I think we are all looking forward to getting to know our new long distance friends.

We made a new wreath of our handprints to hang up. Those twins are getting quite the reach!

We got some amazing scarves from Gammie in the mail for the girls to model.

Made a few garage finds…

And finally picked up stuff for the new year of Scouts! Where has the time gone? And that is a quick overview of our first week of the new 2014-2015 year!

August 7

Some of the new season of Wild Kratts have been really interesting… Crocogator was fun… comparing a crocodile and an alligator (Emanuel was later able to repeat this knowledge to a friend! So proud!).

We had another wonderful series of garage sale finds. I love finding books for a steal!!!

The night of the 7th was a parade! In fact, Karen (Renee’s sister) suggested we go to this one. It is a long time favourite of hers and we were more than happy to join here and Cory for the event.

Of course we got there early to get decent parking and lucked out with a Catholic church/school with an adjoining playground. We actually ended up at the end of the beginning of the parade so it was easy to know when to return to our choice spot.

Karen is a HUGE fan of parades and was right there with the kids trying to get the big trucks to honk their horns and cheering on everyone.

She was a great sport, even getting a big black mustache with oil make up that the kids were TOTALLY not going for.

there was a florist handing out roses to all the ladies as well.

And a group right at the beginning that gave out carrots. ECHO loved that as did Ken and Cory.

So many cowboy hats and as usual around here, princesses.

We finished off our evening with dinner and a visit at our house. Talk about an amazing once a year experience (as that is the grand total of parades Ken is willing to go to). Thanks for the heads up and for joining us Karen and Cory!!

June 27-30

We ended our week with a chapter book finish. This time Zander was our proud reader.

We returned to our original park from Mother’s Day and our first go at geocaching (HERE). Sadly the sun was hotter than expected so it was not super long of a trek but we had a blast going to a different section of the park.

Tiny frog!

All the sunshine and heavy humidity spurred us on to get that pool back up and filled for the kids to splash in. We did pick up a portable air compressor… just a tiny one that needs to stay plugged in. But you really cannot blow these pools up without something like that!

Saturday started off quiet…

Ken was out at a guys only beer and gaming overnighter so we had to make do without his imput. Luckily Renee and her 3 boys got bored and stopped by. Jeffrey photo op! It is great to have a friend who is close enough to just drop by. Makes me a little less homesick for our old place and all the local friends and family who just dropped by.

Sunday was another at home day of course so we started with playing with animals on towels to make oceans and land…

Back out to the pool where all sorts of floating was attempted…

Creativity with garage sale find blocks!

Once Ken DID get back he, the boys and I all played Munchkin. Their being able to read has opened up so many new avenues of ways to spend quality time with them!

I think it was a great way to end a weekend! We had only ONE day until the real fun begins. Not only do we end June which has been a very interesting and rather busy month but we get to lead into celebrating TWO countries’ special days. But first… SCHOOL.

Cooperative block building play time…

And a craft that was perfectly themed for the first of our celebratory days – Red and white placemats made by weaving. You can find the instructions on Activity Village (on right) under their Canada Day section.

And then back into the front yard.

Trinity and I snuck in some time to make felt maple leaf hair things (again thanks to Activity Village). We have done similar ones for Christmas. Perfect to spruce up our red and white outfits!

Echo wore one as a broach for a while!

And that was that… time to enjoy being both Canadian AND American!