Well I have to say it didn’t take reflection to realize that THIS January was a much easier month for the adults and disappointing for the kids. Of course, I am talking about the weather, no Arctic chill, but also not much in the way of truly useful (for play) substantial snow! At least getting to “Jesus School” on Sundays was much easier on the family. Frigid rides in the van in the early morning is never a blast.

But I get ahead of myself – We ran in the new year (well partied until the evening) with Renee’s family and friends at her folks’ hobby farm. There was kids to play with, amazing snacks to munch on and entertaining adult company. Absolutely no complaints here! Though we did not make midnight. It may be another year or two before Miss Echo can handle being out and about and HAPPY at midnight.

Jeffrey!

Our first weekend AFTER New Years was of course Home Depot… Echo starts up after August if you believe it! If you have NOT checked into this free activity (on both sides of the border no less) please do! Ages for this one are suggested 5-12. Such cute little sleds!

Sleds!

We had visitors in our new year… notably Cousin Robbie who is always willing for a quick game with the kids before settling down to playing adults only.

Enjoyed our gingerbread houses as decoration well past season…

Crafted and drew for fun and all…

And found the time to learn something about the world through Little Passports!

SPAIN

And a Wild Kratts!

Under the Frozen Pond!

I think 2015 was well begun with creativity on all sides!

by Emanuel

Cross stitch by Gavin for his God Mommy back home!

With January also came our revisit of all things China and Chinese New Year. You can see our China resource page for this year’s studies HERE. I am going to have to think this through to really find a way to make a whole new unit for next year!!!

We had origami…

And costume time…

And a book completion for our littlest learner!And FIVE perfect sets of teeth!

Swimming continues to entertain all!

Definitely a different winter from last year when we had mountains of snow followed by biting cold!!

Yup fast forward through January… onto February… but first… check out the picture over flow HERE for this month with more silly goodness.

February 8-9

And… Ted ALMOST gets on his plane and home on schedule. There is weather a coming apparently and it hit Toronto (his stopover) closing down the airport before he could get in the air here in Minnesota. So Ken and Sean dropped him off, got mostly home and had to turn around and come back. This is AFTER they had lunch, shopped a little more AND went to Top Gun in 3D at Imax! That left me and the kids home alone for the bulk of the day. So of course  there was school work to do…

Breakfast with Uncle Ted

Sneaking in an extra night

BOTH boys got 100% on their main words and Gavin even got Reinsch right. I am tossing it on the list but not counting it toward their totals as it IS tricky. So even if they get it right we do it the next week too, memorization!! In celebration of words well done they headed outside to play in the snow.

The tests

It was actually a rather decent day so the kids went out multiple times throughout the day.

The great white outdoors… American version

The poster was an all out success… we all had a hand in it. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing the Chinese Characters.

So proud of our work

We also assembled our fireworks. Note the characters on those too… Gavin helped Ken and I with those! You can find the instructions on Activity Village under Chinese New Year crafts (the link for the site is on right).

Gavin and our work

We also spent some time with a paper pack I got on sale at Michaels to make some special Valentines. Sadly the post office has been hard to get to so I have a bit of a stack of mail to add some of these too!

Special Valentines

A Saturday is always a bit slower, except when you add in even MORE company!

Best buddies

Teaching Quinn to play Skylanders

Bree and I worked together to create, from scratch, fortune cookies!

Finger burning perfection

I love it when Echo gets a chance to hang out with her American God Mommy! It was too bad Scott was busy. 

Snuggles

We actually had Steven here as well, he brought Quinn over and then Bree picked him up. So we had a full house! Of course the men were more… boring and thus no pictures… but the kids kept us entertained!

About the same size!

We finally got Bree and Quinn to open their gifts from Christmas! I promise pictures of Quinn in his scarf later!

Opening presents

So we had company coming and going… Now we are slowly slipping into real life – soon Sean will head home too and then… Ken goes OUT to work and it is just the 5 of us! Can we do it??? 

Why so serious???