May 13-14

So we were SUPPOSED to have our day off from the 4 big kids on Monday but the weather was less than enthusiastic. So we switched our outing days. Which made for a bit of a mad scramble to get things ready Sunday night.

So what to do, what to do? Well… get out and about first off… We took a nice walk down the main road our lane is off of and worked our way through writing down the names of the streets we saw along the way. The boys now know the short hand for Lane, Drive, Road… oh and Emanuel and Trinity showed off their skills at recognizing street signs.

Walking with mini bubble break

Checking out ants

Afterwards we had some celebratory bubbles from a walk well done!

BUBBLES

I have to say there are some beautiful flowers out and about now!

The kids called this the caterpillar tree

Daffodils

I just love the colours on these!

Trinity has been hard at work with her new workbooks from Izzy and Henry. She is in love with workbooks… as long as they aren’t too heavy on what she calls the difficult stuff.

Diving head on

Such lovely colouring on her dot to dot

Our Mother’s day book for the day was No Time For Mother’s Day by Laurie Halse Anderson. I had each of the kids make a mini Mother’s Day card just like they did in class in the book.

Mother’s Day cards

I was showing the boys some handwriting as an introduction of something we plan on covering in the fall. Gavin took initiative and copied his name from what I had shown him.

Gavin

Leave it up to Echo to add some cuteness to our day as well!

Colouring

Attempting a summersault

So Tuesday was our one kid extravaganza… first a visit with Bree (Echo’s Godmommy don’t you know?) at her work – Caribou Coffee…

With her Godmommy

Such a big girl

Then the traditional groping of the yarn at JoAnn’s… where Echo found an adorable headband!

Checking out the sunroof in Nana and Baba’s car

The headband… not bad for a dollar

Pinwheel!

We went to the nearby mall to make use of a Victoria’s Secret freebie coupon and wandered around letting Echo see what caught her fancy. Late lunch at Zantigo and we were well relaxed and pleased with our day, making it home well before our 4pm curfew. The other 4 had a grand time at the zoo with Nana and Baba, seeing critters and having a picnic!

Lunch out

It was nice

Enjoy the pictures! I actually had the chance to wear my special dress that I bought way back when with my Christmas funds!

I need to do some rather more posed images

Me and my Baby

Just us girls… note the lovely RED lippy! Thanks for the help on that one Bree!!

Just need to learn how to make Victory Rolls!

November 25-26

The 4th day of a 4 day weekend feels very surreal to me. I felt absolutely LAZY and it was ever so slightly driving me crazy. Ken and his dad spent a large chunk of the day rearranging the garage so that one of the cars could fit in it. Which also had us drag out and sort  through the Christmas items. I am only using our Advent items and Christmas stockings. It is simply not worth having out our decorations this year only to have to sort them back out when we put everything away. It is an odd feeling, this is the first time since I was 19 that I will NOT have my own tree…

BUT We DO have our Little People Nativity set to have out for entertainment and decoration. Of course Baby Jesus is waiting for Christmas Day hidden away.

Emanuel with part of the “Jesus town” as they call it

Miss Echo is in LOVE she does not remember this set AT ALL

The kids are STILL over the moon with the new snow. I am wondering how long it will last but definitely glad they are still jumping to play out there together.

Out in the sunshine!

In fact, this upcoming week is set aside to finish as much unfinished items going for the kids as possible and get our Christmas and Advent themed learning organized and ready. There are presents to make, Advent calendars to set up and of course songs to learn for our mini concert that we will post up on YouTube. 

Monday ended our 4 day weekend and started our Thanksgiving etc wrap up. We also had a START up… Gavin decided he wanted to make his godmommy back in Canada a book… so paper was cute and ideas discussed and he was off! I gave him the 5 days of the week to work on it so that after the weekend a cover could be made and then the entire thing shipped off. 

Hard at work

Miss Echo has become an iPad pro. Just don’t take it away from her! EVER!

She loves her electronics

We did our last fall themed drawings from Art for Kids. SCARECROWS! I am saving all of these instructions and making them into a binder, they are the best I have seen around! 

Scarecrows

Don’t forget our 5/5 with Gavin and his spelling! Zander didn’t disappoint with only 2 wrong when he did his test as well. 

Well done Gavin

We have given up dinosaurs for the week, just need to get as much done as quickly as possible with a BIG surprise for the kids on Wednesday. 

So sweet and without the war wound look :)

I figure one of the best pick me ups ever is time out with a good friend. Wednesday afternoon was my first chance in AGES to enjoy the company of a friend (FEMALE friend) without kids and outside the house. Bree met up with me here at the house in the middle of the afternoon and then off we went to Applebees. A first time in years for BOTH of us. With appetizers half price and a quiet restaurant we were in heaven! 

Gavin sneaking in some mommy time before I headed out

Well over an hour later we drove over to Target to do some shopping and wandering before heading back to the house to say good bye to Ken for his gaming with the guys. Bree stuck around to get to know Echo better and talk to the kids (and beat dinner time traffic). Quite the wonderful evening for us all! AND I was able to get her godmother’s gift we had saved before we drove down. 

Getting to know her American Godmommy

Which reminds me… we got our new Moo cards with this address and current information! So now every letter we send out, package, etc will go with one as well! We figure since we ARE going to be here a while and they had a major deal (no cost just ship which here was 5.00) getting them was not a horrible thing. I am not in any of the pictures and Ken is WAY in the background of one but there are 5 great and varied pictures of the kids. 

Now not to forget about the kids… today we had a nice chunk of our day filled up with HOMESCHOOLING! I am so pleased that we found our math books. Zander dove right in (somewhat willingly) while Gavin opted to work hard on his butterfly cross stitch. His plan is to finish this piece as soon as he can. I am not sure if that will lead him to moving back to the other unfinished piece or start a new one but I am so glad he is this interested in stitching. 

Hard at work

Add to that colouring, talking about Thomas trains and Daddy being in the thick of it and I consider our time a success… of course we topped that off with a family walk around the neighbourhood. It really is a lovely neighbourhood. Though we did find a few mosquitoes. And took a few pictures.

Start em young

The weather was beautiful for our walk and after that the kids went into the backyard to play with the neighbours, and apparently help them garden. Seriously this is a GREAT area. 

Gavin on left

RUN

I am still working on sorting through the last randoms of our stuff. I have found all the school supplies that survived the evil downsizing (seriously in need of UP sizing now… time to watch the sales and hand-me-downs) and my personal craft supplies. Now to make concrete wish lists to purchase once one of these companies pans out for Ken… two or 3 more companies have asked for further information from Ken! 

We ended our day with the adding of Gabriella and Zachary to our already active household.

All the cousins

This weekend is Joe’s birthday so the kids are here potentially until Sunday. Of course we have our own plans as well… Saturday afternoon we are joining the Novaks to celebrate Andrew’s 12th birthday and then Sunday… Sunday Ken and I are going SOLO to the Renaissance Fair. I am so excited about that one! Not much of a spending budget but we are dressing up AND I am taking my camera with!!

Learning something new every day