While I don’t have a picture yet I have a reason for this short little blog entry!!!! Miss Lily was born today at 9:58 in the morning weighing in at a delicate (for what she was expected to be) 8lbs 14oz. Mommy and Baby are doing SUPER well… I get to go and have a visit tomorrow so tonight I am working on tidying and such and ensuring our welcome baby present is ready to be given. I am much the proud aunty here… Miss Lily is Echo’s first American God Sister as Bree and Scott are Echo’s godparents. I look forward to photographing and spoiling Miss Lily rotten… Mr. Quinn is now a big brother as well! Isn’t life exciting!!!!
So congrats to Scott and Bree and I promise there will be many pictures and mentions of baby cuteness to come! My very first American baby… since Anthony is now all grown up!
I loved the longer video on the Activity Village site… we had over 20 min of happy and quiet kids! But, watch for yourself!
We started our first themed week Monday… CANDY CANES! I combined a lapbook I got for free and as many Candy Cane themed print outs as I could find… mostly on Activity Village. Trinity was overjoyed with the chance to colour any and all candy cane images. And the boys listened to their educational story about the origins of Candy Canes before they filled out a short worksheet. The plan is to take TUESDAY to make the candy cane crafts I found online.
With out countdown… also Activity Village
What we DID do was start on our Christmas ornaments. I am afraid a lot of stuff is going to make it to people late this year due to shipping costs but the kids are making special foam ornaments for everyone. We took the kit I bought with the littles on Saturday and combined it with our foam and glitter glue and let them go NUTS!
Completed with pictures
There are so many ways to represent Santa. The kids thought the Art for Kidssite had one of the best ideas yet! Such a goofy Santa how to!
Zander’s running Santa
Tuesday was a bit of a shattered day… I honestly have no excuse but to admit that I let the worries and lack of knowledge in regards to my need to change my status here in the US catch up with me. I despise it when I do that, I feel that I fail the kids when I let the outside world destroy the organization, learning and… fun of our homeschool day. With Ken not employed and our living here with Nana and Baba homeschooling is really insular for us. It is the rest of the time that is friends and extended family, errands and free events. Right now, right here we don’t have the homeschool connections so I have created a plan around our space here. But anyway… Advent is here and we are embracing each day with crafts and family together time. So though I WANT Ken employed and out busy, I am so happy with this special time we have.
We had a special how to on Art for Kids on Tuesday… a FAIRY! So Gavin was sweet enough to draw one for Trinity! We do get a little out of order on the updated instructions from time to time, but Gavin had some spare time so he was such a sweetheart and drew it up.
For Trinity
We had picked up some great Christmas colour themed pipe cleaners from Joann’s previously so Trinity and Echo and Gavin all made special twisted candy canes. You can find our instructions HEREon the Activity Village site.
Echo and her Candy Cane in TRINITY’s nightgown!
Gavin’s more complicated version
As a “T” day, of course we had to have some Minecraft time!
Designing a masterpiece
We made CANDY with Nana from a simple candy cane recipe and while they did not exactly hold shape or harden (we hope for better results next time) ALL of the kids got involved and had a blast.
Measuring the sugar
Pulling the sugar
Lots of busy, sticky fingers
The shape did not hold but was it ever FUN
We are really loving a themed week… though I am sure we could cram more stuff into a day, this pace seems to have the boys retaining TONS. And giving us time to make those special gifts for godparents, cards for people back up in Canada and of course Art for Kids how to drawings.
Echo and her own little piece of Candy Cane to work
