April 5-6

What can be a better way to end a week than an afternoon/evening of cuddles with my very own American baby Lily coupled with some quality Phineas and Ferb time with Quinn and girly chat time with Bree??? Oh and of course with camera in hand! So enjoy the pictures!

My little sweet pea

I love this picture… smiling away while his sister screams

We checked out Quinn’s room…

And Lily’s nursery

There will be another entry with this one of some overflow!

Friday was also the end of the cousin overnighter visit. We had spelling done too (can’t completely drop school during the week). The weather was still chilled so not a whole lot of outside time, but they had some fun and way too much video games.

Gabriella teaching the twins some sewing techniques

Blowing bubbles

I am looking forward to another visit with Bree and crew (either one or both of the munchkins) next week! I cannot wait until the weather warms up and we can start walking!

With babies

It is the first Saturday of the month, so of course the boys were off to Home Depot for the free activity. It is rather exciting, Trinity turns 5 this month so the first Saturday in May she gets to go too!!!

They came with birdseed too!

We had an update on our God Son… he had an infection that needed a surgical procedure to deal with. Thankfully it was minor but he is spending a bit of time in the hospital. I am just so thankful that as it stands right now he should soon be on the mend.

So we are saying a prayer that Anthony will make it home soon and enjoying the beginnings of spring! Did I mention we also did some boot shopping?

The boys in their OTHER Gammie shirts!

For all of our Easter resources please refer to the blog entry titled “Easter Resources“.

April 3-4

I am pleased to report that we have COMPLETED our Easter lapbook… all it took was a little time Wednesday afternoon and a good glue stick. I hate how when you run out of one key supply things can grind to an absolute halt! I am quite pleased with the end result. Ken picked up some of those soft binders to put our platypus (and later penguin) books in and another for the Easter one. Job well done!!!

A couple of our pages

We have jumped in with both feet on our penguins and have already amassed some lovely links to share in the end (or contact me for them in the meantime of course). Mr. Popper’s Penguins is a lot of fun already. One chapter a day, with as much of the suggested activities the lapbook we found online that meet our age range plus additional links… I see the purchasing of a blue paper pack (varying shades of course) in my future!

Our National Geographic cover pages!

Our second book of the day was Penguin Says Please by Michael Dahl. Very cute lesson on being polite!

Poor runny nosed baby

Of course we crammed as much as we can in for a reason – tonight the cousins (Gabriella and Zachary) are here for a 2 day overnighter (this week is their Spring break). So effectively no school Thursday. Which gives me a day to tidy, organize and maybe hide a little?

Enjoying the penguin book together

We also recorded our Easter song: Jesus Christ is Risen Today! words by Charles Wesley. We are having some issues getting the video up so I will have to link it later!!!

We finally got our practice chopsticks in the mail. Sadly all the instructions on the back are in Chinese so I am not sure if I can alter them for a left handed person…

Chopsticks

Supper was special… all 7 kids out at a favourite Chinese restaurant. We survived but it was by no means a LEISURELY meal.

SEVEN kids

YUM

The 4th was not only Thursday BUT also our God Son Anthony’s 11th birthday! Where has the time gone??? I am waiting to hear on the birthday plans but in the meantime was able to wish him a happy day over IM on the iPad (the joys of modern technology!).

I squeezed in spelling practice and writing for Zander but otherwise, it was kids and grandparents’ rule and lots of gaming… after the girls (less Echo) made a run out to JoAnn’s.

Trinity’s wand, self decorated

We had Minecraft and PS3 games going on.

Gamers galore

With homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner…

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

And ice cream floats for desert…

Floats

Add in a movie and the day was complete.

Princess Bride

 Definitely a kid filled two days!

Mini E

For all of our Easter resources please refer to the blog entry titled “Easter Resources“.

April 1-2

Not emotional but educational… and more importantly – LAUNDRY!

Looks like an episode out of hoarding but it actually is a week and a half of laundry for 7!

We tricked/convinced the twins to watch half of the first load!

But first… MONDAY… April Fools was a non issue here… except for Anthony (god son) contacting a bunch of people with his joke and getting trouble with his mom. I don’t talk to the kids about it at this point. We have enough problems with behaviours right now, I would rather not tempt fate! BUT we did make our April poster… again talking about spring is still somewhat theoretic but we managed.

April

We started working on our Easter assembly only to RUN OUT of glue stick!!! WHAT??? I could have sworn that I had enough to last a while yet. Which means I probably do but have misplaced where I put them. So instead we started on Wild Kratts… 3 episodes!

Bats

Zebra

Firefly

The boys worked on copywork out of our Julie Andrews’ Treasury – The Easter Bunny by Rupert S. Holland.

Poetry

We also had some Easter games I picked up at the Dollar Tree.

Gaming together

Emanuel got a head start on the penguins with his own two page illustration.

Penguins at play

Tuesday was a Ken at work day, and the kids and I started right on the penguins with Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Again I am going to do the resource page at the end! This was Emanuel’s suggestion, he has always loved penguins best. We had some worksheets and a second book from the library… What’s in the Egg, Little Pip? by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman.

Cute little story

We had worksheets to accomplish…

Colour by words

Zander created his own little car ramp/jump for his remote control car.

Jump/ramp

This also marked the end of our reading program for the school year… one last round of pizzas!

YUM

Daddy also had a special picture waiting for him on his desk here at home at the end of the day!

Beautiful

And so our week has begun, as has April!

Colouring in the sunshine