I know I know… BELATED but I AM catching up and it WAS a special Mother’s Day for me…

May 11

It seems we have set a precedent with our busy May weekends. BUT this was Mother’s Day so it was a special kind of busy… First off we had to head to Sunday School. There was a parent meeting about VBS and the following year’s Sunday School during class. Even Echo came along to enjoy the various people at church. In fact, next year she is going to be in Sunday School for the very first time! And it looks like she will be in VBS this summer (end of June) as well.

After Sunday School we headed home to take our yearly Mother’s Day photos. I think we all looked rather spiffy!

And then it was time to change out of the finery and leave Echo with Nana and Baba for the first part of the really MOMMY centered portion of the day. We got out to Lochness Park (seriously! But no unknown monster in the depths sorry!) to begin what we hope will become a lifestyle change for us all – GEOCACHING!

I have wanted to try out this GPS based treasure hunt for a year now… but until we had to upgrade our phone we really could not do it. Amazingly enough Minnesota has thousands of cache locations for us to find and explore. Some are micro where you just sign a log, some larger where trinkets can be left and taken.

I sat down and made sure to make up a few marshmallows (crochet) to leave at the nicer caches. The kids have also grabbed some of their small and not favourite toys to leave behind as well.

Amazingly enough I was the first one to find a cache!!! Talk about appropriate. And the excitement, the working on keeping our eyes open… the out and out exercise coupled with a treasure at the end has everyone in our family absolute hooked!

We ended our circuit around the lake with lunch in the vehicle out of last year’s picnic bag (awesome purchase from Target). And it was time to head home for an amazing nap and dinner from the family’s favourite Chinese restaurant.

And boardgames with Daddy

Happy Mother’s Day to all you Mommies in our lives… a special call out to those titled ladies in our kids’ lives – Grandma Reinsch, Grandma, Nana, Great Grandma Rapp, the God Mommies: Darcy, Christine, Xinny Karyn, Esther, Ada and Bree… Thank you so much for taking on the responsibility of being a support to the kids. We love you all!!!

My 5

I want to say a special Happy Mother’s Day to our GodMommies – Darcy, Christine, Xinny, Karyn, Esther, Bree and Ada… Grandparents – Grandma, Nana, and Grandma Reinsch… Great Grandma – Great Grandma Rapp and all the other lovely ladies in our lives who have been such a loving support! OH and my godmother too! Aunty Lorraine… I hope Veronika has given you a special hug just from me!!! 

Canada Day is tomorrow… we don’t have much in the way of decorations this year BUT I did find 3 little flags to put out. I went onto our very favourite UK site to hunt down some Canada themed print outs and lucked out. One of the ideas I found for decorations is the flag bunting. I am so happy to have my colour toner once again. We couldn’t find the box of strings BUT I did find a ziploc of decorative ribbon.

Working on their bunting

If you want to find a variety of Canadian printables etc. Be sure to check the UK site link HERE. I find that our boys especially enjoy the colouring pages this site has to offer, and don’t forget the puzzles.

Large flags and their colouring pages

Small flags by the door

DLTK had this neat 3D maple leaf craft… simple but fun. I figure anything where we get to make SOMETHING is a plus with this crowd.

Zander and his leaf

Next year I hope to cover the United States over the month of June and have the boys learn all about where their dad comes from. Then we can do a mini Independence Day celebration. I just hope I am going at a pace that is acceptable, I mean I KNOW that the facilitator, the kids, even KEN are happy with our progress but I am always a wee bit concerned. Zander and I are going to focus on his reading next week too (I think I mentioned that previously), I am hoping that some extra one on one will help him to be more settled here at home. Which he actually admitted to starting to like better than the old place last night! BREAKTHROUGH!

Today was THE day – we got our first piece of mail with our new address on it! And if this was not an omen for good … it was from my Grandma! A clear indication that the post is working again (of course this was directly addressed to us, we have not seen any forwarded mail yet). I love getting her handwritten letters, it is always a wonderful excuse to get out some paper and pen her one in return. Which is what I will do AFTER Canada Day.

After a mass amount of Canada Day themed printouts and the younger 3 napping the twins and I walked the block down to the local gas/convenience store. We took all of Ken’s change and went out to get a treat. After all they worked diligently to make their flag bunting and didn’t complain AT ALL about the word search! It was nice and sunny and just wonderful to get out with two of the kids instead of all 5.

First picture in front of the new "picture tree"

After naptime we packed the whole family up (in the rain at this point) and tried H&M for a Canada Day themed shirt for Miss Echo. No such luck BUT we got a cute little red long sleeved number that will go well with her headband and a nice pair of pants… and even better – on SALE – 2.00!!! BONUS! The others will be wearing red and white as well. I figure we will buy THEMED shirts next year.

Echo's shirt

We also continued on with our swan story. It was actually a rather long chapter about Louis’ night at the Ritz. Zander was super well behaved doing ALL of his assignments (including this one) WITHOUT whining so I let him have a whole HOUR on the computer with a timer so he could stop and start when he wanted. I was so glad he didn’t do his usual surly routine!

Completed swan page

I found some blue ribbons that all go together… actually ECHO found the pretty Snow Princess ribbon by digging through something I had on the floor in the tv room while I was moving speakers (gotta love the “walk in closet” in our room – it goes down under the stairs and the sub woofer fits!). Definitely not something I can make for the girls to wear now but it will work for the winter!

I did decide against the top ribbon but had already formed a bow out of it so now have to find matching ribbons for THAT one... I love how that happens!

I am trying ANOTHER anime on for size – this one D.Gray-Man. Not nearly as instant grab for me as Soul Eater but definitely interesting. Ken has been trying to hunt down a few others I am interested in that are not on Netflix. (and the rest of the XXXholic that wasn’t there as well)

Now to get back to ribbon making, anime watching and tidying!

Echo all in white