Tag Archive | haircut

Ending a Month to Enter Another

May 31- June 1

I am a wee bit biased… June is my favourite month. Let’s see… my birthday, our anniversary, Father’s Day isn’t half bad… the boys were baptized in June… and the first day of summer… It is my first in the states and has given me a bundle of confusing emotions… homesick a wee bit I might add as there is another special moment to remember starting this June – my dear cousin Veronika is getting married!!!! I am dreadfully sad to have to miss it, but darn it… immigration moves slowly for those who are not willing to pay money into a lawyer.

Anyway first we need to END the month… so… Friday… Day one of the intrepid paleontologist Emanuel’s first dig. He has a box set up that we can store in the garage and it is all his show. He found the tip of a bone on the very first day! Everyone is rather jealous, but in the end this is something Emanuel is truly in love with, like Gavin and his art.

The clay block he begins with

The clay block he begins with

101_2257Perfect chance for art in the sun… nature art!!

Working on the front steps

Working on the front steps

We have changed it up a bit with the reading now that our school program is over with Pizza Hut for the year… now the kids are reading for their younger siblings! Adorable and great practice telling stories to other people.101_2260

Did you know Batman is good at helping with workbooks???101_2263

Oh and after a long month+…. A COMPLETION!!! PENGUINS! I am beyond proud on this one… we learned so much and we did it together! We all learned something new and COOPERATED! Bask in the penguin glory! Oh, and enjoy the resources we share in the next blog.101_2264

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We even topped the day with some rather impressive (and according to Ken who had to run out and cover the straw bale gardens painful!) hail.101_2268

What is a week without a weekend?? Let’s welcome in June with a Saturday… Time to spiffy up the twins with new buzzed haircuts thanks to Nana, Baba and Daddy! Not bad!!101_2273

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All done

All done

But even before that… HOME DEPOT! They made adorable wagon pencil holders… note that Trinity now has her apron too!101_2269

And then some shopping with the whole family… flip flops for the twins and a new swimsuit for Trinity… With the rest of the day freed up for play and relaxation… June has begun, lets hope the weather gets a little more consistent with some sunshine.

Fun in the sun!

Fun in the sun!

One Month Into the Year

January 31- February 2

We have completed our first month of the new year and so did Gavin’s work on his Lego land. With Emanuel’s help it was quite the creation!

Quite the metropolis

Lots of activity

Spooky section

Gavin’s turtle (too large for the city)

Ken and Ted took a ride out to The Source, a gaming store to peruse the merchandise and to pick me up some oversized dice for the kids. While they did I finally got to see Frankenweenie! I saw ParaNorman back on New Years so I am catching up on my animations nicely!

Dice

I am so proud that the boys BOTH made their reading goals yet again! I am so glad I can help them find a love of reading at such a young age.

We had our next book to share Happy Chinese New Year, Kai Lan! We had the corresponding episode on the video we got from the library… Celebrate with Kai-Lan.

Gavin and our book

There is a definite benefit to subscribing to a site’s feed. Art for Kids sent out a terrific 10 monster how  to draw book to all the people subscribed to them. I am going to have to sit down and hole punch and put all these amazing instructions into a binder all organized and ready for the boys to use whenever they want!

Wacky monster pictures

Talk about excitement for our almost birthday boy! Baba took Emanuel and myself to get Emanuel’s hair cut before his birthday party! It is like he grew up years as the hair came off… in looks anyway! Can you believe he is 7 on the 3rd??

So smooth

Of course the kids opted to spend even MORE time sitting with Uncle Ted. They just can’t get enough of him!

Quality time

Trinity roped him into playing Skylanders with her as well! They work so well together!

Skylanders!

Friday was a bit of a ruffled day. The kids do not function well with Ken working at home right now. It has been bitterly cold so they cannot burn off energy outside, plus there is the knowledge Ken is there and not available. That and the need to be quiet so he can work makes them all owly. So to take a bit of the edge off we made our Chinese lanterns for our Chinese New Year. You can follow our instructions on Activity Village HERE. I added to the activity by bringing out the markers and letting them colour the paper if they wanted.

Working on lanterns

 

Lanterns

This was our last day with Ken home actually. Come Monday he is supposed to have his own desk at one of the three buildings. I am hoping that him being out of the house will help Echo deal with less time with Daddy.

Time with Uncle Ted while Daddy works

Emanuel finally got around to colouring in his Mammoth pictures that Gammie sent him to go along with his interest in elephants! He does love a good elephant or prehistoric animal!

One colourful Mammoth

With dinosaurs on the mind we completed our smaller puzzle. One Emanuel got for Christmas!

PUZZLE

Our book from the day was a National Geographic one – Celebrate Chinese New Year. The kids love the images in this one.

Zander and our book

I have to say having Ted here is so much fun. Like back home, the guys are cracking jokes, talking shop and generally hanging out. I have missed that here. We don’t see much of the guys here which is a huge change from how things were up in Alberta.

Relaxing

As the first Saturday of the month it was also the Home Depot free craft day. The boys made little mail boxes for Valentines. Painted and everything!

Painted and everything

When Ken, his dad and the boys returned Ted, Ken and I ran out to finish some shopping – I needed cardstock for the kids’ schooling and Ted needed to do some present shopping. Target is so much fun.

After shopping EMANUEL snagged Ted to play Skylanders (he will be pro by the time he goes home!).

Gaming in comfort

He also made Ted a special picture to take home for his fridge in Alberta.

Art for the fridge

It really was an Emanuel creative day. If it wasn’t Home Depot it was drawing or making something interesting out of blocks.

This is a storekeeper with his till and table

I am glad to see that something I created is being used too – the kids had a tea party with the set I made Trinity for Christmas.

Tea anyone?

Saturday meant trying to get everything ready for the party on Sunday. There is something so comforting about having Ken and Ted together to help out. I feel so lucky that January and February has given us a taste of the people we have been missing. Saying good bye later is never easy BUT the visit makes it all worth it!

If only the fairie could magic up a way for them to stay longer… or forever!

NOT a Holiday Monday…

I have to admit I felt my foreign-ness Monday, up in Alberta it was a long weekend (as was greatly reflected on my Facebook feed) – Heritage Day actually. But here in sunny Minnesota it was business as usual. This did work in our favour, as while we could not do our calling up north we COULD do our errands locally… that means that as of the end of Monday we had gotten Ken a haircut (he had also shaved! So if pigs fly do NOT be surprised!), ordered our library cards (with no bills in our names of course, we were able to fill it all out and then to prove that you live locally they mail them out. If you are telling the truth you get it then…), mailed the first of the penpal letters (9 in all!) and opened an independent chequing account at a local credit union (did you know that having a bulletin from the local church you visit is enough for residency? At least for that place… we haven’t picked a church yet). I cannot get my name on it until I get a Social Security Number but it is a start! 

So many envelopes

So not only is Ken searching for that lovely 9-5 job but he is also clean cut and shaved, which means he is ready to interview when need be! So please, positive thoughts and prayers that the process is not a lengthy one and the job all we had hoped! I really do feel that we are finally where we need to be for the time being! 

The smiles on these creative faces (they are making their own boxes out of paper) is proof that we are doing the right thing (Gavin)

There is a major sale going on on Currclick right now! So I bopped over there and with some of my remaining paypal cash from previous surveys I ordered a grand total of FOUR downloadables for 1.80 Canadian! With the Mars rover recently landed and a meteor shower supposed to be in the making asap I figured why not do a quick hunt for lapbooks and notebooks regarding Mars… I chose a quick one day one for the twins… you can find it HERE. And then there was the dinosaur one I came across by accident HERE and finally TWO on Minnesota… a State study and general lapbook. I may just have to go back and think future topics and snap up a few more to save on my desktop. One of the ones I bought was only 30 cents! 

Today we faced a quieter day, or tentative plans to see Quinn and Bree fell through but the excitement of the removal of some trees in the backyard by Baba and Daddy made up for it. The removal of those trees left branches for play. 

Tree removal

Watching Daddy

So of course they did… they made their very own little “tree house”. I love the creativity and teamwork that went on. It was still a rather warm day so the shade was lovely under the other trees and for the kids, the sun deck. 

Tree house

School wise we continued with our workbooks, and added in some time for Gavin with a small cross stitch project that managed to sneak its way into our luggage on the way down here. He actually was quite the go getter on it today. He has pretty much mastered the half stitch, as long as I can keep his attention on the pattern. 

My little stitcher

Emanuel got to try out one of my newest Target purchases… a little set of dry erase ABC cards. 

Who can resist dry erase?

We also added in our Mars items. I have found some wonderful print outs from Education.com. I will share links to those later. We also found a great show on the On Demand on tv here from National Geographic kids called Is There Life on Mars? They were not totally enthused but after watching it we had an interesting talk about what they thought. So I quickly recorded the information so that tomorrow they can draw their own ideas out in some sort of picture form. 

Now to continue on with the themes… keep the kids active in their learning and of course HAVE FUN! After all what sticks better but the things we enjoy, love and accomplish with a smile on our faces???

Dancing babies