Tag Archive | Jimmie

A Very Merry Canadian Christmas

Is  what I am told our loved ones had this year! And I lucked out, friends and family were willing to share their pictures!

My brother, my nephew and my Uncle together after Christmas building toys… thanks Holly!

The Bleau kids ready to open their presents on Christmas Day… So cute, thanks Sharon!

Jeff, Sean, Tedd and Darryl on New Years! Good memories of times like this! Thanks Sharon!

Though not pictured, Karyn sent me this picture from her time in Saskatchewan… this is her mom, her sister inlaw and her nephews!!! Oh and a puppy!

And a close up of the puppy, thanks Karyn

The parents to be Kristen and Fydo! Baby is due imminently

Not a picture but equally cool! Here is the video of Ted’s very own Christmas tree… very cool!

I really missed my time with our oldest god daughter and her family. Emanuel was also rather sad to not get his usual hugs and quality time with his god mommy. But I lucked out, the den Otters have a wonderful picture to share with us here! We miss you all so much!

Alex, Isabella and Izaac, thanks for the amazing picture Xinny!

It was super busy this Christmas for our other god daughter Anna… not only does she have a new baby sister but they also moved over the holiday. So here is the picture Ada was able to find for me. So cute! She is just 2 months older than Echo.

Miss Anna, thanks Ada

And of course we must include some images from the She Chris and He Chris Christmas. With Mae as well! You will remember them especially from their wedding!

Note the owl couple! I gave that to them last year

Miss Mae

The puppy

I want to thank everyone who send in their pictures! I am hoping to do this for other major holidays so PLEASE save those Easter pictures as well! 

A Very Merry Johnson Christmas

We have not spent a Christmas in Minnesota since we were first married so this was a long time in coming and a day of HUGE excitement, even for Ken! We started our morning at the reasonable time of 8 am with Echo having to be WOKEN UP! Of course, she had not had much of a nap on Christmas Eve so it was not a huge surprise.

Sneak attack on the Santa gift – a rocking… MOOSE!

Luckily the Christmas pj’s managed to make it through the night unscathed so we had our cuties all dressed up and ready to start the presents.

With their stockings

The morning was set aside for our Canadian Christmas items… Of course Santa delivered with the wish lists. The biggest item of excitement ended up being (not surprisingly) the ps3 game Skylanders Giants. The boys had been talking about this game since the summer when we spent  that month or so with the Bleau family. It was a favourite of Logan’s. Santa’s presents were too big for the stockings (like Echo’s rocking moose or Trinity’s special toy trunk) so Santa let ME use the stockings.

Ripping into the presents

The hats I made each of the kids went over well as did the little Pato inspired bird I crocheted. (Picture to follow later)

Echo’s hat (Sorry, a later in the evening picture… in her pj’s from Grandma and Grandpa Reinsch)

Add to that the lovely handmade creations from my sister Kat (South Carolina) and the pj’s from my dad and step mom and we were well outfitted.

Emanuel in his Angry Birds hat made by Aunty Kat

There were also the toys from Uncle Wayne, the items mailed to us from Gammie AND the toys from James, Holly and Jimmie. It was Echo’s year to have the “some assembly required” toys. Although when all was said and done her little nursery center from her Aunty Holly and Uncle James and Jimmie was a total hit! As was her brand new Cabbage Patch baby. In fact, Trinity says that since she did NOT  get a dolly for Christmas she is going to use HER Christmas money to purchase a Cabbage Patch kid all her own.

Opening her Assembly Required gift

With baby

Trinity ended up with her tea pot, cups and saucer set, fruit AND hat and was pleased with all! Echo LOVED her bunny… so I am feeling a bit accomplished with people LIKING my handmade gifts still.

Bunny love

We also gave Ken’s parents two strings of traditionally coloured lights to put on their tree… you know, the red, blue, yellow and green ones?

Traditional colours… like the big bulb ones we used to put on the outside of houses

After all the excitement of the “Canadian Christmas” it was time for breakfast – sausagestrata and then tidying up because the cousins were on their way!

Sausagestrata

Eating breakfast

Of course we had to put Skylanders in and let the boys play and truly explore the presents we received that morning.

Starting up the game

For the first time in YEARS I got my present ON Christmas… my very own Kindle Fire! It is so much lighter than the iPad but still has a lot of the tablet capabilities. So while I still need the iPad for a few things like the Apple IM I now have my own reader. I need to take some of my Christmas money and get myself a cover right away and then see about connecting to the library and start borrowing some books! Perhaps later in the year I can create a bit of a book budget???

KINDLE FIRE!

Of course I had to dress the girls up. And have the boys in matching shirts.

PRESENTS!!

Now on to the afternoon and presents from Nana and Baba… talk about MOUNTAINS! Santa was ALSO present in the form of amazing bags with each kid’s name on it. 7 kids with piles of presents wrapped and waiting… can you imagine the high energy? Seriously it was CRAZY!

A room full of joy

Paper EVERYWHERE

There were so many wonderful gifts, Hello Kitty, a wall car set, a Little People Princess Castle with all the people for Echo. Although it was slow going with Echo… she would open a present and then want it ALL the way open before starting on the next.

Gotta examine the puzzles

 

Opening their gift from Joe and his family

There was candy and fun little quick items like glow bracelets mixed in with Legos and other wonderful items. Trinity was over the moon with ANOTHER Hello Kitty outfit. In fact, add to that the headband I purchased online from Facebook and she was head to toe in it once she took off her party dress.

Hello Kitty from head to toe

After all the presents were opened and carnage of paper cleared it was a rush to get into every toy they could! I think everyone was rather pleased with what they received and very thankful. Soon after the paper clean up was done it was time to welcome the rest of the family coming for dinner – Johnson side! Jim, Judy, Robbie and Jessica. They came bearing MORE gifts… and pie!

Visiting

 

 

Showing off the new toys in the basement

We HAD TO open these new presents BEFORE supper, though at that point Miss Echo was already asleep for a much needed nap. The theme for the boys – remote controls… helicopters for the twins and a monster truck for Emanuel. Talk about wild excitement.

Present time… AGAIN

 

 

Remote control for the win

Trinity got Hello Kitty themed blocks (now she has two sets and is absolutely over the moon at having so many) and automatically collected her Aunty Faith AND Aunt Judy to help assemble.

Working together

 

After the presents were opened and paper away AGAIN it was time for supper… HAM! The tables looked beautiful yet again and we all ate until we were beyond full.

Supper time (Echo was sleeping/napping)… Gavin is in the red

 

 

This time, TWO tables full

There was an assortment of deserts including our candy cane cake, this time… as CAKE!

Deserts

Echo had her present time AFTER her nap (which was much needed)…

Post nap present

All in all everyone was pretty pleased. Though when asked Trinity stated that she got everything BUT a Cabbage Patch Doll (as I mentioned previously). Which is why we saved our Christmas money until AFTER Christmas… but that is a story for the next entry. 

On the phone with Grandma in Canada

Work… Play and Inbetween

The ability to keep busy is definitely a great one to cultivate in the pursuit of home education! And Tuesday was no exception. I wish I could say it all went smoothly but with kids involved… NEVER! We started the morning with… breakfast… then time with Ken (gotta get it in before he is gainfully employed here in Minnesota) working on Minnesota… and that is where we hit a wall. Sadly when Ken read to the boys from the lapbook I found on Currclick they really didn’t listen so when Ken asked questions about it they guessed and really refused to try. So the response was a 5 min cool down in the bedroom to see if they could remember what was read to them, and then a redo… which didn’t work so Ken tried 10 min and a redo… nope… so the final solution was actually a rather smart one… he gave THEM the reading matter (which was rather advanced for them), their observation journals and some pencils and told them to read each word and write it out as they do. Every 3 words or so they came back to Ken to reread what they had written until the first couple sentences were done and amazingly enough they not only TRIED but succeeded both in reading the words (with some assistance, silent K’s are RUDE) and writing it down legibly! Although in the end there was an unfinished word I had to squeak a few letters onto for them! 

So while the actual lapbook progression was short and sweet we did get the boys TRYING and that is HUGE! I made sure to take advantage of that and jump right into the rest – workbooks, Farmer Boy (I think we have TWO chapters left) and of course reading their books. We have a new plan in action… each day each of the children has a chance to earn a check mark. Once they get TWENTY FIVE of those they get something special. Trinity is doing a workbook page PROPERLY a day, Emanuel 2 letters or numbers a day in his copybook, and the twins reading a book a day to myself or their daddy. I am hoping this will foster motivation and maybe even some special one on one moments with our busy family. Day 1 went VERY well!

Working on their check marks

Baby on the go

Animal Planet has become a family favourite as has Turtle Man and today’s marathon of Steve Irwin (remember the crocodile hunter??) on the anniversary of his death. Emanuel absolutely loves the snapping turtles and was excited to record some knowledge about it and the show in his journal. I figure if it has him on the edge of his seat wanting to know more it is all good! There is another show the kids have latched onto, by the way, on Animal Planet. This one about people making extreme fish tanks called Tanked. The boys were very impressed by the tanks and LOVED seeing all the fish! 

Gavin at work

The Perler bead pieces that the kids were working on over the weekend and such are FINALLY ironed. Gavin finished the last one Tuesday. Ken had quite the job to do with all that ironing!!

Terrific job!!

I actually finished my very first crochet project Monday night! The single stitch piece which is now going to be a headband once I get a nice strong snap to finish the back! I think it looks rather nice for a first project and have already jumped into my second project – learning the (US) double stitch with a ball of white yarn… the jury is still out as to what it will be, depends on how far the yarn goes! Thank goodness for Facetime and Karyn who was able to sit with me Monday night and watch me go. The best part about it is that the camera reverses  you so when she was stitching it looked lefty to me (though from the wrong side) and was much easier for my mind to wrap around. I found a great vid for cementing the turning of the row in my mind.

 

The new piece… dolly blanket?

We are still working our way through the registration process… it is very frustrating that we had to wait until last week Thursday to receive the information packet from the district we HAVE TO register in. In fact the packet only just sent us to a website. Not overly helpful yet. I am still attempting to figure out things like the age to the grade, the immunization records we have to submit and of course how much information we are LEGALLY required to send in to the district. I have asked on Facebook and lucked out with a lady who has a friend who is registered and homeschooling here in the state so I am hoping with her help, our research and hopefully talking to the lady who has the position here as liaison we can get all our ducks in a line in the shortest time possible!!

Reading with Zander

Today was one of those best laid plans going askew sort of days… Our morning actually was PACKED with stuff done! I was surprised at the get up and go. It helps that everyone was excited about having another set of letters to respond to! Jimmie’s Gammie is a TERRIFIC pen pal. Each of the kids got a letter and they all were more than willing to respond! Emanuel even included one of the completed Perler bead creations (an Emanuel original tiny snake) in his letter! And of course we had to send out two of our Moo cards! 

Zander working on his response

Sadly we were not able to take our nature walk as Echo went for nap over the span of time Ken had his phone interview (which went VERY well, he just needs to do his test code for them and then do the tour and then… second interview we hope!). So we couldn’t leave her in case Echo woke up while he was on the phone. So we are hoping to go once Ken finishes his code as a family. We did have ANOTHER completion of the review books… EMANUEL!!

Completion!

Sneaking in a pre-interview moment with Daddy

I think we are starting to find a rhythm… varying what we do is helping as is keeping track of what IS easy to accomplish and what we struggle with. And now, two nights in a row one of the twins has read their story over the IM on our iPad to Karyn! I love them including someone ELSE in their learning and progress!

Echo chatting with Aunty Karyn and visiting with her kitties

Gavin reading to Emanuel

With our new year begun and Ken’s job hunt progressing, well we are settling in and able to say that we are putting down some new roots this week. AND I am going to look into the Magic Tree House series for the boys. Apparently there are resource guides and fact books. Something new to think about! And on that note… back to my solo evening. 

I HAVE TO share this one… Gavin spent an hour or more outside with nothing but sticks… he made this table type thing!!!

Creative huh!!!