November 15-16

Time for Thursday’s gratitude:

Trinity: for beaches

Emanuel: Thanksgiving

Gavin: going on trips with Mommy and Daddy

Zander: books

Sadly while Trinity was THANKFUL she was NOT in a good mood. I seriously did not realize one little girl can have such HUGE bad moods. She did perk up a little when asked to do her daily feather on the Gratitude Turkey though!

My girls

We had a special early afternoon with Ken clearing a block of time to allow us to run out to JoAnn’s and Dollar Tree. I am still a wee bit sad about the real LACK of a decent dollar store around here. Thankfully I WAS able to get a couple small (one inch) binders and some glitter glue… I am going to have to comparison shop for other supplies, and clip coupons. But I splurged on a pair of winter themed knee socks for a dollar! Oh and got the much needed white and black yarn to continue my Christmas crafting (and promptly FORGOT to grab the fill I need for my teapot… thank goodness there are other projects ALWAYS on the go).

The twins finally got the chance to cash in their Pizza Hut pizza coupons for the reading they did in the month of October! I have never seen them so proud of themselves! AND Trinity and Emanuel are up to their 25 days of work work work so this weekend they get another ice cream outing with Daddy! They make me so proud. Did I mention Emanuel and I are working on simple words. He is not memorizing them but learning to put his letter sounds together and practicing his printing skills… words like mom, dad, up, me, cat, dog… I love seeing his eyes light up when he gets one right!

Pizza!

Gavin got some time to sit down with a new set of instructions from Art for Kids — a silly cow! I love that he did a WHOLE picture and mean the WHOLE page! Very colourful and creative!

Well done!

Friday was a bit off kilter with Ken having a very important interview and all the grown ups’ nerves that go with that. BUT we still had time to be thankful!

Trinity: kitties

Emanuel: computers

Gavin: having food to eat

Zander: having boardgames

There’s our turkey!

And I am thankful that my boys are catching on with their spelling… Gavin got 100% on his spelling test today!!

So proud

We had less success with Zander who has opted to take the weekend to practice his words. BUT Emanuel did do up a wonderful Dinosaur Train related picture for his Friday fun with dinosaurs. Ken found some episodes and he and Trinity and Echo watched them on the laptop. Apparently, did you know that dinosaurs with plates used those to help keep warm???

Quite the fancy train

We started our next book for review BUT it is more of a chapter deal so the twins and I are reading it over the weekend. We will be sure to share our thoughts and opinions! Of course before we get to that though… Echo wore an outfit that her Grandma gave her way back when so I HAD TO take pictures! 

Miss E

And of course we have MORE art to share!

Miss Trinity’s art

And our Judy Moody front page, the boys did an AMAZING careful cutting job!

I just love this page 🙂

October 26-27

I am living a life in fast forward some days… and when you sleep in due to a scratchy throat it feels even faster! Add to that TWO interviews for Ken at two different companies and you have a half day of running solo. Good practice for when he is employed again (God willing hopefully VERY soon).

Showing off some Alumni pride

Anyway… even with a late start we managed to do our every day stuff and then move onto TWO chapters of our book with mini pictures and one sentence summaries and then HALLOWEEN COLOURING! Gotta get in the spooky and silly pictures in spades. You can find some terrific printouts on the Activity Village site right HERE.

Our monsters in the fridge

Halloween stories in a tent (Zander)

As is our pattern in regards to our dinosaurs Friday was NOT a new dinosaur day. Instead Emanuel drew his FAVOURITE so far – the Plesiosaur. 

Well done Emanuel!

Echo has become quite the little techno whiz. She knows how to turn off Baba’s Kindle and play a drawing app as well as watch the fishies. She knows where ALL the electronics are hiding and is very happy playing with them

Hard at work

Saturday was a double whammy for activity. We started at Toys ‘r Us for their special free Lego activity. The kids got to QUICKLY make a castle out of the new Legos and then were each given a little package that has a Lego skeleton, bats, spider, web, etc. They had a VERY limited quantity and even with getting there early we were like 6th in line. So no Lego for Echo but 4 very happy big kids! 

Creating

Some of the freebies

Ken had dropped us off at the store and then ran to get gas so he was VERY surprised that we were able to get through the line and the activity so quickly, even before he got back! But they were PACKED so we rushed.

Zander’s castle

Trinity’s (with Mommy’s help)

Gavin’s

Emanuel’s (using one of his brother’s bases to add to)

After all that excitement it was  time for even MORE with a first for our family – a birthday party for our nephew Zachary. Our first cousin birthday here in the states. There was our family and the cousins from my sister-in-law Faith’s family. As usually ours is the largest. BUT beyond our niece Gabriella we have the only girls!

Baba and his girls

Apparently Zachary is a HUGE Angry Birds fan… cake, decorations, the goodie bags… all according to theme.

CAKE

Note the decoration theme

There was toys in the basement, playing in the backyard and of course cake and ice cream in the dining room. The kids had a blast.

Playing games

All of Gabriella and Zachary’s cousins (both sides)

October 10-11

Middle of the week can be interesting, Thursday always feel slightly anti climatic, not quite Friday not the middle of the week. 

Busy AND productive!

With Tuesday being a tip to the library Wednesday was a READING DAY! We started with dinosaur books (I listed them on the Tyrannosaurus dinosaur page… which will be up… eventually). Our Halloween story of the day was a silly one called Cheech and the Spooky Ghost Bus. A giggle of a book and a great first one for our Halloween stories.

Story time

We did our next Halloween themed craft as well – pumpkin bags. We had to make them slightly smaller than it called for as I could not get sheets of felt bigger than 9X12 inches at Michaels. But the kids had a blast weaving the ribbon and gluing on their faces. Tiny bags they are PERFECT for our finished ghosts. Now I just need to get some black ink to make some fingerprint art!! One step at a time.

Making pumpkin bags

Ken found us a season of Word World for the boys to work on their simple language structure issues. I love how they give jingles for the sounds of letter combos. 

Word World

Thursday morning was exciting for Emanuel and Gavin… though Ken forgot the camera while he let me sleep in (seriously!). The tooth fairy left her tooth offerings under our fairy looms! You can make your own fairy loom HERE. She brought them Playdoh no less! I was told in great detail about how wonderful she is and how happy they are. I think a precedent has been set. 

We have continued on with our book work. In fact, Zander had a completion – the reading review book  I bought halfway through summer is finally completed. Gavin still has a couple pages in the same book and Emanuel in his leveled reader. I am so impressed at how much progression there has been in their reading. Even Emanuel is trying to learn the sounds of letters a little more. 

Zander and his finished review book

We started our second Halloween book but as it is the HISTORY of Halloween we are taking it as a two parter. BUT we finished our Velocoraptor book… Velociraptor by Janet Riehecky (in Spanish and English). Friday is a no new dinosaur day so tomorrow Emanuel and I are going to go through ALL of our dinos and make a page of the herbivores. Today we looked at the Sauroposeidon… arguably one of the TALLEST dinosaurs ever found. OH and then I found out that one of the videos we have been using – a Discovery one got this particular dinosaur pretty much COMPLETELY wrong! I will share those links on the Sauroposeidon entry… eventually. I am so far behind on these! Time for some two post days I guess. 

A bit of Halloween

Ken had a second interview as well. It went rather well with a potential THIRD interview next week with the owner. So please keep a positive thought and a prayer for Ken and his job hunt!

Creative boys