March 5-7

Midweek sunshine had the kids out in an extended recess. This has been a wonky winter… huge spans of too cold weather and the snow just not being packing friendly. So anytime they can get out and run run run it is worth it!

Baking sugar cookies is a two day thing so Wednesday was baking… the result was absolutely delicious as usual.

That evening Echo and I had fun playing with baking soda and vinegar. I saw this as a toddler idea on Facebook. You take a baking tray and put toy cars and baking soda on it. Add vinegar and let them play. I decided to strip her down to her pull up and put it in the tub to minimize mess. The cars were nice and clean and Echo thought it hilarious. Boy did we use a bit of vinegar though!!

On Thursday we assembled our own kaleidoscope from a kit we got for Christmas from Grandma. It was a lot of fun putting it together and then reading about the history of them thanks to Wiki HERE. And a short video with some information that we sat through.

Mr. Emanuel is wowing me with his increased wish to read harder and harder things!!! Way to go big boy!

Friday marked the start of a new portion of our homeschooling routine – learning to use Google and the internet to answer our own questions. First we made a list earlier in the week of things we just wanted to know and then the twins took turns writing the questions into Google to find answers. I would screen the sites that come out and then the kids would take turns reading out our answers for me to record.

Back to Legos…

And then baking again… we could not show up empty handed at the Novak’s!!

Which is where we went that evening. We had a dinner and playdate sort of day… we brought the side dishes and Darcy got pizzas.

The kids played games and hung out and watched movies (Depp Wonka’s Chocolate Factory – I brought my copy) while Darcy worked on a birthday cake for her god daughter and I played supportive friend. Not that she needed much of a cheering section. Darcy does AMAZING work!

In fact the girls are no ADAMANT that she make their cakes this year too!

So we ended our week with an amazing evening of play time for the kids and an adult visit that included some amazing artistic creativity for yours truly!!

NOTE: a more mature content book!

With one, really one and a half, explicit sexual scenes in this paranormal-fantasy romance Her Mad Hatter by Marie Hall is a little out of my usual realm of romantic stories. BUT before you write it off for a chapter and a few pages towards the end I am actually suggesting this as a good fantasy ADULT read. With more than a taste of Wonderland and the Mad Hatter our Alice Hu is in for an adventure. This Hawaiian born cupcake baker has been infatuated with the story of the original Alice and since the age of 13 and her dramatic recovery from brain cancer, in love with the Mad Hatter (even more so after the new Johnny Depp). 

With a fairy godmother who is in charge of the “naughty” boys of the fantasy realm ( the bad 5 in fact who include the Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood and Hook of all people!) there are romances to be started. After all, who is more interesting than a bad boy? Given a year to match up her 5 boys Danika has her work cut out for her, but the chance meeting of Alice has her focused on the Mad Hatter. 

Alice Hu is the great-granddaughter of another Alice Hu, one she resembles almost perfectly… though she cannot like her. She is not like other women, infatuated with a story… in love with a character and a survivor of an extreme form of cancer. Found by Danika she is given 3 days in Wonderland to be the woman the Mad Hatter needs. 

Now there are a few twists and some amazing images to imagine. I don’t want to give away too much but would suggest that you pick up this book as long as you can handle the sexual content… the main character is very frank about how she feels and that is definitely something you have to be ok with. I personally am going to check out book #2 Gerard’s Beauty. Though I will probably do the same as I did with this book and gloss over the scenes containing sexual activity.

Her Mad Hatter

October 28-29

On Sunday we spent our last day with Nana and Baba before their 3 week excursion to Mexico (Talum). Lazy iPad playing, hanging around the house sort of day! 

Making pictures using stickers from the weekend fun

Which had myself working on a costume accessory for Echo and Ken and his mom doing a joint (but mostly Nana) effort on another more major aspect. 

Fits perfectly

And of course gaming with Daddy and Baba before bed but AFTER pizza… 

Gaming

Ken drove them to the airport at the crack of dawn Monday and then we settled in for a rather lazy but Halloween themed day… starting with sleeping in… moving to MOVIES in PJ’s and then from there… pumpkins! Well… pumpkin… we were too worn out and everyone getting over a bug to do both… but Tuesday will become pumpkinS. 

Ken’s choice on the pumpkins

Supervising the cleaning

All together with one pumpkin cleaned (Zander left)

Continuing the supervision during the carving stage

Group effort on the features!

Movie time consisted of a Magic Schoolbus cd of 3 eps, Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost and Scooby Doo and the Zombie Island all rounded off with Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Willie Wonka. With bits of schoolwork in between.

MOVIES

The final project of the day was to do a mini movie review for their movie of choice – super simple – Title, Main Characters, Favourite Part, and of course – a picture!!! 

Zander

Emanuel

Gavin

We ended our day with runny noses and slightly cranky kids BUT we had a great day!

All glowy and stuff