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!

I have had a break today… I swear there should be angels singing and everything! But (she) Chris was sweet enough to make the trip into the city in her new old  car to take me out and spend some quality girly shopping time. We looked at scrapbooking supplies (she is wanting to get started with it) and wandered through Michaels. I lucked out and got myself a scrapbook album for 5.00 (a 12X12) for a future gift. I also got another length of the ice cream cone ribbon I used on Echo’s Easter dress. Now I have enough to FOR SURE make Trinity a matching barrette to Echo’s headband.

We stopped in for lunch at Extreme Pita (a super treat for me), and went to the fruit and veg store – after all strawberries were on for 5.99 for 8lbs. So the boys are happy. With a final stop off at Dollarama to get toothbrushes for the boys. I came across a mini display of Kai Lan toys… I kept myself in check and ONLY got a little Kai Lan without any of her friends. The Kai Lan that Trinity got from Chris and Chris last year has an oversized  head and is more of a snuggly bedtime toy. So I got the little one to give her later as a fit in her backpack or travel bag kind of dolly. Though next time I am there I am SURE if they have more I will get her another one.

We got back home in time for Chris to get in some baby love time before she needed to head home. I needed this break from the family so badly. I feel much more… ME now. Which is good!

Hanging with Aunty Chris

While I was gone Gavin got creative with the Legos in the basement! This piece is a dog!

A dog!

Zander focused his attention at the kitchen table and busted out the last of his storybook. 3 pages all complete. Now we have TWO stories to laminate and store for our move! I am so proud of them both.

Note Zander's version of musical notes

Final 2 pages

We said good bye to Frogger today (well we TOLD the kids they didn’t SEE the frog). He was ok and then 2 days ago just went sort of… odd. By last night we were rather sure Frogger was no more and today 100% sure. Zander shed a few tears but was consoled by the knowledge that he could help daddy clean up our fish tank. For some reason our fish have done BETTER in a messy tank but we cannot move it with the messy gravel. As soon as it moves the stuff in the bottom would inundate the water with nasty. I think the plan is to look into getting a furry pet once we are settled in the new place.

We worked on our math books today. Zander somewhat stubbornly and Gavin with a full in intention to get through this book and onto the grade 2 one. I have promised him that we will pick up his next workbook before we leave the city. I think we need to find some fun worksheets and activities to work on our counting by 2, 3, 5 and 10… we are not quite clicking on that one. What has surprised me is Zander’s willingness to sound out as many words as he can and all over the place: on recipes, books, containers, everywhere.

Working in a sun beam

We are loving the spring weather and then some. I think next week we will take a whole day off of the organized schooling and let them run out the day in the backyard. I still have the outside craft box accessible so if the day isn’t windy they are good to go!

Fun in the backyard

I officially have homework for over the weekend. Our family history sheets came from the genetic testing lab. There is quite a lot to go through and I want to be absolutely sure I get EVERYTHING. We plan on calling our parents if needed, though I think I am rather clear on my side of things. I had to do a lot of this leg work when we found out we were having twins and were sent to a specialist for the pregnancy.

Now to get back to tidying, packing, homework and other “fun” things.

Working on her phonics by watching Word World.

The weather is creeping to above zero BUT the kids are experiencing varying levels of sickness. The worst this time round is surprisingly Trinity who spent most of her night last night on the couch with a sippy of water and Kai Lan on the tv. She couldn’t lay flat as as soon as she did she would start to wheeze. Poor girl, lots of hot baths with vapour bath in it and time with Mommy and Daddy.

Watching Kai Lan under the watchful eye of Fat Sheep

The other three have faired much better. Emanuel was absolutely exhausted at my mom’s on Sunday and now seems back to normal. Gavin has a lingering cough (which is a norm for him  for some bizarre reason) and Zander felt a little ill by Sunday evening but was fine the next day. Thankfully Ken and myself are both feeling relatively ok and Echo is just a little fussy (ok that is the most frustrating of all almost but still).

Emanuel and Fat Sheep watching tv together

We spent some time on Spring themed worksheets. A little frustrating as everyone is a little sick of being in the house and dealing with being quiet so the ones napping can nap. At least we are getting some sunlight in the house and they are spending some time working TOGETHER on a few of their more difficult math sheets. You can certainly tell they are getting over illness – the whining, arguing and stubborn behaviour is drastically increased.

For some reason lately they just want to work on the floor... maybe it is because the best windows in the house are in the living room!

Thankfully ONE of our kids was in a marvellous mood for a nice portion of the afternoon, surprisingly it was ECHO! So Echo, Fat Sheep and Petite Sheepette had a bit of a photo shoot.

Echo and Sheep Posse

Pensive Sheep pose?

And then she spent some time in her sit and play. I couldn’t resist a little video. I may share that another day.

It was early to bed for the kids with our trip to the den Otter’s for a playdate cancelled and Mommy and Daddy’s patience at an end. BUT tomorrow I hope to have the kids more motivated and at least in a better mood. Ken is hoping to get out to the bottle depot around work and other chores so that we are squared away to go to The Mall on Friday. There are Fat Sheep pictures to take, shirts for the girls to purchase and we definitely need to look into new jeans for Ken!!

There is a bit of a story to that, back on Friday night Ken and Ted had to head out to Karyn’s car (in the dark) to take out all the boxes she collected at work for us (she has a hatchback so there were TONS). On one of the multiple trips out to the car Ken and Ted came across two little girls walking dogs on leashes. They stood off to the side and Ken said “hi doggies” whereupon the little one of the two growled and jumped at him. Ken tried to jump back but it still tore  through his jeans and just caught his skin!! ACK apparently the dog has only recently become a bit viscous… only since they got the other bigger dog! Which makes two little girls walking them at night alone seem a little… wrong. Well after they got all the boxes in Ken disinfected his shin and we took in the damage… the jeans are kaput (they were wearing out anyway) and Ken is reduced to wearing khakis. Poor man (should I tell him I think he looks cute in them? Cuz he does!). So yup – even simple things like getting boxes out of a car can get exciting around here!

Oh – if you are interested in another viewpoint of today’s sick day you can read Fat Sheep’s version HERE. She was a great help on a sad kid day!

The rest of my evening is pretty well booked – I HAVE TO get this cross stitch done TONIGHT. I have plans for the last two days of the month to ensure my gift to my sister and her husband to be gets out ON TIME! So time to get busy.

Trinity's Hang Out over the past two days!