April 22-25

Once we finished our day out with zoo fun and egg hunting it was right back into the school fray. England was our topic over multiple days thanks to a combination of Little Passports, Activity Village print outs (on right) and library books.

Of course we are hard at work reading Treasure Island. Though the twins have suggested at times that MAYBE with all the deaths and mean pirates that this classic is not really kid friendly. Oh the world they have yet to experience!

We are, of course, keeping up with our reading.

But on advice of the always amazing Brave Writer and other inspirational homeschooling blogs, we have started to take advantage of the sunny days. So in the afternoon we dropped everything to enjoy sunshine and fresh air.

To celebrate all that spring and sunshine the kids had their last Pizza Hut reading program pizza for the year! We are already registered for the following year and are eagerly awaiting the summer program (though that one is online only with website rewards instead of pizza). We accomplished a lot of reading and together time over some really good books this year!

Our next big countdown is a short one… Trinity turns SIX on the 26th with her birthday party on the 27th! So we kept ourselves busy for the rest of the week cleaning and thinking happy nice day thoughts. After all the 26th is a bridal shower and the bachelor party for Gavin’s godfather Cory and his fiance Karen. Of course all of the adults were invited to these events so there was some kid juggling as we tried to work out ways to have the girls at the morning event and the guys at the afternoon… but that is skipping over a whole bunch of school and family fun!! So back to our week…

Tuesday had us watching Wild Kratts…

Bison

Reading about pirates…

And the girls hard at work on Echo’s ladybug mask thanks to her Easter stash from Gammie.

Middle of the week has our soon to be 6 year old completing her adding and subtracting book! I decided that since I already had a copy of our beloved Canadian math series for grade one that it was time for her to hop right into it! She is so pleased that she is on the same book as Emanuel… Emanuel… not so much!

We did spend some lovely quiet time with our Dirty Jobs episodes…

More Treasure Island… really the portions that stand out to them in a chapter are varied and interesting! Actually, we continued the trend with ANOTHER chapter the next day… I think we are ready for individual book reports in the summer!! At least by the twins! Exciting!!

And the decent weather is holding!!! And with that, our week is over and one of our busier weekends begun! Wish us luck!

April 26

So I wished our biggest little girl a happy 5th on the day of her birthday with a quick single picture entry, now it is time to share in the day properly. Of course being as the 26th was a Friday we did have to do the usual spelling, printing practice, etc… But once that was done it was time to enjoy the day with Trinity for EVERYONE!

We started with pictures of the birthday girl who chose to have herself and her sister dress up in matching dresses that had been purchased last year. At first Echo was VERY against sharing the spotlight and actually shoved the birthday girl out of frame!!!

Happy Birthday Trinity

In their matching dresses

From the back

After enough pictures were taken to make Mommy happy and the girls adamant  that they were done we packed up the boys and girls and headed to Walmart for the next phase of Trinity’s birthday DAY. Ken had taken on an extra project the days before and worked long hours so that he could have the whole day off! We were unable to purchase Piggy Paint like I had hoped to as the Walmart near us was not one of the ones that carried it but instead each of the girls picked out a colour of their liking from a fast dry line. Trinity waffled between a fire engine red and the purple we purchased while Echo swooped in and grabbed her new word of the day off the shelf – BLUE!

After purchasing was lunch, and what better lunch for a 5 yr old and her siblings than ICE CREAM! We took everyone to Dairy Queen and everyone had their own treat… no one was hungry after that!!!!

Birthday’s girl’s choice

LUNCH

Then it was back to the house for the painting of the nails. Both Echo and Trinity did amazing. And yours truly alternated both colours to match BOTH kids.

Girly nail time

PRETTY

With my nails

Supper was Nana and Baba’s choice as Ken and I had a double date with Cory and his fiance (congrats you two!!) Karen. I am told they did desert before dinner with giant chocolate muffins and then hotdogs… popcorn to round it off and movies.

We also had a surprise mailing! Our ant farm ants arrived… tubed ants with food… it was unnerving opening up the package to find LIVE ants (no queen). So of course we HAD TO take time out of our day and assemble the farm. Leaving the ants in the tube for too long could have killed them after all!

Assembly

ANTS

So our birthday girl was well pleased and ready for the next phase of Trinity celebration – afternoon and evening at the Novak’s. But first… the double date! We decided to go to Mall of America (more food options) and start our fun at the mini golf. I came in an unsurprising LAST, and Ken, of course, came in first with Cory and Karen tied.

Ready to golf

Karen

Cory

Me!

Karen and I could not stop giggling that the guys would go THIS far to check out MINI golf holes.

So we really had a terrific 26th of April!!! Trinity is 5, we had our first double date in AGES… our ant farm project is started. Ken having the day off made all the difference in the world. I will include some of the spill over from today in another entry immediately after this one… birthdates make me photo happy!

Birthday girl and all of her siblings

February 3

And so my babies are growing up! The 3rd marks Emanuel’s 7th birth-DATE… the  twins turn 9 on the 5th. What with Nana and Baba leaving for Mexico on the 6th we had to do the party before they left. Sunday (Superbowl Sunday!) was the only day that worked for both Ken’s folks AND Ken’s aunt Judy. The theme for the party? Perry the Platypus! Everything from the tablecloth to the cake… the  boys were over the moon. Though Trinity was quite disgusted with the lack of Candace (the big sister character).

We figured out afterwards that if you pulled down the left branch Perry peeked out the side of the tree!

It was doubly special to not only have Gavin’s god-daddy Cory there with his girlfriend Karen (no y) and other friends and family but to have TED there as well! 

We had quite the family filled guest list with Ken’s Aunty Judy and Uncle Jim, the kids’ cousins and their parents and of course Nana and Baba. Add in Gavin’s god father Cory and his girlfriend Karen and Ken’s good friend Christopher and his wife Renee and their two kids (Nathan and Evan) to the people already in the house and we had a nice crowd.

Echo and Evan

There was Skylanders to play afterwards and Lego to assemble. I think the day was a total success…

Lego with Cory

And to round out the evening – Uncle Sean made it into town! Of course he and Ken had to say hello in their own special way. Three friends together again!

Just like old times

So familiar

 Now for some more pictures of the kids!!

Our party girls

One of the birthday boys

Happy Birthday Boys! (Zander left)

Present time!