January 15-22

We are definitely revisiting some old favourites with our Chinese New Year reading. And with each one recognizing facts we already know and gems yet to be learned. One of my favourite aspects of Chinese New Year is the celebration of prosperity, family and all things positive. We can always use a little positive energy right? We slipped in some time to make a get well soon picture for a mom I met online through a multiples group. We figure a fun picture by the children would be an even better pick me up than a simple card! I am so impressed by the lovely heart all these mommies show. Our new books definitely had the boys ready to read read read. And we made ourselves a stable for our Chinese New Year year of the horse. We got our popsicle stick instructions from Activity Village HERE. It was a goup effort. The girls used markers decorate the stick while the boys did the gluing together. This week was the week of sweet Echo pics. She is in the middle of a hat phase and 2013’s Christmas present from myself fits her better this year – a teddybear ear hat. I got the pattern off of CrochetSpot HERE. The next day we had to brush out her hair, dress her up and take a few big girl pictures too. The girls also modeled the aprons I made them for Christmas in front of the kitchen set they got from Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie! You can find that pattern HERE. Friday was a total wash with a run to deal with passports. A WHOLE morning eaten up by the rather intense application process at the only office in the state. We had an appointment time thank goodness and the poor girl had a boatload of paperwork to do. Thankfully Ken and I had wandered down memory lane and got all the transcripts that exist for Ken for the entire time he was in public school. You need that proof to show that he was in the US enough for the kids to qualify for dual citizenship. My OCD of keeping lists of our addresses, baptism forms (which are a viable secondary ID here in the US???) and all that fun stuff came in really handy as well as Nana coming along to wrangle the kids. You have to have them there for a visual confirmation of their application and both myself and Ken to agree that they should even have the darn thing in the first place! But what a gateway passports are to getting all the other ID set up like Social Security and sorting our kids out so that they are set to live in either country! Lucky babies!

After all that government related fun the kids kicked back with some gaming. Funny how touch screens are natural to them!! Our weekend was a quiet one. Saturday there was lots of time to play with those new toys… and for Trinity to work on her sticker book. One of those lovely ones where you pick up sticker packs and collect what you need. Of course on Sunday they had Sunday School and an excuse to take ANOTHER picture of them all dressed up. I look forward to spring when going as a whole family and staying for service will be much more reasonable. We did luck out with the Sunday afternoon thaw. It was so nice that the kids were out there without coats, shovels in hand to help clear out the driveway. We are not on the best side of the street for the sun to melt it all away completely. We are loving the idea we found on Facebook of freezing coloured water in balloons to freeze and then burst and display. Nana and the kids have expanded to include freezing coloured water in other containers to add to what they are now calling her ice garden. My favourite is the blue balloon. We started the next week with dinosaurs… potty sticker sheets (still spotty luck on that one)… and well dressed scouts… and boys in the mood to learn how to swim!

On Tuesday we roped Daddy into teaching us about the first of 3 Chinese locations – the Great Wall (which became Trinity’s favourite). I have to admit to some interest myself on that amazing landmark.

With a Lego rendition of a portion of the wall

Of course we continued with other learning leaning to China and all things Chinese New Year. We used Activity Village AND the official Kai-Lan site thanks to Nick Jr. HERE. Even Echo is getting in on the language practice.

We had a short reflection on what we could remember so far about China and Chinese New Year. I do love seeing what sticks in their brains.

And of course more stories.

We rounded off our first half of the week with some lovely dragons all ready to dance thanks to the generosity of Lakeshore. At our last visit to them to craft it up we mentioned we could not make this upcoming week… Ken had his vasectomy scheduled. So the girl gave us the shapes to add to our own paperbags. I had the presence of mind to photocopy this for future use!

Miss Trinity had a proud workbook completion…

And Emanuel lost ANOTHER tooth. So time for a tooth fairy note!

More Chinese Characters…

books…

and creative time…

With the kids covering Terracotta warriors with Daddy! 

I think we are well on our way to enjoying our countdown to our second very special New Year celebration of our year.

December 31- January 5

How to end a rather interesting and unusual year… (but since when has the Reinsch-Johnson family experienced a USUAL year???) Well we enjoyed some print outs from Activity Village for the 2014 New Year. I love their pages… they have number searches, colouring pages… it is just the place to go for our print out needs lately. 

Education.com (link on right) has also been helpful, though without paying I am now limited to 10 pages per month.

We did up our last Wild Kratts page of the year too. Who can resist Seahorses?? Seriously cool little fish that have an amazing resemblance to horses. We may just have to do a whole on lapbook on them one of these days! 

Both of our girls had their hair in plaits. 

Our last meal of the year? White Castle! Definitely not something we would have in Alberta. I do love their chicken rings. Not so much their sliders.

The kids did not stay up until midnight but we adults did. It was calm and alcohol free for yours truly. Maybe next year we will attempt company? But really, being with Ken is all I need. 

Miss Echo figured that a new year meant a pretty dress. I have to agree… she does do fancy on a regular day with flair. 

That evening we had Chinese from the family’s favourite place The Rose Garden. Fortunes on the first day of 2014!

I was further convinced to extend our vacation from schooling. BUT the boys did do some fancy math and reading while playing Sorry. Which really meant they were only mildly sorry as they trounced each other royally. No fist fights yet!

Miss Trinity actually WANTED to do schoolwork on the second day of the year. Dot-to-Dots are a great way to practice our counting and this book she got last year from friends here in Minnesota has ones up to 50! 

On the third day of 2014 Miss Echo modeled a Christmas outfit as she showed her dollies her cooking skills. 

And with that we wrapped up our week and moved into the weekend… the first of the year. Which is ALSO the first of the month… so.. HOME DEPOT. This time to make a calendar. We are seriously in love with this free program. Apparently it is also running in Canada! 

We rounded off the weekend with a look at our microscope. A bit of science to end our holiday… and ease into schooling once again! I don’t know about the kids, but I am ready! I love the organization. 

So our year has started well. I have not come up with any resolutions BUT I have decided to continue with my happy thoughts jar. I have a little pile of happiness already but no jar to put them in yet. 

Annnndddd we make it to Christmas… and a boatload of images

December 25

Well Merry Merry Merry Christmas 2013! Our second in the USA. Of course we led off with what we call “Canadian Christmas”. This is the portion of Christmas where we open anything from Ken and myself… the stockings I made the kids the year they were born, anything mailed to us from Canada or family and friends in the States or abroad. Of course there were gifts from Santa in special Santa paper (a Minnesota quirk added to our traditions!).Though the girls zeroed in right away on the kitchen set sent to them from Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie.

Thank you Aunty Holly!

With their stockings

I made Ken 3 different pieces

Ready for the US gifts

Breakfast!

Not too long after breakfast Joe, Faithe and the cousins arrived and it was time for round two – Minnesota Christmas… gifts from Nana and Baba and Santa!

All 7 cousins

Gavin and the much requested Ring Tailed Lemur

Trinity and her “Twinkling” box

Then it was off to play with all the new items while we waited for Jim, Judy, Robbie and Jessica.

Not even supper time yet!

Supper was two tables worth of fun and lovely ham and fixings. And then it was play play play until right before the cousins had to go home when we opened the gifts from Jim and Judy.

Full outfit

I think it is official. Because of the amazing presents from those local and from afar our 5 have had one of their most amazing and memorable Christmases! I don’t know that we can EVER thank people enough!! But offhand… we opened presents from Karyn, my dad and Jamie, Gammie (spoiled!), Nana and Baba, Joe and Faithe, Jim and Judy and each other. Thank you all!  

Nana’s wine