Ok, Sometime this week I HAVE TO put up the old dinosaur blog posts that are languishing in drafts un-loved and alone. So be sure to check back for some BELATED dino fun! Anyway…

March 27-31

March 30th – Happy Birthday Little Brother!

The twins are really excited about coming up with new questions and then working together to answer them all. We use Ken’s netbook and hunker down and go one by one. It is hilarious as we find answers, sometimes follow links to further information. Some of the questions are an adventure for me too… things like Why are snails slow? Who created the first superhero? Are there more meat eaters or plant eaters on the planet?

We moved on from Google to working on our hunting skills with the I Spy game!

And best of all – a lengthy Skype call to Aunty Holly and Cousin Jimmie. Jimmie was on break from school so he had lots to show and the time to do it.

We ended the week with some creative endeavors. Gavin made some rather interesting cookies out of Play Doh. Trinity made up a cupcake.

The kids all did reflection journals. Working our way through Dirty Jobs episode by episode has been great fun!

We also started a new book for family reading time – Treasure Island. The kids are quite put out with me. I am reading it WITH them so they have TONS of questions I simply CANNOT answer. This is not a classic I have read! I think we will either read Little House in the Big Woods or Charlotte’s Web next (Gavin is quite worried about me reading the second one as he says… I do not like spiders so I shouldn’t have to read it.). For this story we are doing a pictorial summary of each chapter. Drawing out main points and the like. Something all ages can be involved in!

On the last weekend of March we had errands to run and quiet at home time to enjoy. I lucked out and in a walk through Walmart looking at Easter stuff we found FAKE eggs to dye. We plan on still making the real eggs with Nana but the fake ones could be saved and used year after year!

Trinity and I worked on ANOTHER special page in her scrapbook. After all Ken had ditched us for a guys’ only night over at Chris Schwartz after errands so it was time to be rather low key.

We tried something I saw on Facebook – making string eggs and found that we REALLY need to use the small water balloon balloons. (back onto the shopping list they went).

The kids just sat back and enjoyed the day with me.

On Sunday Ken got home in time to take them out to Sunday School.

Definitely a stay at home sort of day after that with a fort to build and music to make.

AND being the 30th a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my younger brother James! So we had a looooong lovely call. I miss the heck out of him and his family!!!

We ended March with a relatively quiet day at school.

And Ken and Emanuel running off to Scouts. I am so glad we decided to put him in this. He and Ken are enjoying it a lot. It is time to work on the extra stuff at home as well to get him I think what is called Arrow Points. luckily a lot of it is stuff we do at home through school. I just have to have us sit down and do some of this stuff we have done over the years again!

There goes March… did you blink and miss it too????

With our move to Minnesota we put a huge amount of distance from our playdates, friends and family… one of the trade offs to saying good bye to all those amazing people has been the opportunity to be a part of the regular life of Andy, Darcy and their 4 boys. After years with our god daughters Isabella and Anna I feel so blessed to have the chance to be close to our god son as well. 

Echo and her Anthony

One of Anthony’s passions has to be soccer and so we have tried to make as many of his games as we could this summer/early fall. He is almost done his season and won’t be back playing until the spring. Ken played soccer in his youth until an injury at the end of high school had him kicking for football to get scholarships so he is really enjoying the chance to be a part of Anthony’s soccer experience. Saturday morning there was a home game and we had a free day so we joined them to watch him play. Of course this time I forgot my camera! Which leaves me feeling absolutely naked, thank goodness Darcy had hers for us to use. 

Go Anthony go!

Throwing in

Sadly they did NOT win though they ran hard and played their best. As usual, the other kids ran to the park that was just across the green and played the whole time. That left the 3 adults (Andy was in Vegas driving truck) and Echo to watch the game. It actually ended up hotter than we thought it would be and I am rather sure that some of the kids and myself got a little too much sun! 

Pretzel Baby

After the game we ran to Goodwill to look around and do a little shopping. The kids were not able to find anything to spend their 2.00 on that we would be sure was in full working order, all parts intact so we still need to head to the Dollar Tree to do some looking for that ever elusive perfect item. BUT I found 3 books to add to our collection, one about dinosaurs, a picture book version of a part of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods, and a Halloween themed book that is a little beyond the boys’ reading ability but will be fun to read for Halloween as a family. at 99 cents a book definitely a good find! I just wish I could hunt down OUR dinosaur book I am rather sure came with us on our big move. 

Echo and Snoopy

After a nice afternoon of visiting and the kids running wild outside dinner became the next concern. Darcy and I went to Target and shopped for the meal. We got a rather special  treat – CAKE! There wasn’t too many options but we picked out a very cute OWL cake. Boy were the kids excited about that! Of course that meant PHOTO OP! Andrew was gone to scout camp so we were actually down to 8 kids instead of the usual 9! 

Kids and cake

Cake eaten, more video games and a semi cranky baby it was time to head home to bed. So while we did NOT get to our pumpkin pie on Saturday… well no one was complaining! And we have tentative plans (IF the day IS a school holiday that is) to get together for Columbus day. Not so much to celebrate but to spend more time socializing the kids and enjoying adult company! 

I had a few completions Saturday with the crochet projects… BOTH of the Christmas dishcloths are done and ready to be used when season dictates. So my first reading of a crochet pattern was a success.  The next was a pattern suggested by a learned Facebook friend as a great and relatively simple hat! You can find the instructions HERE. I am so happy with the way the variegation turned out and how it fits. I want to buy more of the same soft yarn and make more. I will have to take pictures later to share!

Sunday marked the end of our weekend and the return of Nana and Baba from their camping trip. We spent our morning ending our homeschooling project of making pumpkin pie from scratch. Trinity and Emanuel were our chief supervisors charged with being sure Daddy put the lid on the blender BEFORE it went into the oven. All in all a DELICIOUS experiment as usual! Now Monday we start our pumpkin unit. I got an awesome combo of notebooking and lapbooking in the form of a Currclick file – you can find it HERE. 

Supervisors at work

And into the oven, I would have finished pictures but it was eaten up too quickly!!

They brought geodes with them, so we all got to enjoy the experience of cracking them open!

Uncle Joe at work

Some of the results

Later, while Ken was working on the stump removal we came upon ANOTHER toad! The kids thought it was well worth some excitement. 

Toad NOT in a hole

My big goal for the beginning of the week after school work and the same old same old is the completion of our Halloween costume to do list. The twins are so not cemented on what they want to be.

So proud of our godson!