Well I have to say it didn’t take reflection to realize that THIS January was a much easier month for the adults and disappointing for the kids. Of course, I am talking about the weather, no Arctic chill, but also not much in the way of truly useful (for play) substantial snow! At least getting to “Jesus School” on Sundays was much easier on the family. Frigid rides in the van in the early morning is never a blast.

But I get ahead of myself – We ran in the new year (well partied until the evening) with Renee’s family and friends at her folks’ hobby farm. There was kids to play with, amazing snacks to munch on and entertaining adult company. Absolutely no complaints here! Though we did not make midnight. It may be another year or two before Miss Echo can handle being out and about and HAPPY at midnight.

Jeffrey!

Our first weekend AFTER New Years was of course Home Depot… Echo starts up after August if you believe it! If you have NOT checked into this free activity (on both sides of the border no less) please do! Ages for this one are suggested 5-12. Such cute little sleds!

Sleds!

We had visitors in our new year… notably Cousin Robbie who is always willing for a quick game with the kids before settling down to playing adults only.

Enjoyed our gingerbread houses as decoration well past season…

Crafted and drew for fun and all…

And found the time to learn something about the world through Little Passports!

SPAIN

And a Wild Kratts!

Under the Frozen Pond!

I think 2015 was well begun with creativity on all sides!

by Emanuel

Cross stitch by Gavin for his God Mommy back home!

With January also came our revisit of all things China and Chinese New Year. You can see our China resource page for this year’s studies HERE. I am going to have to think this through to really find a way to make a whole new unit for next year!!!

We had origami…

And costume time…

And a book completion for our littlest learner!And FIVE perfect sets of teeth!

Swimming continues to entertain all!

Definitely a different winter from last year when we had mountains of snow followed by biting cold!!

Yup fast forward through January… onto February… but first… check out the picture over flow HERE for this month with more silly goodness.

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 17-19

And… back to snow for one last hurrah… we hope! The bigger kids have really stepped up and now love having Echo out there with just them. They are growing up so quickly.

Spot the bunny

We squeezed in a Wild Kratts…

Black Footed Ferret

And Artistic Endeavors (that really do need capitalization! We are one with our creativity lately!!)

And then Easter Eggs! The girls did the traditional dye.

But the boys and Ken tried out this new way of doing it using shaving cream and dye… though if you plan on eating the eggs after it is highly suggested you switch the shaving cream with whipped cream. You can find instructions HERE.

Our Friday was a bit more quiet with a  half day to allow us to deal more with getting ready for the weekend and EASTER SUNDAY! We worked more on England through our Little Passports.

And got packages in the mail from Gammie.

On Saturday morning I dressed the girls up in LAST year’s Easter dresses. My cousin’s little girls said that they looked like the princesses off Frozen.

We paired those with the shirts Holly sent us from Canada and Voila perfect pic op!

We downsized Echo from super fluffy to a purple piece that was Trinity’s ages ago.

So we started our Easter with dress up and pictures. Easter 2014 is off to a great start! Enjoy the overflow!