November 25-26

The 4th day of a 4 day weekend feels very surreal to me. I felt absolutely LAZY and it was ever so slightly driving me crazy. Ken and his dad spent a large chunk of the day rearranging the garage so that one of the cars could fit in it. Which also had us drag out and sort  through the Christmas items. I am only using our Advent items and Christmas stockings. It is simply not worth having out our decorations this year only to have to sort them back out when we put everything away. It is an odd feeling, this is the first time since I was 19 that I will NOT have my own tree…

BUT We DO have our Little People Nativity set to have out for entertainment and decoration. Of course Baby Jesus is waiting for Christmas Day hidden away.

Emanuel with part of the “Jesus town” as they call it

Miss Echo is in LOVE she does not remember this set AT ALL

The kids are STILL over the moon with the new snow. I am wondering how long it will last but definitely glad they are still jumping to play out there together.

Out in the sunshine!

In fact, this upcoming week is set aside to finish as much unfinished items going for the kids as possible and get our Christmas and Advent themed learning organized and ready. There are presents to make, Advent calendars to set up and of course songs to learn for our mini concert that we will post up on YouTube. 

Monday ended our 4 day weekend and started our Thanksgiving etc wrap up. We also had a START up… Gavin decided he wanted to make his godmommy back in Canada a book… so paper was cute and ideas discussed and he was off! I gave him the 5 days of the week to work on it so that after the weekend a cover could be made and then the entire thing shipped off. 

Hard at work

Miss Echo has become an iPad pro. Just don’t take it away from her! EVER!

She loves her electronics

We did our last fall themed drawings from Art for Kids. SCARECROWS! I am saving all of these instructions and making them into a binder, they are the best I have seen around! 

Scarecrows

Don’t forget our 5/5 with Gavin and his spelling! Zander didn’t disappoint with only 2 wrong when he did his test as well. 

Well done Gavin

We have given up dinosaurs for the week, just need to get as much done as quickly as possible with a BIG surprise for the kids on Wednesday. 

So sweet and without the war wound look :)

Tomorrow marks the start of our Advent season. The actual sit down organized, what the kids call “boring” education is basically set aside for Christmas fun! Educational Christmas fun, of course… We are doing the Activity Village daily Advent activities (as many as we can and have supplies for), the boys have requested to learn about sleds – I have a few books on hold and what I could get yesterday from the library, and we are doing our Polar Express lapbook! I am excited about that one. We read the book for the first time today and coloured the cover page. I need to fold the two folders for each boy tonight and then we are jumping right on in with two little booklets per day! Add to that anything and everything I can find for them to do, learn, etc and I think we will keep rather busy!

We got some terrific mail today! Cousin Veronika found a Groupon for a 6 in 1 Solar Educational Toy and got it for us to add to our homeschooling supplies! So of course we had to bust it out tonight. Ken and the boys sat at the blue table and made up the puppy version. Tomorrow we are going to put it in the sunlight and take what Ken told them about solar panels and actually SEE them at work! It is adorable too, the finished puppy. After they have a go with it in that form for a while we will pick another. But what a great way to see how we can harness the power of the sun! 

Very cool gift!

Working with Daddy

Completed Dog

I finally got the chance to photograph the little owl ornament I made and put up in my Etsy store to purchase. It is 10.00 plus shipping and I would love to send it to a new home! I have two white ones to finish as well! I really do enjoy making them, I just hope SOMEONE ELSE will enjoy them as much as I have someday! 

Up on my Etsy!

So we got more snow today which made the roads rather treacherous, but Ken managed to get out to the store to get rice and the twins made a go at playing outside. They got cold rather quickly (and refused to wear snowpants) but they ran around and enjoyed the fresh snow. We hope to take them out sledding this weekend. AND apparently the van is FINALLY going in for repairs tomorrow! Keep fingers crossed the part is minor and that is ALL they need to fix as the coolant system is what will be comped. 

Cold but happy

He Chris got roped into post supper stories with Trinity tonight. She took full advantage of his naivety and gave him one of her longest books to read! I had to giggle as everyone else is VERY aware of the pitfalls to reading that particular book! But he did a great job. 

Story Time!

I really wish I  could share more of the crafts I am completing BUT I am taking pictures to share AFTER we give them out!! So for now I say Happy Almost Advent and get back to my crafting! 

Playing in our Little People Nativity set!

We have, completely by accident, stumbled upon an animal of interest… namely the Opossum. Emanuel did a dot-to-dot that ended up being shaped like one and the questions began. While colouring his picture we found an ADORABLE image of a baby one and that clinched it! So now I am on the hunt for information, lapbook portions and other interesting bits about the possum. It really does not connect to anything else we are planning on learning about this year but why not? The interest is there after all!!! 

Beginning of the interest in possums!

We again spent our morning working on stuff that is rather easy just to complete. The boys had some very rudimentary Little People themed books they were given when tiny from friends in the UK that were started and now they are completing. Not difficult at all but the repetition of things like colour words, sounds, etc. is good for them too. Besides it is a GREAT reminder that we always complete what we set out to do! 

Working towards that next completion

We started our list for next year’s garden… I am hoping to do a container garden as we do not want to dig up the lawn in the front or back so we are a little limited. The list so far is: celery, corn, carrots, cabbage, peas, blueberries (can we even grow those here??) and pumpkins… We moved at the wrong time for gardening this year so I figure we will plan out what we need, what we will grown and where we want the garden NOW and save it for in the spring. 

Emanuel was the lucky boy who got to go along with Daddy to run errands today… they stopped in at a place not far from here to pick up some Halloween and Easter decorations I had set up a pick up through Freecycle with! Mainly Easter stuff it was very exciting to go through the bags! We are well decorated for the next Easter!

Almost a full bucket of Easter stuff!

Together they also bought stamps (a long delayed letter to my Dad I want sent), stopped in at Macs to get a pay for credit card AND went to Superstore for some much needed baking supplies (I actually ran out of FLOUR!!) and meal fixings (French dressing!!). Quite the adventure for Emanuel. 

Oops a slightly fuzzy picture

And the minor repercussions continue in regards to my email losses… I managed to loose ANY email I responded to earlier this month by cleaning out a couple of “folders” that were not actually separate folders… so I am still hunting down contacts… IF you have not heard from me in a while via email or had asked me a question or I had asked you one… PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE email me back at rosereinsch@gmail.com. I would love to make sure I have contact info for everyone better placed away! 

Stuart is officially in a bit of a pickle. He was showing off for a cat (seriously, why waste your time, we all know cats are superior beings right?) and got caught up, literally, in a blind. Now what did TRINITY take from that? Well… her interpretation was that a mouse ran through a door with a pink cat after him… VERY interesting, right?

4 different portions of the chapter

I had to call Ken up to help Gavin with his math temporarily… he and I couldn’t get through to each other what we meant with the idea of a fact family. Between Ken and Gavin they persevered and I have found a set of cards I plan to try out once I get the time to print them out. It is things like this that remind me what an adventure homeschooling can be and how lovely it is to have TWO committed parents… and that I am VERY grateful we have the internet and an upstairs laptop to make hunting down terminology a breeze! 

Last night I made up another scrapbook page while I was moving all my supplies back downstairs and onto my new shelving. Now the big question is – will the trend continue… or more importantly – will the 12X12 sheets supply hold out? 

Another page done

I am doing the prep work tonight for a fall craft that will have the kids stitching… very simple backstitch type stuff but with their enthusiasm of all hobbies parental related it should be right up their alley. This is off of my very favourite UK craft site – making felt leaves. I am thinking I will draw on the lines they are to stitch with a pencil of some sort though.  

Now it is time to tidy, get the leaves sorted out AND maybe craft??

Look a popcorn gnome!!!