June 27-30

We ended our week with a chapter book finish. This time Zander was our proud reader.

We returned to our original park from Mother’s Day and our first go at geocaching (HERE). Sadly the sun was hotter than expected so it was not super long of a trek but we had a blast going to a different section of the park.

Tiny frog!

All the sunshine and heavy humidity spurred us on to get that pool back up and filled for the kids to splash in. We did pick up a portable air compressor… just a tiny one that needs to stay plugged in. But you really cannot blow these pools up without something like that!

Saturday started off quiet…

Ken was out at a guys only beer and gaming overnighter so we had to make do without his imput. Luckily Renee and her 3 boys got bored and stopped by. Jeffrey photo op! It is great to have a friend who is close enough to just drop by. Makes me a little less homesick for our old place and all the local friends and family who just dropped by.

Sunday was another at home day of course so we started with playing with animals on towels to make oceans and land…

Back out to the pool where all sorts of floating was attempted…

Creativity with garage sale find blocks!

Once Ken DID get back he, the boys and I all played Munchkin. Their being able to read has opened up so many new avenues of ways to spend quality time with them!

I think it was a great way to end a weekend! We had only ONE day until the real fun begins. Not only do we end June which has been a very interesting and rather busy month but we get to lead into celebrating TWO countries’ special days. But first… SCHOOL.

Cooperative block building play time…

And a craft that was perfectly themed for the first of our celebratory days – Red and white placemats made by weaving. You can find the instructions on Activity Village (on right) under their Canada Day section.

And then back into the front yard.

Trinity and I snuck in some time to make felt maple leaf hair things (again thanks to Activity Village). We have done similar ones for Christmas. Perfect to spruce up our red and white outfits!

Echo wore one as a broach for a while!

And that was that… time to enjoy being both Canadian AND American!

I know I know… BELATED but I AM catching up and it WAS a special Mother’s Day for me…

May 11

It seems we have set a precedent with our busy May weekends. BUT this was Mother’s Day so it was a special kind of busy… First off we had to head to Sunday School. There was a parent meeting about VBS and the following year’s Sunday School during class. Even Echo came along to enjoy the various people at church. In fact, next year she is going to be in Sunday School for the very first time! And it looks like she will be in VBS this summer (end of June) as well.

After Sunday School we headed home to take our yearly Mother’s Day photos. I think we all looked rather spiffy!

And then it was time to change out of the finery and leave Echo with Nana and Baba for the first part of the really MOMMY centered portion of the day. We got out to Lochness Park (seriously! But no unknown monster in the depths sorry!) to begin what we hope will become a lifestyle change for us all – GEOCACHING!

I have wanted to try out this GPS based treasure hunt for a year now… but until we had to upgrade our phone we really could not do it. Amazingly enough Minnesota has thousands of cache locations for us to find and explore. Some are micro where you just sign a log, some larger where trinkets can be left and taken.

I sat down and made sure to make up a few marshmallows (crochet) to leave at the nicer caches. The kids have also grabbed some of their small and not favourite toys to leave behind as well.

Amazingly enough I was the first one to find a cache!!! Talk about appropriate. And the excitement, the working on keeping our eyes open… the out and out exercise coupled with a treasure at the end has everyone in our family absolute hooked!

We ended our circuit around the lake with lunch in the vehicle out of last year’s picnic bag (awesome purchase from Target). And it was time to head home for an amazing nap and dinner from the family’s favourite Chinese restaurant.

And boardgames with Daddy

Happy Mother’s Day to all you Mommies in our lives… a special call out to those titled ladies in our kids’ lives – Grandma Reinsch, Grandma, Nana, Great Grandma Rapp, the God Mommies: Darcy, Christine, Xinny Karyn, Esther, Ada and Bree… Thank you so much for taking on the responsibility of being a support to the kids. We love you all!!!

May 5-10

May has marked a definite increase in our book work and math exploration. Multi tasking has become Mommy’s most helpful skill (what you can’t see in the picture below is my fingers at work on a crochet project to steady the nerves!).

Our first real focus on Texas was the Alamo. A historical look at a location that shaped so many lives and the future of the now state of Texas. I absolutely adored the book we found at the library about it (which is listed in our Texas Resource page that will be posted in the not too distant future). Trinity and Emanuel took the responsibility of illustrating what we felt were some main points from the book.

Miss Echo felt a need to bring back out the at home assembled Kaleidoscope. She is so gentle with this toy it is just lovely to listen to her explain what she is seeing.

That night we had a special visitor – COUSIN ROBBIE! He came to play games in the evening (and have dinner) but obligingly came early to play with the kids FIRST! I don’t know that there could have been a better treat for them. He is a family favourite.

We even pulled out Sorry for the kids to play with Robbie so he had a double game night!

Tuesday we started our Texas themed stories… After learning about exaggeration and touching on the saying Everything Is Bigger in Texas the story was all sorts of outrageous fun!

The boys are showing great strides in their reading… Pokemon cards have been a great incentive… after all there is A LOT of information on those cards to discover and the rule is they have to read them THEMSELVES!

The kids were just not feeling it. So we did have quite a bit of down  time. I hate how spring always seems to bring in those seasonal change colds!

Of course on Wednesday we had to take a time out to watch Daddy and Baba move the trailer in the yard. An interesting visual example on how some things turn widely!

I love how as  the bigger kids learn Echo is there soaking it in!

We snuck in another Wild Kratts. I finally had to take them all and put them in a binder… so many animals, so many amazing facts and hand drawn illustrations!

Wolves

I found a great craft on Activity Village for mother’s day = a template to make a flower where on each of the petals the kids write why they love their Mum. You can find this by searching Mother’s Day on the site (on right) and look under their designated craft section for that theme.

We finished up the day with dragging out the spring toys. So many bikes in a row!!!

It was back to worksheets and Texas learning the next day.

We also had a sheet for Mother’s Day to complete.

With a break for a magic trick – putting a pin through a balloon without popping it! (hint the trick utilizes TAPE) This was another of Emanuel’s Scout achievements.

We rounded out our week with a family trip to the mall on Saturday… Grandma and Grandpa Mike had sent Easter sandal money and we had 5 little sets of feet to cover. All of the kids except Zander got sandals. His sneakers were tight so we got him those. Amazingly we walked into Payless and walked out 15 min later (yup THAT SOON) having had our own personal shopper and a 20% off total purchase coupon.

Seriously we bought only one pair of shoes (Echo’s) that was not on sale in the first place and Zander’s Airwalks were on super clearance! There was enough left over for Mommy to treat herself to a little spending spree at H&M. Two new dresses and two new shirts and the total cost was under 40.00. (granted had to dip into my special stash of cash but a TINY dip!)

We also stopped in at Lakeshore and did the gambit of craft activities they had with Mother’s Day themes! A bit of a mad house but we managed to enjoy it and have EVERYONE involved. Even Echo got her glitter on.

Once we got home we noticed a neighbour down the road had a bunch of stuff at the curb for free… suddenly we had two VERY happy girls with a new trike and two new playsets (kitchen and vet) for our backyard structure.

We ended the day with all guys boardgames and it was time for bed.

Mother’s Day is Sunday and our life cannot get much more busy, fun or enriching. I am so pleased with May so far!!