We are coming to the end of our two months of off and on company… It has been amazing to have that lovely touch of home here in Minnesota. Though now I am rather aware of the move back to our family unit standing alone. I really do appreciate (as does Ken) the visitors we HAVE had AND the people both friends AND family who have agreed (for various reasons) to wait until we are settled. I know it is not fair that some can come and visit so easily but I really want us to enjoy our visitors to the fullest and in some cases that really requires more room than we have here sharing with Ken’s parents. While that time will be some months yet it is not an impossible dream. 

In the meantime I would love to invite people to Skype, Facetime, MSN, email, Facebook and of course call us. With the first two be sure you don’t assume we are online… I don’t always hear it. The kids speak often of everyone we have left behind and I try to call people when they request it! It is amazing how small the distance is with all the current technology. 

I think it is rather clear from the blog entries that we are settling in, while I miss things and people our life is smoother here. Wish me luck as we continue the immigration process and please don’t hesitate to say hello! The kids LOVE getting mail! 

I absolutely ADORE digital as I am sure you have all noticed… the ability to share everything so easily and have these multiple images is such a blessing!

Careful painting

Resting baby

Sweet little fairie

The adorable kitty thanks to Aunty Xinny

Goofing around with Uncle Ted

My Kindle Fire cover

When men get together EVERYTHING is a competition… here they are blowing up balloons!

The final result was terrific though

Pretty in blue thanks to Aunty Esther

Adorable in orange

Now reclining

Cuddles with Uncle Ted, or as she calls him Dada- not to be confused with DADDY.. for some reason the “T” sound is too hard

3 girl cousins together

I love this picture. There is a corresponding one of the 4 boy cousins HERE. Some day as adults I am totally going to have to reproduce this.

With her friend Evan

Birthday Boys! Zander, Gavin and Emanuel… 9,9 and 7

The joys of 3 birthday boys – the need to relight candles to blow out!

Outside enjoying snow, sunshine and her sister’s hat

Gaming like old times

With Bree and Lily to Be

Paper roses

You can find the instructions link on the blog entry HERE.

Quite the fashion plate

T & Q

Are we there yet? I am sure EVERY parent has heard this question repeated over and over again. There are days when I wonder if we will ever get to that far off “there”… Life is full of journeys: little, big and in-between. Some come to an end and some continue for the rest of your life. The true adventure is getting there… and I have to admit, some of my journeys… well I wish they were shorter.

We woke up to a ton of fresh snow on the ground and more coming down. So our morning plans went out the window in favour of the twins getting into their winter gear and working on what they are calling an igloo with a treehouse on top. I made them promise NOT to go into their igloo alone and we checked it for reinforcement. It IS very sturdy and today they realized – WARM. So the idea of an igloo working as a home is not nearly so abstract for them now!

Showing off the "treehouse" aspect

After fun outside it was back to Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day. We are focusing on some instruments today. Each of the twins picked one they were interested in (harp and fiddle) and coloured a picture of them. Then we read some information about each one I found online and wrote what they found interesting on the back of their illustration. We also watched some YouTube videos. My favourite of the two we watched has to be the fiddler. We have two more exotic instruments to learn about as well – the Bodhran and the Uilleann. The boys really enjoyed the videos for those. 

This one got Trinity and Emanuel dancing! So of course, PICTURE TIME! 

SPIN

We found some more colouring pages to share HERE and HERE. Trinity really enjoyed colouring the Irish princess and had to do TWO versions. 

We finally started our paper mache project today… glue and water and torn up newspaper is so messy! And we have kids who HATE getting dirty… so… we squished the twins’ hands in it and put Emanuel to work tearing paper strips… It was fun! Though I had forgotten how much difficulty there is in getting ALL the white glue off our hands! We made the bowl portion and the little base pieces but are going to glue those on once they are dried. You can find the project we are working on HERE. 

Getting messy

Of course there was a SECOND run out into the snow this afternoon. We have had so much come down it looked like the first time they went out! I have to admit, the igloo – rather cool! But… I think we have enough now… could someone turn it off???

IGLOO

Emanuel

I am not sure what it is about a truly snowy day but it seems to sap a lot of my energy and drive away. The world looks absolutely beautiful though with the fresh layer of white, pure snow on everything. However, I have not exactly been productive. Although it does feel safe… like we are insulated away from the world with our family together… Echo is healthy and fine in here, the boys are smart and learning well… Trinity and Emanuel adorable and Ken my hardworking soulmate… there is no depression, no PDA, no dissenting of my choice to homeschool… the world is right here and right now. Don’t get me wrong, I am on Facebook during the day… my MSN is connected (though I am slow getting to some messages) and I check my email periodically for interesting info but right now… right now the van doesn’t matter, the bread is done in the breadmaker and the house smells lovely… right now the world stands still. 

So a rather introspective day… 

So much snow!

I have had some free time… GASP! And that has led my mind down new thought paths… One of the main ones is the question of whether or not I am where I should be right now… Is the life path I have taken the right one? Well, after careful consideration Thursday night (while Echo was loudly proclaiming her dislike of ANY movement Trinity made on the bed by her playpen) I came to the realization that I AM. It is definitely NOT the EASIEST path, rather more the road less traveled… but it is right for us. When I think of all the decisions I made (well Ken AND I made) that seem to go against the norm – having our large family, homeschooling, choosing to stay in Canada and get Ken his status, the list goes on and on… well they are all ones I do NOT regret. Life would be pretty bland without Echo and Trinity, without homeschooling adventures and our travels finding our “forever town”…

Hmm there is also the wonder of leaving 4 boys home ALONE in a house full of things… things they could leave on the floor… toss around and generally NOT clean up… I actually had to call Ken this morning to confirm he was aware of a Kijiji pick up (we really cannot hear our doorbell from the basement – a huge issue at times!) and leave him a list of things I forgot to mention before leaving on MSN. I am so the list maker and Ken is so NOT. 

We had a rather quiet day Friday – up at 6:55am (ouch), we missed Veronika leaving for her shift at Indigo. After copious amounts of cartoons while mommy ATTEMPTED (and I mean ATTEMPTED) to nap on the floor there was breakfast, toys and more cartoons. Finally around 11 am Echo was crashing so I got in a bath that was MOSTLY uninterrupted. After all Trinity is without the bulk of her siblings so more bored than she normally is. Apparently the moment Mommy went into the bath the boredom level skyrocketed! 

Echo LOVED the open main floor... so much to check out - note the door behind her where she would open it and yell down to Dinah the kitty

Trinity is officially a whiz with the iPad… she was teaching Veronika to play her favourites and in turn mastering the ones that were already loaded and running. The Snoopy game had a picture taking option, so of course we had to take one and email it to my computer!

Snoopy Kiss!

Hello Kitty!

We had a rather exciting milestone for our baby girl on Friday… she has mastered the stairs. I love Veronika’s stairs, they are completely carpeted and not too steep. Trinity was right there to cheer her on and I took a little video for Ken to see as well. She is growing up so quickly. 

Taking a water break... I will have to share the video once I get it to Ken

We had Kathy over Saturday night for games. She lives a short drive away in the city so it was an easy trip and she was able to stay SUPER late! Two new games in fact – Puerto Rico (which is very similar to Settlers) and Dragonology(based off the book, which I have at home!). Kathy hadn’t played them in ages so it was like we were all beginners. I think she plans on bringing at least one of them when she visits at our house next.

Puerto Rico Game

Dragonology... complete with bitty dragons!

With all 3 of us sharing a room and Echo playing the light sleeper Trinity got to stay out on the couch until super late... took her a while but she did conk!

Saturday was our shopping day… I had a decent budget for the day (around 50.00 plus a gift certificate) and Trinity had her 4.00 of saved allowance. We started at Indigo where I was NOT able to find the books on my list, but I did find two books. The one on the left was suggested reading by Veronika. 

Two of my new books

It was surprisingly difficult to find something in Trinity’s price range that she wanted, so we compromised. She used ALL her allowance and my snowsuit Kijiji money and got herself a bathtime dolly… shower included! It was on sale for 30% off! 

With a little working shower

I picked up some Christmas themed hand sanitizers at 3 for a dollar! (regularly 2.00 a piece), but the big deal was on my new winter coat… H&M had them marked down from 50 or 60 dollars to…. FIFTEEN!!! It is longer than the one I have, so warm and … NEW! I have not had a new winter coat in over 3 years… so this is a BIG deal to me. That also means that next year all I have to buy is new winter boots (another one I have not replaced in over 3 years). 

So CrossIron Mills outlets was worth it. Veronika works at the Indigo there as well. I think if I had had more cash, more interest and another stroller we may have wandered more but as it was we had fun. It wasn’t too crowded either. 

Trinity and Veronika spent part of their Saturday evening creating lovely bars of sweet smelling soap. She was so excited to pick the colours and scents and be a part of the process. It is an amazingly simple and CLEAN craft to do… as Veronika says, easy to clean up – it cleans itself as it is all just soap. 

Soap making stuff

Working together

Lots of pretty soap... I think Trinity may be gifting some out to special people!

Sunday was lovely and relaxing… we all lay around in the livingroom until almost noon watching cartoons… there was laundry to be done, a cat to visit with and of course the iPad to enjoy. Trinity got to the point where when it was  time to leave… well of course she didn’t want to. To be honest it was VERY tempting to just try and extend our vacation… but there is so much to do here at home AND bloodwork for me to have done on top of that. 

Relaxing kitty

On the way home we stopped off at a Chapters here in town and got two more books (one actually on my original list) and then it was home. Well… home sweet messy home! Apparently the 4 days I was gone was gaming palooza! Thankfully they maintained a level of clean that wasn’t horrible, but a wee bit worse than I left it. The fridge empty, the kids wild on games and Sean and Ted here! So they had company to boot! I didn’t get to see the guys for very long as of course they had the drive back in winter weather for work today but it was great to get the time I DID get with them! 

Monday was back to normal… well as normal as you can with boys wound up from gaming, girls not used to being home and Mommy feeling unprepared. Karyn was over in the evening so we FINALLY ducked out and got the much needed and well lamented poster paper… they were OUT of white! (seriously first time ever) but I was able to get some lovely yellow for our Chinese New Year poster. I love Dollarama. I was also able to get the AAA batteries I need to replace in Emanuel’s SleepyBird AND the reading pens for the kids’ books that Trinity is in love with. Oh and don’t forget some lovely Valentine’s Day themed ribbon… I figure our girls could each use a new hairbow! 

Ribbon

Gavin and I worked on making the Chinese word for prosper according to the education.comsite. The template did not seem to print out and I thought this would be more fun for Gavin – trying to recreate what he sees somewhere else. I think he did a great job! 

Careful copying

End result

I do wish we could have made it to an event but at least we have learned some new things! And I got another book to read them tomorrow… this one is a story more than a factual book but it should be interesting. 

Karyn is entering into a contest to go to a conference for work and part of that is making a video – apparently cuteness is a positive so the kids did a part for her today! I have to admit I was proud of them saying their sentence! I had to take a picture!! And then Trinity wanted one of just her and Echo! 

My Fab 5

Just the girls

Even with the mess and the frustrating children today it IS good to be home… that is not to say I would not have liked to stay longer! Girl time sure feels nice, and Veronika’s home is so bright and cheerful with exquisite company. Trinity has spent most of the day and evening talking about going back and what she wants to do with Veronika. I am so spoiled with such a lovely cousin!! Definitely someone who feels more like a sister! So now it is time to try and clear up a bit, after all we have a poster to make… AND it IS Tuesday tomorrow which means – LIBRARY DAY for the two little ones! First one in over a month!!! YAY!

Baby playing with a baby!