It has happened… I am nearly TWO MONTHS behind on the blog… which begs the question… are we even INTERESTED in rehashing October? So I think, instead of a day by day reflection I will do an overview of some highlights. Let’s see…

We had a pretty amazing experience with working in pairs on the little guys’ Halloween lapbooks AND solo for the twins on their own. I have made up a resource page for our items. I apologize in advance for not linking up all the books but I am sure if you check your local library or bookstore most could be found! A library card is a wonderful thing is it not? Our Halloween resources can be found HERE.

We started up with the Pizza Hut Book It program once again as well. There is a new app to go with it that we are getting used to. There were a few hiccups. We had to just go by Johnson for their last name. No hyphenating. But the kids are so excited to be earning their pizzas once again. You can check out the program HERE.

Ken is also jumping in to help us finish our long enjoyed VOLCANO unit. He had a really creative way to show the creation of a volcano using wash cloths of all things!

This is another blogged resource page. You can find all of that HERE. We took longer than expected but enjoyed it all the same. Some years we bust through these major unit studies… others… not so much!

Of course in October we have Home Depot! November has TWO since they are not doing the normal one in December. Doubly difficult as we have our swimming lessons Saturday mornings so we have to rush from the pool to the store to make it there  before the program is over!

The weather is cooling and the kids are starting to bundle up. It is always a but of a shuffle to go through all the clothes and find out what fits, what leaks and what is worn to pieces.

our big excitement was having Andrew with younger brother Alex in to BABYSIT for us! Ken and I had one last chance to take burnable stuff over to Chris and Renee’s and wanted to really enjoy it. We brought Cousin Robbie along, had drinks and dinner and stayed out SUPER late. Andrew managed fine and is already agreeing to sit again for us!

The boys’ newest addiction along with playing Pokemon is to play Munchkin.. my boardgame! They are even attempting fair play with their siblings! NOT BAD!!!

To celebrate CANADIAN Thanksgiving we not only called Grandma to say hello but did up a poster of things we are grateful for.

Then to top it off we had dinner at KFC (a Reinsch family tradition). Nana and Baba came as well as they plan to be in Florida over the American one. HAPPY THANKSGIVING CANADIAN FRIENDS AND FAMILY (BELATEDLY).

We had some crafting fun…

A trip to Mall of America to thoroughly enjoy LegoLand and spend some of their Gammie treat money on a container of hand picked lego pieces! Not too bad of a family excursion. We also brought snacks which always smooths the road.

AND a homeschool special for the aquarium in the mall! Everything from jellyfish to sharks to a tide pool you could touch!

We snuck in a babysitting experience or two with the Schwartz boys. Jeffrey and his brothers are a family favouite.

Emanuel, Trinity, Ken and I went to a Scouts day camp that included siblings. Sadly we lost our rocket to the great unknown but did it every FLY!

Indoor games and colouring were the favourite with Trinity now in love with the idea of archery.

OH and a messy snack!

We got another dose of baby time…

Celebrated Daddy’s birthday with PIE!

Carved pumpkins… sort of… and sent the seeds to Future Uncle Ravyn for roasting! Aunty Shandai came over especially to share the good news! Mommy is now to be a part of an OCTOBER wedding! We are so pleased for them! CONGRATS YOU TWO!!!!!

We crafted it up…

You can enjoy our leaf experience in an additional blog entry HERE.

And see our Halloween AMAZING costumes HERE.

Yup basically October in a rather lengthy picture filled entry!

August 25-31

We had two days before the next big excitement… so lets jump right in. We started with the Wild Kratts and sharks.

Dinosaur story starters…

And a sneak off to Target to continue our back to school/new year shopping. Every year the kids get a new pencil box and crayons and the like. This year the twins are getting their own markers and pencil crayons – no wax and Emanuel gets wax and pencil crayons. I love the pencil box we found for Echo… set up for her to colour it!

We had a visit from a lovely fairy princess.

And created a man out of the puzzle shaped blocks a sweet friend back in the UK sent us years ago!

Our time in the pool is winding down so I gave up and let them go crazy clothes on and everything.

Midweek we were prepped and ready for our next visitor… after a game of Munchkin (the twins can be quite brutal!).

So, the new guest fresh from Canada… AUNTY KARYN!!

The next few days were full of fun: boardgames, parks and playing around. We even left the twins home alone with strict instructions on how to use the phone, what not to do (touch the kitchen), and Minecraft on the computers.

So much fun and we squeezed in SOME schoolwork. And decided to delay our back to school until after we say good bye.

And then on Sunday night we went over to Chris and Renee’s for dinner, bonfire and a good visit. (somewhere in the week we ALSO went to a Norwex party at Karen’s so Karyn met Karen as well!).

Mystro the kitten made a nice showing as well. Karyn had been missing her kitties.

It has been so much fun having a dear friend for over a decade meet the people who have become dear here. Add in baby and kitten and talk about cuteness. Oh and a fire for the menfolk to play with.

August 18-24

The girls are over the moon with their mini fashion shows. We are so spoiled that Gammie can and does send us so many outfits.

In celebration of Jeff being here AND he and Daddy being busy in the sub basement we had an outside lunch on the front stoop.

Right after that I realized that We had missed a rather special LARGE present that had been mailed previously from Texas. I think she got the most excited opening this one. The way it was rigged up the large caterpillar sort of popped out for her. Instant favourite.

That evening we had special plans. Jeff headed out with Chris for beers and visiting and the rest of us were off to Aunty Judy and Uncle Jim’s for a special family celebration of Echo’s 4th birthday complete with a cake made especially for her by Uncle Jim! He works for the Pilsbury company and makes an AMAZING cake!

I really can’t think of a place the kids get more excited about visiting than “Robbie’s House” and he wasn’t even there that visit!

In the morning the kids pitched in and worked on Echo’s birthday present from Jim and Judy – a Barbie lego set! With a little blue pool.

We continued our learning… mostly shark related…

And then we paid each of the kids and extra dollar of allowance to spend the week pulling weeds! What an efficient crew we had out there from the biggest to the smallest.

And the guys continued their gaming… interspersed with cleaning out of the sub basement. This all went SUPER well until they were at the tail end and found… a leak. Sigh. I am so proud of Ken for jumping in an working so hard to create space and organization in our world. This new and improved healthy Kenny is AMAZING.

We had company on Wednesday, well additional company. Robbie and Alicia came over for dinner and gaming. The kids are in love with these two, rightfully so. And it is doubly amazing that they can enjoy boardgames with us.

I found a spare moment and finished up a special wallet for my Renaissance Festival outfit. It will loop around my handle so that I won’t lose my ID etc. I love it, I altered a basic billfold style wallet pattern to fit what I needed and there you go – no lost nothings when I go out this year!

There was time for playing outside AND checking out the garden with our guests.

All this while Ken and Jeff made us dinner – Curry and a yummy sort of pudding pie. SPOILED US!!!

On the 21st you can check back and see our Treasure Box we got in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa Mike HERE. We evened that day out with Munchkin (game) and time outside.

All the weed pulling led us to tweezers and patience as we removed burrs that attacked everyone pretty equally.

The kids have been loving another adult in the house. Especially one that knows all about Canada. Eases the homesickness a little, just like Grandma’s Canadian Treasure Box.

What a week!!!

Really… can we keep Jeff forever? Because Ken has been so positive and the kids and I have enjoyed the company so much! We had all of Saturday and half of Sunday to enjoy with him and some lovely weather.

But then it was time to say good bye! Definitely a hard one… I don’t think anyone who visits us down here really realizes how much their visits and packages mean to us. A taste, touch, sound of home… thank you so much everyone for remembering us!