In honour of it being Valentine’s Day today we decided to deviate even further from our regular activities. With the traditional red, white or pink outfits and Valentine’s day photographs first. We have limited photo friendly areas in our very busy and full house, but we managed. 

My fabulous 5

The twins

My 3 boys

So cute

Just the girls

Miss T

Miss E

Me too!

And then there were the worksheets I found and printed out for the kids. The little ones enjoyed a couple sheets from Education.com. Trinity’s rose tattoo feeling colouring page can be found HERE. There was a math sheet from tlsbooks.com that you can find HERE. I actually have a collection at Education.com that you can access that is full of the Valentine’s day themed sheets we printed for the kids. I plan on reviewing them all tonight. You can find the two math sheets the twins did HERE and HERE. Gavin is slightly more confident so I had him do the one with 3 digits. You can find a variety of seasonal worksheets if you head to this portion of their website HERE.

Hiding behind worksheets

The little ones worked on GeoTraxs of course. Our kitchen is a lovely sunny place in the daytime and deemed a perfect place to build their city. I am amazed at how well the two of them shared, though sadly they both can’t seem to kick this cold! 

GeoTrax

Today’s big crafting project was to make a felt tic-tac-toe board with a Valentine’s theme. You can find the original idea I worked from HERE. Each of the hearts were sewn by the boys (twins) with minimal assistance. We used the felt sheets with adhesive on the back for the board itself and the pink cross hatches. I think they turned out wonderfully. 

Sewing hearts

Completed board

Ken and I had a special Valentine’s Day lunch! He surprised me with Pizza Hut delivery – Calzones and Pepsi. Nothing super fancy but sitting together, watching an episode of my newest anime (Black Butler) and chatting was more than enough for me! The kids were sent to quiet time or naps in their rooms with the doors closed (the twins were more than willing with new toys to take an enjoy and a break from schooling) so it really was JUST US and in the DAYTIME no less! Fancy glasses for the pop (Harp beer ones, Ken’s) and all!

Lunch!

We still have a few more worksheets to accomplish that have a Valentine’s Day theme (and our Valentines to complete for the weekend’s cookie party). I figure we can spend the rest of the week to do those, as well as our Inuit studies. As it is we have a lovely stack of finished bits to go into our lapbook already! What we did do is have a lovely visit with Karyn and her mom who is up for the week. They stopped by with Valentine’s … My Little Pony Valentines! 

Visiting

While they were here Gavin created a castle out of magnets which we OF COURSE had to take a picture of!

Magnetic castle

And now we are enjoying out house guest once again. Sean got bored at home and decided to come back. A broken foot apparently means little or no entertainment when you live on your own. 

So, nothing extravagant for me over Valentine’s Day… but then again why do I need ONE day to express my love for Ken? We had that one day almost 11 years ago when we pledged to love and be faithful to each other for the rest of our lives. Each day from there on is a reflection of that promise and that love. Something I want to be more aware of. No, I don’t need ONE day, I have ALL my days for the rest of my life to remember and recognize and celebrate that decision and pledge. We may not have much but we have each other, the kids, our love and our faith. Well… come to think of it, that is a whole lot! 

One more of Echo cuz I can!

Now to catch up on what has been going on with our not so little family! Wednesday last week… the 21st, was a special day – Karyn’s birthday day! So it was proclaimed (after she slept in of course) to be a girly fun day. We started off with packing up Echo (she and Fat Sheep were along as guests as well, of course) and heading out to a nearby frozen over pond that is set up for skating for PICTURES! 

Santa Sheep on ice

Watching the skaters as they watch her

After many photos and some strange looks from people on skates we headed over to Karyn’s apartment for girly fun time… a yummy meal that Echo LOVED, nail painting and black and white films! We watched the first two movies of the Thin Man. I do love black and white film! 

Note the MANY little nailpolish bottles!

Trying to snitch my dinner

Lauralee joined us for My Little Pony (the new version) and some Powerpuff Girls. Don’t forget the mini cheesecakes covered in chocolate and topped with bits of candy cane. Totally girly! AND a late night… we even got a phone call from home asking why we had not called home to check in! We were rebels AND Echo said HI to daddy for the first time! All in all an AMAZING day out just for girls! Oh and Dare the cat…

The birthday girl and her sheep

The Santa Sheep version of telling your Christmas wishes does NOT include sitting on laps! Rather a much more artistic tree side discussion!

November is quickly slipping away from us it seems, and with it my time for Christmas gift crafting. As posted in yesterday’s entry – I HAVE got a new feltie in the making – Hello Kitty in all her feltie glory. Fat Sheep would NOT approve. Speaking of Fat Sheep – she recently updated her blog with her Halloween experiences with our family. She did make a marvelous prop for Echo’s Little Bo Peep costume! 

Yesterday was a better day than the day before… we have outlawed saying DON’T WANT TO… and have discussed behaviour that is something you can be proud of vs something that makes Mommy and Daddy sad. There have been more time outs than I would like but to nip it in the bud we have had to go to zero tolerance. I am just thankful that I have Ken home to step in when I feel overwhelmed. I wonder how many OTHER parents have these not so good days/weeks/months… 

There was a big surprise for Gavin in the mail yesterday though! A lovely lady in Nova Scotia sent him an envelope full of beginner patterns and kits to get him going with his cross stitching! He was so excited, he opened the envelope and went through it all right there and then. We just have to finish his newest self design before he moves onto one of these. I have to say there is a certain amount of pride in the fact that ONE of the children has already shown a passion for something so dear to me!

Gavin and his new patterns!

We have been battling teething and diaper rash with Echo all week. I think we are starting to see some progress on both. 4 molars now in place and zinc cream a regular part of our changing routine I think she will be much happier by the weekend. She is over 16 lbs finally! I don’t remember if I mentioned it but we briefly weighed her on the weekend and she was almost 16 1/2 lbs!!

Clapping with Daddy

We had friends work out a way to get a much needed snowsuit from my mom’s to here as well! Trinity is in love with her new pink princess coat! I am so grateful that people will help us out like this. The van should be fixed SOON but in the meantime it feels so lovely to have people who are willing to network with us! 

Modelling her new coat

We have been continuing our worksheet work and sight word learning. Zander is slowly starting to TRY to sound things out over guessing. He does seem to ignore the rules of language etc though. Which can make for frustration on both parts and some giggles on mine.

From reading to a math break

Yesterday was jammie library day for Trinity and Emanuel as usual. The theme of the stories was dinosaurs and as a wonderful coincident Emanuel was wearing Gavin’s dinosaur pj’s! The craft was making their own paper triceratops which was great fun. We did some looking for books and movies and while I was in the adult fiction section Trinity made a new friend and read a story.

Dinosaurs!

 Aunty Karyn picked us up for the library with a special gift for Trinity – a new Hello Kitty themed placemat! Which of course has been used for every meal since! 

Hello Kitty

He Chris stopped by today to drop off a bucket of things for the kids and myself and included in that was something for Trinity – an OLD SCHOOL My Little Pony! Happy girl! There was also a dictionary, thesaurus, gaming device that I have to work out how to use for the boys, some craft supplies and binders… always welcome!!! And I had the batteries I needed to get the device going on hand and everything! This also reminded me of the boys’ gift from LAST Christmas – the Math Shark. 

With pony and my beta kitty

Math Shark

I am working on my felties tonight and making my plans for the rest of the month. We are determined tomorrow morning to read about snowflakes! It seems like we start out with the best of intentions and get side tracked or confused or derailed lately. But at least the stuff we do INSTEAD is still interesting and fun! 

Now don’t forget to enter my 1000th post draw and win a feltie of your choice! You can do so by clicking HERE. 

Flashcard baby time