Well October rushed by and it was Halloween in what felt like was the blink of an eye. This was not the year for the new handmade costume for the family. Rather a couple repeats, and some purchased pieces worked out to a rather nice looking group.

Echo was enamored with the movie My Neighbour Totoro, and since we could not find a chinchilla costume (her first choice), Totoro was a VERY close second. I ordered this one off Amazon. Ken whipped up an acorn bag and for the photos I lent her one of my handmade Totoros.

Trinity chose to be a princess this year. Again a dress off Amazon, and after 2 attempts, a tiara to match.

Emanuel is still a Minecraft fanatic. This year we went with an Enderman. Black sweats, black sweater and a mask/box I bought off Amazon.

The twins went for a repeat of wizards. Ken had made the capes and staffs and the hats were crocheted by me.

This is our second year trick or treating with our homeschool friends. Echo was over the moon to run the neighbourhood with Nate.

Nate the Power Ranger

They didn’t do half bad on candy, which I sorted and bagged up. We will be eating these with some restraint. Stomach aches are not worth the gorging.

Of course Neko-chan had to get in on the fun. Though when we tried to actually WEAR her costume she balked and attempted to eat it. But still – adorable. I bought a dog costume hat, it worked!

I had less of a costume and more of a comfortable slightly on theme outfit. (not the highly indulgent Irish sweater… I plan to live in it)

Of course the girls had to do a little photo session with last year’s mini witch’s hats… I love that Echo wore skeleton jammies under her Totoro costume.

That week we did some fun Halloween themed crafts as well.

It was supposed to be thumbprints but with kids who hate getting hands dirty we used the eraser end of pencils.

pastels

Meet Jerry

We also had a lovely special lunch on Halloween. We did good!

July 10-12

Welcome back Nana and Baba! They got home late on the 9th after everyone had gone to bed, WITH the cousins in tow! So the kids woke up to grandparents AND Gabriella and Zachary. Talk about pandemonium…. But even more importantly for yours truly – I had PLANS!!! Fun plans… that included babies, Korean food (a first for me!) and shopping! Bree is originally from Korea (born there) but adopted and raised here, so it was so exciting to go to a restaurant her parents took her to to better understand a portion of her previous culture. The food was AMAZING! And FILLING!

So filling, amazing food!

After eating it was time to go to Mall of America and shop around… which ended in myself buying some rather ADORABLE and decadent (for me) retro shoes… I could not resist and spent more on one pair than I have in ages (not hard to do as I usually limit myself to as far under 20.00 as I can!).

Walking the mall with Bree and Lily was great fun… we shopped and then headed over to their place to relax until we could avoid the rush hour traffic.

Walking in the sling

And now some cute pics… cuz I can!

Mommy has a nice selection of pretty cloth diapers

Definitely a day well spent… Thursday had us down to one cousin. Gabriella had a friend contact her the day before and had left to join them so we just had Zachary here. So the kids played the morning away.

In the afternoon we had time outside in the sun. That playset is a definite boon to our peace keeping.

We ended our week off with a lovely walk… just us 6 enjoying the sunshine and flowers. It was hot and we did not come across any garage sales (just one misleading sign) but I think we did good.

She looks so grown up at times

The twins worked with pastels to fill the time. I love when they try harder mediums! And together no less!

Using the Art for Kids site (link on right)

The littles had a blast watching Dora. It is fun to see Echo trying to answer the questions and follow along!

At the hottest point of the day I sat down to work on our advance stuff. Each of the 4 kids has a summer folder now with pages that they can mostly do on their own with a 5th folder of some games. I really need more cardstock and laminating sheets! Can you ever really have enough?

Ken took a shorter day of work so that the kids could have a full on water fight with him!

Getting ready for Daddy

And then he and Baba FINISHED the swingset! Two swings and a teeter totter type one that the twins are too heavy for. The kids are over the moon with the completion.

What else is there to do with a free Daddy but to end with a boardgame??

Oh and Emanuel graced us with some dinosaur themed sidewalk art.

I don’t think we had any complaints about our day really!!!

April 15-17

Halfway through the week and we are most definitely filling up on our penguin knowledge. With 4 videos under our belt about 3 of the people Mr. Popper named his new baby penguins after!

Get well soon cards for Captain Cook

Christopher Columbus, the namesake of the penguin Columbus.

Ferdinand Magellan, the namesake of Ferdinand

And TWO on Robert Falcon Scott, the namesake of Scott.

So at home and in the learning mode… there is a bit to share… THREE extra books! First off Face to Face With Penguins by Yva Momatiuk and John Eastcott.

Future activists…

Then If You Were a Penguin by Wendell and Florence Minor. So much cuteness… I had the kids each draw what they would do if they were a penguin. Trinity’s was more impressionist… with the water and the fish indicating that is where she would BE if she was one, swimming in the ocean.

What would YOU do?

And Life Cycle of a Penguin by Lisa Trumbauer.

Life Cycle of a Penguin

The boys illustrated their special pets from chapter 2, this time how it would look if they took them for walks!

Walking exotic pets

Emanuel made his own how to with drawing a dinosaur.

Dimetrodon

Art for Kids just keeps inspiring us, Emanuel was inspired by Gavin’s instructions to make a special robot crab.

Lasers!

I was impressed by the Lego penguins!

Adorable

We worked on colour combinations and groups these past 3 days as well. I love that Zander’s is of a dragon from the app Dragonvale that he picked out due to the (to him now) obvious use of the warm colours. 

Colours!

We also discussed how snowflakes come about and made our own special snowflake page.

Snowflakes

Gavin has taken a real liking to pastels. He has been working on his shading and usage with the help of Art For Kids!

Shamrock

Of course, some of the family just wanted NAPS!

Zzzzz

And then some more creativity.

Colouring fiend

With alphabetizing to do…

Get those penguin babies in order!!

I think we have done rather well for 3 days at home!!! I am really looking forward to sharing everything we have found link wise, on penguins! It is a substantial amount!!

So much fun!