I figure I will start this blog entry with attempting to boost the membership of a yahoo group I am in charge of… It is called Stitch ‘N Chat. It is a small group so far and not overly chatty but I am hoping to change that! Feel free to go, check out our main page and request membership OR simply message me here with your email and I can send you an invitation!

Now back to our regular Friday… Workbooks are a lifesaver. Progression is made with the possibility of completion which makes it much easier for the boys to swallow. I wish we could feel more agreeable to the task but at least I have decreased the whining (of course Zander STARTING his morning with a 20 min time out due to whining about STARTING schoolwork seemed to get the message through). 

We started reading about St. Patrick’s Day… I made sure to get some storybooks along with our factual ones. All from our local library! 

Books

Which gave us the opportunity to make our second themed craft – you cut 3 shapes out from a file I was gifted made by Teacher Created Resources. What you end up with is a shamrock (we printed half pages so they are smaller), then you glue on some shiny bits and there you are. 

lots of sparkle and glue

We have a few worksheets of a St. Patrick’s Day theme to share with you all. For Trinity we had a colouring page, Emanuel simple math using pictures, the twins subtraction and a nice more complicated maze. We are making St. Patrick’s Day folders for the twins (Emanuel is keeping his with his worksheets in his duo-tang). I have made mini books for each of the boys using gifted files. One is a School Express thematic unit the other from The Simple Homeschooling Classroom. I am not sure if these files are available but they are good resources all the same. I have downloaded a memory game from Currclick you can find HEREthat is a free download. I haven’t printed it out yet but plan to. 

Post worksheet Word World

Our church is holding an after church activity for families and friends this Sunday. If the weather behaves it will be out at the lake – skating and sledding… if not, at the church for games and activities. I have chatted with the woman in charge who has found us some skates to borrow! So we now have enough for everyone. I am not sure how much of the family will go, I think it starts at 2pm which means Echo may be sleeping and if it is rather cold she will be kept home. Otherwise we will all go… no matter what the CAMERA will be there! 

We finished our Inuit lapbook – it had a grand total of THREE folders involved. We have personal art, interesting tidbits of knowledge and of course lots of creativity. I am VERY proud of all my boys (even Emanuel had a hand in this one by offering up some personal art) for working so hard on their book! 

Cover

Some of the extensive interior

We broke out the gift that was dropped off here for the kids on Wednesday – the one thing they did NOT get for their birthdays but rather wanted – PLAY DOH! We had finally gone through last year’s supply and as much as I love making everything, Play Doh is not a part of my repertoire yet. Maybe later this year! 

With numbers!

And some St. Patrick's Day flair

We were hoping to have Grandma and her puppy over today for a visit but the weather worked against us. We got well over 15 cm of snow I am told today and the roads were less than perfect between her home and ours. So instead Mike went snowmobiling and later in the day we took our borrowed van (dropped off on a cake run) to (he) Chris’ birthday party! The kids watched tv in the basement and examined the pets in residence while we socialized… there was pulled pork for dinner and a very yummy cake! 

The cake

D&D the boardgame

Happy Birthday Chris!

I ended the evening with the creation of these felt bows in St. Patrick’s Day green… I put little star embellishments on Trinity and Echo’s and left my own pair plain. The one with the alligator clip is for Echo while Trinity and I have bobby pins for ours. 

GREEN

I was mean mommy tonight and had the twins clean their room… they were too wound up to sleep anyway so why not put that to good use? We found a few toys that had been misplaced… oh and the carpet… nice to see that too! 

Tomorrow is the sledding and skating event for the church (if the weather stays reasonable) and then there is the prep work for next week… after all we DID finish our Inuit lapbook!! I think we have some books on volcanoes, Gavin’s cross stitch to progress with, more information about Ireland and of course workbooks. With all this snow I am sure the boys will want to go out and enjoy the backyard. Not so sure on Trinity though…

Smiles for the camera

And not it is Tuesday! Where did the time go? I am still rather blah but with some lovely pep talks, my amazing family and a nice long supportive phone call I am feeling more myself. Christmas is so stressful, even if you try to keep it realistic and non Christmas stress is never a helpful add on. All I ask is that everything say a little prayer or hold a happy thought that whatever stresses we have this month will pass quickly and allow us a brand new start to 2012! I would really appreciate that! Oh and here is a pick me up from the Old Spice Guy!

And now back to Christmas… we have been busy bees cleaning up for leaving to Grandma’s on the 22nd. It will be our first trip there since August so it is highly anticipated… It has been quite some time since I have packed for a overnighter for the whole family so it will be interesting. Regardless of mom having laundry there is all the randoms you need to be sure you have, the winter gear, the favourite toys, the gifts… wow I feel tired already! So tomorrow will mostly be unearthing bags to carry stuff in in the limited space we have in the van (after all the Quest has NO stow and go so suitcases are rather too bulky) and sorting through any of our perishables for the 3 day excursion. 

We have basically all but given up on regular school work though each of the boys completed a page of their math books. That is not to say we didn’t do our daily colouring because THAT got done (and the pile of laminating to be done grows and grows!) but really nothing else. I got roped into a game of Uno, refereed some Play Doh boardgame arguments and sent the twins outside to run until they were chilled, but actual sit down and planned schoolwork… nope! 

Already a little lady!

So two videos to make up for 2 blog posts in 3 days… well I had to share this one – for the LADIES!

And Trinity has requested we share the video link off of today’s Advent Calendar day. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard it play today!

Tomorrow is also Karyn’s birthday and as she is here in town still I am assuming fun will be had! Last year she was in Saskatchewan for the day! Though the next day we all seem to be dispersing (some for longer than others). I am still unsure of what everyone got the kids individually on Sunday so I want to send out a blanket THANK YOU to everyone… lots of fun, excitement and joy is being had with these new gifts. We feel so very blessed! Thank you! 

Not our finest Advent day but we have managed some fun, some crafting and some colouring. Of course our Advent Villages are growing as my laminating sheets stock is shrinking. I love this tradition we have (now for its second year) of using this Advent Calendar to direct our schooling. Trinity and I had a special craft to do together while the boys enjoyed the outdoors – Santa puppet and his chimney. As usual her colouring style is very unique!

Pop!

Echo’s brightly pastel mega blocks have been a source of great fun for Emanuel and Trinity. Last night Trinity made a bed for her little snowman. 

Shhh

While Emanuel made a lovely skyscraper. 

So proud

I got our first two Christmas cards of the year today! One from Cousin Veronika and household and the other from my sister and her husband. They are already up on the mantel! 

CARDS

The twins spent some of their afternoon teaching Emanuel about mixing colours using Play Doh! Their idea! I love it when they WANT to help their younger siblings learn something new. 

Learning through play.... doh

Ken, Echo and I managed to get out and shop today! I bought the dress I tried on yesterday… got wrapping paper etc etc AND got to spend quality time with Ken. Bonuses all round! 

People watching with Petite Sheepette

Emanuel spent his special adult time working on a sticker picture with the dress a Santa stickers that came with his kit. It has been fun this week, having one on one time with him! 

Fancy picture

Here is a peek at our downstairs tree – made up of basically the ornaments the kids made last year! Pretty huh?

Tree #2

And the video for today!!!

Oh and a couple pictures of Echo!!

In my felt bucket

Storytime