November 19-20

Mondays always feel a little hectic. And this Monday we felt doubly rushed as we really had a TRUE weekend with visits and errands AND a lazy Sunday morning. It was fun!

Trinity: Hello Kitty

Emanuel: fire trucks

Gavin: flowers

Zander: being able to read

Gratitude Turkey

Monday was Ken’s day to teach for once. We worked on a list of to do stuff for them the night before and set it all up so they could work together without me. So I actually got to SLEEP IN properly on a WEEKDAY! It was so nice! And as an added bonus, they did pulleys together! Note the amazing drawings in their journals.

Fun with pulleys

We watched a Wild Kratts episode on Geckos so the boys drew pictures and we recounted what we learned on a special page. The boys are talking about making a poster of random animals of interest. I am all for that!

Geckos

I got a package in the mail that included some special Halloween craft supplies for the kids! I am doing an exchange with my Christian cross stitch group and am almost to the point where my gifts are ready to go! 

Thank you!

With ink in Nana and Baba’s printer (though colour is eluding us) Tuesday was a Thanksgiving print out frenzy! Of course first we had to decide what we were thankful for!

Zander: for Thanksgiving

Gavin: the earth

Emanuel: Echo

Trinity: dolls

Zander and our turkey

We also taped our poem… it took FOUR tries with Echo definitely not in the mood to perform and some miss starts to get it going. This poem was a lengthy holiday one I found in one of my saved resources and a lot of fun as we came up with various gestures to go with it!

Thanksgiving Poem

After worksheets and a dinosaur and some cleaning it was time for GUESTS! Bree and Quinn came to play… and to make us real honest to goodness homemade lasagna. (So amazing!) This also meant that Bree and I got a chance to run out kid free to Target to get supplies, wander a bit and talk about girly things (I am still on the fence as to what colour I should colour my hair!).

With Aunty Bree

The kids played indoors and outdoors but mostly trains!

Playing trains

Their outside creation

Teaching Quinn about Minecraft

And then Echo decided to see how big of a bump she could get with tipping a kitchen stool onto her head!

And trust me, it looked worse later… check back to see!

Thankfully she has terrific big brothers who are willing to hold the cold cloth and ice to the bump for a while while they watched Jake and the Never Land Pirates!

Poor baby

With an AMAZING lasagna for dinner already there for me to warm and serve my evening was mainly crafting and dealing with an injured infant. Time to welcome the Nana and Baba home! Those 3 weeks sped by.

Thank you so much for the supper Bree!

November 13-14

Another round of thankful children… or at least I HOPE this is helping them stop and realize how much they DO have to be thankful for! I know that through all the ups and downs of the past 3+ years I am much more appreciative of what I DO have!

Trinity: my family

Emanuel: for the beach

Gavin: for Jesus dying for us

Zander: Having clothes to wear so I don’t have to be naked outside.

That turkey’s tail is growing

We are having minor issues with the kids being up before us and being loud! I tried having them finish their word searches (the twins) that were left over from the day before and that seems to be helping. I think we need a special box of early morning activities to let the early risers in the family keep busy and those who need a little more sleep (like the 3rd man out in the bedroom from time to time) get it. The little ones did enjoy colouring at the blue table after breakfast though! Emanuel got his Thanksgiving feel on with these colouring pages HERE.

Colouring time

We are without colour toner so unable to do the last part of the website we have been working from HERE. But, we did talk about what we know for sure and what is important to share with people about the event. I may go back and print out the last assignment as a group once we DO have toner.

The weather is still gorgeous and fall like here for the most part so of course there was time for the boys to run outside while the girls coloured with their Colour Wonder paper. Echo loves sitting with her big sister!

Spending time together

Each day brings new thought on what there is to be thankful for! and Wednesday was no exception…

Zander: the zebras and lions

Gavin: the earth

Emanuel: Mommy

Trinity: seashells because they are my favourite

The turkey is a family favourite

Emanuel got to open his newest Little Passports on Wednesday. Now the race is on to supplement it with some more information on Brazil. I have some links I have found to share when we cover this mini unit.

We did ANOTHER advanced copy kids’ review. This one a great story in a series about teddy bears. You can read the kids’ thoughts HERE. I went back to Netgalley and requested another stack of children’s books. A couple were instant download so keep an eye peeled, as long as I have them we will post one a day! Anything we can do to foster reading, or listening to stories is a total bonus for us! In fact, Gavin is my top reader this month and determined to earn his November pizza coupon!

Working hard

Don’t forget our poem… a daily practice has us all memorizing and nearly ready to record!

So cute

Ken had borrowed a video about NASA and the early space program from Cory so we had the kids watch a portion of it together. The plan is for them to do a creative and related project with Ken the following week!

Movie time

So all in all a good 2 days. With the normal ups and downs of course!!

Echo escorting Pocoyo and Hello Kitty on their date (we think permission was gotten from the Groovy Girls to use their car!)

November 9-10

Zander: For being able to do crafts

Gavin: For the sun and moon and stars

Trinity: For songs

Emanuel: For my friends

We of course put another feather on our turkey. Today it was Trinity’s turn… she chose friends. We are having a lot of fun with this craft. Everyone wants to add a feather.

And the cape is back on

I love this Thanksgiving historical website. So we spent a THIRD day on the site. This time going over the timeline of events including the immigration of the Pilgrims and the eventual war the Pilgrim and Wapanoag ended up fighting against each other. We have learned more about how conflicts popped up over misunderstanding and actions that while natural to one of the group of peoples were foreign to the other. Each of the boys chose a time of interest and did up a picture and had me help them write out some information about what we learned.

All done

As it was Friday we did NOT have a new dinosaur… instead I dug out our old Dinosaur movie that we had purchased back in Canada and had Emanuel and the girls sit and watch it. Emanuel decided to draw what the movie called  the “largest” carnivore (which we all know has since been reputed…) Tyrannosaurus Rex. He really is working hard on his pictures and painstakingly copied the letters to write the dinosaur’s name onto his sheet.

Careful work

We had another beautiful fall day so the boys went out and ran their hearts out in the afternoon while  Trinity and Echo watched. The girls wore pj’s well into the day as Trinity declared that that afternoon/evening’s special trip out would require DRESSES for all the girls in the family. With my pretty toes I was right on board with the wish to wear sandals.

Here I am, toes and all

First though, we had to practice our poem. Echo is determined to learn the actions and be a part of this… too cute!

Helpful baby sister

Now for the big activity out for our WHOLE family: Heading to MOA, or in long form – MALL OF AMERICA!

MOA

We had a few stores to check out for various reasons… Victoria’s Secret to get underwear with coupons (bonus), stop in at the Body Shop to make sure they DO have my face soap (I have some left but there is only the store in the MOA and the airport!), a quick stop in at LUSH to check out seasonal products (got some Christmas ideas) and then to the BIG stop that the kids were looking forward to – LEGO LAND! It has gone through some definite changes since we came there years and years ago! But fun!

LEGOS!

After that it was a stop off at Rainforest Cafe to pick up some plates for a friend…

Rainforest Cafe

And then a wander around to see some of the very unexpected and interesting…

A whole store for PEEPS?

We had dinner at the MOA… there was a great deal on some yummy Japanese and a very rare treat for the kids (I mean SUPER rare)… Happy Meals!

Trinity and her dinner

After eating it was definitely time to head home. It amazed me that there were security guards at all the exits and VERY visible. A huge change from the Mall in Edmonton. We didn’t have any issues but at the same time it was different.

Checking out MOA’s fishies

Saturday is often just another day for us with Ken not working outside the home… yet… Of course we ARE still Thankful for so much!

Trinity: my Kai Lan teddy

Emanuel: Grandma

Gavin: having Mom and Dad make breakfast

Zander: time

With no plans outside the house we settled down to work on our sorting of the last box of Lego/Mega Blok mess. Sadly the two brands do NOT connect together well so we are on a mission – sort the two and then put the Mega Bloks in the van for trips. I think the kids are rather excited about that aspect!

Sorting the blocks

Ken had afternoon plans of boardgames with the guys so we took the time in the afternoon to relax. Sunday is Memorial Day here in the US or Remembrance Day as we know it, so I printed off some worksheets for us to work on off of my absolute favourite British site – Activity Village. I have missed the ever familiar poppy pins everyone wears in Canada! We did our sheets and talked about things and watched a video that had the moment of silence in it Saturday to ensure the kids DID experience it properly. You can find all of that HERE. With Echo’s rather out of sorts behaviour and mild cold it is WAY easier to do so when she was napping in the afternoon than trying Sunday morning.

Zander’s poem portion

Emanuel drew in the cross with the hearts for the dead soldiers because we love them

Trinity and her pro job colouring the very familiar Poppies

Gavin’s pages from the poem Flander’s Fields

We did ONE book review today on another advanced copy of a book. You can find the kids’ review HERE.

Basically we spent most of the day sorting Legos, and I think EVERYONE is determined NOT to mix the two again! Quite the production.

And then seriously, in November… POURING instant RAIN??