Tag Archive | potty

January 2014… Successfully Enjoyed, Experienced and Now Remembered

January 23-30

And now we get into the end of the month. The FIRST month of 2014… And the final countdown to finalizing our decision to stop with 5 kids. I can honestly say that I feel no regrets, sending Ken to the doctor on the 24th for the in office procedure (I will spare you the picture he took of it). If we do feel the need in the future for more children there are those already in existence that need us more. Having the procedure on the Friday did mean an at home weekend. Not that the kids complained as it culminated in the cousins coming to visit as well!

But first the Thursday (23rd)… I decided that since this year we weren’t going to make our own fortune cookies that we could still make our own fortunes! Jumbo fortunes. Even Echo made her own (translated loosely by myself).101_5965

I went out with Ken to an appointment and stopped at a more local small Asian market where I lucked out with super affordable red envelopes and lucky candy for our Chinese New Year celebration. The kids and I are rather excited about our celebration. We even sent off envelopes for the den Otter 3.101_5966

We had a half day on the Friday.101_5995

101_5996With some time squeezed in with Daddy learning more about magnets. These kits from Christmas are REALLY coming in handy! We used the last of the kids’ Christmas money to pick up some strong magnets at Lakeshore which has made them even more excited about it. (and had us sit them down and discuss where we do NOT put these magnets – laptops, electronics, Daddy’s computer!!!!)101_6000

Nana went and collected the cousins before she headed off with Daddy to the doctor. It has become a family tradition here… she also took Ken’s brother for his. It went smoothly and they were home before we knew it… though then Ken headed right to bed to sleep off the medicine, stress and hopefully through the first of the pain.101_6001

The weekend was quiet… with lots of potty attempts. We are still rather hit or miss and I sense a long road ahead with this one.101_6007

Saturday was a whole day of cousin time.101_6002

Sunday was the beginning of what we now see as Echo’s “Helping” phase, which often is not so helpful!101_6008

We skipped Sunday School so that the kids could spend the time with their cousins before they had to head home. Emanuel and Daddy took a few minutes to finish a Scout task. They had to figure out where to go when there is a fire.101_6011

And then on Monday it was back to school and Chinese New Year as usual. This time with some panda learning. You simply cannot learn all about China and such without touching on one of our favourite animals!101_6014

101_6015101_6033On Tuesday the kids finally sat down and worked on their rubberband loom. So many pretty (though still very basic) bracelets. Enough to add some to the package to the den Otters and give some to me! I need to take some time and try this thing out for myself! We do not have the rainbow brand version that is one you can change the set up on, but if it catches on with the kids it will go on the list for the next holiday!101_6017

We had a minor but consistent argument about electronics that night, so I called an hour of no batteries and pulled out games and toys… we started with dominoes, first the traditional line them up and knock them down with moderate success.101_6019

101_6021And then doing a matching version. I think I played MOST of the rules right with the kids, but we had fun regardless.101_6022

And then onto the I Spy game with a BELL! That was noisy and crazy and totally enthralling to all.  Operation back to the basic fun — SUCCESS!101_6025

Mid week and we are back to the books. Education.com and Activity Village have been amazing resources for us! Though remember, now with Education.com you only get TEN worksheets free a month.101_6028

101_6030101_6031The twins headed outside to add to Nana’s ice garden. Simple water, food colouring and cold weather… we freeze ours out in the sunroom.101_6029

Miss Trinity and Miss Echo have been learning together lately. Big sister must impart that wisdom on her little disciple. Everything from school stuff to online gaming!101_6032101_6035

And to top it off… Emanuel had his first extra field trip for Cub Scouts — to the police/fire station! Baba took him as Ken got stuck at a dental consult. But Darcy shared pictures with me and I was told by himself and Darcy that it was SOOO much fun!IMG_5966

IMG_5992IMG_6010IMG_6016edAnd with that we are left with ONE day of January to see through and the start of Chinese New Year – year of the horse!! What a whirlwind month!101_6026

Learning Our Way to the Year of the Horse (mah)

January 15-22

We are definitely revisiting some old favourites with our Chinese New Year reading. And with each one recognizing facts we already know and gems yet to be learned. One of my favourite aspects of Chinese New Year is the celebration of prosperity, family and all things positive. We can always use a little positive energy right?101_5877 We slipped in some time to make a get well soon picture for a mom I met online through a multiples group. We figure a fun picture by the children would be an even better pick me up than a simple card! I am so impressed by the lovely heart all these mommies show.101_5878 Our new books definitely had the boys ready to read read read.101_5880 And we made ourselves a stable for our Chinese New Year year of the horse. We got our popsicle stick instructions from Activity Village HERE. It was a goup effort. The girls used markers decorate the stick while the boys did the gluing together.101_5882 This week was the week of sweet Echo pics. She is in the middle of a hat phase and 2013’s Christmas present from myself fits her better this year – a teddybear ear hat. I got the pattern off of CrochetSpot HERE.101_5883 The next day we had to brush out her hair, dress her up and take a few big girl pictures too.101_5887 The girls also modeled the aprons I made them for Christmas in front of the kitchen set they got from Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie! You can find that pattern HERE.101_5892 Friday was a total wash with a run to deal with passports. A WHOLE morning eaten up by the rather intense application process at the only office in the state. We had an appointment time thank goodness and the poor girl had a boatload of paperwork to do. Thankfully Ken and I had wandered down memory lane and got all the transcripts that exist for Ken for the entire time he was in public school. You need that proof to show that he was in the US enough for the kids to qualify for dual citizenship. My OCD of keeping lists of our addresses, baptism forms (which are a viable secondary ID here in the US???) and all that fun stuff came in really handy as well as Nana coming along to wrangle the kids. You have to have them there for a visual confirmation of their application and both myself and Ken to agree that they should even have the darn thing in the first place! But what a gateway passports are to getting all the other ID set up like Social Security and sorting our kids out so that they are set to live in either country! Lucky babies!

After all that government related fun the kids kicked back with some gaming. Funny how touch screens are natural to them!!101_5930 Our weekend was a quiet one. Saturday there was lots of time to play with those new toys… and for Trinity to work on her sticker book. One of those lovely ones where you pick up sticker packs and collect what you need.101_5931 101_5932Of course on Sunday they had Sunday School and an excuse to take ANOTHER picture of them all dressed up. I look forward to spring when going as a whole family and staying for service will be much more reasonable.101_5933 We did luck out with the Sunday afternoon thaw. It was so nice that the kids were out there without coats, shovels in hand to help clear out the driveway. We are not on the best side of the street for the sun to melt it all away completely.101_5936 101_5938We are loving the idea we found on Facebook of freezing coloured water in balloons to freeze and then burst and display. Nana and the kids have expanded to include freezing coloured water in other containers to add to what they are now calling her ice garden.101_5942 101_5940My favourite is the blue balloon.101_5945 We started the next week with dinosaurs…101_5946 potty sticker sheets (still spotty luck on that one)…101_5947 and well dressed scouts…101_5948 and boys in the mood to learn how to swim!image

On Tuesday we roped Daddy into teaching us about the first of 3 Chinese locations – the Great Wall (which became Trinity’s favourite). I have to admit to some interest myself on that amazing landmark.101_5950

With a Lego rendition of a portion of the wall

With a Lego rendition of a portion of the wall

Of course we continued with other learning leaning to China and all things Chinese New Year. We used Activity Village AND the official Kai-Lan site thanks to Nick Jr. HERE. Even Echo is getting in on the language practice.101_5951

101_5952101_5959We had a short reflection on what we could remember so far about China and Chinese New Year. I do love seeing what sticks in their brains.101_5953

And of course more stories.101_5955

We rounded off our first half of the week with some lovely dragons all ready to dance thanks to the generosity of Lakeshore. At our last visit to them to craft it up we mentioned we could not make this upcoming week… Ken had his vasectomy scheduled. So the girl gave us the shapes to add to our own paperbags. I had the presence of mind to photocopy this for future use!101_5956

Miss Trinity had a proud workbook completion…101_5957

And Emanuel lost ANOTHER tooth. So time for a tooth fairy note!101_5958

More Chinese Characters…101_5960

101_5963books…101_5962

and creative time…101_5964

With the kids covering Terracotta warriors with Daddy! 101_5961

I think we are well on our way to enjoying our countdown to our second very special New Year celebration of our year.101_5949

An End to the Platypus Learning

FOR PLATYPUS RESOURCES PLEASE GO TO “PLATYPUS IN DEPTH

For all our Dr. Seuss resources check out the blog entry: Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

February 27-28

What is one of the most famous and well known Dr. Seuss books? Why The Cat In The Hat of course! And today, that was the book we started our day with. We had THREE crafty things to do, colouring pages and everything. Of course there is the tv show The Cat In The Hat Knows A Lot About That. I will try and connect this page (and the other Dr. Seuss ones) to our resource entry.

Dr. Seuss themed math

The boys and their rhyming words

Our second book was One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Gavin read the first half and I read the second. I have a couple food items intending to represent this book for our Saturday feast. Actually we are having a Dr. Seuss WEEKEND as I think there will be a party in his honour at the Novak’s on Sunday too! I am really looking forward to that!

Listening to Gavin

We continued our platypus assembly, the boys are taking turns choosing the page colours and we are slowly gluing all our bits like a rather giant and unusual puzzle. I am really amazed at how much we have to share in our lapbook!

We made up personalize Cat in the Hat faces… I love the creativity… note Emanuel’s is a DOLPHIN face and Zander’s a PLATYPUS!

Faces

As a family we did TWO crafts… we started on our Cat in the Hat table centerpiece and our Thing 1 and 2 hand pictures. Everyone was involved in everything it was so much fun!

Working together

Daddy and Echo

Paint and baby

Of course we ended the day with the cartoon The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That.

Tv

The book of the day for the 28th, the last day of February was the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. We had some worksheets and colouring pages. This was the first time the kids had heard this classic. I definitely want to add this one to our library!

Trinity’s Grinch page for what she learned!

I love Trinity’s what she learned: I learned you shouldn’t take things. Christmas is about being with the people you love, but not meany guys. You should not take presents. You should not let bad Santa take the presents. You should say no. 

Drawing the Grinch thanks to Activity Village (see the resource page)

I have started trying to get Echo to sit on the potty. We are going to have to cave and attempt the Easy Ups. Sadly they are for such a huge span of weight I am a little concerned about her swimming in them but attempting to convince Echo to sit on the potty when we have to remove her diaper each time is not easy!

NOT an enthused trainer… we may not quite be ready yet

Another new Wild Kratts, another poster. I have always love the giraffe.

Giraffes on the Savannah

We even finished our Thing 1’s and 2’s. But since we are FIVE we had 1 through 5. The kids loved them and the faces are a total giggle. I think these are a keeper for me to bring out each year. Maybe even frame on a wall in our future home??

Our Things 1 through 5

The kids were rather hard at work at the end of the month. Their reading goals were met AGAIN! And worksheets, math etc all done. 

Hard at work

We also got our table cleared of all things previous holiday and have the Dr. Seuss pieces ready and waiting for our party on the 2nd. 

Ready for the weekend, just need that blue tablecloth!

We ended our day with the new Grinch movie starting Jim Carey. It was better than I expected and the kids really enjoyed it.

You’re a mean one… Mr. Grinch…

 I will leave you with a few pages of our FINISHED Platypus lapbook! We are so excited to have completed this project. You will be able to find ALL my resources etc by clicking on the link I will put at the top of all the platypus entries!! 

Platypus pages! We will be placing this all in a binder once I hunt down my box of them in the house somewhere.