February 8-12
Saturday marked our very first Pinewood Derby with the Scouts. And while we did not win, we did race a sweet car! In fact, Emanuel was more upset that he didn’t get the door prize he put tickets in for than loosing the car race! He really just wanted Blackout to race… and race it did! Aidan, on the other hand, won a bunch of awards! Big Andy even said that if we had sanded our wheels and greased our axles we may have won! But we really wanted to go by the book and sources were on both sides on any sort of wheel alteration.
The track
The cars
We were at the races with most of the Novaks (Alex was at a friend’s place as his races are another weekend with a different troop). Food was a little pricey so Darcy and I took some of the kids and went to the dollar store across the highway for snacks.
I was so pleased to see not only Emanuel out there playing but the girls and the twins as well. So much socializing and fun to be had.
1st badge!
After the races (which did seem to go on forever! We had cars only in the youngest race but had to wait for the awards which were not only at the end but after a lunch break??) we all headed over to the Novak’s for an afternoon/evening of visiting and fun. It is so nice to come over and visit there. The kids just wander off and play for hours!
Sunday was super special for us… not only did we START with Sunday School, but when the kids and Ken got back Echo and I joined them for a special field trip. But first we saw our WHITE SQUIRREL!
Then we headed over to the Chinese grocery in the city – United Noodles. That place is a wonderland for our kids. So much to see question. While it is not as large as T&T back home, it is a substantial store. They have a nice freezer section and dried foods. Not much on the fresh. We did good with some on sale items and quite a few new foods for Emanuel to try as Scouts suggested we do.
I even grabbed myself some new tea to try. We had a hard time finding anything post extraction Ken could handle immediately but he took great pleasure in reading labels and checking out some of the (to us) crazy combinations on the shelves.
We started the week with a fun field trip to a brand new gas station which has its grand opening. First we went through the flyer and talked about sales and how coupons work. Then we headed off with our flyer and went shopping. There was a terrific deal on donuts, free coffee, bananas that are always at 38 cents a pound! We had a blast wandering the aisles and talking about what is a good price on foods and what isn’t. Reading price tags and labels.
These were a dollar a half dozen!
They had sandwiches and cheeseburgers at a total steal which made lunch a breeze! Of course that didn’t stop us from working on our school work. The twins have been taking turns each day reading one of our Valentines Day books to the rest. We are still having some mumbling problems but the smoothness of their reading is AMAZING compared to last year!
Emanuel of course had to record his pinewood derby experience in his journal.
The weather was rather pleasant so the boys spent some time in the snow.
The girls worked on a fun Valentines Day fingerpainting activity I found them on Facebook through Pinterest. HERE is the original idea thanks to Red Ted Art. I think they turned out sweet and both girls had a blast making them.
Miss Trinity and I had storytime together with a Valentines Day theme. Each book we are drawing a picture to go in our folder for Valentines Day. It is fun reading together.
Our sports of choice for the beginning of the week were snowboarding and the skeleton. I was totally unfamiliar with the Skeleton! But wow is it a scary sport! Hurtling head first down the hill on basically a few pieces of metal… crazy!!! So of course we had to get on the internet and learn all about them! And share the links of interest with all of you!
Skeleton:
- The history of on Rusbob HERE
- 5 things to know about the sport thanks to yahoo news HERE
- Equipment and history thanks to Olympic.org HERE
- Our video and all that fun stuff is found on Activity Village HERE
Snowboarding:
- History of thank to library.thinkquest HERE
- Infoplease.com’s information HERE
- Our video etc is of course on Activity Village HERE and later on Art for Kids put up an how to draw… you can find that on their site, link on right.
The twins had swimming lessons on Monday. It was their mid way review and it looks like things are going pretty well! They are still loving it!!
We had a visit with a fairy princess…
And another Valentine book.
We ended the evening on Tuesday with some game playing. I love it when the kids help Echo learn how to play too. They can be so patient.
Mid week was another Olympic themed day with a touch of Valentines. The kids wrote their own poem using the word OLYMPICS.
The boys headed back out into the deep deep snow! I cannot believe how much snow we have around.
Trinity did up a beautiful picture of traditional Russian children.
And we did a variety of toilet paper roll crafts (starting the day before). Each kid had the option to think on their own (Emanuel’s castle tower and Trinity’s telescope) or use the list I found on Facebook for 25 different options. You can find that list HERE thanks to Kids Activities Blogs.
And there goes the first half of our week! So much snow, fun and crafting. I am very proud of our progress!
Storytime with Daddy
Been rather chilly lately!
Snoopy
Little gamers
