July 2-3

With only 2 days between Canada Day and Independence Day it was go go go to get our lapbook work done. But first… we had a CANADIAN lapbook to complete. We found our printable for the national anthem HERE thanks to Kidzone. Most of our printables came from Actvity Village HERE.

Very basic but we all had a hand in it

We also built our large Canadian puzzle. Sadly we are missing some pieces but nothing massive.

With the knowledge of papermaking firmly under our belts we took ANOTHER go at it. I am not sure how consistent we are getting but I do know that we are having HUGE amounts of fun doing it!

We have a rather amazing neighbourhood here. On Father’s Day we had a large ball pop after rolling into the road, well on the 2nd the man who was driving the truck came over, apologized and brought the kids ANOTHER ball!!! All I could say was, this was NOT necessary and THANK YOU for confirming that our babies did the RIGHT thing. There was NO running into the road, NO chasing the ball and LOTS of paying attention. I am one proud Momma!! And my babies are happy with TWO large balls (we had gone out and bought another the next day ourselves.).

Sean and Ken also moved the playset as it is to the backyard. There has been some great progress on it!

Echo has been working on what she calls “e”s.

The day before Independence Day was a great day for random crafts with the kids doing their paper craft creating while I was in the tub. I got out to some lovely themed items!

And then…. SURPRISE a visitor… well TWO! Bree and Lily! They had an errand near us and the yen for fancy coffee. So we ran the errand, got the coffee and then visited at the house while Bree made some necessary calls.

PHOTO OP!!!

No, seriously, LOTS so enjoy!

I love how they were yelling at each other

Yup, with Sean already here we had ourselves some new visitors… I got a relatively kid free outing and some awesome coffee… and the kids got their American info rolling. Not bad not bad.

June 25-26

We started our Tuesday with the rather fun activity of making paper fans… we took rectangular pieces of white paper (in hindsight cardstock may have been a better choice) and drew Independence Day themed pictures… fireworks, flags, etc. We then used an accordion fold and stapled it at the base. Another idea out of one of our books. But something I remembered making as a child myself! Fun!!

Serious designers

July 4th themed!

We had a Lego magazine come in the mail (we have a couple of their free subscriptions). This was geared at the younger group so the 3 littles sat down and enjoyed it together.

Gavin was totally in the puzzle mood. We got some lovely new ones in our latest package from Gammie!

We played around with some different brands of bubble soap. Sadly still not as good as the machine’s brand!

Got some sun though

There was a little time for a dino dig as well! But we kept it rather sedate as Wednesday was a day with a big plan!

THE ZOO!!! We made plans to meet up with Steven and Quinn, and then once Bree got done work and such we added in Lily and mom.

We had sun, rain and fun in the rain! It was terrific!

Drowned rats, happy but drowned

Sunning Sea Lion… be sure to check our zoo overflow HERE.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT THE REST OF OUR PHOTOS FROM THE ZOO HERE.

Ken got to relive a bit of his childhood and made a plastic mold in one of the machines they have around the zoo. We made a gorilla. The plan is to get a different one each visit.

I am just so pleased… Ken’s anniversary present got here as well! A special t-shirt based on a saying I saw on a Grumpy Cat picture off Facebook. He was well pleased!!!

Where I got the saying from… Grumpy Cat

January 31- February 2

We have completed our first month of the new year and so did Gavin’s work on his Lego land. With Emanuel’s help it was quite the creation!

Quite the metropolis

Lots of activity

Spooky section

Gavin’s turtle (too large for the city)

Ken and Ted took a ride out to The Source, a gaming store to peruse the merchandise and to pick me up some oversized dice for the kids. While they did I finally got to see Frankenweenie! I saw ParaNorman back on New Years so I am catching up on my animations nicely!

Dice

I am so proud that the boys BOTH made their reading goals yet again! I am so glad I can help them find a love of reading at such a young age.

We had our next book to share Happy Chinese New Year, Kai Lan! We had the corresponding episode on the video we got from the library… Celebrate with Kai-Lan.

Gavin and our book

There is a definite benefit to subscribing to a site’s feed. Art for Kids sent out a terrific 10 monster how  to draw book to all the people subscribed to them. I am going to have to sit down and hole punch and put all these amazing instructions into a binder all organized and ready for the boys to use whenever they want!

Wacky monster pictures

Talk about excitement for our almost birthday boy! Baba took Emanuel and myself to get Emanuel’s hair cut before his birthday party! It is like he grew up years as the hair came off… in looks anyway! Can you believe he is 7 on the 3rd??

So smooth

Of course the kids opted to spend even MORE time sitting with Uncle Ted. They just can’t get enough of him!

Quality time

Trinity roped him into playing Skylanders with her as well! They work so well together!

Skylanders!

Friday was a bit of a ruffled day. The kids do not function well with Ken working at home right now. It has been bitterly cold so they cannot burn off energy outside, plus there is the knowledge Ken is there and not available. That and the need to be quiet so he can work makes them all owly. So to take a bit of the edge off we made our Chinese lanterns for our Chinese New Year. You can follow our instructions on Activity Village HERE. I added to the activity by bringing out the markers and letting them colour the paper if they wanted.

Working on lanterns

Lanterns

This was our last day with Ken home actually. Come Monday he is supposed to have his own desk at one of the three buildings. I am hoping that him being out of the house will help Echo deal with less time with Daddy.

Time with Uncle Ted while Daddy works

Emanuel finally got around to colouring in his Mammoth pictures that Gammie sent him to go along with his interest in elephants! He does love a good elephant or prehistoric animal!

One colourful Mammoth

With dinosaurs on the mind we completed our smaller puzzle. One Emanuel got for Christmas!

PUZZLE

Our book from the day was a National Geographic one – Celebrate Chinese New Year. The kids love the images in this one.

Zander and our book

I have to say having Ted here is so much fun. Like back home, the guys are cracking jokes, talking shop and generally hanging out. I have missed that here. We don’t see much of the guys here which is a huge change from how things were up in Alberta.

Relaxing

As the first Saturday of the month it was also the Home Depot free craft day. The boys made little mail boxes for Valentines. Painted and everything!

Painted and everything

When Ken, his dad and the boys returned Ted, Ken and I ran out to finish some shopping – I needed cardstock for the kids’ schooling and Ted needed to do some present shopping. Target is so much fun.

After shopping EMANUEL snagged Ted to play Skylanders (he will be pro by the time he goes home!).

Gaming in comfort

He also made Ted a special picture to take home for his fridge in Alberta.

Art for the fridge

It really was an Emanuel creative day. If it wasn’t Home Depot it was drawing or making something interesting out of blocks.

This is a storekeeper with his till and table

I am glad to see that something I created is being used too – the kids had a tea party with the set I made Trinity for Christmas.

Tea anyone?

Saturday meant trying to get everything ready for the party on Sunday. There is something so comforting about having Ken and Ted together to help out. I feel so lucky that January and February has given us a taste of the people we have been missing. Saying good bye later is never easy BUT the visit makes it all worth it!

If only the fairie could magic up a way for them to stay longer… or forever!