December 11-12

So the snow is still here, and the sunshine, and a laundry list of things to  get done… including multiple trips to the post office, library and stores… I look forward to not only finishing my Christmas shopping but my immigration collecting. Don’t get me started on the post and crossing customs… grrr…

NOW they want to live outside in the snow!

Though Emanuel and Trinity opted for educational games on the laptop I love PBSkids.com

Anyway… Reindeer… well a start on them! We had a great freebie from The Simple Homeschool. Ken read the kids portions of the booklet that came with and then they worked in pairs on some of the worksheets.

Working with Daddy

I got together everything we needed to make a candy cane reindeer like I did in grade school. We didn’t have the traditional colours of pom poms but I love the end result. In the meantime Trinity and Emanuel were more than willing to make a few more candy canes and help put all of them on the tree… with Echo assisting of course.

Proud decorators

Miss Echo assisting

Trinity and Emanuel worked on their colouring of reindeer… Education.com and Activity Village (both on right) have some great printables with our theme in mind.

Coloured by numbers!

Activity Village had a favourite Christmas themed video on their site for the 11th of December… who doesn’t love Christmas penguins???

Our book for the day? A boardbook from previous Christmases… A Very Shiny Christmas. 

Sparkly!!

The 12th is an interesting date… 12/12/12… we didn’t really do anything special for the day but it is interesting to note. Though a friend on Facebook had a good point in while this is the only time this date will exist in our lifetimes that ALL dates are the only dates in our lifetime… I slept well past noon as this cold and sore throat finally caught me up… BUT Ken had the kids busy finishing their foam creations. Houses and ornaments and all…

Then the boys were back out in the sun and snow working on their Igloo… it is becoming quite the structure. Which means it was time to reinforce a very important rule – we do NOT go into the igloo ALONE, you HAVE TO be in pairs at least! They are very industrious about it!

A full out snow building now!

Trinity and Emanuel made MORE beaded candy canes… which of course had to go onto the tree.

So pretty

Our candy cane reindeer were finally ready for they debut as well. I bet MOST of us have done this as children as well!! 

Candy Cane Reindeer creation

My family

The detail on the one I made. Those are mint chocolate candy canes!

With my voice rather non existent Ken did the book for the day – A rather humourous one called It’s Christmas, David! Hopefully the next day I can do the two books we got advanced copies of and get those reviews up for our seasonal books!

Story time with Daddy

It’s Christmas, David!

We have gotten some really lovely picture Christmas cards… all from family (after all we consider the Novak family family too). I love getting cards, and I want to say a big THANK YOU! I am not sure that we will be able to send one in return this year to everyone… but next year I will have my list and you will be on it!!!

We had a slightly more complicated set of Christmas themed instructions to work on from Art for Kids as well – reindeer! I am rather impressed by Gavin’s rendition, inspired by the instructions and one of our Christmas books we had lying around.

A full out picture

 With the pipe cleaners already out Gavin and I worked together to make a wreath with a pretty bow. 

Very festive

With worksheets to be completed and Christmas to get ready for our house is a busy and increasingly festive one. This will be the kids’ first Christmas Day with Nana and Baba and our first here in Minnesota since we were first together! It is all so very special! I warn you all though – the post Christmas entries are going to be PICTURE HEAVY!!!!

Busy babies

December 9-10

It really IS beginning to feel like Christmas. Sunday hasn’t been a church day for us in quite some time, but this second Sunday in Advent was different. We were invited to celebrate Christmas with the children’s concert at the Novak family’s church (a Lutheran one, yay). Of course this coincided with the first REAL storm… 16 inches (around 41 cm) of snow in 24 hours… great for the kids… not so hot for the roads. But with some careful driving we made it all the way safely to the church just before the special service was to begin, thankfully Andrew and his grandparents and cousins were able to save us a pew.

Waiting for the service… note the RED lipstick Bree and Veronika… did I do good?

It was a great service with the Nativity story and lots of singing and 3 of the 4 Novak boys involved. We did have to take Echo out of the sanctuary a few times to trundle around but all in all once I separated Zander and Emanuel we did rather well.

Aidan… There will be an entry following this with the picture overflow. The expressions on the boys’ faces as they did their songs and parts were just too cute to not be shared!!

Alex looking dapper

Anthony the shepherd (left)

The final group number

After the concert there was birthday cake…

CAKE

And then pictures…

Emanuel, Echo, Gavin, Zander and Trinity

11 kids!! (Gavin left)

And in front of the tree (Zander left)

Then back into the snow to head over to the Novak’s for playing in the snow…

So much snow all at once!

The second fort

Baking and decorating cookies…

Making cookies with Maggie

Darcy and the girls

Andrew manning the ovens

Visiting AND some presents! I have to say, I have never had my owls go over so well as when I give them to the Novak boys!

Present time

Andrew playing Santa

With the owls

With all that lovely snow sticking around Monday the boys bargained with me to let the morning just be outside play. So much snow and sunlight and fun for the kids!

So much bright white snow

Chill-axing

Post snow smoothies (peanut butter banana) thanks to Nana

We did not end up starting the reindeer unit as of course there was a REPEAT out in the snow in the afternoon. It really does eat up the time, but they had so much fun! Gavin DID find some time to make our Art for Kids picture of a CHRISTMAS TREE!

A tree

With brand new puzzles thanks to the Novak family we of course had two boys sit down and right away want to complete one. These were NOT easy as they are holographic! But Emanuel and Gavin managed.

Emanuel and Gavin

We ended the day with Ken and Baba putting together the tree… slightly pre decorated and rather pretty. Add to that phone calls for work and immigration, mailing to deal with and Christmas crafting to feverishly finish and we are REALLY busy! But in a cheerful and Christmasy way!

SNOOPY

December 5-6

Middle of the week comes and goes and with it another busy busy day! Poor Baba is feeling under the weather but yours truly feels more the norm. I have to admit, having SOMETHING to do (aka attempt, however impossibly to find my immunization records.. yah right) and the knowledge that Ken IS talking to people and making progress just soothes the soul. It is something I have been working on and fighting with… I just do not handle massive anxiety well, though once the issue has passed or we gain control I am able to smooth right out. Certainly NOT helpful.

We have continued our making of cards, colouring of pictures and working on word searches – all Christmas themed! Trinity has fallen in love with colouring CANDY CANES! Thankfully no one else is complaining.

Today’s big family together time was baking cookies. Nana had picked up sugar cookie dough so while she was out with the weekly time with the cousins and Baba in bed we baked. Again all 5 together elbow deep in dough and flour. So much fun! Though they are definitely not our usual sugar cookie. Ken and I are a bit picky about our cookies after all and love the recipe I got from my mom. BUT everyone else loved them!

With Daddy

Echo at work

Busy bees

Can you tell which is Echo’s masterpiece?

We are hard at work on the first of our Christmas Carols for our mini concert we plan to post on youTube… Away in a Manger. It started out as just the twins and now the younger ones are trickling in to learn too. I wish we had found a Sunday School and the chance to really make it to church regularly but I think that this is our second choice. I am proud of their wish to share these moments with you all… as I was told VERY clearly we HAVE to post this, after all did you know that GRANDMA wants to hear them sing too?? (yup mom they said that SERIOUSLY)

We also did our “Things I Like About Christmas” print out, we did this one last year as well. You can find it on Activity Village. I have printed off extras so that we can continue to do it each year. I love hearing what is important to them each Christmas!

Last year and this year

Thursday was an even better day, though the twins were a little ill. We did another Candy Cane themed craft and made Candy Cane Hearts!

Yummy hearts

Again thanks to Activity Village. Trinity and I lucked out and found tri-cornered beads, so we took some of our special Christmas coloured pipe cleaners and made special beaded candy canes.  I think that each of the kids has done this craft and I was worried that this year we would not come across the right beads to make one for Trinity. She did rather well with her pattern on the one (only a mistake or two) and her yellow one seems to shine! I was so proud of her!

Stringing beads together

The golden version

We read ANOTHER book… Santa’s Snow Cat… so another journal page. Just a cover style illustration with the title written on the page. I am not making them do much more than enjoy the story and the family time with these Christmas themed books. Don’t forget Santa Bear from a previous day!

Santa’s Snow Cat

Santa Bear

I want to try an idea I saw online next year and wrap up 25 NEW Christmas books and then each day open one with the kids and read it! We also had a MATH day… we went online and hunted around for free Christmas themed workpages and printed off a bunch. A lot of adding and subtracting and recognizing which is which. I am hoping to make January a math month, the past few months we have REALLY been focused on the reading.

Joint creation

We, of course, had to work on ELVES from Art for Kids! Zander added his to his already VERY active Santa! I look forward to saving these instructions for years to come! 

So much fun!

Add to that our daily Advent with videos and colouring pages and the kids are rather happy with the direction our learning has gone. I took a poll and it turns out that the kids prefer next week to be REINDEER themed instead of gingerbread. I have been hunting down Rudolf related pages and whatever I can find for colouring for Trinity. Don’t forget our Christmas themed drawings thanks to Art for Kids!!!

Our little resting copy cats watching Christmas themed tv