Annnndddd we make it to Christmas… and a boatload of images

December 25

Well Merry Merry Merry Christmas 2013! Our second in the USA. Of course we led off with what we call “Canadian Christmas”. This is the portion of Christmas where we open anything from Ken and myself… the stockings I made the kids the year they were born, anything mailed to us from Canada or family and friends in the States or abroad. Of course there were gifts from Santa in special Santa paper (a Minnesota quirk added to our traditions!).Though the girls zeroed in right away on the kitchen set sent to them from Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie.

Thank you Aunty Holly!

With their stockings

I made Ken 3 different pieces

Ready for the US gifts

Breakfast!

Not too long after breakfast Joe, Faithe and the cousins arrived and it was time for round two – Minnesota Christmas… gifts from Nana and Baba and Santa!

All 7 cousins

Gavin and the much requested Ring Tailed Lemur

Trinity and her “Twinkling” box

Then it was off to play with all the new items while we waited for Jim, Judy, Robbie and Jessica.

Not even supper time yet!

Supper was two tables worth of fun and lovely ham and fixings. And then it was play play play until right before the cousins had to go home when we opened the gifts from Jim and Judy.

Full outfit

I think it is official. Because of the amazing presents from those local and from afar our 5 have had one of their most amazing and memorable Christmases! I don’t know that we can EVER thank people enough!! But offhand… we opened presents from Karyn, my dad and Jamie, Gammie (spoiled!), Nana and Baba, Joe and Faithe, Jim and Judy and each other. Thank you all!  

Nana’s wine

October 22-24

We are onto our next big countdown – HALLOWEEN! Where has the year gone??? First Halloween, then Thanksgiving (American) and then CHRISTMAS! I am so not ready! We started our day with a gift… Gammie has already started sending the Christmas presents to hide until THE DAY and included in the boxes have been a few extras… I think we opened a couple the week before. But this one was a request item… a tiny ring-tailed lemur. Only our VERY FAVOURITE of all the animals really. This one was a dog toy so Echo is totally enamoured with it… it SQUEAKS!

With our regular morning routine accomplished Nana, myself and the girls had a special errand to accomplish. The weather has of course changed over to fall and sandals are out. Both girls have grown and honestly Echo has never had a true pair of sneakers… so off we were to find some! Kohl’s had a 30% off coupon and Nana was on a mission. Two stores later and a worn out Echo and we were MORE than successful. Not only did we find adorable LIGHT UP shoes for each but we ALSO found coats for the cousins AND long sleeved MINECRAFT themed shirts for the boys! Add to that lunch at McDonald’s and our girly time was a total success!!! Thank you Nana!!! (Oh, did I mention… matching adorable 3 piece girly outfits for the ladies themselves!)

With milk

Matching!

Gavin actually requested a special mini project for himself – pictures, video and (my input) a short story about ring-tailed lemurs. We watched a National Geographic video.

And Globalzoo’s video simply titled The Ring-Tailed Lemur.

Our colouring page could be found on HonkingDonkey (what a name!!) HERE. I love it when they take initiative and WANT to do something a little unique and interesting to them personally.

We hit midweek with not too much drama. Special movie time though – Monsters Vs. Aliens.

And a science project with Daddy dealing with oil and water and why polar bears are not cold! Again spot the secondary parental teacher!!!

Well sort of out of screen

There was even time for some play time, chaotic and totally us!

BUT even more important… KEN TURNED 36!!! Since I am on a total spending freeze there was no present buying… so the kids and I wrote stories, drew pictures and yours truly wrote a letter for him which we made into a book. I do love handmade creations and the words in that book came from all of us to him with love.

Happy Birthday Ken!

After celebrating a very special birthday it was time to move onto a big completion… our Egypt unit made its way (finally) onto the poster. We worked together and did our very best to showcase our Ancient Egypt fun! Of course I have a reference blog entry that you can check out HERE.

We ended our day with making white paint footprints we will later make into ghostly images.

I am well pleased with our progress in almost everything! We have our ups and downs but if I can look  back and recount these positive moments I KNOW we are doing it right!!!!

October 1-2

Mondays are always a bit of a minor struggle… after all we have been PACKING our weekends full of fun. And with the friends in school and the job hunt on weekdays we feel our difference between weekends and weekdays more than ever. So we hit the ground running, right into spelling, book work and colouring. Echo is especially interested in having her own page or colouring book while everyone else is working.

Baby at work

Of course we had the difficult dinosaur NODOSAURUS… with an under the weather Emanuel (I will have those links etc on another post), and Trinity had her usual book. However, Trinity was over the moon with the chance to work on one of the new workbooks Gammie sent us. She sat down and traced the patterns with great gusto. I love it when she gets motivated.

Ready to go

We officially started our Pizza Hut sponsored reading program with a colouring sheet and a book each. We lucked out, one of the set of pictures uses a family favourite – the ring-tailed lemur. Even Echo had a picture to colour. 

All 5 with their pictures

The boys are working on their personal projects, Gavin in his cross stitching and Zander colouring in the new books. With a new box of craft supplies from a friend of a friend on Facebook I am hoping to get them both into some new art projects! I am very happy to have new supplies to add to our slowly growing supply. Of course as part of a thank you we HAVE TO make a card… and then there is the letters and thank you pictures for Gammie… we have had a slow down on our pen pal responses so I am thinking we will send out some letters to some of our families to kick start in case  of missing mail!

So thankful

Tuesday was an at home day as well… we covered the basics – spelling, reading (gotta get those books in to get pizzas), a little math for one, some colouring for another… all in all we were WAY productive. Our new favourite art site added ANOTHER how to… so of course all work stopped so Gavin could make his attempt at drawing a bat according to the (once again) amazing instructions!

Bat with an original ghost

Surprisingly ZANDER then wanted to have a go!!! And with his lower concentration it was HUGE that he could follow through and really create with success… what a confidence booster! And then to top it off… Gavin created his own step by step instructions to draw a cow!

Step by step cow

Then to fill the time we decided to get creative on a smaller scale… black construction paper and white crayons! Spoooooky pictures for fall and Halloween! Even Echo sat down and had a go!

Zander and littles

Echo’s

We actually had a series of Gavin creativity during the beginning of the week… there was his AMAZING chalk creation with a dragon…

Amazing chalk image

His leafy creation… using nothing but the stems of the leaves to hold it all  together…

Leaves

And his outdoor table for Trinity…

Table for 2?

With Emanuel just LOVING the dinos and Trinity diving head first into the new workbook that just leaves a passion for Zander…

Creativity