September 11-12

There are days when you question your parenting and days when you rejoice in it. Tuesday was more of the former and less of the latter. We are still trying to drum through our twins’ VERY thick heads that listening to Mommy and Daddy and telling the truth right off the bat is the best choice. We still stand by that if you tell the truth and come to us then the punishment will diminish or in many cases there will NOT be a punishment. Sadly after acting up the day before and losing their computer time they still felt the need to tell fibs, disregard instructions and generally be difficult. The punishment – they lost almost half a day to time outs and went to bed immediately after dinner missing out on popcorn and movies with the 3 littles. 

Movie time

I am very thankful that we managed a productive morning. With Ken freed up from his search and code work he took over the Minnesota unit and they blasted through portions of it. Yours truly is working on talking to other homeschooling families via egroups to find some good affordable/free areas to visit that are not too far away. I have already started talking via email with a lovely and helpful momma here in Minnesota who is a fountain of information. 

Emanuel’s Minnesota colouring page

Trinity practicing her Y’s

I made up a special counting game for Trinity to practice her numbers 1-10. It is a great print out you can find HEREcalled Lickety-Split Numbers Craft. Anything I can find to get her interested and practicing! 

Just need to glue some stiff cardboard to the back

So with our absolute shut down on the twins that was the end of that. I am hoping that the fact that when we punish we follow through and are absolute will lead the boys to altering their behaviour. This is something I really appreciate about homeschooling. When there is an issue I can stop the world and deal with it. Not worry about others and continuing the day. 

Filling the spare time with a kitty picnic

My laundry helper

Wednesday was an overcast and rainy day so really we were stuck indoors. On the plus side the boys kept working on Minnesota with Ken and we FINALLY got in time making our twirling toys science craft! They all had a blast dropping them over the railing.

The lesson

The application

Then there was our trip out to Jo-Ann’s. A homeschool mom alerted me to the fact that as a homeschooling mom I can qualify for the teacher’s discount – 15% off entire purchase, coupons and sales included! All we had to do was take in our intent to homeschool forms and BINGO! That meant that I had a 50% off coupon for a regular priced item and then got stuff on sale and on top of that 15% off. So we got another ball of yarn to complete Ken’s scarf, some Halloween themed stickers (to begin the rebuilding of the Halloween stash), and a Perler bead idea book all for 5.00! Then when we got home the kids set to work with the beads. 

Beading

Ken had ANOTHER set of code to make up Wednesday night… not going to put those eggs all in one basket so until there is a guaranteed job he keeps the looking and code writing and interviewing. I have great faith in Ken and his abilities and really appreciate all the prayers and positive thoughts and networking everyone is doing for and with us! 

I am on the hunt for Fall crafts, ways to get Trinity going and confident and of course… affordable fun! I am hoping to have more links to share! I have added All Kids Network to my links for Homeschooling. They are becoming a great resource for some crafty ideas. As always there are my favourites – Education.com AND Activity Village! If you know of any links you just can’t school/live/craft without – please send them my way!

Our baby and her kitties

NOTE… A gaming friend of Ken’s from his EVE game died in a terrorist attack on an embassy overseas on September 11th, 2012. We want to extend our prayers and love to his family who were kind enough to alert the guys of this horrible news. It is hard to understand WHY this happened or to really grasp the horror of it all. This is one of multiple attacks at various embassies on the 11th… he will be fondly remembered by his friends on EVE Online!

September 9-10

Ending the weekend and starting the week is always a bit awkward. Especially after an action packed Saturday. Add to that a last minute email from the company that Ken had his interview/code/tour at stating that they wanted him to revamp his code so that he could be considered for ALL of the positions he applied for (an oops on their part for not noticing the multiple applications in their system as altering code is harder than writing it that way from scratch). This did mean we couldn’t go out to meet up with the Novaks for church and then a play date. 

Yet another stick creation

Playing with Daddy

Future programmer or future soccer player?

I have started Ken’s scarf and then some but first Sunday night I FINALLY finished Trinity and Echo’s dolly blanket. Not perfect but a first double stitch piece and the recipients were very happy!!! 

Dolly blanket completed

Apparently Sunday night the neighbour across the street had their truck keyed! The police were by to see if we had noticed anything. Sadly since we spend our time in the evening in the basement where our computers, tv and comfortable chairs are so we didn’t notice anything. And, of course, Zander acted up in front of the police officer before I could even get out to answer the door. The boys were playing outside, thankfully in the front and no where near the road. Thus ends, for a few days at least, their time playing outside without one of us outside with them or at least sitting in the front room watching them play. I am curious as to why the vehicle was keyed as we cannot put all the vehicles here in the garage. 

Monday was a nice day… weather wise. I had Ken (who actually had spare time!!) take ALL the kids out on a nature walk to collect leaves and such to include in their art project for the day. After the walk they all played outside together. I think they have missed having this precious time with Ken as this job hunt has (rightfully so) taken up the bulk of his time and focus.

Walking with Daddy

My babies

Our art project was to take the found items and the bucket of newly purchased and collected items and create something. Even Echo got in on the fun, lots of glue, leaves, bits and pieces and everyone ended up with something pretty to go on display! I absolutely love having back our IKEA table and having FIVE chairs for it! 

Crafting together

Up on display

Mail today brought my Amazon order – three new books to read and review! 

THREE new books

We are super proud of Trinity today – I found her another number worksheet to practice her 2’s and after telling me she couldn’t she sat down and did row after row of 2’s. Some were a little off but WOW what an accomplishment for my often reticent learner. This one went right onto the fridge downstairs where we have dedicated the space to homeschooling bragging. I have also printed out the 3 for tomorrow. 

Working on her numbers

Our herbs are growing along… well for the most part. 2 out of 3! And since Monday marks one week of growth the twins drew pictures in their observation journals of the seedlings. If only the Parsley would start growing! 

2/3 going strong

I tried the new Halloween themed creme egg – SCREME egg… it was sweet! I find that one of those is more than enough but I swear they have gotten smaller over the years!

Cute

Green !

With Ken’s scarf on the go and the kids’ schooling to plan, I feel rather occupied and I like it! 

I am in love with the colour combinations and the 20 stitches across has worked really well with this particular yarn!

Now to continue the momentum and get the boys’ paperwork out… I will feel much better with that out and on its way!  

Trinity and I

September 9

So, parades… REALLY not Ken and my cup of tea but one of those memories we all have of growing up, so when Steven mentioned that the town he lives in was having a parade and that as usual Saturday was his Quinn day… well we had to head out and join in. We dressed up and headed out relatively early and met up with the boys at their house.

From there we drove to a parking lot to park and walk to the street the parade was on. We chose the end of the parade so had a bit of a wait.  I am so glad that we purchased that blanket at the Tyrell Museum. It comes in handy and is so easy to take along!

Hanging out

The kids DID get bored as we had to wait well over 30 min for the parade to get to us but it was worth the wait.  The kids were much more interested in candy collection, once we explained to them what was  going on that is. They were very sure candy was only available during Halloween so this was all new to them.

Waiting on candy

Post parade and candy and even watching someone launch a t-shirt into the crowd (that REALLY can’t be safe!) we slipped off before the parade ended and got out of the parking lot with minimal issues.

A float

Then it was time for LUNCH! The daddies were in charge as yours truly is STILL trying to finish the dolly blanket and kept and eye on the baby while she trundled around in the garage. Steven’t parents have put up a large mosquito screen across  the one side of their garage and made a baseball themed seating area that is absolutely amazing! I could totally see homeschooling in there through out the warm months. They had a wall between the double garage section and a single car area so you could close doors and all that but it was a great idea! 

Hello puppy!

Steven’s backyard is a great place to be. They managed to get their hands on a rather amazing play set that is big enough for Quinn and our entire brood to enjoy! Add to that a lovely hill that the boys asked to come back and visit in the winter to sled down and some random toys and we had some VERY happy kids.

Fun in the sun

Lunch was hotdog and hamburgers with chips and grapes and juice pouches. I think everyone was full up when we were done!

Lunch!

Add to that a break in the basement with Thomas the trains and the Netflix version as well!

TV break

It was a great visit and a welcome break to being here at our house. After our visit we stopped in at a few stores… Jo-Ann’s of course finally! I am going to have to watch on sales and coupons as they do have some interesting bits and pieces… we picked up beads and plastic string this time. OH and Ken’s yarn for the scarf HE wants. I ran into the Dollar Tree at that location and was a little disappointed. I DID get my poster paper to create our Pen Pal display. We are going to make pockets for each of our correspondents. I also picked up google eyes and pom poms. What a difference from my usual Dollarama hauls, I am holding out hope that that was just a smaller store and that a bigger one (say like the one near Darcy) may hold more hope. Otherwise I am going to have to keep hunting sales and coupons. 

Totally enjoying the chance to keep my hands busy

I have started our craft bucket though, we are already saving our toilet rolls, collecting the crafty bits I DID bring down here and sourcing out options. I found some bags of bits and bobs a sweet friend and fellow homeschooling mom had sent to me when I was still in Alberta and had forgotten I saved (thank you BJ!!) so we have some sequins, glitter and random fun things to use… I am going to save my yarn bits as well as I remember using those for crafting as a child.  Now our end of the week was more of a play but there is so much merit in learning through play so I feel forgiven if not vindicated! We will just keep on going and trying over the next week and tweak what we are doing… oh and watch the mail, I have a few things of great importance coming in the post! So check back as I share how we get along!

Basically Birthday Buddies