February 8-9

And… Ted ALMOST gets on his plane and home on schedule. There is weather a coming apparently and it hit Toronto (his stopover) closing down the airport before he could get in the air here in Minnesota. So Ken and Sean dropped him off, got mostly home and had to turn around and come back. This is AFTER they had lunch, shopped a little more AND went to Top Gun in 3D at Imax! That left me and the kids home alone for the bulk of the day. So of course  there was school work to do…

Breakfast with Uncle Ted

Sneaking in an extra night

BOTH boys got 100% on their main words and Gavin even got Reinsch right. I am tossing it on the list but not counting it toward their totals as it IS tricky. So even if they get it right we do it the next week too, memorization!! In celebration of words well done they headed outside to play in the snow.

The tests

It was actually a rather decent day so the kids went out multiple times throughout the day.

The great white outdoors… American version

The poster was an all out success… we all had a hand in it. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing the Chinese Characters.

So proud of our work

We also assembled our fireworks. Note the characters on those too… Gavin helped Ken and I with those! You can find the instructions on Activity Village under Chinese New Year crafts (the link for the site is on right).

Gavin and our work

We also spent some time with a paper pack I got on sale at Michaels to make some special Valentines. Sadly the post office has been hard to get to so I have a bit of a stack of mail to add some of these too!

Special Valentines

A Saturday is always a bit slower, except when you add in even MORE company!

Best buddies

Teaching Quinn to play Skylanders

Bree and I worked together to create, from scratch, fortune cookies!

Finger burning perfection

I love it when Echo gets a chance to hang out with her American God Mommy! It was too bad Scott was busy. 

Snuggles

We actually had Steven here as well, he brought Quinn over and then Bree picked him up. So we had a full house! Of course the men were more… boring and thus no pictures… but the kids kept us entertained!

About the same size!

We finally got Bree and Quinn to open their gifts from Christmas! I promise pictures of Quinn in his scarf later!

Opening presents

So we had company coming and going… Now we are slowly slipping into real life – soon Sean will head home too and then… Ken goes OUT to work and it is just the 5 of us! Can we do it??? 

Why so serious???

Insomnia is never a good thing and on a Sunday night it certainly leads to a messed up Monday! Thankfully Ken was able to compensate and I got some sleep around 7am while the kids did their spelling, drawing and outside play. What we did accomplish was TWO crafts! I had been waiting to do these for over a week and am so glad we were finally able to assemble everything and get them done. 

Letters first

First was the Fairy Loom or Autumn Loom if you like. We used branches from back when Ken and his dad took down the trees in the backyard. They were easily cut down to make nice Y shapes. The boys did the stick hunting… And then we used some of the yarn that was laying around… this is a very thin yellow I have not found a use for… perfect for creating our woven framework.  Add in some pretty leaves and bright coloured feathers I got at Michaels with a coupon and there you are! 

Cutting down the branches

Weaving the thread

Adding feathers and leaves

Looms!

We had a lovely conversation about how many fairies are going to come and enjoy our looms, whether or not they will dance in the night time and what they would look like. I love imagination and belief in the magical world around us! Trinity especially was sure they would love to sit and play on the feathers!

Apparently Fairies love bright coloured leaves!

Our second craft was a family one for our school corner in the basement. We made a wreath of all our hands. The boys helped each other and Emanuel to trace their hands and they cut out their own. We all wrote our name on our own hands and then Ken glued them onto a circular piece of paper. I think they turned out really nice!

Tracing hands

The final product

Of course we did our usual book work and spelling etc. but really the lack of sleep didn’t work in our favour. We tried a recoup on Tuesday, BUT due to an accident on the weekend, we couldn’t pick up our school supplies until that morning. I am so appreciative! A mother who is still on an egroup I joined here in Minnesota is done schooling – her kids are in college (I like that – homeschooling kids IN COLLEGE!) so she was looking to get rid of the last of her supplies. Well, this family is in need of expanding, so we drove out to Minneapolis and collected what she no longer needed. For our 40 min drive we got to see some pretty residential areas AND get a lovely pile of new supplies, some for later years but a whole box of stuff that will work for us immediately, games… some math manipulatives… books… again I am so grateful! We really cannot afford to go out and buy buy buy so these little bits and pieces are going to supplement what we do have and help us lead on in new directions! 

Supplies!! Thank you so much!

When we got back it was time for spelling and general busy work. Trinity tried her new binder on for size and really enjoyed tracing her finger on the numbers and colouring her A page. I really like this notebooking set. Some of the pages are in sleeves for the dry erase marker and some she is colouring herself permanently. I am going to assemble the elementary version as well once I have some spare time… and another binder! She was so proud to have her own book though! We did not do all the activities but did as many as we had attention for. You can find that downloadable HERE. 

Dry erase markers with the numbers

Trinity has this little princess book she brought down when we moved that has a few crafts and such in it. There was instructions as to how to make a crown… well this is HER interpretation of what she saw. I don’t think that it is wearable as a crown but to hang up… quite possible!!! 

A crown

It just happened that Trinity and Echo were wearing coordinating dresses, so of course we took some pictures!

Girls together

Now we sent the boys outside to collect the sticks that were left under the deck… our hope is that we can get all of the branches and leaves cleaned up and either stacked for wood or in the proper receptacle before Ken’s parents return. They got pretty well all of it to the front and Ken spent some time getting pieces chopped down to manageable sizes.  All in time for our evening plans – cupcakes and supper (spaghetti) with Quinn, Bree and Scott.

Supper with the kids

With her US god daddy Scott

We had a mini celebration of belated birthday for Echo. I baked a dozen cupcakes and a little cake with a cherry chip mix and then with a coupon got a container of icing for around 50 cents!! So we could let the kids help with the icing and sprinkles when it was time to eat. Bree made us cheese bread (yum!) and brought some more adult cupcakes (decadent). So we had dinner, desert and visiting. It was so much fun!

Decorating cupcakes

And then… we got to keep Quinn! Sleepover!!!

Ready for bed

So a great day!!! I am not sure how much schooling we will get done tomorrow but time with a friend and playing and sharing is legitimate learning too – sharing, caring, cooperation… all GREAT skills!!!   I will leave you with my two completed projects to date! TWO scarves… I am pleased with these!!!

Completed

I did not think to mention this in the birthday party post but this party was a wrapping paper free party! The gifts came in gift bags, cloth bags and from Victoria, a lovely piece of purple fabric but no wrapping paper! The tissue paper and bags are going to come in handy, not only with the giving of other gifts but scrapbooking and craft making! First time ever for this family that a major gift giving occasion has NOT resulted in garbage bags of paper material garbage! 

All reusable packaging!

Our Monday was a lot calmer in comparison to the previous day but the kids certainly were NOT calm and collected. Of course with the added knowledge that Nana and Baba are leaving the next day their behaviour was accordingly less under control. Poor Trinity had gotten bitten on the face multiple times over the weekend by mosquitoes so we had some medicating to do as well as a trip to a pharmacy for cream and witch hazel. Thankfully the allergy medication takes down the swelling quite quickly.

Poor buggy gir

Nana and Baba took the 4 big kids out for a lengthy grocery store run. Rainy days always put a crimp in the run the kids ragged scheme. BUT it allowed me a nice long bath, Echo a lengthy nap and Ken quiet time to work. 

They came back with a whole variety of fruit for fruit salad, including something new… Lychee fruit. So the twins spent some time examining it, peeling it, tasting it with Nana. Then I looked it up on Wikipediaand we read some of that. Of course it had to be planted in our backyard… just to try and then draw and write about it for our Summer Adventure file. 

Checking out the fruit

For the file

I made up a stacked bow (I know I know ANOTHER one) for our niece Gabriella using some of the pretty purple ribbon I got on sale (the one with the peace signs).

A gift bow

Since it was mucky out after rain there was time for the kids to drive us bonkers with balloons and playing with Echo’s new toys. We did try to get a good Nana, Baba and family picture. What do you think?

Just the girls

With all 5 grandkids

Oh and in the mail today – Echo’s new leggings bought off of eBay from Hong Kong… too big right now but I wanted them for the winter and they were a great price! 

New leggings

It has been a rather GOOD day for me all round actually with the sale of 3 of my Kijiji ads! Which means tonight and tomorrow I am committed to posting at least 4 or more to replace them. I am coming to the end of my books that are slated for selling and have to move onto the baby clothes. Ken has gotten a promise out of me to sell ALL of the boys’ clothing and my maternity wear. I just have to figure out what is a fair price. 

We have really hit kid busy time overload… too much excitement, too much out of the regular things going on. Poor Emanuel has been a mess and Trinity equally so with her added bug bites. Even Zander and Gavin have had their share of time outs and stern talking to. BUT there have been lovely moments with Nana and Baba all the same. I think we are all going to be sad to see them go home tomorrow. Their flight is around noon so they have to leave rather early in the morning tomorrow. 

The rest of our week will probably be spent at home. I have a bunch of reorganizing to do, Nana and Baba bought us a new microwave and I lost a portion of my counter space in the kitchen that has to be dealt with. We REALLY need a microwave stand… And then there is all the bags and such that were just chucked into the pantry due to time restraint. OH and all of Echo’s new things! But that is the fun cleaning! In all actuality, most of this week will be spent trying NOT to think about NEXT week. After all, Monday IS Echo’s genetic test and I am not sure if I mentioned this or not but the specialist paediatrician also wants to schedule a kidney ultra sound to rule anything connected to that out. That is basically what everything is now – ruling stuff out… no fun. We are basically sitting here doing everything to prove nothing is wrong. At least putting it that way feels better than ruling out or see what IS wrong. All in the mind isn’t it? 

We ended our evening with a video call on MSN with Quinn and Bree and a cameo from Scott… so Echo got to see two of her godparents and Trinity her birthday buddy. What a great way to end the day! 

And now it is time for the last hours before bed with Ken’s folks, some tidying AND of course laundry… two entries in one day… as Esther would say – FABULOUS! 

Some quiet time to end the day with Nana and the iPad