What a weekend! Definitely kept me hopping. There were a few lovely surprises, lots of terrific friends and family stopping by and of course a nice and extended birthday party for Ken.

Friday night of course, marked the start of Ken’s weekend lan party. We had a nice group of guys over – Sean, Fydo, Ted and Nathan (though Nathan didn’t make it over until 11 or so after he was done work – he works afternoon/evenings). I guess they mainly played WoW but everyone seemed to have a great time, though they ate a batch of my frozen sugar cookies for a snack – with permission – so now Ted and Ken have to replace them for me! Yay!

Ken received some rather nice gifts – a couple movies, some alcohol and of course from Ted – Master and Commander the BOOK! Definitely an inside joke – Ken HATES the movie – so for Christmas Ted got it for him on Blueray and now the book! The look on his face was PRICELESS!

Saturday morning was a treat for the whole family – Grandma and Mike came up for a visit WITH Harley!!! Silly puppy stole a sugar cookie off the table when I walked away for a moment but otherwise was a lovely, well behaved puppy. The boys went out into the backyard and ran wild with the dog. Mom brought Ken a lovely gift – a US flag in a flag box… oh and an ornate over the top desk decoration!

US Flag!

Then to top it off they treated us to McDonald’s which was a first in a while for our family… Trinity had apple slices with the skin on and did so well! Since we did not have time for the play area as a treat we all went to PetSmart with Harley and grandma treated us to a brand new catfish! A big one (and once the tank is cleaned up better I will take a photo). Harley was on her best behavior there but the REAL star of the show was this guy:

TURTLE!!!

That’s right an honest to goodness TURTLE!!! Young I guess, only 8 yrs old but AMAZING. The guy let the boys touch it and everything. Although Trinity’s favourites were not the fish or the turtle but KITTENS! She went almost crazy looking and talking to them! Makes me wish we COULD have one, but in this rental they do not want us to have any 4 legged pets. So once we are in a new long term rental or even bought our own place I am definitely going to see what I can do!

Kittens! (Gavin)

Harley the Not So Little Puppy!

Sadly with the addition of Kitty the 2nd two of our neons disappeared! We figure they died and were sucked up into the filter. Since 2 neons is just not ok for this family – what sort of a school is that? – we plan on waiting until Thursday to let the tank settle and tidy it up a bit and then go back and get some more neons. A fun field trip for the boys as we can go through and talk about the different animals, see if they can count them, etc etc.

Last night Karyn and I sat down and scrapbooked – I had ordered some photos for a few Trinity related events ages ago and had the paper and no idea what to do with them. Karyn brought her Cricut and we worked out some really lovely pages. I explained to her my idea of how I want our Christmas cards to turn out and she seems to think she can help me out with a template. I find that is one of my main problems with making cards and pages – I often have an idea of what I want but can’t execute it! Although I would LOVE a Cricut!!!

From Our God-daughter Isabella's Birthday Party

Trinity's Birthday Party

Easter

Of course our biggest source of excitement and mess was the pumpkin carving party! Chris and Chris, Karyn, Ted, Sean and Fydo all were around for the momentous event. We had a total of 4 nice sized pumpkins to gut and carve. 3 were done on Saturday, one left for tonight for Ken to work on.

Ready to Go! (Gavin left)

Chris did the carving while the kids “helped”. I am not sure who had more fun, though it was obvious out of all the boys that Zander was the most dedicated to getting every little bit of the ickies out of the pumpkins.

Zander and Daddy

Aunty Karyn

The Carving Pro!

I am hoping to get some pictures off the kids in costume this week with the carved pumpkins, just have to find a spare moment and a nice spot in the house to do it. Oh, and convince Trinity that tutus are not torture! She is unsure of the poof.

Pumpkins and Kiddos (Zander left)

We had a nice assortment of snacks and a lot of visiting time.

Mmm Snacks!

And tonight a nice tray full of pumpkin seeds  to roast for latter. I  roasted those tonight and tomorrow plan to make more beans before starting my serious Christmas baking. And of course, here is our recipe:

Step 1: clean the seeds. When you are carving your pumpkin, separate the seeds from the pumpkin flesh and strings. Was them well (usually putting them in a big bowl of water and rubbing them between your hands is a fast way to clean them) and let them drain in a strainer for about 30 min, then spread them out on a baking pan. Now just use a hair dryer to dry them quickly!

Iti s time to start preheating the oven. Turn it on and set it to 275 F

2. Spread the seeds on a cookie sheet and season them.

Spread the seeds evenly over a cookie sheet and lightly baste the seeds with melted butter, margarine, or vegetable oil.  There are many variations.  Here are the most popular, in order or popularity (we chose Halloweeny since that is what we had all the seasonings for):

1. Savory: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt and 2 teaspoons Worchestershire sauce
2. Lemony: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon ‘Mrs. Dash” or lemon pepper
3. Halloweeny: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon salt,  and 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice.
4. Spicy: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper
5. Natural: 1 teaspoon sea salt or other salt, 4 tablespoons melted butter

3. Roast the seeds.

Heat them in a 275-degree oven for 10 to 20 minutes until golden brown. DO KEEP AN EYE ON THEM, checking every few minutes and stir about every 5 minutes. Some ovens run hot and it can be as little as 10 minutes or as long as 30 minutes to roast them. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot or cold.

For milder flavor, simmer the cleaned seeds for about an hour in salted water and fry in deep oil. Or mix a tablespoon of oil or margarine to each cup of nuts and roast them at 250 degrees for 10 – 15 minutes until they’re golden. Sprinkle them with salt.

Mmm Seeds!

Tonight’s pumpkin story: From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer. Terrific illustrations it explains everything from how the plants get water to what the different leaves do in nice, simple terms.

From Seed to Pumpkin

The boys and I spent some time today working on our pumpkin lapbooks… the outsides are not done but I am very happy with the interiors! This marks the end of our P is for Pumpkin study so now we are spending  the rest of the week doing HALLOWEEN!!! I am not sure how complex of a book we will make but I am sure it will be fun, maybe B is for Bat or something of the same idea???

Emanuel's Pumpkin Lapbook

I got the basic Pumpkin set up from a free lapbook. Some of the links were dead so we improvised: For the rhyme Peter Pumpkin Eater we found another link for puppets, and instead of the section making words out of the letters for pumpkin we found a prayer to include. We took full advantage of the boys’ interest in perler beads and made pumpkins (Emanuel made HIS into a jack-o-lantern). I also hunted down a picture of a hedgehog with pumpkins that I will get pictures of tomorrow for the back cover. They are VERY happy with the resulting books!

Sewing has not been a priority this weekend BUT I have made some progress on my Santa and Ken has PROMISED me a plethora of patterns this week to get me caught up with all my ideas. I am looking forward to having my site properly running… then I have to start with advertising and the like… but it will be a NEW challenge and I LOVE those!

Fuzzy but You Get the Point

Since tonight is my local stitching group chat night and I have perler beading to do I really must get a move on! But all in all a busy and HAPPY weekend!

Mike and His Wee Girl

I do dislike a massive change in plans… it seems to sap my motivation and put us in a minor tailspin. Of course I am not yet at the point where I have preplanned days for homeschooling though that is my newest goal in regards to the boys. I have been told about workboxes and the like and really think it is a grand idea. Though I figure I need to find shoeboxes or something either super cheap or free. At the K level my goal is to get each of the boys a couple boxes… one for each lapbook or major project we are working on. Then when we do what we can on that project we can box it back up instead of leaving them on the table or our rather limited counter space. Thank goodness we have this year to play around some more and figure out what will work best with our little crew.

Today was a non-letter day since I did not have the pieces prepped. This had the boys outside in the morning instead of schoolwork – NOT my favourite option. They headed out in bathingsuits and played in and around the pool. It is a little cooler today so they were not out too long.

This afternoon we worked on a couple of things. The first is a craft I was hoping to work out… mini Christmas trees out of puzzle pieces. We glued them to our paper model which turned out pretty nice, now I just have to decide if I want to flip them and paste puzzles to the OTHER side or attempt to hunt down the felt I am rather sure is SOMEWHERE in the house from a project last Christmas and do that. Either way they are already looking cute.

Painted Puzzle Pieces and Paper Shape

TREE !

School wise we did some stamping and the twins cut out their rainbows. We made up some colour wheels that will go on top of the now decorated cardstock in the middle of their lapbooks.

Happy Stampers (Gavin left)

We are going to print out the images of the bowl from our science experiment and put those along with the list of colours we saw on as well. Now I just need to find some more shapes activities… I did find a really cute song that goes to the tune of the Farmer in the Dell. I figure we will sing that and then paste it in as well.

Shape Song

(to the tune of: “The Farmer in the Dell”)

A circle’s like a ball,

A circle’s like a ball,

Round and round

It never stops.

A circle’s like a ball!

A square is like a box,

A square is like a box,

It has four sides,

They are the same.

A square is like a box!

A triangle has 3 sides,

A triangle has 3 sides,

Up the mountain,

Down, and back.

A triangle has 3 sides!

A rectangle has 4 sides,

A rectangle has 4 sides,

Two are long, and

Two are short.

A rectangle has 4 sides!

I dug out the pair of shoes I won for Trinity from an online contest for a store in the same city my brother lives in. They have squeakers in them but I had to remove them as as soon as she made them squeak… she cried!! But they are ADORABLE… size 3… regularly almost 30.00! ACK!

Dressed for Cute!

Speaking of money… we are back into tight times once more. At least this time Ken is in a better state health wise and is already making greater lengths to deal with it in a positive manner. Today is the start of a new start – at least that is the way I am planning on dealing with it. In reaction to this I decided to dig through the bag of out grown baby clothes downstairs and pull out some of the items the kids wore sparingly or really not at all (at least one was worn only for a picture session) and post them up on Kijiji… there the adds are free and you can just leave them up. So who knows, I sold two of my older adds today to the same woman and made myself 20.00 which is so going to come in handy now! The question is – school supplies or Christmas supplies?? Thank goodness we did get some Christmas shopping done on the cheap in the past month… hopefully I will be able to deal with the rest in the near future!

I am just thankful that the skills I learned in the past 3 months I did not give up when things improved… really there is no change to every day life here… just some of our more hopeful plans postponed. I think the biggest issues for me is the exhaustion I feel in regards to having to deal with the scenario all over again. Ken is much better don’t get me wrong, but myself, well I am worn out! Thankfully with his improved health comes a deeper involvement with the family and him simply being more checked in. So I don’t feel as isolated and alone as I did last time, but it is certainly NOT a good feeling.

I actually am glad I did all that baking yesterday… it has made today a lot less work. Though I need to sit down and see what exactly I have in the cupboards again… I am sure I have packets or boxes of this or that I should see how I can implement in a meal. It is hard to keep track when the majority of our dry and canned goods are in the cabinets under the island. I would so LOVE a true pantry! But if we are going to get 50lbs of potatoes tomorrow I need to be on the ball! I have been checking into how to make your own french fries to freeze and possibly doing the same with mashed potatoes – you just can’t keep them in the freezer past 2 months. Potato Soup on  the other hand…. mmm I am so looking forward to Ken’s Ukrainian potato soup and dumplings mmm mmm mmm.

Tomorrow after we go get our free potatoes at a nearby farm that is doing a special give away to promote farming and the like, we are making our weekly pilgrimage to H&W. I got the flyer for Giant Tiger as well and they have Ragu (spaghetti sauce) for 4 for 5.00 as well as onesies – long sleeved ones for 2.93 a piece. That is something I had to virtually take ALL out of Trinity’s dressers for being too small. So important during the long and cold Alberta winters! I have a small roast to throw in the slow cooker as well!

The boys are in love with a new educational show – Cyberchase… it is a math show and the math is a bit advanced but they are enjoying it a lot. I figure it gets them interested and thinking maybe the concepts will sink in a little? Or at least foster some further interest in math and the like. I know for myself I am HORRIBLE at any of the more advanced maths. I would love for them to have a better start than I did! Here is the official site: http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/though we have not checked into it ourselves. A great one to combine with Word World and Pocoyo for this crew on a sick day!

I finally got a spare moment tonight and sat down and did up a page I printed pictures out for AGES ago! This one is more of an outfit page then and actual event. Way back when Trinity was tiny I got my hands on a precious Gagou Tagou outfit on super sale (their posher line that did not last long!). The day she wore it at church I took numerous pictures so I figured why not. I managed to come across a sweet scrapbook page at a dollarstore and there you go – perfect!! The next big one I need to do is her birthday party – I have the pictures and am more than sure the paper is there for the page… the only worry is adhesive, I KNOW I am getting down there! You almost feel like there should be big flashing red lights and warning sirens it is so dire! Well to a scrapbooker at least!

Finished Page

I am also starting to work out a plan for our Christmas cards. We are getting our portraits taken by a homeschooling family mid October but to cut costs I want to print out wallets at Walmart (4 on a page for like 40 cents or less!) and then use cardstock and emboss with Christmas stamps I have on extended loan from a friend now living in California. I have black and white and I figure silver and red (tinsel) powder… maybe save my pennies for green or try using some of the odd inks I have on hand with a diamond powder… either way I need to think about it NOW and not later! Not sure how the posting of the cards will go this year, may be a bit delayed but I am DETERMINED!

Tomorrow I will get a start on my newest pattern. The stocking is close but I need the break BADLY! So potatoes and Tux tomorrow… with Grandma and Mike added in!

Making the Best of Every Moment