January 11-14

What to do on our second weekend of 2014? Well, with the cousins in the house and the weather actually cooperating we booted as many out the door to play in the snow as possible!

Goofs

Of course there was a large portion of the day dedicated to Minecraft.

Sunday morning our 4 big ones headed off to Sunday School with the assurance that when they returned their cousins would still be there. I have to admit to loving having the kids dressed so nice once a week. And they really do enjoy their time with the teachers and kids.

In their Christmas sweaters. My step mom has some great taste!

In the afternoon Nana and Baba left to take the cousins home and we took the whole family out into the snow to create small snow forts and snowballs.

Trinity in her Christmas scarf

When Nana and Baba returned Baba came out to join the fun. Echo enjoyed herself but quickly tired of trucking through what was almost knee deep for her.

That time outside was definitely just what we needed. And of course, once they returned indoors we had some time with the games. Skylanders for Miss Trinity (who dances as she plays) and Emanuel (who hops like a bunny).

Monday was back to school and back to an in depth study of all things Chinese New Year related. We had books to read and print outs from Activity Village to do.

Book list will be in the Chinese Resources entry

We also brought out the brushes and Chinese ink Xinny gave us years ago and got to work creating Chinese Characters. We returned to our inks on Tuesday as well. It is just too much fun and so pretty.

Our ice rink and critters were ready for play! I am so impressed by how much fun the kids had with this VERY simple activity.

Miss Echo had to hug test one of my newest crochet pieces. I am currently working to get enough up to get my Etsy store back up and running. Though I have them up on Facebook under my It’s a Hoot page!!! Prices and all that are listed there so do check it out HERE.

Monday was our long awaited first swimming lessons for the twins as well!!! They ended up with private lessons as the third child was moved up to a more difficult class leaving our boys with two teachers!!

On Tuesday we were gifted with something pretty amazing. A homeschool family was downsizing some books… science, math game, some storybooks. And they were giving them away for free. I just lucked out being the first one to say we wanted them and that we would come collect them and wow were they amazing! Any time we can add to our library it is amazing! The woman who was giving them away was so pleased that we would be using them for our larger family. These books are going to be well loved! Now I just need to figure out WHERE to put them!

January has definitely been a blessed month!

October 25-27

Our next book on the grocery store unit covered the food pyramid in a fun story version. Emanuel and Trinity drew their own pyramid and we had a rousing discussion about NOT eating tons of sweets (a very good conversation to have so close to Halloween).

The days are running down to the end of our first month of reading program as well. I have set our goal at 20 sessions each per month.

Our special Daddy activity was an artistic one. A piece of our IKEA roll paper and the box of markers (I need to start replacing those… they do wear out over time and some of ours are ANCIENT) and the simple direction to – draw something Halloween-y – I love the results! I walked away from this one so I had ZERO input beyond the originating of the idea.

Saturday it was Zander’s turn to update his winter look with a new winter jacket thanks to Nana and Daddy.

Otherwise it really was just a quiet Saturday afternoon… napping, tv and stories… and… DONE.

This was all for the best as Sunday… AFTER Sunday School (of course) was Cousin Zachary’s birthday party at a malt shop. But first… a mini fashion show thanks to Gammie. She sent each of the girls and adorable Halloween themed Hello Kitty dress. I had them put on their new sparkly purple leggings and we were set to impress. (I wore my last year’s Halloween Hello Kitty shirt too to match!)

So you can see the pictures better

There was delicious malts to try…

A Skylanders themed cake…

And the birthday boy had to open his presents (he seemed to love his sock owl… Halloween themed for October).

After all that fun we headed over to what Nana and Baba call the Net Park and the kids climbed and ran until they were cold and pooped out. Everyone except Echo was climbing like a monkey out there.

And here are some more party pictures! Enjoy!

April 7-8

Sometimes there really isn’t too much you can do to help family… but Sunday we managed to do our part. Anthony is still in hospital which has Darcy there as well… and while he is better he is not yet ready to be home. So that left Andy and the remaining 3 “A’s” home alone. With a request only Ken could fill we met up with them on Sunday at BestBuy to pick up a necessary piece of equipment for our lonely sickee. We picked up our birthday present for him as well, his very own Minecraft subscription. We were going to wait until his party but as plan have stalled (of course) we figured why not now?

So with 8 kids and 3 adults (two of which were not only male but busy talking electronics), I was VERY thankful for the test electronics available for the kids to bang around on (gently of course).

8 kids at BestBuy – Not bad!

Right to the Apple products

And computers too

Where the menfolk were the whole time

After that we went over to the Novak’s to set up the specs on the new machine… Echo was rather put out not to find her Nee Nee or Darcy there!

Setting things right

Then onto our original plan of spending Easter money!  

So much fun shopping with the kids

Of course one Skylander came home as well

Monday was back to our schooling… with the good news that Anthony was heading home as well! 

We had our Mr. Popper’s penguin chapter… I am loving this lapbook we found to go with it though I have found some minor errors. I found a site with some penguin crafts… Crafty-Crafted. We chose the Paper Loop Penguin.

All at work

Completed penguins

Our second book is The Pebble First Guide to Penguins by Katy R. Kudela.

With multiple illustrations

And then to round off our day after penguins, reading, spelling and more… Wild Kratts!

The Spider Monkey

Not the busiest of Mondays but when I look back at the stack we are creating for our penguin lapbook I feel like we are really learning something new. 17 types of penguins later and so far the Macaroni penguin is the favourite — just due to the name really. There are murmurings of wanting to learn about PANDAs next… maybe!

Gotta love the new rubber boots