January 14-15

How to spend a Monday with a friend with a license and absolutely no familiarity with Minnesota??? Why go shopping of course, and NOT at a single place… we had to meander and travel and risk getting lost (though we didn’t). We started at one of the smaller malls and the Macs counter – too cool! And then really explored the mall… after lunch… INDIAN FOOD!

Yum

We tried out Torrid for Karyn and hit the jackpot…

Sorry this one is not the best quality… took with my sad little phone

In fact, we visited as many stores as we could, including Toys R Us (an independent store) and another clothing store Karyn was interested in.

We had Noodles & Company for supper when we realized that leaving when we were going to would have meant sitting in rush hour traffic…

NOODLES

And then we were off across the road to another mall and MORE shopping. We figured out that we were out over 7 hours!! Not bad!!!

PURCHASES!

Tuesday marked the beginning of Ken’s training for his job… which meant he was gone for his 12:30- 6 ish day leaving us home. With 7 hours of shopping behind us we just settled in and taught the children… well sort of, I woke up with ZERO voice after a week of sore throats so that did take out some of what I could do easily. Abbreviated day or not, I think we had fun! 

Dressed up and on his way

Emanuel and Echo spent their time together making Emanuel’s dinosaur bone poster to go over his bed! The stickers are supposed to glow in the dark and do slightly. I got to place some stickers too! It was so much fun! 

Ready for posting on the wall

The boys took turn reading to their new victim… I mean Aunty Karyn. She was thoroughly impressed by their improvement in the last six months (talk about a pat on the back for Mommy!).

Zander reading

We had to break for lunch… and some outside time. It was actually a rather nice day. All FOUR of the bigger kids went out in the sun, and drug Karyn out with them for a bit!

Out in the sun

Gavin has been taking advantage of his new portable easel and the cd that came with it and already created a rather… interesting… art piece! I think his tastes are MUCH more violent than mine!

Art by Gavin

Karyn brought the kids some Dollarama craft supplies so I let the little ones loose on them for the rest of their time to glue and play and generally make a relatively contained mess.

Crafting round table

I also finished the slippers Trinity DEMANDED Karyn have in the colour Trinity said they needed to be! This also triggered interest in ALL 3 boys… so more work for me!

ORANGE

Yup, we had our Karyn and a ton of fun too!

I think we wore her out!

January 10-11

Japan for the 10th brought out our love of kitties… It was rather fun to learn all about the Maneki Neko. It is an image we have seen all over the place in our Asian learning so it was wonderful to learn some background on it. Activity Village had a great video showing part of someone’s massive collection of these adorable cats… so of course I have to share it here! There is a second part to the series but we only watched the first one.

Emanuel and his Maneki Neko keychain

Gavin has started a new project for the month… he is creating his own Lego city, one hour a day at a time! So check back often to see the progress!

Lego town begins

Ken took the kids (minus Echo who is fighting off a bug) to the nearby park that they went to days earlier with Nana and Baba. I was told there was HUGE amounts of snow… and thankfully Ken utilized our camera and took some pictures of some VERY amazing snowballs made by our 4 creative geniouses.

The perfect snow for a giant snowball

Babies… and what looks like Ken’s thumb

They took their shovels with them, that’s my kids! PREPARED!

We got some rather amazing mail as well… all the way from TEXAS! Gammie sent some belated Christmas packages. Talk about excited kids! Echo was napping but we had to open the other 4’s as soon as we could get the paper off the boxes.

The source of the excitement

So much HAPPY! Thank you Gammie!

Of course once Echo woke up we HAD TO open hers as well! She does love a good present.

Fresh out of nap

Miss Trinity was very school focused and even got a workbook completed!

So proud!

The boys worked their magic with new instructions from Art For Kids! Snowboarders! Very appropriate with our consistent snow fall.

Gavin and Zander can be quite the artists

Finishing the week with the knowledge that Karyn will be here  TOMORROW is not an easy task. Everyone is excited. But we had to persevere. Emanuel had his Japanese unit to finish with TWO different activities… first off, the relaxing (generally) and beautiful art of origami. We made a boat, pig, jumping frog, and pigeon. We used the instructions that the paper came with our Little Passports mailing and then I used this wonderful free app as well… How to Make Origami. I think the jumping frog was Emanuel’s favourite.

Our origami

Our other and final item on our Japanese cultural week was the Daruma Dolls. We wrote down some wishes and tucked away his book that we printed off of Activity Village HERE.

Wishes tucked away

We also made a special Koinobori kite to represent Children’s Day.

Kite and box

We also tried our special snack – fruit mochi… I am not sure that the kids loved it per say but it was a fun first try! I swear we could keep going and going and going with Japan. But then again, it IS a country Ken and I are interested in. (Oh, we also shared Crunchyroll and an adorable anime this week – Poyopoyo.) We will probably also view this National Geographic photo app with some gorgeous photos of Japan called Fotopedia. I also found this Kids Web Japan site that looks to be a great resource!

With our treat

Gavin did his hour of Lego creativity… we have something amazing in the works I think!

Lego on the go

Our spelling test this time went pretty well… Gavin only had one word wrong (our) and Zander perfect score (of course one of his words was I). We are working on more ideas for the boys to keep them busier during our school day. More FUN learning like Trinity and Emanuel did with Trinity’s new boardgame! Thanks Gammie!

GAMES

Here at the end of two days I have some cute completions to share too! I think I am just loving the crochet to pieces!!! There is definitely more to come!

Miss T’s slippers

The itty bitty version

January 6-7

For the first time in ages we had a truly inactive Sunday…doubly so as I had not managed to finagle a trip to JoAnn’s so even my crochet had halted… I was silly enough to start a baby gift with the pink after finishing the first half of BOTH of Trinity’s slippers only to realize that I was without a necessary amount of elastic… oops.

Poor Trinity was just not herself on Sunday and spent the bulk of the day falling asleep wherever she put her head down. Be it Baba’s chair or the beanbag on the floor. She just was run down, but thankfully no throwing up!

Sleepy little one

Monday was interesting… Emanuel and I started in on Japan… We read our Little Passports items and started in on our worksheets. I absolutely love Activity Village (flag and Kokeshi paper doll) and Education.com (kimono) for these sorts of resources. Emanuel especially appreciated the SIMPLICITY of the flag.

With his eraser shaped like sushi

Japan is right HERE

Of course we had to dinosaur it up, once I got Emanuel rolling this really was HIS DAY to learn… we had a blast talking about Japan, checking out the Compsognathus. It was the twins that pitched the most fits.

Though I DID win them all over with our tiny Valentine’s Day themed potted seeds… Poppies, Forget-me-nots and Strawberries… I am hoping we actually have a successful growth on these. I got them at Target for a 1.00 a box!

Reading the instructions (Zander)

Planting the seeds

Ken spent the bulk of his day at the DMV solving the question of the missing renewed license. That took half a day and lots of waiting… but the hope is that the issue that was NOT on Ken’s side is resolved… say a prayer!!!

The 7th was a shopping day.. well evening for us… we had to go and return our portable DVD player that we got for Christmas from Gammie… it was missing a remote control. So that was a trip to Walmart! The kids are REALLY excited about the idea of having a DVD player in the van on long trips again! 

Sleepy after the drive

It is so much fun exploring Japan with Emanuel. And the chance to start a new plant related project is always exciting. Now let’s hope they actually grow!

Our resident Kitty fanatic