September 13-19

Sometimes you need a bit of a quiet weekend, especially after the last month or so of go go go. The twins are still set on playing and collecting Pokemon cards. They have quite the personal stash going and are doing amazing at keeping their cards in their boxes and actually trying to play the game properly. I do believe they have even stopped the copious amounts of cheating! Which means soon we should be able to head to the local comic book store (The Source, though it is so much more than a comic book store) when they have gaming table set up. Emanuel cannot wait to read well enough to be able to start his own collection.

Miss Echo has resurrected her love of her Little People sets… it is quite the sight to see her drag all her sets and toys and the bucket they go into out into the living room to play. Always this must be done ALL BY HERSELF.

All too soon it was back to the daily grind. But first we had to have a discussion about what we wanted to be for Halloween. After all costume creation is never overnight. I do love hearing their crazy and not so crazy ideas, though Zander has opted to recycle last year’s costume and be a ninja two years running.

We have thrown ourselves into our new curriculum books with Echo the ever diligent supervisor.

We have begun our series of volcano learning. The goal for the twins now is to have them cherry pick their own special facts and information from tv while they watch it and record it themselves. The idea of sifting through something to find the important bits. Volcanoes is definitely a SLOOOOW unit, potentially structured over two months. We started with Magic School Bus and their visit to a volcano.

Even Echo got a turn at the worksheets. She uses her pencil with gusto!

Art for Kids (link on right) have changed things up and now are doing a once a week email out to those who subscribe where you get a few of their art instructions in a printable format. The link is good for a week and then gone. I would totally recommend you sign up. These instructions are great for any age!

We are having a bit of a teacher assistant situation going on lately. The twins have become amazing helpers!

This week we also saw off our scout for his second year of scouting!! How exciting. Note the badges sewn on AND the new neckerchief!

The boys got brand new tshirts in the mail from Gammie! They had to strike a pose and take a photo!

On Friday Renee and Jeffrey collected us (minus Echo) and we headed over to the Speltz family home. A hobby farm! We were spoiled rotten with a puppy to play with and vegetables to pick… Thank you so much to Mr. and Mrs. Speltz for the veggies, especially the hand chosen pumpkins! And Renee for the trip!

We got a few green pumpkins that Trinity has guessed with take TWENTY days to turn orange (I am rather certain it will be more than that but what a fun experiment!).

Copious amounts of carrots has us ready to make freezer carrots and enjoy the fresh veg on an everyday basis.

Later in the day Trinity and I walked down the street to a local garage sale. I love it when they are in the neighbourhood.

We ended our week with a birthday cheesecake for Baba and a group of worn out dirty kids. Showers all round and bed! What a week!

 Enjoy the extra images!

May 4-5

Another weekend another busy 2 days! And I am most certainly NOT complaining! So starting with Saturday… it was a rather special day. FREE COMIC DAY! Oh and the 4th of May (May the Forth Be With You… har har Star Wars… Har Har). We lucked out and earlier in the week got a postcard from the Source (the best comic/gaming store in the state) with all the information.

Our adult bag… sounds awful, but they had kids and adults divided…

Getting to the back of the store

Busy

So we planned in advance and met up with a childhood friend of Ken’s recently in the process of moving back to Minnesota from New Mexico, Matt. His twins who are almost 4 are also in state but they were napping so he came solo.

Ok you can JUST see the side of Matt’s face sorry

They had free comics (of course), pop and chips… oh and people all over in cosplay… everyone from Santa to Batman to WonderWoman… oh and SAILOR MOON! So of course  Trinity had to have her picture taken with her!

Sailor Moon!

Iron Patriot

We took random pictures, shopped around… and got a boardgame for Ken and the kids to play… this one is a cooperative.

The kids’ stash (repeats but lots to enjoy)

Castle Panic

Of course before we went there it was the first Saturday of the month AND Trinity’s first full month as a 5 year old we had Home Depot to enjoy first! No aprons to take home for Trinity but the guys will go earlier next month.

She DID get her first pin!

Plant Pot holders

Sunday was originally going to be Ken’s first soccer game of the beer league… BUT He ended up sick so I lucked out and got another Sunday out with Bree… Lily… AND Quinn!!! Perfect timing as Bree ended up with a car issue that meant she needed to go drop her car at the mechanics. So she was able to do that and have her inlaws drop her back at home while I hung out with the kids. As I am sure you can imagine I was NOT complaining.

My tiny charge

My able assistant

Of course this meant I was there with my CAMERA! Quinn is an avid photographer and photo subject when it comes to me and my camera. He helped me take a few… and also starred in a few himself.

Peach

Digger

Perry

And in balloon form

Add in tummy time images…

BABYYYYYYY

So many smiles today

Just general cuteness…

Babies love these bag sleepers but man do they ride up!

What a face

And a moment of milk drunk sleep…

Full tummy

It was a brilliant day… and with no car there was nothing to do but walk to the nearby DQ. Such a new thing for me… they only had hotdogs! Yummy though. So we packed the kids and the camera and headed out to enjoy the day.

In the carseat and ready to go into the stroller

Quite an interesting neighbourhood

The beauties themselves

Seriously a quirky neighbourhood… love this mailbox

We had a bath snuck in amongst the random fun… apparently sink washes are NOT fun, especially when mommy gets the idea of using the sprayer! Oops!

Seriously Aunty, put the camera down and SAVE ME

That left us the rest of the afternoon to hang out, visit, watch Perry the Platypus and take a boatload of pictures! There WILL be an overflow!!

Baby! Note the bracelet that was a gift from the nextdoor neighbours

Shhh you will just have to check back to see the rest

January 6-7

Well, we are coming to the end of our time with Ted… his flight home is the evening of the 8th – after the guys plan to go to a 3D showing of Top Gun at an Imax theatre. They are only showing it that way in select theatres and only for 8 days! A terrific final event for an amazing visit. Having Ted here has been amazing… we have had time to chat, time to play and time to just sit and hang out like we used to. Trinity and Echo has renewed their love of time with Uncle Ted and the boys have had him playing Skylanders and Legos and more. As you can tell from Trinity’s photo blog entry HERE, his iPhone was a hit as well!

And snow on top of it!

Ken dropped his parents at the airport hours before the rest of us were awake. They are gone for 7 weeks in sunny Mexico. It was definitely different not having them here… though we did take the day at a more relaxed pace. Any big change to the household seems to work best for us if we do that. So with a FINISHED Lego crane to enjoy I could not help but allow them to enjoy it to the fullest. They earned that one!

LEGOS

We watched TWO new episodes of the Wild Kratts… on Blue Jays and Grey Squirrels and the Caracal. I love it when there is an animal that I know nothing about as well like the Caracal.

Family favourite

Blue Jays and Grey Squirrels

Caracal

Our Chinese New Year work continues with Thursday being our date to start the poster assembly. We have quite a bit so I am thinking there are going to be some pockets to make and some creative space use. One more book to share… once we finish reading it… and of course our crafts to complete.

Even Batman preps for the poster

The guys have enjoyed more gaming time with Ken working from home, one break at lunch for a game and the rest of the time just us with Ken locked away. It should not be much longer before he has a desk at the office! Renovations and reorganization still to be accomplished. Such a weird but AMAZING thought – Ken is WORKING again. YAY! One more step completed, next… we work toward the ability to get our own special home… not forever as I cannot say we will be here in Minnesota forever (in fact, I am sure we won’t) but a long term home full of security and normality. Just what our family has always been working towards.

Gaming

I am rather proud of our Thursday – we wanted to get going on the poster and we did! There was cutting and pasting, taping and folding and even some using of markers. I am sure we will dabble on it a little more on Friday but it is pretty full! Granted, less of China the country and more about stories and celebrations but I think this year we had a lot of fun and learned more than a little about Chinese New Year!

We had one more book to finish with – Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures in Imperial China. We got a lovely list of inventions in this book, things like silk and umbrellas…

Our book

Inventions list

Ken worked from home again, in fact… he was AHEAD after yesterday so was able to run Ted and Sean back to the Source, (a first time for Sean) to pick up something Ted had seen and liked last time. That left me home alone with the kiddos. We tried something new today – I set up different Valentine themed stations, mainly crafts… it worked pretty well though I need MORE ideas or at least more COMPLEX ideas to keep them there long enough to actually get my bath accomplished in a relaxing fashion.

Around the table

This time round we had paper chains, making paper roses, a placemat activity sheet I got at Target, a Kai Lan book we are all working on (super simple purchase from Dollarama last year, not so much Chinese beyond Kai Lan herself but fun) and the book project the twins needed to finish. You can find the instructions for our paper roses thanks to Art for Kids on the Homeschool Classroom site HERE. I honestly think that these roses would be a great gift for ANYONE any age! I was going to put up the paperchain in the tree outside but when we laid it out with our roses in their cup… well they look so pretty together in the sunshine on the table!

Flowers and paper chains

We had another Wild Kratts to watch as well… this one about BEES!

Bzzzzzzz

I ended my evening with a visitor on top of our other visitors! Bree managed to have a decently light day of work and so was able to head over here after and spend some visiting time. She finally got to meet and talk to Ted and Sean… in fact, she played WoW with Ted eons ago! It was great to see her and Lily to be… we are on a day by day wait on the birth of the lovely Lily. When rush hour was over we headed out to Joann’s finally! I was in desperate need of some new yarn… I have a second toilet paper scarf to make AND the need to do an infinity scarf for myself. OH and I couldn’t resist the socks.

Visiting with Bree and Lily to be

Soooo soft

I am hoping to get my Facebook page sorted out for selling again this month as well! I think Bree has caught the crafting bug too… she picked up some supplies to get back to crocheting too! I love it when a friend picks up a craft again. That means someone to chat with and craft. I have missed that here in Minnesota. I had quite the crafting group in Canada.

There is nothing more fun than a box