May 17-18

I am so proud of the boys… our Mother’s Day lapbook is officially complete! They worked so hard on it!!

Front

Back

Proud boys!

Add in the final chapter of our Mr. Popper’s Penguins (right on schedule) and we are really making our self (and library) imposed deadlines. Though on Monday we have to cover Antarctica in a little more detail.

Ga The End

We had some of our magazines show up from the subscriptions Gammie got the kids! Instant stop and look!

Magazines

We got in a game of Dora themed Candyland…

Candyland!

The art just kept coming!

Gavin and Emanuel at work

Zander’s birthday card for his god daddy

By Trinity

Because a grid looks “cool” (Zander)

Nana and Baba went out to the new Star Trek movie and brought the kids home some cards that were handed out when they pre purchased their tickets. Echo was CERTAIN at at least one of the pictures was of her Daddy!

Cards spread out for viewing

We have made certain that everything possibly completed has been on a rather rainy Friday. Poor Echo seems to have the same allergy to bug bites as her sister and had a couple swollen bites on her left knee to contend with.

I have started a new large project – a blanket for the family to use on picnics. I am NOT going to link the pattern as I chose a variegated and Ken the grey and the result is NOTHING like the original cut and dry geometric pattern… and I LOVE it!

I figured after all these completions they had earned some Minecraft time… so in the end a good week for all of us!

Signs of Spring

Saturday we took the bigger 4 garage sale hunting (leaving Echo at home with Baba) and spent some time in the backyard while Ken helped with setting up the next step of the straw bale garden.

Setting up the frames

Our garage sale trip resulted in a few cute pieces of clothing for the girls… some books…

We are starting the Mrs Piggle-Wiggle on Monday

And a game where you shoot little metal balls back and forth across some sort of a board. I think we did rather well! Definitely something we will repeat.

The mighty hunters of good deals

New game

And of course I took some photos of our resident adorable baby.

With ball in hand

I am very proud of her hat! I cannot get over how helpful and handy crocheting has become!

And that was just the beginning of our weekend!!!

Skirt flared out

This weekend has been full of both high points and low points. Thankfully the low points were nothing we were incapable of handling and the high points were actually shared with terrific friends.

I will start with the sad stuff – yesterday morning Ken was alerted to the fact that our friend Xinny’s grandfather had finally passed on. He had been sick for a while and hospitalized so it was no a shock (they were actually surprised he had hung on as long as he had) but still certainly a difficult thing to deal with. This has cancelled our Sunday plans with the family for a playdate for our kids. I am unsure right now what this means for Xinny and Alan’s trip to China. I know she has been looking forward to heading back there for years now.

Later in the same day my sister in law twittered that her grandmother back in Texas had also passed on. She too had been sick for quite some time. Circumstances are such that I am doubting she and our nephew will be able to head back south for the funeral. This is one of those moments where I wish we lived closer so  I could DO something, send some food over… watch the kiddo…

The loss of a beloved family member is never easy, no matter how sick they have been. I remember when my Grandma MacLean passed, we had known she was not in the best of health but still it was hard, I still miss my Grandpa Reinsch now gone 9 yrs. My Grandpa MacLean also passed that same year. In fact, both Ken and myself each have one surviving Grandmother. There are so many things one could say or not say for that matter but I guess it is all the personal journey now. You really can’t fix the loss of a loved one, just live through it. But I am sending my love and prayers to both sets of families.

The rest of my Saturday was MUCH more positive. We made our foray into Value Village on the hunt for pillowcases (and peripherally a snowsuit for Trinity – though the price was just not right for what little they had there). I managed to find two suitable pillowcases – one in pink gingham and the other a more fleece type material. 99 cents a piece.

Pillowcases

There was one pair of jeans in Emanuel’s size for 1.99 and two little books for 99 cents that I also picked up. Otherwise the children’s clothes was really not that much of a deal. At Superstore I can get pieces for Trinity for around 12.00. So I figure I will check their prices when we head to mom’s next weekend as well as going to the nearest GoodWill. I am hoping to find a snowsuit for Trinity for under 20.00 which may have me hunting on eBay… of course with her being 18 months in the winter I may find something elsewhere for cheap but I am not going to be too too optimistic.

Last night was the ultimate pick me up! For Ken who has been working so hard to feel and BE better I made up a loaf of banana bread from the last of my bananas and then we had Chris, Chris, Nathan and Ada over for gaming!

Nathan and Ada With Slurpee (We all had our large cups!)

So no D&D but we did play Chez Geek! So much fun! Ken is now hooked and has read through all the instructions (Chris and Chris have expansions). It looks like we will be pricing out buying either Chez Dork or Chez Goth. Definitely a game we enjoy and could probably hook MORE of our friends on! We are always on the look out for more games.

Chez Geek

So for our evening I baked a dozen of my applesauce muffins (Nathan alone ate 6 muffins! ), brought out the last of my oatmeal applesauce cookies (I really have to make another batch of those today or tomorrow as the kids and I love them for breakfast! They really are not too high in sugar), some sugar cookies (sent a dozen home with Nathan and Ada) and of course the fresh from the oven banana bread! This is one of the recipes my mom gave me. The kids LOVE it with chocolate chips added in (of course we do not have those in the house) and Ken just loves it without. The loaf was gone by the end of the night except for the two pieces I saved for the kids in the morning. YUM!

Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup bananas mashed

1 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (we left these out)

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, beating until smoother. Add mashed bananas and blend.

In a second bowl, stir flour with baking soda, baking powder, salt (and nuts if you like). Add to banana mixture stirring only to moisten. Transfer to a greased 9x5x3 (23x12x7 cm) inch loaf pan.

Bake in 350 F (180 C) oven for about 1 hr. until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let stand 10 min. Remove from pan and place on cake rack to cool. Wrap to store.

Gone Before I Could Even Get a Picture!

I have started participating in something new on BigFish games. With having my own little subpage of reviews and such and listing my favourite games if someone else does any shopping off of my site then I get a reward! I figure I love their games anyway and I don’t mind writing up a quick blurb for the ones I play why not! So feel free to click on my page link and see if you like any of them too! I have been a part of the club for a year (as I mentioned previously) and have found they have GREAT variety! Who knows maybe I can reward myself up a few extra games to give away or something?

http://www.mygamespace.com/Ayjah

This morning had us off to H&W on our weekly produce adventure. Taber corn this time, as well as Granny Smith apples at 1.50 for a 3lb bag (I got two bags – one to eat and one to see how much sauce 3lbs of apples will make!). Bought a cantaloupe and am debating freezing half of it for winter smoothies. We decided not to go to church this week – Ken has work to do to catch up on his last week’s appointments and next weekend is Sunday School registration. The boys HATE going to church and then NOT going to Sunday School – you would think we lied to them or something! So I am taking advantage of this time to get stuff sorted for next week for school – more printing out of letters for the lapbooks and hunting for crafts through the library books. As well Ken has gotten me my newest cross stitch pattern – Dr. Who themed! A bit more complicated than the previous ones we are definitely going to have to tweak the pattern before I can consider posting it here. I have decided to stitch it on a yellow beige aida instead of my usual white – give it a more parchment look. Hopefully it will suit the stitch in the end!

Beginnings of Dr. Who!

The stocking is also coming along nicely! I am hoping to get started on the lettering this week as I have finally done stitching all the way to the top of the image. I figure if I can get the lettering done I will get a new burst of interest and just bang it out. I have to start on Trinity’s Halloween costume this week as well (still need to find some sort of green top or sleeper…) so my time is REALLY going to be divided!

Stocking Progress!

I finished the stitch for my nephew in all its shiny Star Trek glory! This will be the first pattern we post on site too hopefully as I know of at least one other stitcher who wants to give it a go! I need to figure out how I can finish it off in a relatively affordable way but I am VERY happy with how it turned out. Definitely one of my more costly projects materials wise! But the actual project looks so nice and shiny!!! (I will post a picture when I post the pattern!)

When we got home from the store there was a dragonfly in the middle of our sidewalk – a BIG one… it sat there forever, Ken even pushed it slightly and it didn’t move though when I looked back later it was gone! What a neat thing for the boys to see and we managed to get some terrific pictures of it!

Dragonfly

We tried a new recipe for dinner tonight – one my sister in law had twittered she was making! I took this recipe and altered it to not use frozen meatballs as we find it cheaper to make our own. I am going to try and make extra meatballs the next time we do up a nice large batch and freeze them and then try the recipe that way as well! So I will include both recipes – the one for the cheesy meatball subs with my changes as well as the meatball recipe we like to use.

Meatballs

4 lb lean ground beef, 2 cup crushed crackers, 1 large onion (diced small), 2 eggs, italian seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic powder. Mix together all ingredients. Mixture should be able to be formed easily into balls about 2 inches wide with hands. Preheat oven to 400 degree and cook for 20-25 minutes.

Meatballs

Cheesy Meatball Subs

COMBINE first 4 ingredients in large skillet. Bring to boil on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. (we combined everything but the meatballs and brought them up to a nice simmer and then added in our already warm fresh meatballs and cooked for a bit to get the flavour)

SIMMER on medium heat 8 min. or until meatballs are heated through, stirring occasionally.

SPOON into rolls; top with mozzarella.

We also put our buns in the oven for a few minutes first – cut open to brown. This recipe makes 4 we of course made more than that.

Cheesy Meatball Sub

Next time we will season our spaghetti sauce more but mmm so good! I think the parmesan Ragu would be better than the original but all 4 boys gobbled theirs down. Trinity had a lovely finger food meal with her very own meatball!

Trinity's Dinner

So it was not an overly exciting weekend but I would say a good one and we still have one more day! Thank goodness for long weekends, though Ken IS going to have to do some work downstairs. I figure we will take advantage of his doctor’s advice and get started on an evening walk for the whole family, I figure nightly is a bit too much but maybe twice a week or more? Here’s hoping tonight’s windstorm blows past us by morning!

Me and My Baby

Why is it that every “W” word in my vocabulary today is one that is inherantely frustrating? Ok so the first 3 have positive uses but the last one… now don’t worry intrepid reader… this will not be a “woe is me” type entry in the blog that is Lisa’s life. Merely a momentary blip before I go over what ELSE has gone on in our rather cloudy and mildly rainy day.

So basically today was not exactly a day that “went as planned”… The weather did NOT co-operate for us to go to the homeschool park date which was quite the let down for all concerned. Even though there was not a TON of rain Trinity’s cough has me concerned enough that I don’t want to be trekking her out in unknown weather. After all this weekend is setting up to be BUSY! The boys were very upset about the cancellation and so were quite happy to act out… to the point where poor Emanuel came up with a smacked up face! I did figure out who the culprit was and had him appologize and give hugs. I am still at a bit of a loss as to how to stop the minor lying going on but I am working on it. All of this and Trinity not having a decent nap led to a cranky enough Lisa that Ken sent ME to nap! ACK!

Looks WAY Worse in Person!

Ok so now onto much better things (see I told you it would be worth the wait!)… I got a TERRIFIC surprise today in the mail, a package! One of the ladies from my online sewing group Chatty Stitchers Exchangers (a yahoo group of ladies who cross stitch – talk about a TERRIFIC group) – Sherry – sent me some cardstock she had extra and then in the midst of a cleaning binge sent me CHRISTMAS CRAFT SUPPLIES! Talk about Christmas in July! The kids are ecstatic and I already have ideas brewing! Everything from pipe cleaners to pom poms to coloured googly eyes (the boys are REALLY excited about those!). So keep an eye peeled for Christmas crafts and be ready – Christmas this year in the Reinsch-Johnson home is going to be HOMEMADE! My favourite kind!

Christmas in July!!!

So since we couldn’t do the park thing I decided to have each boy sit down with a piece of paper and his box of crayons and make a picture for Grandma Anna, her birthday was the 26th and we will see her this Saturday. Since she and Mike are riding on the Harley to the gathering I figured the pictures would fit in their storage compartment. So each boy did his rendition of Harley the puppy. I was very strict with Emanuel and made him draw  HIS OWN picture without help and was quite pleased with the results. Now all I have to do is make a little coloured folder to keep them in. I also need to take some time tomorrow and get Trinity’s thumbprint on the card. I want to do up a few extra to keep for her baby book and maybe give to her god-mommies. (Another craft for a rainy day in this house has got to be thumbprint people…)

Harley By Emanuel

Harley By Gavin

Harley By Zander

Ken spent some time taking Sean to get his vehicle and when he did finally get back came bearing the much needed diapers and milk (can’t go without either in this house!) AND my tickets for the Heritage Festival! EXCITING! AND on top of that Sean took him out for brunch and sent a meal for me. Steak and potatoes… I ate the steak and the boys ate the potatoes. Mmm. See how the day is picking up?

Add to that my raspberry harvest for the day! What a bountiful harvest it was! I had to go out after my nap so only went out once instead of my customary twice a day but I think I got all the ripe ones. Ken spent at least an hour out there cutting back more of the weeds and long grass around the bushes. This is so going to simplify my battle with the bushes and maybe even give me a bit more of an advantage. Right now I have tons of scratches on my arms!

Today's Harvest

So as a reward for all his hardwork Ken pulled down our blender and took some of our strawberries, a little sugar and milk and made strawberry milk! Not my kind of beverage (unless you add some ice cream which we are not in the way of budgetting into the house right now) but all 4 of my boys thought it was delish! Supper was less of a success, I added chicken oxo to rice and well, EMANUEL LOVED it… everyone else… not so much…

Strawberry Milk

I have started the next Star Trek themed project! For my nephew and all done in *gulp* shiny braids and potentially blending filament… it will be the insignia from the Star Trek uniform and hopefully will turn out as well as Ken’s pattern makes it look. I am loving the help with design and am hoping to post the one I did for my sister in law (pattern that is) on the site to be downloaded and used very soon. The one for my cousin as well. No picture tonight but maybe tomorrow if Trinity lets me sew tonight? Her cough is keeping her up and she is rather demanding of the Mommy attention.

So for all the W’s (we are still Waiting on TWO things related to Ken – one should be resolved either way by the middle of August) today may have started out rocky but a surprise in the mail, tickets in hand and raspberries by the bowlful and I think I can handly the most difficult W of them all – Worrying – as Ken says something I am VERY good at, but you know what? Sharing my worries and talking to friends, admitting to fears and working through issues with Ken… well I am getting much better at letting go of that W and moving more into WAITING which is a little easier to deal with. After all sometimes the things we wait for are TERRIFIC right? Even SURPRISING! And who doesn’t love a surprise???