Back to the reflection on the rest of 2017 and September. First off, September was my month of HONEST PHOTOS. So if you search out those two words you will find weekly posts sharing that little experiment. No filters, no cropping.

This is a picture heavy month so I may split it up into two posts, plus there was the Renaissance Festival, which I will share separately. Good grief, I just made more work for myself!

Let’s see… YMCA was visited… often, as usual. This was the tail end of our summer stuff, plus a continuation of things like my work outs and the karate classes.

Zander

Neko-chan won our hearts even more, this time with OUTINGS! Yup, we chinchilla proofed our bathroom as best we could and try to let her out once a week at least. She seems to approve, though getting her into the cat carrier is a trick at the best of times.

We spent lots of time outside, with the loss of our summer walks to the YMCA we took as many as possible to the front lawn of the nearby Catholic church. They have Poke stops there as well as a lovely yard to sit in.

We started our new school year relatively quietly, really with the year round schooling and the kids really enjoying ongoing pursuits (like the nursery rhymes) there isn’t a huge need to “start fresh” in the fall. But we did do pictures and such.

Zander

Gavin

We even had a lovely special lunch.

There were a few new supplies and of course full time in the classroom once more.

Sunday School started up again, I am now a substitute teacher for the little dudes.

The siding was replaced on the house.

And on the inside we put shelving into the schoolroom that can be adjusted.

Dinner out with the godson was a family affair this time.

But we also got in some fancy dress date nights.

We finally got to meet our new niece Maevowyn. You will remember her baby shower from my post way back when. Just Ken and I went to visit since Shandai and Ravyn have a smaller apartment and we have a larger family. I am one proud aunty. You can see a photo post HERE. But first a teaser. 

And visited an amazing yarn exhibit.

I got in some crafting myself.

Echo got her school shots going.

And I got an awesome mug.

Fall fun.

A busy, people and activity filled month. Be sure to check out the overflow and the baby post and and and. Love to everyone who made it to the end of this monster post!

Well it is that time already, though maybe a little bit early being as it was on the 10th of December. Anyway, Christmas pageant at the church time! And the first year where the twins were too old to participate as Sunday School kids. The cut off at our church is when they enter Confirmation and this is their first year of that (and it seems to be going well, they do enjoy class). Instead the two of them assist different Sunday School classes each Sunday and occasionally acolyte.

This Sunday lined up nicely as it was also the Sunday that Gavin was scheduled to acolyte for the same service. Both he and Zander turned down the opportunity to read scripture for the pageant. This was Gavin’s second time acolyting which was worrying enough for him. Though he did a great job. Zander did not feel confident that he could read the scriptures properly with only a week or so notice. He tends to rush when he reads and make word errors when public speaking. Instead he assisted with the practice the day before and dressing up the kids in their costumes. I am so proud of them for stepping up and assisting with the Sunday School at our church.

Now for the other 3. This year Trinity turned down the role of Mary. Not only has she been Mary a few times, but this year there was lines and some singing solos. Nope, not happening. Instead she and Echo were angels. So we pulled out the special dresses one more time and they looked absolutely adorable.

Emanuel’s role of choice has to be one of the 3 Wise Men. We have lost a lot of our boys in Sunday School, or they were not there on Sunday so all there was was Joseph and one Wise Man, but I think they carried it off.

The kids did a special Cherub choir practiced song along with the other musical numbers. It was all rather adorable. I have a couple videos of the singing you can watch.

Ken and I managed to get a few videos taken. Though his phone randomly overheated so not everything is shown. Enjoy!!

After church they were give their yearly snack bag. The younger 3 were sweet enough to share with their big brothers. This whole too old for a program thing is something we are still working on getting used to. Zander sat with me during the service since his job was done once the kids were dressed. We worked on his sermon notes together. That one on one time is so special.

The children did a great job of sharing the message of Jesus’ birth! it is a yearly tradition I will miss once the rest of the kids are too old to participate! I even got in a few pictures myself. 

I bought the silk shawl at Renaissance Festival

And here are the rest of the group shots. A small but great group.

Welcome to the second week of my experiment… You can see the first week of photos HERE. Again, these are posted daily on Facebook and Instagram. And here we go…

DAY 8

“It was minion’s choice. We took a family walk this morning… to the Catholic Church… to play Pokémon… all sorts of educational, right?! The girls found so many butterflies in the flowers and the boys took their bikes. We picked up some trash along the way too. Happy Friday all!!!”

Bonus image DAY 8.5

“We have to get creative to take group shots. This was too planned out to be an HONEST PHOTO… But HONESTLY it is hard to get  a group shot.”

DAY 9

“I assume we are great entertainment for the YMCA front desk staff. Ken has his spot where he sits… No one expects him to work out. And the twins either stay busy or get typical teenager bored. Today that degraded into some sort of slow motion tickled/wrestling match. Yup… We are the weirdos in the lobby waiting on mom to get done with her workout. Feel free to giggle.”

DAY 10

“We came, we saw, we headed home right after Sunday School. Funny thing… Hacking kids make for abbreviated church experience. Especially when the after service activity is creating meals for the food bank. But here you have it, photo proof that I CAN dress them up AND take them out… Sort of.”

DAY 11

“How do you do it? I couldn’t teach my kid! What do they do all day? It looks too hard… Well, it is hard. All rewarding things are. And how do I do it? Trial and error. With siding being done and sick kids we do what we can, and if that is just counting woodland creatures and colouring… Well that is a success!! Worksheet is thanks to Activity Village (link on right).”

DAY 12

“I debated waiting later in the day… But… They are only so carefree and young for so long. Sometimes school is taking a walk and looking for birds. In the process having a shadow puppet war… Trinity’s bunny vs something Emanuel said would nuke it… Bunny was victorious and our shadow creating skills powered up.”

DAY 13

“Science vs Craft… This is common with our one room classroom. On the left slightly grumpy teens who had to try and figure out the seed count of a kiwi because that was one of 3 fruit I could find with seeds for some basic science. On the right loud children helping mum fulfil her glitter craft challenge from her pen pal… Glitter slime!

Did I mention slime makes Zander want to vomit? His words…”

BONUS PICTURE

“Glitter!”

BONUS BONUS PICTURE

“Then this happened…”

DAY 14

“Welcome to my late afternoon/evening reality. Crochet, entertainment, school planning, letter writing… The kitchen table is often occupied and I do like to spread out, so the bed it is. Open door so the kids are constant, but I can leave it all out and work until I am ready to crawl into bed. Organized chaos… Ask Ken what happens when he touches something.”

And that is the second set of 7 days in a blog post! As always, suggestions welcome!