July 23 NOTE I totally screwed up and posted these out of order, but after weeks of this… not bad, one mess up!!!

The Novaks are not the only kids we are familiar with… so Monday was our chance to meet up with Bree and her son Quinn (I have mentioned him in the past… he is basically Trinity’s birthday buddy who was born the day before Trinity). I am so happy to share that Bree is expecting her second child!!! This is huge for us as when she was pregnant with Quinn and I with Trinity we were a country apart… funny enough, as we were leaving Canada our friends Kristen and Fydo ALSO announced that they are expecting their FIRST child!! Baby time!!!

Anyway… Monday afternoon we had Quinn and Bree over for a visit. Emanuel and Quinn bonded very quickly over Thomas.

Such a cutie

In fact, they brought special gifts for all of the kids except Echo who has to wait the few weeks until her birthday. Emanuel was over the moon with his Angry Birds blanket, and Trinity with her Hello Kitty themed stickers and nail polish. The twins have an iTunes card to use to buy apps once I get the iPad moved over to the US stores. Such thoughtful gifts!

Note the blanket

After fun in the sun room and watching cartoons together it was time to debate supper… since Bree had never been and Ken hadn’t in 3 years we decided on White Castle. It did not go over too well BUT it was fun and it was something we definitely wanted to try once with the kids.

NOT huge fans

Smiles

Echo with her American Godmommy

After sliders Bree took us all out for ice cream at a place a wee bit more familiar – Dairy Queen. 

ICE CREAM

Our 4 year olds

By this point it was sprinkling so we nixed the park idea and decided to head home for bed. It was a wonderful visit, with the promise of many more! 

Sadly through all this Nana had to go out to emergency to be checked out. It turns out she (and we later find out Zachary) was diagnosed with strep throat. Thankfully it seems only those two were caught with it. But not fun for Nana with 48 hours in quarantine. Thank goodness she had a bathroom of her own and a tv at her disposal. 

Of course we started our school time

Trinity and her Pre-K workbook

Emanuel and his Kindergarten review

I had an interesting link emailed to me recently from a site that caters to finding Nannys for families. With our rather mild winter going from cold to warmer weather and back again clothing is always a concern. As is the storage of the same. I know with Trinity we are always out of space and with the twins always trying to find a way to make the pieces we have stretch. So feel free to check out their article titles 10 Ways to Condense Your Kids Clothing Needs. Thanks to NannyNet for the interesting article! As always, if you have an article on your site, or one you have come across and think should be shared please email it to me! I love to pass along information!

Remember the accessories

So I mentioned Echo walking. I have a brief video of it. I plan on getting a better one when Ken has some spare time. She tends to need incentive and if it is just me and the camera in front of her and no one behind her she is right back to crawling to get to me faster. 

Our birthday boy is 6 now and VERY proud of it! We had French toast for lunch to celebrate (a loaf and a half to feed all 7 of us plus Sean) and then he and I made the birthday walk to get a slurpee (no allowance required). A very sunny day I took multiple pictures, we will see if one of them turns into his yearly photo. 

So sunny

Where did my baby go?

Gavin made Emanuel’s name out of Legos and a Thomas themed Lego train so of course we had to have the twins hold up a sheet and take MORE pictures. They are just so Emanuel… the semi wild almost curls… one of his favourite sweaters… My baby is all grown up!

Emanuel

Our afternoon was quiet with some play time outside and Trinity taking a looooong nap. The boys built the dinosaur jumbo puzzle together and basically did whatever Emanuel was interested in. That, of course, included the Thomas computer game!

I have started a small cross stitching project, something I had hoped I would have done by Christmas. I have helped fill Kathy’s walls with art (her family are all very creative as well) so now I have to find a new series of presents for Christmas. Ideas ideas… I need more ideas!!

In fact, Kathy came today especially to help celebrate Emanuel’s birthday… she brought cupcakes from a place called Crave Cupcakes. Total decadent and YUM. She really does spoil us! We sang happy birthday to Emanuel and then had him blow out his special candle. She and I also ran out and did the birthday shopping… all 3 items on sale or a super low regular price. I think they will all be very pleased. I wish Ken could have come with us (as we DO have Sean here) and shopped but he is still SUPER busy. Contracts to finish off and 3 large ones started this past month… I am so proud of him!

Birthday cupcake

So today my baby boy is 6… tomorrow we have a break before my big boys celebrate #8… Where has the time gone???? 

With his Valentine for his godparents

‘Tis getting close to the season… so I will share a few links I have come across already!! Ok so my usual UK site led me to THIS UK site… We are already sifting through their ideas here at home. The big activity we are onto for gift making this year is the felt ornaments (yes yes continuing the felting theme). My new interest in feltie has had both of the twins ask to make ones themselves and the simpler Christmas shapes are a great introduction and practice for them and small stitches. But back to the fun stuff… last year we did the Advent Calendar on our favourite UK site! NOW Activity Village is a UK site so I was able to get the next day (they release it day by day) early in the evening and print off for the next day. Last year was ornaments… we coloured and then cut them out, and I laminated each one! We are really looking forward to seeing what THIS year’s is! (I think the year before you coloured a page a day and made a book!)

Besides my mother’s sugar cookie recipe there is a favourite CAKE recipe that we make each year. Chocolate Candy Cane Cake! It is a Kraft recipe and total yum! Of course I will be making it at least ONCE this year! 

Today was a much better day attitude wise. I only REALLY had problems with Gavin and those were mostly resolved by giving him his allowance and taking him to buy his slurpee. The rest of the kids have opted to hold onto theirs and go to the Dollarama this week for a 1.00 item. They were also given a rather special treat – once all the schoolwork was done that we could do with at least a partially upbeat attitude Ken drug out our Rubbermaid tub of Thomas the train wooden train pieces. Sadly the train table (not Thomas brand) is slightly damaged post move and stowed away but we made do with the top. 

Workbooks...

Snowflakes

And then train time with Dancing!

The felt is all cut for the start of their Christmas projects so that is on the list for tomorrow. We are talking about giving and how special it is to MAKE something for a loved one. I want to instill that in them young as I love making a gift and love receiving them just as much! As well as it teaches them new skills, creativity… blah blah blah. 

And now I am sure we did MUCH more in a day but wow am I out of it with the crafting… Lauralee and Karyn took the little two to the library event where the theme was DOGS. Apparently much fun was has by all!

It's a puppy

We got some lovely mail I will share with you tomorrow and I am back to work on my cross stitching! It feels good to be back on it, even if I am working on black (yuck). So enjoy the Christmas links… and I hope to  be more cohesive in my blogging tomorrow! 

Happy Baby Fun Time