Well with Christmas under out belts there is time for the review of one more seasonal themed book. Snowflake Sweethearts by Carrie Turansky was a great book for a taste of Christmas. A single mom returns to Fairhaven, Washington just in time to help where she is greatly needed in the home of a past friend (Alex Jameson, who she had a secret love for) and his suddenly ill grandmother (Irene, owner of Jameson’s Bakery). With daughter Emma (age 5) in tow, Annie Romano has her own skeletons in the closet to deal with as she helps Alex return to his faith and Irene embrace the healthier lifestyle her heart attack has necessitated.

So with romance and healing hearts there is a bakery to save, friendships to grown and pasts to reconcile with. My only dispute with this book is Annie’s views on believing in fantasy. I understand that Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy are all a financial burden but her needs to say truth is an absolute must with raising children and that to let them have that fantasy was to lie to them was a bit extreme to me.

Otherwise, I found this to be a lovely emotional journey of two people who need to learn to let go of the past and grasp the future with both hands, uncertainty and all. I do so enjoy a romantic Christmas story. 

January 15-22

We are definitely revisiting some old favourites with our Chinese New Year reading. And with each one recognizing facts we already know and gems yet to be learned. One of my favourite aspects of Chinese New Year is the celebration of prosperity, family and all things positive. We can always use a little positive energy right? We slipped in some time to make a get well soon picture for a mom I met online through a multiples group. We figure a fun picture by the children would be an even better pick me up than a simple card! I am so impressed by the lovely heart all these mommies show. Our new books definitely had the boys ready to read read read. And we made ourselves a stable for our Chinese New Year year of the horse. We got our popsicle stick instructions from Activity Village HERE. It was a goup effort. The girls used markers decorate the stick while the boys did the gluing together. This week was the week of sweet Echo pics. She is in the middle of a hat phase and 2013’s Christmas present from myself fits her better this year – a teddybear ear hat. I got the pattern off of CrochetSpot HERE. The next day we had to brush out her hair, dress her up and take a few big girl pictures too. The girls also modeled the aprons I made them for Christmas in front of the kitchen set they got from Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie! You can find that pattern HERE. Friday was a total wash with a run to deal with passports. A WHOLE morning eaten up by the rather intense application process at the only office in the state. We had an appointment time thank goodness and the poor girl had a boatload of paperwork to do. Thankfully Ken and I had wandered down memory lane and got all the transcripts that exist for Ken for the entire time he was in public school. You need that proof to show that he was in the US enough for the kids to qualify for dual citizenship. My OCD of keeping lists of our addresses, baptism forms (which are a viable secondary ID here in the US???) and all that fun stuff came in really handy as well as Nana coming along to wrangle the kids. You have to have them there for a visual confirmation of their application and both myself and Ken to agree that they should even have the darn thing in the first place! But what a gateway passports are to getting all the other ID set up like Social Security and sorting our kids out so that they are set to live in either country! Lucky babies!

After all that government related fun the kids kicked back with some gaming. Funny how touch screens are natural to them!! Our weekend was a quiet one. Saturday there was lots of time to play with those new toys… and for Trinity to work on her sticker book. One of those lovely ones where you pick up sticker packs and collect what you need. Of course on Sunday they had Sunday School and an excuse to take ANOTHER picture of them all dressed up. I look forward to spring when going as a whole family and staying for service will be much more reasonable. We did luck out with the Sunday afternoon thaw. It was so nice that the kids were out there without coats, shovels in hand to help clear out the driveway. We are not on the best side of the street for the sun to melt it all away completely. We are loving the idea we found on Facebook of freezing coloured water in balloons to freeze and then burst and display. Nana and the kids have expanded to include freezing coloured water in other containers to add to what they are now calling her ice garden. My favourite is the blue balloon. We started the next week with dinosaurs… potty sticker sheets (still spotty luck on that one)… and well dressed scouts… and boys in the mood to learn how to swim!

On Tuesday we roped Daddy into teaching us about the first of 3 Chinese locations – the Great Wall (which became Trinity’s favourite). I have to admit to some interest myself on that amazing landmark.

With a Lego rendition of a portion of the wall

Of course we continued with other learning leaning to China and all things Chinese New Year. We used Activity Village AND the official Kai-Lan site thanks to Nick Jr. HERE. Even Echo is getting in on the language practice.

We had a short reflection on what we could remember so far about China and Chinese New Year. I do love seeing what sticks in their brains.

And of course more stories.

We rounded off our first half of the week with some lovely dragons all ready to dance thanks to the generosity of Lakeshore. At our last visit to them to craft it up we mentioned we could not make this upcoming week… Ken had his vasectomy scheduled. So the girl gave us the shapes to add to our own paperbags. I had the presence of mind to photocopy this for future use!

Miss Trinity had a proud workbook completion…

And Emanuel lost ANOTHER tooth. So time for a tooth fairy note!

More Chinese Characters…

books…

and creative time…

With the kids covering Terracotta warriors with Daddy! 

I think we are well on our way to enjoying our countdown to our second very special New Year celebration of our year.

July 19-20

One week after planting our beans are AMAZING! Though I am told one set should be bushier. The twins are working together on their charts and the little ones are doing theirs in their nature journals. I think it is time to pot them!

We really got into the manipulatives… those math cubes and pieces are just too much fun for everyone.

Gavin has pulled out his sewing and started a new, smaller project. We are working on getting him going again to make a few gifts to send to loved ones up north. He wants them to have something to remember him by!

Of course, after lunch what is more fun than getting BACK into the pool??? Dirty as it was!

Our Saturday was a special one – Ken agreed to (since he has been injured and limping even not able to drive for so long post soccer injury) take the whole day and just run our errands. So we packed up our list, a picnic lunch, swim suits (just in case), the kids and got out and about.

First to the quick errands and then to Lakeshore in time for the craft of the week – making foam visors!!!

A few more errands and then time for a lake… well RIVER leading into a lake we could SEE… picnic. Lots of running around for the kids…

And finally, the unveiling of the new shoes! I do so love the style!

Emanuel made sure to draw his picture for the tooth fairy requesting a dinosaur item.

I did rather well with my shopping… I got some lovely workbooks from Target for 1.00 a piece and a relevant to the next big focus (lions) Magic Treehouse book… our first! (that was a used bookstore find)

It was an excellent day spent as a family out and about!