February 17-18

It can be difficult to fly home sometimes… especially if you are dealing with Air Canada, your name is Sean and you are flying through Toronto. Yup, the gong show that has been trying to get Sean home continues on. This time Ken and Sean took off to the airport for a 7:30 am flight to Toronto onward only to realize when Ken was half way home that the flight he had been booked to replace his cancelled (due to weather) flight was for TUESDAY! He had originally had a horribly long flight replacement, called to change it and not a word was said about the date! OOPS! Next flight – MONDAY morning. GROAN.

Still here

Of course now I seem to have gotten a sore throat and we have finally figured out why the last two days Echo has been so horrible… runny nose and then some. So a new cold is going around it seems. So that leaves Monday’s schooling up in the air. However, I am happy to report that Gavin’s punishment of no electronics for various crimes against the state so to speak had him much more creative in his time and thinking harder about his behaviour! Score one for Mommy and tough discipline measures. He spent A LOT of time outside playing in the sunshine while others watched a show or two and in doing convinced this sibling or another to come out with him.

I did do a 4th try on the hairstyle. I should relink the instructions here as well… so HERE you go! Lizzie Bennet Diaries for the win!

Day 4

We successfully saw Sean off on Monday at least… though that corresponded with yours truly hitting good and sick! A state of affairs that threw out our lesson plan and instead had the kids watching LOTS of tv and hanging with Echo while I rested.

I was rather put out, we were all ready to start reading about the platypus! We are going to make a lapbook and start our St. Patrick’s Day poster this week. I will have a separate blog entry with ALL our platypus links, etc put together for those interested. I am hoping we can start doing an animal or two of interest a month, learn more about the world around us and the animals we may never see in person!  

Celebratory end of the day Charlie and Lola (YES Another favourite!!!)

February 15-16

And so we come to the end of our week… and of Sean’s visit. Ken and Sean had an evening of shopping and a movie to round off Sean’s visit. That left myself and the kids home to do schoolwork… the special Friday dinosaur time? Watching episodes of Poet Plays with Dinosaurs on youTube. I have posted the link to the first episode HERE.

Sean!!

To go into Emanuel’s binder the boys all banded together and drew some pictures of what they saw there. Apparently this is now the mod to have for our family and there have been MULTIPLE requests that I get Daddy to add it to their Minecraft.

Working together

We finished some Valentine’s Day themed colour by numbers.

Completions

I did a take 2 on the hairstyle and then in the evening ran out to Target with Ken to get some hair mousse to help contain the hair a bit… oh and some black elastics instead of the coloured ones I have been using.

Take 2

We said good bye to Sean on Saturday. The kids were all rather put out that he was going home and that I was cracking down on the rules even more. It is funny how with Nana and Baba gone on vacation the behaviour they mostly held in check for their benefit has EXPLODED! I foresee A LOT of time outs and technology withdrawal in their future. And then we said hello again when his flights got cancelled due to weather in Toronto! Next flight out – Sunday morning… 7:00 am, through Toronto AGAIN!

Bibi hunting

Take THREE of the milk maid braids was even better than the previous 2. I bought some mousse for curl control with the hope it will control my wave a little and help hold the braid shape. So far so good! Next I attempt the gel eyeliner…

Getting better each time

I have decided that once a week we will have a technology free day for the kids… we have so many random toys and educational items that they just do not touch. This afternoon I turned off the cartoons and had them dig through drawers and cupboards after a particularly annoying bought of whining over show choices. I want my grateful children back… lately we have had whiners and a lot of fighting. Oh well, phases.

I love this kind of active clutter

So we had a rather eventful uneventful start to our weekend!

Ok so I had to share this – POCOYO on TV here in the USA !!! YAY

February 8-9

And… Ted ALMOST gets on his plane and home on schedule. There is weather a coming apparently and it hit Toronto (his stopover) closing down the airport before he could get in the air here in Minnesota. So Ken and Sean dropped him off, got mostly home and had to turn around and come back. This is AFTER they had lunch, shopped a little more AND went to Top Gun in 3D at Imax! That left me and the kids home alone for the bulk of the day. So of course  there was school work to do…

Breakfast with Uncle Ted

Sneaking in an extra night

BOTH boys got 100% on their main words and Gavin even got Reinsch right. I am tossing it on the list but not counting it toward their totals as it IS tricky. So even if they get it right we do it the next week too, memorization!! In celebration of words well done they headed outside to play in the snow.

The tests

It was actually a rather decent day so the kids went out multiple times throughout the day.

The great white outdoors… American version

The poster was an all out success… we all had a hand in it. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing the Chinese Characters.

So proud of our work

We also assembled our fireworks. Note the characters on those too… Gavin helped Ken and I with those! You can find the instructions on Activity Village under Chinese New Year crafts (the link for the site is on right).

Gavin and our work

We also spent some time with a paper pack I got on sale at Michaels to make some special Valentines. Sadly the post office has been hard to get to so I have a bit of a stack of mail to add some of these too!

Special Valentines

A Saturday is always a bit slower, except when you add in even MORE company!

Best buddies

Teaching Quinn to play Skylanders

Bree and I worked together to create, from scratch, fortune cookies!

Finger burning perfection

I love it when Echo gets a chance to hang out with her American God Mommy! It was too bad Scott was busy. 

Snuggles

We actually had Steven here as well, he brought Quinn over and then Bree picked him up. So we had a full house! Of course the men were more… boring and thus no pictures… but the kids kept us entertained!

About the same size!

We finally got Bree and Quinn to open their gifts from Christmas! I promise pictures of Quinn in his scarf later!

Opening presents

So we had company coming and going… Now we are slowly slipping into real life – soon Sean will head home too and then… Ken goes OUT to work and it is just the 5 of us! Can we do it??? 

Why so serious???