January 14-15

How to spend a Monday with a friend with a license and absolutely no familiarity with Minnesota??? Why go shopping of course, and NOT at a single place… we had to meander and travel and risk getting lost (though we didn’t). We started at one of the smaller malls and the Macs counter – too cool! And then really explored the mall… after lunch… INDIAN FOOD!

Yum

We tried out Torrid for Karyn and hit the jackpot…

Sorry this one is not the best quality… took with my sad little phone

In fact, we visited as many stores as we could, including Toys R Us (an independent store) and another clothing store Karyn was interested in.

We had Noodles & Company for supper when we realized that leaving when we were going to would have meant sitting in rush hour traffic…

NOODLES

And then we were off across the road to another mall and MORE shopping. We figured out that we were out over 7 hours!! Not bad!!!

PURCHASES!

Tuesday marked the beginning of Ken’s training for his job… which meant he was gone for his 12:30- 6 ish day leaving us home. With 7 hours of shopping behind us we just settled in and taught the children… well sort of, I woke up with ZERO voice after a week of sore throats so that did take out some of what I could do easily. Abbreviated day or not, I think we had fun! 

Dressed up and on his way

Emanuel and Echo spent their time together making Emanuel’s dinosaur bone poster to go over his bed! The stickers are supposed to glow in the dark and do slightly. I got to place some stickers too! It was so much fun! 

Ready for posting on the wall

The boys took turn reading to their new victim… I mean Aunty Karyn. She was thoroughly impressed by their improvement in the last six months (talk about a pat on the back for Mommy!).

Zander reading

We had to break for lunch… and some outside time. It was actually a rather nice day. All FOUR of the bigger kids went out in the sun, and drug Karyn out with them for a bit!

Out in the sun

Gavin has been taking advantage of his new portable easel and the cd that came with it and already created a rather… interesting… art piece! I think his tastes are MUCH more violent than mine!

Art by Gavin

Karyn brought the kids some Dollarama craft supplies so I let the little ones loose on them for the rest of their time to glue and play and generally make a relatively contained mess.

Crafting round table

I also finished the slippers Trinity DEMANDED Karyn have in the colour Trinity said they needed to be! This also triggered interest in ALL 3 boys… so more work for me!

ORANGE

Yup, we had our Karyn and a ton of fun too!

I think we wore her out!

October 26-27

I am living a life in fast forward some days… and when you sleep in due to a scratchy throat it feels even faster! Add to that TWO interviews for Ken at two different companies and you have a half day of running solo. Good practice for when he is employed again (God willing hopefully VERY soon).

Showing off some Alumni pride

Anyway… even with a late start we managed to do our every day stuff and then move onto TWO chapters of our book with mini pictures and one sentence summaries and then HALLOWEEN COLOURING! Gotta get in the spooky and silly pictures in spades. You can find some terrific printouts on the Activity Village site right HERE.

Our monsters in the fridge

Halloween stories in a tent (Zander)

As is our pattern in regards to our dinosaurs Friday was NOT a new dinosaur day. Instead Emanuel drew his FAVOURITE so far – the Plesiosaur. 

Well done Emanuel!

Echo has become quite the little techno whiz. She knows how to turn off Baba’s Kindle and play a drawing app as well as watch the fishies. She knows where ALL the electronics are hiding and is very happy playing with them

Hard at work

Saturday was a double whammy for activity. We started at Toys ‘r Us for their special free Lego activity. The kids got to QUICKLY make a castle out of the new Legos and then were each given a little package that has a Lego skeleton, bats, spider, web, etc. They had a VERY limited quantity and even with getting there early we were like 6th in line. So no Lego for Echo but 4 very happy big kids! 

Creating

Some of the freebies

Ken had dropped us off at the store and then ran to get gas so he was VERY surprised that we were able to get through the line and the activity so quickly, even before he got back! But they were PACKED so we rushed.

Zander’s castle

Trinity’s (with Mommy’s help)

Gavin’s

Emanuel’s (using one of his brother’s bases to add to)

After all that excitement it was  time for even MORE with a first for our family – a birthday party for our nephew Zachary. Our first cousin birthday here in the states. There was our family and the cousins from my sister-in-law Faith’s family. As usually ours is the largest. BUT beyond our niece Gabriella we have the only girls!

Baba and his girls

Apparently Zachary is a HUGE Angry Birds fan… cake, decorations, the goodie bags… all according to theme.

CAKE

Note the decoration theme

There was toys in the basement, playing in the backyard and of course cake and ice cream in the dining room. The kids had a blast.

Playing games

All of Gabriella and Zachary’s cousins (both sides)