It honestly feels like we have been go go go pretty much non-stop since Friday! But in a GOOD way. So, back to Friday… Our morning was a bit hectic as we had to get everyone settled earlier than usual. My Uncle Wayne needed a ride to his eye doctor (who happened to not be overly far from the office where we ordered Zander’s glasses). Since he needed his eyes dilated he was not supposed to drive anywhere immediately after his appointment. So Ken and Zander left with Uncle Wayne to pick up Zander’s glasses while Uncle Wayne did his appointment. Unless there is a cancellation sooner, he will be back in the city in August for cataract surgery. If there is a cancellation before we move out of town we will get to have Uncle Wayne for 3 days! The kids would be over the moon.

Glasses and all

While those 3 were out doing the glasses thing a friend of mine from college – Kathy got in for a visit. She lives a little over 3 hours away in the same city as my brother. Her schedule wouldn’t allow her to come for the birthday party so instead she came by for a half day visit on Friday. It was nice to get a chance to catch up, and once the men returned she and I went to The Mall for New York Fries Poutine. Kid free we had a lovely hour or two of time to catch up and just generally hang out. She hung around until almost 5pm before having to head back home. OH and added treat – part of the Christmas present she gave me was back ordered and had finally come in. Another volume of Teresa Wentzler‘s cross stitch patterns! I have to admit a fondness to her designs (from what I understand she has retired) though they are VERY time consuming and often the entire piece is stitched with now empty spaces. I have a couple in this new book I am dying to do… once I have the time to properly kit them up.

All full of nice patterns

Since Uncle Wayne was on his way home Friday night and not planning on coming back into the city for the boys’ birthday he gave the kids their gifts on Friday. Trinity got a new kitty – one of those Fureal Friends I think they are called. This one is a tiny kitty that you can get track for that moves around when you push its back or just makes silly noses if  you push its nose. She was over the moon! Echo got a sweet stuffed panda that she played with a little. Emanuel got a remote control car – the same colour and I think number (though not the brand) as his favourite car – Lightning McQueen. He spent the rest of the day driving us all crazy driving it around. The twins each got a little set that you could use to build a vehicle (one bike the other dump truck) and then take back apart and make other things or combine to do the same. They were impressed by the little tools and the nuts and bolts and had Uncle Wayne down on the floor playing with them for hours.

Uncle Wayne with Gavin and Emanuel

From Uncle Wayne’s 3 weeks in China and Thailand he brought us back a few goodies! Key chains from Thailand, a little change purse for me and the big excitement – CARTOONS for the kids! Pleasant Goat and the Big Big Wolf. Apparently VERY popular in China. Ken managed to convince his computer to play them for us so we all got to enjoy them. (no translation on the disks sadly)

Our new videos

Karyn got in later that night after both my uncle and Kathy had left for home. So she and I went out for Harvey’s burgers and a visit (talk about spoiled, I got to go out TWICE Friday for some girl time!). Ken picked up Ted and Sean (whose car is currently not running) and we spent a fun evening putting up streamers, visiting and doing the last of the cleaning.

Saturday morning Karyn and I did the last run for things we needed for the party… with a stop over at Winners so Karyn could pick Echo up a new outfit. (I have to go back there, there were some sweet outfits that would look amazing on Trinity) We came home to Mom, Mike and Phoebe already being here and the kids all over the place with the gifts she has brought them (they weren’t wrapped so it was easier to just hand them over and let the kids go).

Playing games with Grandma (Gavin left)

With a loaf of banana bread baking and all our treats out for the party we added the cake mom and Mike had put together and our punch and we were ready to party! The cake was VERY impressive, they found an example online and ran with it. There was chocolate and carrot cake (the side cakes were the error ones, but worked perfectly). I think the kids were just excited about all the toys we had to take OFF of the cake so we could cut into it to eat!

The cake!

After cake which we had early so mom and Mike could head home in time for a meeting we had presents which of course meant CHAOS. Alan and Xinny and their 2 kids and Nathan and Ada with Anna were a little late so we were able to hold off cake until they got here. Chris and Chris got held up and managed to make it before presents… Esther… well she came LATE and spent time with us after the fact. Add to that my “baby” cousin David and we had a full and happy house.

My god-daughter Anna

The kids got some amazing presents – everything from a Thomas the train set (Emanuel) to a piano and 2 guitars (shared gifts)! We were able to get the twins their bikes at a super clearance price but are not going to have them in hand until next week. So they have to be patient on that one. Emanuel’s present from us was a great find – something called Hex Bugs.

Gavin and Isabella playing

After the bulk of the party went home we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and playing with the new toys (Cousin David was nice enough to tune our new guitars as best he could). Karyn, Esther and I made a slurpee run where we had to take a crate to transport them in. We got a couple of silly comments coming in with our large refill containers but we managed. Although Ken sent us with 8 containers and there was only 7 people and we of course filled them ALL. Oh well.

This is our last Sunday for Sunday School for the month so Ken and the boys left the rest of us here to hang out. Ok, Sean, Trinity and I hung out while Echo napped and Karyn slept in the basement. We had Esther on the couch and Ted on the floor. Amazingly enough they slept through the whirlwind that is Trinity on a Sunday morning! She spent the majority of her time bugging, I mean SITTING with Sean… with him on his laptop.

Whirlwind Trinity in her headband from Aunty Holly

The twins had an actual little Valentine’s party where they learned how to make flowers out of coffee filters so they are going to teach ME how to make them and for Valentines Day we will make a bunch up. Emanuel made a card and apparently had a lot of fun too… Ken had a nap (not a huge surprise).

Echo and Emanuel checking out the Hex Bugs

Today Echo is officially 6 months old! I am determined this week to get her photos done with her little “I was born at” t-shirt. In fact I have to do those and then the twins’ yearly photos and of course my own with Ken. You have one last chance to weigh in on Emanuel’s pictures – which one of THESE should we put up on the wall? Tomorrow I am going to announce the “winning” picture. Then it is time to post the twins’ pictures for opinion!

6 months today!

In a crafty side note – mom took off the tutu to the lady who requested it. I am VERY proud of it. I did a more patchwork patternless colour set up with a lovely bright pink ribbon and heart shaped gem embellishments. I am hoping the little girl it is for likes it as much as I do! It makes me wish I could get a steady supply of the variety of colours I like to make them for more people. Thankfully Michaels has expanded its selection of tulle colours! And Ken is able to get the coloured ribbon I need for the waist and the elastic for a great price at Walmart.

Finished tutu

For the gifts for the kids at the party Ken and I made up crayons out of our old broken crayons. We used our IKEA ice cube trays and used this recipe. Our kids love them! The books I got at Dollarama for 1.00 a piece – we lucked out there was Dora, Diego, and Kai Lan. A very affordable gift for all of the kids and a wonderful way to ensure we don’t waste all those broken crayons.

Zander and the crayons and colouring book

Karyn brought her Cricut for the weekend and I got my first opportunity to make some Hello Kitty die cut shapes. They are a bit labour intensive but the final result looks WONDERFUL. My plan is to borrow Karyn’s Cricut sometime after Family Day and spend a week or so just making kitties. I want to use them for scrapbooking and for decorations for Trinity’s 3rd birthday (she is a Hello Kitty fiend). I just need to pick up some more pastel paper and I am set.

Hello Kitty

This afternoon was filled with girl time – shopping at The Mall with Esther and Karyn. We wandered the clothing stores, stopped into Sephora and I treated myself with a strawberry bubble tea. (nummers) We got home in time for Karyn to head off home and the kids to get in some play time with Aunty Esther before she too had to head home. Ken took the guys home and now here we are, in a slightly chaotic house just the 7 of us. I have some definite cleaning to do, there is a couple of bags of garbage to go out, dishes to do and I have a strong urge to get a page or two done scrapbooking. Ken picked up my latest order of photos while out collecting the guys for the weekend. So hopefully tomorrow I will have at least one page to share.

Esther and Karyn

I have 4 very excited kids to deal with and a Valentine’s Day to consider. I am not sure how much we will do as this weekend was one big party for these guys. I do have some of those candies with the words on them to give them and some mini workbooks I picked up at Michaels with Esther and Karyn. I got Trinity the cutest little oven mitt and pot holder on the same shopping trip to go with the kitchen set. (Trinity got spoiled – Aunty Karyn got her Hello Kitty stickers AND two clearance shirts from Superstore!) I have to go back to Michaels this week, I found some sticker books at 1.50 a piece I KNOW the kids will LOVE.

I am sure there are things I missed in our busy busy weekend but I have to say THANK YOU to everyone who came by, celebrated and visited with us. It was a wonderful weekend and we really appreciate everyone who wanted to be a part of it!

Echo and God-daddy Nathan

We are having a froggy kind of day today. And after last night it is a guardedly happy one… I was cleaning in the livingroom while baking the sugar cookies for the party on Saturday and chanced to look into Frogger’s tank. Talk about HEART ATTACK… he was UPSIDE DOWN… now for some people that may not be an issue but Frogger’s short lived and highly lamented froggy buddy went that way. We left for Mom’s on the 23rd of December and came back on Christmas Eve to one frog upside down and very much DEAD! Now keep in mind that today is our last day of Frogger observations and you can imagine how freaked out this mommy was.

So Frogger has caused more than a little trauma amongst the elders of this family. We were already talking about what to do about his demise, should we show the boys? What do we do about a replacement pet – is our luck just too bad to do so? When I walked BACK past the frog only to see him swimming around happily and floating mid tank as African Aquatic Frogs seemingly do! You can only imagine the bad words teasing my mind to be let out. And then to add insult to injury when we did our frog observations this afternoon he had the audacity to be SITTING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TANK DOING NOTHING!!!! Bah!

Frogger

Frog time was nicely interrupted by an extended session of play in the backyard. Minus the snowpants and all! Gavin’s winter jacket is holding onto the stains from the paint he got on it from a drive home carrying his Sunday School craft so I had to being out Emanuel’s spare jacket for him. (we are so luck TWO families gifted us with their outgrown winter clothes in his size. I don’t think people realize how much that helps us out!) The weather is absolutely lovely today. A balmy +3 Celsius here in central Alberta. It is not supposed to drop below -10 Celsius until next Tuesday!

Gavin and Zander with snowman

The timing for their outside play was wonderful – corresponding nicely with the younger 3’s much needed naps. Of course a night still somewhat interrupted had me sleeping in this morning and the boys watching Cyberchase and Word World with Daddy. It looks like glasses will be a tomorrow thing as Ken is driving my Uncle Wayne to his eye appointment nearby (for eye dilation), perfect timing for Zander and Ken to head to OUR glasses place to get the new specs.

We started something new with Miss Echo yesterday – a straw cup of water! We figured since added fluids (HEALTHY fluids) are not a bad thing why not! She has yet to quite get the hang of the straw but we are considering it a work in progress. These little cups have come a long way since we got them for Emanuel or Trinity. If you gently squeeze the cup a little bit of water comes up the straw for her… AND when you flip the cover for the straw IT STAYS CLOSED!!! My biggest beef with all previous cups was that either failing or being too hard to slide either way.

Sippy Smiles

Right now all the boys want to work on workbook wise is MATH. The deal was once they finished the comprehension section in their gr. 1 overview book they could continue on with their big book AND work on a smaller book on their own. I am still a little shocked and impressed that Gavin was so easily able to count up to 105 with minimal prompting when we did our dot-to-dot. I am hoping this trend continues. Right now we are looking for all of our strengths and focusing on those while still working on the other stuff. After all if every day we accomplish something GREAT the harder stuff feels a little less desperate! Our reading IS coming along but at times we just have to walk away in frustration and come back later.

Math work (Gavin is on the bigger book)

We are trying to decide how to spend Family day (February 21st). I don’t want to stay home just us 7 but don’t want to go out and do something that is going to cost a lot of money. So far one of the options is a Chinese New Year themed event put on by the China Institute which is part of the University of Alberta. I am not completely sold on that one but it is an option.

Tonight the plan is to finish the tutu, all except the waist which is waiting on ribbon that Ken is picking up tomorrow, then to prep the frog stuff that needs assembly for placement in our lapbook. I will share a picture of the tutu tomorrow. I finished the sugar cookies last night and plan on icing them later tonight or tomorrow, maybe baking a batch of applesauce muffins with the applesauce I made up last night… so of course lots to do… which means I need to sign off and do it!

So much snow! (Zander left)

Punishment is a complicated thing in a house with 7 distinct personalities (well more like 6 but I will explain that later). Start with Echo, rather SKIP Echo, she is still our little baby and not an issue insofar as punishing purposefully naughty behaviour. That leads us to Miss Trinity. She is certainly a girl with a temper and had been known to scream, cry, pout, and when it comes to Ken (and only Ken!!) lash out! But when in meltdown mode will take HERSELF off to her room to cry, calm down and come out to apologize! So if you can withstand the initial storm and stay strong (we have friends who just can’t in regards to her! Seriously, a 2 year old can total break grown men in this house at times!) you are pretty much home free with her.

Emanuel as the next oldest and middle child can be a bit more of a challenge. He is stuck in a rut right now of everything he DOESN’T want to do being “too hard” or will “take FOREVER.” Disciplining him is still a relatively simple matter (though I have to admit that he DOES go out of his way to start things when he is tired or has missed a nap), put him in his room on a time out and he does have a fit, but he comes out apologizing and NOT repeating the mistake that got him into trouble in the first place. Still it is hard to believe he is FIVE…

Now the twins, well here is where the difficulties begin! Gavin is a VERY sensitive boy, errors in his schoolwork, being told something is not done right put him to tears. He is always shooting for a level of perfection, which is something we are constantly trying to combat. Not that I DON’T want him to do his BEST, but I do want him to realize that perfection is not the level we shoot for. Putting Gavin into time out means he is completely mortified, he spends that time generally quiet and has long ago realized that a silent boy in time out gets to come right on out when it is over. I do worry about how sensitive he is, not that he should NOT be, but that the world is going to be a difficult place for a boy so concerned about everything and everyone! (he takes after his Mommy with her tears and wishes to please everyone)

Ok so back to the SIX personalities in the house – consider Zander or as I like to call him when he is in a nasty mood – the Ken clone. The look on his face, the attitude, the stubborn need to BE RIGHT and GET HIS POINT OUT… it is so Ken. I think that is why Ken has the most trouble dealing with Zander. The two of them go at it full on the same way which means they simply bump heads. Zander at the age of 7 still seems to have missed the point of time out – he will go in wailing or simply talk and talk adding minutes to his time. Gavin has even tried explaining time out to him to try and help him out but our stubborn Zander refuses. Though I must say this stubborn and strong attitude is great in other places. He is wonderful with his siblings (when in a good mood) and can be very direct when you need him to be. BUT disciplining him is never simple and never easy. Yesterday he got sent to his room for the afternoon after refusing to listen and follow instructions and then picking fights with everyone he could. First he spent about 30 min trying to scream the house down and then after Ken went down and talked to him spent time in his room calming down and reading books. That evening he came out much more responsive and willing to TALK about his behaviour and how he should deal with things.

In the wake of the Zander grounding I sent the other 3 mobile kids to the blue table to use glitter glue, Valentine foam hearts and Valentine foam stickers to make whatever they wanted. We did pretty well on the mess control until they got into the loose glitter. Even then we were able to clean up relatively quickly and I am pretty sure Trinity is glitter free today!

Glitter and stickers

Gavin and I worked together on a pretty major dot-to-dot… this one went from 1-105! And then we coloured it together. You can print your own copy here.

Fancy dot-to-dot

Yesterday morning we packed everyone up and headed to the Michaels free activity – making paperbag puppets (supposedly Valentines Day themed but we let the kids make whatever they wanted). It was an odd time to have scheduled a craft activity in the winter. In the middle of the week and in the morning. Even the girl in charge of the session was confused. But it was nice, the store wasn’t crowded so we were able to sit right down and get crafting and then afterwards give Trinity (who is always first done) some freedom to wander around with Daddy.

Trinity's puppet

As usual Gavin took the longest and it shows! Can you guess what his is?

Gavin's masterpiece

Zander and Emanuel had fun making theirs as well. Emanuel went all out with markers to make his “snowman” and Zander’s had a portrait of yours truly on his!

Emanuel

Zander

Last night I spent the evening quite industriously. I FINALLY managed to put aside time AND have Ken help cut the pieces of tulle (he is amazing at cutting the strips neatly and quickly) and finished the tutu for our god-daughter Anna. I am VERY happy with how it turned out. Hopefully I can get a picture of her in it or at least take one myself.

Tutu!

We finished our last Chinese New Year craft today! The rocking rabbit. I figure we will leave out display out until the week after Valentines Day as we have combined the two holidays on our holiday wall. It feels good to complete all these projects ON TIME. Though we have decided to postpone our zoo trip to see the frogs until the following weekend. We have way too much to do with our frog lapbook and I don’t want to rush it! Today’s story was The Frog Prince. I printed out a version of the story from the UK site. Though I am still out of colour toner so the picture was in black and white. We will include it in our lapbook so we can come back and read it again later!

Rocking rabbits (Zander left)

We got the call from the glasses place today, tomorrow Ken and Zander will run in and get the glasses adjusted and hopefully brought home! It is going to be an adjustment, I am not sure how flexible they will be and I know he is going to be frustrated at first.

It is frustrating at times, this point in our lives. Not the kids or the schooling really, just the getting back on our feet (still) since Ken was sick. Nothing is instantaneous and of course starting to work for yourself is rarely quick and easy. Like I mentioned earlier he is SWAMPED these past few days BUT we won’t see any of the extra money until the month before we have to move. Now don’t get me wrong, money then will be needed and helpful but right now it would be useful too. Ken keeps reminding me that we are doing well, and each month is getting pretty consistently better. At least there are the positives to reflect on at the end of the day – we ARE doing better (WAY BETTER) than this time last year, the boys are learning new things every day and bringing their siblings along with them, I am still married to the love of my life, I have 5 children… FIVE! and best of all – I have the family I always dreamed of, even with all the frustrations and silly arguments. So you know what? Life actually is pretty darn good!

Toy in hand