August 18-24

The girls are over the moon with their mini fashion shows. We are so spoiled that Gammie can and does send us so many outfits.

In celebration of Jeff being here AND he and Daddy being busy in the sub basement we had an outside lunch on the front stoop.

Right after that I realized that We had missed a rather special LARGE present that had been mailed previously from Texas. I think she got the most excited opening this one. The way it was rigged up the large caterpillar sort of popped out for her. Instant favourite.

That evening we had special plans. Jeff headed out with Chris for beers and visiting and the rest of us were off to Aunty Judy and Uncle Jim’s for a special family celebration of Echo’s 4th birthday complete with a cake made especially for her by Uncle Jim! He works for the Pilsbury company and makes an AMAZING cake!

I really can’t think of a place the kids get more excited about visiting than “Robbie’s House” and he wasn’t even there that visit!

In the morning the kids pitched in and worked on Echo’s birthday present from Jim and Judy – a Barbie lego set! With a little blue pool.

We continued our learning… mostly shark related…

And then we paid each of the kids and extra dollar of allowance to spend the week pulling weeds! What an efficient crew we had out there from the biggest to the smallest.

And the guys continued their gaming… interspersed with cleaning out of the sub basement. This all went SUPER well until they were at the tail end and found… a leak. Sigh. I am so proud of Ken for jumping in an working so hard to create space and organization in our world. This new and improved healthy Kenny is AMAZING.

We had company on Wednesday, well additional company. Robbie and Alicia came over for dinner and gaming. The kids are in love with these two, rightfully so. And it is doubly amazing that they can enjoy boardgames with us.

I found a spare moment and finished up a special wallet for my Renaissance Festival outfit. It will loop around my handle so that I won’t lose my ID etc. I love it, I altered a basic billfold style wallet pattern to fit what I needed and there you go – no lost nothings when I go out this year!

There was time for playing outside AND checking out the garden with our guests.

All this while Ken and Jeff made us dinner – Curry and a yummy sort of pudding pie. SPOILED US!!!

On the 21st you can check back and see our Treasure Box we got in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa Mike HERE. We evened that day out with Munchkin (game) and time outside.

All the weed pulling led us to tweezers and patience as we removed burrs that attacked everyone pretty equally.

The kids have been loving another adult in the house. Especially one that knows all about Canada. Eases the homesickness a little, just like Grandma’s Canadian Treasure Box.

What a week!!!

Really… can we keep Jeff forever? Because Ken has been so positive and the kids and I have enjoyed the company so much! We had all of Saturday and half of Sunday to enjoy with him and some lovely weather.

But then it was time to say good bye! Definitely a hard one… I don’t think anyone who visits us down here really realizes how much their visits and packages mean to us. A taste, touch, sound of home… thank you so much everyone for remembering us!

April 28-30

After a wonderful birthday for our very own Trinity it was time to return to the regular school week… around the carnage that is new presents without a home in our livingroom/homeschool area of course! Sadly Echo’s prolonged nap the day before heralded her curling up to sleep in Baba’s chair for portions of the day… thankfully the cold seems to be relatively mild!

It was an exciting day for our officially 6 yr old… she started her GRADE ONE MATH BOOK! (seriously she said that in full capital letters I swear!).

She also wanted to share one of her two birthday shirts… this is her favourite she says!

The Goldie Bloxs are a great hit with the kids. This was a kickstarter I wanted to try ages ago. A whole series of engineering toys geared at girls!!!

We had more Treasure Island to read…

More stories to enjoy and interesting facts to find and share.

On Tuesday the twins worked on simple animal reports. I am hoping we will find time to do more of these over the summer. I am working on getting the boys to read through things on their own and try and pick out the points of interest themselves… we are still getting rather mixed results.

Miss  Trinity agreed to model the illustration we did for our Texas  themed book. Learning about where Gammie is and where Aunty Holly and Cousin Jimmie came from has been something the kids have been dying to do!

Another chapter filled with pirates…

Wednesday was swimming lessons… but first Emanuel and I had to work on his dinosaur dome growing kit. We took it VERY seriously and drew up our blueprint for planting first before getting our hands dirty in the soil. I am really hoping it grows nicely but just the experience of planning it all out was so much fun! Maybe we will design some imaginary parks together!!

Now back to swimming lessons… this time we took the whole family. The girls, Ken and myself were the boys’ cheering squad and wow did we have a lot to cheer about. The boys are all really progressing.

After swimming lessons we had a special visit over at Aunty Judy and Uncle Jim’s to visit with them and Robbie for a while. Any chance to see the critters and spend time with family right? Added bonus, they had left over scout car supplies since due to other kids not being able to make it Emanuel’s 4th place winner made it into the top 3 to go onto the next level of races!! Score!

And thus ends April! Wow! Onto May and hopefully (soon) catching the blog up in time for summer!! Maybe?

April 26-27

Oh my goodness! Trinity is SIX!! Where did the time go?? And of course her birthday weekend is a busy one… from 11-2 ish Nana and I were at a bridal shower and then had to rush home so that Ken and Baba could join up with Christopher and Matt Schwartz and their dad Gary to go to the second half of the bachelor party. So Saturday was extra busy while the kids never left the yard!!

BUT Sunday! Well we started with Sunday School (the year is rolling down quickly with the ending session on the 11th of May – Mother’s Day) with Echo and I staying home to blow up balloons and prep for the party. Lots of bright colours!

Trinity was spoiled this year… Aunty Darcy was the artist behind her amazing cake and cupcakes. Isn’t it amazing how much Trinity and the princess off Tangled (before she cuts the hair) resemble each other??

We had quite the full house with Matt and Fran’s boys, the cousins and Novak 4 all there to celebrate. But the kids had an absolute blast and even Big Andy made it!!!

Ken made hamburgers from scratch. Spicy like we used to back home and non. Poor Echo didn’t even make it to dinner!

She was over the moon with all her presents.

They included a lovely pillow sent from God Mommy Karyn…

And a tea trolly to match the kitchen set and baby bed from Aunty Holly, Uncle James and Cousin Jimmie.

We really enjoyed our amazing Tangled cake! I think it was an AMAZING birthday party and am so appreciated to everyone who sent gifts or came in person! 

And now for the extras!

Goldie Blox HERE