Ok, Sometime this week I HAVE TO put up the old dinosaur blog posts that are languishing in drafts un-loved and alone. So be sure to check back for some BELATED dino fun! Anyway…

March 27-31

March 30th – Happy Birthday Little Brother!

The twins are really excited about coming up with new questions and then working together to answer them all. We use Ken’s netbook and hunker down and go one by one. It is hilarious as we find answers, sometimes follow links to further information. Some of the questions are an adventure for me too… things like Why are snails slow? Who created the first superhero? Are there more meat eaters or plant eaters on the planet?

We moved on from Google to working on our hunting skills with the I Spy game!

And best of all – a lengthy Skype call to Aunty Holly and Cousin Jimmie. Jimmie was on break from school so he had lots to show and the time to do it.

We ended the week with some creative endeavors. Gavin made some rather interesting cookies out of Play Doh. Trinity made up a cupcake.

The kids all did reflection journals. Working our way through Dirty Jobs episode by episode has been great fun!

We also started a new book for family reading time – Treasure Island. The kids are quite put out with me. I am reading it WITH them so they have TONS of questions I simply CANNOT answer. This is not a classic I have read! I think we will either read Little House in the Big Woods or Charlotte’s Web next (Gavin is quite worried about me reading the second one as he says… I do not like spiders so I shouldn’t have to read it.). For this story we are doing a pictorial summary of each chapter. Drawing out main points and the like. Something all ages can be involved in!

On the last weekend of March we had errands to run and quiet at home time to enjoy. I lucked out and in a walk through Walmart looking at Easter stuff we found FAKE eggs to dye. We plan on still making the real eggs with Nana but the fake ones could be saved and used year after year!

Trinity and I worked on ANOTHER special page in her scrapbook. After all Ken had ditched us for a guys’ only night over at Chris Schwartz after errands so it was time to be rather low key.

We tried something I saw on Facebook – making string eggs and found that we REALLY need to use the small water balloon balloons. (back onto the shopping list they went).

The kids just sat back and enjoyed the day with me.

On Sunday Ken got home in time to take them out to Sunday School.

Definitely a stay at home sort of day after that with a fort to build and music to make.

AND being the 30th a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my younger brother James! So we had a looooong lovely call. I miss the heck out of him and his family!!!

We ended March with a relatively quiet day at school.

And Ken and Emanuel running off to Scouts. I am so glad we decided to put him in this. He and Ken are enjoying it a lot. It is time to work on the extra stuff at home as well to get him I think what is called Arrow Points. luckily a lot of it is stuff we do at home through school. I just have to have us sit down and do some of this stuff we have done over the years again!

There goes March… did you blink and miss it too????

February 3-5

First off – HAPPY 8TH BIRTH DATE TO EMANUEL on the 3rd of February! It was doubly official with the yearly Grandma birthday call. Though it was brief since she called on break from work.

Of course we still had school. There was a party to reflect on in our journals…

Zander drew his special gift from Aunty Holly that came on time – a Unicorn

Chocolate bars to enjoy from their Aunt and Uncle and cousins. There was some lovely examples of sharing going on.

We had a very timely delivery of a Panda focused National Geographic Kids magazine. I love it when we get something in the mail that furthers our learning spontaneously.

And our drawing of some foods we saw on a Food Network special.

The girls were busy bees with their Nana braids, playing their games together.

I especially loved Trinity’s combination of many patterns and colours in her outfit.

She, Echo and myself joined Emanuel at the Novak’s for Scouts. It was my first time going. The girls hung out in the basement with the other 3 Novak boys while Emanuel and Aidan did their thing. They learned all about the new food pyramid. It is a rather good group of boys that all seem to get along relatively well. Ken and the twins were out at swimming lessons so we had to hang out afterwards until we could be picked up. It was nice to have some adult visiting  time and get to know the Scout troop leader Pam a little better.

Tuesday was our in between birth DATES day. And the three littles took advantage of some of our downtime with getting ready for Nana and Baba leaving and Daddy’s sudden tooth extraction (thank goodness we DID do it while they were still here… he reacted more strongly to the meds they used and could not have driven home) and had a COSTUME dance party! I especially love Baby Batman!

Miss Trinity followed Art for Kids’ instructions to make a lovely heart card HERE. It turned out TERRIFIC…

Then she noticed that one of the left over scraps of paper looked like a bird so we had to put it in her journal! Very creative eye there!

And then…. HAPPY 10TH BIRTH DATE TO ZANDER AND GAVIN on the 5th! Since when were you two allowed to become double digits??? And this from 10 week preemies who came into this world at 3 lbs. 1 3/4 oz. each!!!

This was also the last day with time with Nana and Baba so school was super light. The girls worked with some old catalogues and magazines to clip out pictures to glue together for fun.

Emanuel and Ken got to work on their very first pinewood derby car! This is exciting – the road to Emanuel’s very first badge!!!

The twins worked on pictures from the newest instructions from Art for Kids. I honestly will continue bragging on this site for as long as they put up things! I have never found better instructions for the kids. Trinity even gets results without frustration!!!

As we are now planning for Valentines Day I had the kids make a wreath to replace the one we had up for Christmas out of hands. This was a kit I bought on clearance last year from Walmart!

In between helping out Nana and Baba where they could the kids also watched the Wild Kratts episode on Groundhogs.

And then it was time for hugs, kisses and bye byes. Nana and Baba ALWAYS fly out in the middle of the night/super early in the morning. 9 weeks at Roatan! They are going to come back so tanned and relaxed!!!

November 28

HAPPY AMERICAN THANKSGIVING!

I am still getting the hang of having Thanksgiving so late in the year… this Thursday in November is still odd to me! First off, almost the middle of the week (not a Monday or Friday????) and then so much closer to Christmas! YIKES.

We had a full on turkey dinner with the fixings… homemade stuffing, gravy… mashed potatoes…

Smaller of 2 turkeys

Homemade peppermint fudge

As Joe and Faithe alternate their Thanksgiving with each of their families this year was their year with Faithe’s family. So we had our family, Nana and Baba and Aunty Judy with Uncle Jim and two of their kids (Robbie and Jessica). 13 in total made for a nice full table.

Of course there was time to play before and after dinner with pumpkin pie for desert.

Pumpkin pie

A full day ended with full kids. We decided not to go out to any of the Black Friday sales. Instead Ken and I planned on making a run out to Target the next day. I have a specific over 6 month long request from Miss  Trinity and can not risk missing the potential sale OR them selling out of those items. Well, and one on one time in a rather low key store (our area seems to not have a massive Target Black Friday rush as compared to Walmart or Kohl’s) with Ken is always a bonus.

Wore Jessica out!

It was definitely a day to be thankful!\