June 25-26

We started our Tuesday with the rather fun activity of making paper fans… we took rectangular pieces of white paper (in hindsight cardstock may have been a better choice) and drew Independence Day themed pictures… fireworks, flags, etc. We then used an accordion fold and stapled it at the base. Another idea out of one of our books. But something I remembered making as a child myself! Fun!!

Serious designers

July 4th themed!

We had a Lego magazine come in the mail (we have a couple of their free subscriptions). This was geared at the younger group so the 3 littles sat down and enjoyed it together.

Gavin was totally in the puzzle mood. We got some lovely new ones in our latest package from Gammie!

We played around with some different brands of bubble soap. Sadly still not as good as the machine’s brand!

Got some sun though

There was a little time for a dino dig as well! But we kept it rather sedate as Wednesday was a day with a big plan!

THE ZOO!!! We made plans to meet up with Steven and Quinn, and then once Bree got done work and such we added in Lily and mom.

We had sun, rain and fun in the rain! It was terrific!

Drowned rats, happy but drowned

Sunning Sea Lion… be sure to check our zoo overflow HERE.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT THE REST OF OUR PHOTOS FROM THE ZOO HERE.

Ken got to relive a bit of his childhood and made a plastic mold in one of the machines they have around the zoo. We made a gorilla. The plan is to get a different one each visit.

I am just so pleased… Ken’s anniversary present got here as well! A special t-shirt based on a saying I saw on a Grumpy Cat picture off Facebook. He was well pleased!!!

Where I got the saying from… Grumpy Cat

May 13-14

So we were SUPPOSED to have our day off from the 4 big kids on Monday but the weather was less than enthusiastic. So we switched our outing days. Which made for a bit of a mad scramble to get things ready Sunday night.

So what to do, what to do? Well… get out and about first off… We took a nice walk down the main road our lane is off of and worked our way through writing down the names of the streets we saw along the way. The boys now know the short hand for Lane, Drive, Road… oh and Emanuel and Trinity showed off their skills at recognizing street signs.

Walking with mini bubble break

Checking out ants

Afterwards we had some celebratory bubbles from a walk well done!

BUBBLES

I have to say there are some beautiful flowers out and about now!

The kids called this the caterpillar tree

Daffodils

I just love the colours on these!

Trinity has been hard at work with her new workbooks from Izzy and Henry. She is in love with workbooks… as long as they aren’t too heavy on what she calls the difficult stuff.

Diving head on

Such lovely colouring on her dot to dot

Our Mother’s day book for the day was No Time For Mother’s Day by Laurie Halse Anderson. I had each of the kids make a mini Mother’s Day card just like they did in class in the book.

Mother’s Day cards

I was showing the boys some handwriting as an introduction of something we plan on covering in the fall. Gavin took initiative and copied his name from what I had shown him.

Gavin

Leave it up to Echo to add some cuteness to our day as well!

Colouring

Attempting a summersault

So Tuesday was our one kid extravaganza… first a visit with Bree (Echo’s Godmommy don’t you know?) at her work – Caribou Coffee…

With her Godmommy

Such a big girl

Then the traditional groping of the yarn at JoAnn’s… where Echo found an adorable headband!

Checking out the sunroof in Nana and Baba’s car

The headband… not bad for a dollar

Pinwheel!

We went to the nearby mall to make use of a Victoria’s Secret freebie coupon and wandered around letting Echo see what caught her fancy. Late lunch at Zantigo and we were well relaxed and pleased with our day, making it home well before our 4pm curfew. The other 4 had a grand time at the zoo with Nana and Baba, seeing critters and having a picnic!

Lunch out

It was nice

Enjoy the pictures! I actually had the chance to wear my special dress that I bought way back when with my Christmas funds!

I need to do some rather more posed images

Me and my Baby

Just us girls… note the lovely RED lippy! Thanks for the help on that one Bree!!

Just need to learn how to make Victory Rolls!

October 22-23

I swear this is some sort of born in trigger for kids that Mondays HAVE TO be rough. For some bizarre reason every time I had something for her to do her leg hurt or she was tired or she didn’t want to. The joys of trying to get a 4 year old to stick to a routine. I think the lack of a nap after a VERY busy zoo trip on the Sunday just did her in on Monday. And then she refused to nap on Monday as well. 

What we did accomplish  though, in hindsight, was not half bad. We started with the usual work books, spelling, etc etc and then moved onto my list of to dos…

1. pen pal letters… Gammie (Jimmie’s Grandma) wrote back once again, she truly is like clockwork. Each of the kids had a letter to respond to and they all coloured pictures for her. 
2. journal pages about their Sunday zoo trip.
3. doing their paperbag scrarecrow zoo trip craft

Emanuel and his supervisor

Emanuel and I were over the moon that his monthly project series FINALLY started! We are doing the Little Passports2 year program. One country per month. The first package was just a starter – suitcase, special passport, story, questions to answer and of course a way to figure out our first country to learn about – BRAZIL! I think Emanuel is VERY excited. We still need to find a place to put the map we got in our package, maybe over his bed?

Suitcase in hand

Gavin and Zander channeled their inner artist with the Art for Kids site and their continuing AMAZING Halloween themed step by step instructions on how to draw. The big question in our home is what will be the next to be uploaded.

Gavin’s monsters

Zander’s

Gavin opted to go outside and clean leaves in a rather interesting and picturesque way. The trees out back have RED leaves and they are gorgeous! So of course we had to take a few pictures!

The pile

The jump

Poor Ken spent 5 hours at the DMV only to find out that his information that he got from the SAME OFFICE was wrong and there was one more step to changing his license over to American. He really did NOT come home a happy bunny! At least he came home with a plan and an APPOINTMENT in hand for Tuesday. Government + Kenny = NOT HAPPY pretty well consistently.

Miss Echo has done some work on her own as well… lots of colouring…

Echo at work

And watching of Pocoyo. I guess now I have to hunt down MORE merchandise. Sadly the US is NOT the place to do that so if anyone has any ideas… HELP! I am amazed we are now 5 for 5 for loving that show!!!

Pocoyo!

We have learned a new dice game as well. You can find the print out and instructions HERE. We love a good dice game. I think I will have to dig out some of the ones off this site that we played in the past, I don’t think Emanuel has learned any of them yet! 

Playing a new game

Tuesday was a SPECIAL day… Ken’s 35th birthday! Yours truly already gave him his gift – my very first granny square lap blanket. The kids all made him bits and bobs and a special card! 

Ken and his card

Add to the birthday “fun” his taking of the drivers written test to transfer his license to an American one from Canadian. Sadly that has not been simple as of course there are steps that they did not realize had to be done until he WENT IN! Happily, on his birthday he PASSED we just need to wait on a verification!

We are working our way through spelling tests, reading practice (almost to the end of our first pizza month), pen pal responses and dinosaur knowledge. I am determined to get back onto our math and maybe learn some more about our new home. Science is dinosaur flavoured right now… and I have come to the realization that we are sneaking in our learning everywhere more and more.

We had a very exciting completion by Gavin as well – he finished his cross stitched joke card which he gave to Ken for his birthday! His next project is way more ambitious, we are collecting colours and such for it now.

… they wear Squeakers

Add in a yummy birthday dinner of Ken’s favourites and we managed a pretty spiffy day! 

Big girl!