Super Late… but Happy 14th B-day Elastoboy!

My boy turned 14 at the end of December but I have been quite neglectful of this poor blog. I’d like to say it’s been because I have been super useful or the like but I have been just goofing off… mostly watching Doctor Who!

Anyway, since this guy is super important to me, I thought a birthday post was in order.

This little felllow has grown and changed so much since he first bounced into our lives at age 8.

He’s growing taller, smarter and more handsome everyday. I love his grin and he’s one heck of a rapper. You really should here this kid go – he’s great with words and writes songs constantly. Ninth grade has been a challenge, but I am sure we’ll get through.

Happy Birthday, Elastoboy! I love you, Kid!

The Gingerbread Drama

It all started when Grandpa Ray and Grandma June made home made gingerbread kits for the kids to make on Christmas Eve. It was a lovely idea, the gingerbread smelled absolutely scrumptious and the candies within were so colourful and varied that we were all eager to begin.

The drama began as we all sat around the table and began sticking our walls together. Hubbers was helping Little Why and I was responsible for helping Monkey Girl and Angel Eyes while the Middles and Big Guy built their own.

Everything is going well until…
“Angel Eyes! Don’t eat your walls or the house won’t stay together!” -Mr. Hockey

All eyes fall to Angel Eyes who had eaten the corner of one of her walls. The Gingerbread house is moved away until someone can help her. Problem solved.

Frustrated sounds start coming from one side of the table.
“My house won’t stand up! Every time I put on the roof, the walls fall over!” – Elastoboy Whines.

“You don’t have any patients. The one I am making for Monkey Girl is standing just fine!” – Me, with a bit of condescending in my voice.

Frustrated sounds continue, but we all focus on our own houses.

“Stop eating your Chimney, Angel Eyes!” – Electric Lady yelps, grabbing the offending peice of cookie from Angel Eyes hands. Gingerbread house is moved further away. Problem… solved?

  

“I am getting the glue gun!” – Elastoboy says, jumping up out of his seat.

“You can’t EAT glue! ” – Mr. Hockey and I yelp. Hubbers points to the chair and Elastoboy sits down.

“Mommy! My house is not standing up anymore!” – Monkey Girl cries, trying to stick one wall back to the others.

“Gah! Dang House! No… don’t touch it! It will only fall over more!”  – Me, pulling the house towards myself, franticly trying to put the walls back together.

Lot’s of frustrated sounds coming from all parts of the table. Little Why is resting his head on his arms, looking rather spacey.

“My house is working perfectly!” – Big Guy brags after a few minutes of taking in the frustration around him.

“ANGEL EYES! Stop eating your house right now!” – Electric Lady, again grabbing the pieces of the house away from Angel Eyes. We all know they are not safe, but are not sure where to put them considering the entire kitchen is covered in gingerbread.

“Where is the darned glue gun. This is ridiculous!” – I say as I begin to look in the craft cupboards.

“No, No, No! I will build the houses! Look, Little Why! Yours is done!” – Hubbers says as he proudly plants a gingerbread house in front of Little Why. Little Why slowly decorates it unenthusiastically.

“Show off!” – Me

“Fine, I’ll make a tank then!” – Elastoboy triumphantly yelps, grabbing a knife from the counter.

“My house won’t stay up!” – Mr. Hockey grumbles as he sits back in his chair, obviously giving up.

“Wow! Electric Lady, your house is looking great!” – Hubbers says, patting her on the back. She grins wildly and taunts Mr. Hockey.

After a quick survey of the table, I spot a half eaten gingerbread house and a very happy baby girl.
“Angel Eyes no longer has a chimney… or a gingerbread man… or a Christmas Tree for the front of her house.” – Me

“Dad, I think you should build hers next!” – Mr. Hockey says, with a fond grin on his face.

“I need more icing!” – Big Guy loudly declares.

“Well… you can take the stuff Angel Eyes is eating.” – Elastoboy says, pointing to a slobbery container of iceing.

Shriek, Scream, Stomp, Stomp, Stomp.
“My House Fell Down!” – Electric Lady

and at the same time…

“So yeah, about that sturdy house of Little Why’s – It fell over!” -Me

“What did YOU do to it?” – Hubbers says, obviously blaming me for the catastrophe.

“Here, Mr. Hockey. My house is perfect. Let me build yours.” – Big Guy says as he begins to put Mr. Hockey’s house together.

“Nooooo! Elastoboy’s tank is going to shoot it! It needs to be rubble!” – Mr. Hockey shrieks, pulling the house away from Big Guy.

 

“Mommy? Me eat it now?” – Monkey Girl says, gesturing to her barely decorated house with all the candy located directly in front of her.

After giving Monkey girl as small amount of candy, I move her house and Angel Eyes house to the counter.

“Want Houseee! Waaaannnttt HOUUUUSEEEE!” – Angel Eyes begins yelling in her “Gonna throw a tantrum” voice.

Hubbers quickly moves in to distract her with something as I move on to help Little Why, who appears to be half asleep at the table.

“Me done now. Can I go lay down?” – Little Why groggily replies, going in to lay on the couch. Dora is quickly put in to both distract Angel Eyes and soothe a sick little boy.

“Electric Lady’s house is done now. Let me fix Monkey Girl’s.” – Hubbers

After handing over the house, which I have been holding together while dealing with everything else, I actually look at Elastoboy’s creation.

  

“Oh! Wow… you are actually making a tank… not a mess!” – Me

“MOMMM!!” – Elastoboy says with exasperation in his voice.

“Um… Dad? My house fell down.” – Electric Lady

Half an hour and a lot of house holding later, we had 7 complete… er mostly complete gingerbread houses… without even hunting down the glue gun.

Who knew it would be such a stressful experience! But would we do it again? Of course=)

Happy Birthday, my Electric Lady!

 
This little girl? The adorable and feisty little 6 year old who joined our family in the spring of 2008? Well she really isn’t that little of a girl anymore!

I am a bit late posting this… it’s been busy around here and …ahem… my free time has not been spent blogging as of late thanks to Pirate Red introducing me to Sherlock! Gosh I love that show!

However, my newfound love of Sherlock did not impact my biggest girl’s birthday. Such a special and amazing girl definitely deserves her time in the spotlight! Especially for her birthday! Love that candle blowing photo… I think she’d do her “Jump up and down and shriek” trick she does when she is displeased about something if she were to spot it on my blog=p Shhhh… don’t tell her!

She chose to have a Laser Tagging birthday party this year so that is exactly we we did. She, the boys and a few of her friends had a great time shooting at each other. They then got to go into the New and Exciting Vault for 30 minutes to pretend they were thieves ducking around laser beams. I am pretty sure that was the highlight of the whole party for everyone. The littles even got to try it out.
 

I can’t believe another birthday has gone by us… and it has been nearly 5 years since Electric Lady entered our lives. When she left for a short time to try living at her Granny’s, there was a hole in our hearts and we knew she was a part of us. So happy to have this young (electric) lady in our lives and thank God for her!

Totschool – G and H weeks!!

My tots are 2-4 years old!

Still behind but getting caught up! This post will be about our G and H weeks.
We used the printables from 1+1+1=1’s Animal ABC’s to make our letter crafts. We used tissue paper and glue for Gg and Water colour paint for Hh. They had fun glueing down their gorillas and hippos too!

 

We spent some time outside but not as much as usual due to the time change. It has been getting dark around 4:30ish and quite chilly. We are usually outside during that time so were working out the kinks. Now we go out for longer in the morning and not at all in the afternoon. When it starts getting dark later again, we’ll switch to 2 times a day again.
 

Our secondary theme to our letters of the week was about how animals find it hard to gather food in the colder weather and how some even hibernate. We made bird feeders out of pine cones, peanut butter and bird seed to help them out.

We spent some time on tot trays and table toys as well. During these two weeks, we used playdough and our ABC cutters, blew up long skinny balloons with a small airpump, coloured pictures, made funny faces, used stickers, played preschool games on the ipad and crayon rubbings.
 
  

During circle time, we did lot’s of letter practice. We also played with our cards from our letter basket and took turns sorting them into Gg and Hh piles.

The kids had some fun with crafts too. A favourite was putting a square piece of cardstock into a large ziplock plastic bag and doing some colour-mixing. We had fun guessing what colour the two would make and the pictures turned out quite pretty.
We also made Hippos out of letter H. They look more like monsters, but the kids had fun anyway.

 

Finally, we decorated a small Christmas tree that the kiddos are aloud to decorate and undecorate (in an attempt to keep them from the big tree). 

And that is it for G and H! Next up, I and J then we are all caught up!

Family Update – Fall Fun, Halloween and preparing for Christmas

Well, it has been a while since I posted a family update! Lot’s of things have happened so this will be a big one!
First of all, we enjoyed lot’s of nice (and not so nice, to be honest) fall weather. There was fishing, tea parties, autumn tree finding, backyard playing, park exploring and leaf jumping to be had in our family this fall!
  

 
   

In preparation for Halloween, we had our annual pumpkin carving night. Everyone gets a pumpkin, digs out the insides and designs their own face. We had a pretty big crew this year and couldn’t all fit around the table! Pirate Red, Angel Eyes, Little Why and Mr. Hockey’s buddy helped to make this an even more fun time.
 
  
  
 

Our “everyday” family adventures included trebuchet building,  computer using,hockey season starting and kitty hugging at bedtime.
 
 

We also had balloon animal making, hair fixing, snack making, adorable Angel Eye feet, floor installing, twister playing, race car driving and friend visiting fun.
 
 
 
 

Celebrating Mr. Hockey’s, Elastoboy’s, Big Guy’s and Monkey Girl’s special days were… well… special. I didn’t get many pictures from the days as I was going through a “Forget your head if it wasn’t attached” period during the month of September… when we celebrated the boys’ special days! We always have a cake at home (or Chuck-E-Cheese in Monkey’s case) and then go out to the restaurant of the Special person’s choice. We do this to celebrate adoption or move in days. In Monkey Girl’s case, she has always been here, so we celebrate her dedication day instead!

   

Dressing and Trick-or-Treating was an exciting time for everyone! It was a bit of a chilly and rainy night so we didn’t stay out as long as usual but it was still a good night.
  
  

We started out November with the Amherstview Santa Parade. It is always on the Saturday after Halloween and a great way to kick off the Christmas Season. I also prefer it for the littles as it isn’t yet too cold and it isn’t in the dark for afraid of the dark little girls…Ahem… Monkey Girl.

Hubbers went on a trip and brought back some fun surprises. We also got right to work on finishing Monkey Girl and Mr. Hockey’s school projects. It is kind of neat to have two sixth graders in the same school! They have definitely bonded more since joining the same class.
 

Last but not least, we started our family Christmas traditions with decorating the tree altogether. We played Christmas music and got everyone in on the action! It turned out quite lovely, if I do say so myself!

       

The finished tree!

And that’s it for now!

Totschool – Halloween Fun

Yep… still catching up=)
But we did so many fun Halloween activities, I still had to share!

We had fun with making witches brew and dumping, squirting and pouring coloured water. Monkey Girl and Angel Eyes were most excited by this one and I love how they would help one another.
  

We made some crafts – Simple ghost outlines that the kids filled in, cut out and added googly eyes to.
 

Pumpkins I drew and they created faces on. I made a bunch of different eyes, noses and moths and let them choose which they wanted to add to their pumpkins.
 

And simple small white pumpkins that the kiddos painted with acrylics.
 

We had some sensory fun with coloured spaghetti noodles and water play.
 

We had lot’s of different tot toys out such as our Cheerio halloween book, Toy cash register and coins, playdough, pumpkin counting, Mickey Mouse number puzzles, the Dora seek and find toy and a few more that I didn’t get pictures of.
  
  

We took a trip to the park to enjoy all the orangey fall colours.
 
 

And went for a costume walk to play in the leaves on another day!
 
 

The kids had fun mixing food colouring in a bowl of cornstarch and water and making forts in the living room as we prepared to remove the carpet.
 

They also had fun making halloween cookies and using the cookie cutters to make their bread into fun shapes.
 

And that would be it for Halloween! Next up – G and H!

Totschool – Poor Forgotten Dd!

My tots are between 2 and 4 years old.

 

I just realized that I misnamed my Thanksgiving post as Dd is for Dolphins and that I never did post about letter Dd! I have issues with things being incomplete, so here it is!

We had lot’s of beautiful weather so spent lot’s of it outside, playing in the leaves.
 
 

We had lot’s of fun at circle time! The kiddos counted the date, swam on their bellies like dolphins, talked about dolphin pictures, and played “find the Dd’s” with our letter basket cards.
 
 

A favourite activity was marble painting our letter craft from 1+1+1’s Animal ABC’s. We used blue and green paint to help it look like an ocean then glued on the dolphins. All of the littles enjoyed rolling the marbles around in the box.
  

We also did some painting on the easel. They really love this and I need to remember to do it more often!
  

Tot toys were out this week as well! Here are some that I got pictures of! We usually have 4-6 different “trays” or “centres” out that the kids switch through. The activities not only reinforce fine motor and cognitive skills but also sharing and waiting your turn!
Colouring, washing pennies, stickers, rolling balls, using the Melissa and Doug Birthday Cake, playing with musical instruments, ocean magnetic puzzle, cutting practice and matching numbered stones.
  
  
  

Last, we spent time working on printables from 1+1+1=1. We did colouring, tracing, colours and doing a playdough Dd page.
 

And that would be it for our letter Dd week!

Simply 10 Things that Made me Smile Today!

Why am I posting things that made me smile today?

Well, I have a cold and it is making me grumpy and miserable. I noticed my grump was on first thing this morning so added “Take pictures of 10 things that make me smile” to my to do list. I was quite intentional with this… my other goal of being gentle with my words to my children didn’t pan out as well as I had hoped – a bit too much nagging, a few exasperated sighs and a full fledged yell of “WHAT IN THE WORLD DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING” to Little Why as I spotted him destroying a well loved book of Monkey Girl’s.

But… tomorrow is a new day and hopefully a hug and an apology makes all well again.

1. Enjoying a quiet afternoon with Monkey Girl while the bigger kids were playing with friends in various areas of the house and the other two littles were still napping. I was typing on my laptop, she was watching Chuck the Dump Truck and Friends but the comfortable companionship was lovely.

2. I loved seeing my kids exercise their imaginations this morning!
Mr. Hockey and Electric Lady played “Zombie Aplocalypse” all morning and built a fort in Monkey Girl and Angel Eyes bedroom where they staked out and fired “Zombie Killing Guns” (AKA Nerf Guns) at the enemy.
Monkey Girl, Angel Eyes and Little Why refrained from fighting (WOW) for 1 whole hour and lined up empty recycling, storage and toy bins in our entray way. They went on adventures all around the ocean in their little “boats.” They were even joined by a baby doll and a teddy bear for part of their journey!
 

3. Adorable fall paintings made by Monkey Girl and Mr. Hockey in their sixth grade classroom.

4. The fact that Elastoboy has a “Jesus Changed My Life” hat on his shelf of favourites.

5. My big tree and my younger three’s little tree both standing with lights proudly gleaming on our new living room floor as the sun was getting ready to set. I love all parts of this!

6. The late afternoon sun shining through my living room… giving a lovely glow.

7. The Santa pictures we got this afternoon as I decided to brave the mall while having a cold to go and see the Jolly Old Elf!

8. These reddish blond, crazy and all over the place curls on the back of Monkey Girl’s head. I always wanted a curly haired red headed daughter!

9. This Moose that hangs proudly at the top of my Christmas Tree. I got this ornament when I was 6 or 8 and while it is missing an arm, the scarf is tattered and there are scuff marks on the white paint, it still takes me to memories of decorating the tree every year with my mom.

10. Okay… I am a dork… but the fact that the expiring date on this yummy treat from Wal-Mart is December. It means Christmas is coming and all of it’s joy, colours and goodwill.

And with smiles in my heart and yawns on my face, I am off to bed!

Totschool catch up – Letters E and F

My tots are between 2 and 4 years old!

It’s been a while since I did one of these posts but I figured I needed to catch up! Over the past month we’ve done a Thanksgiving Theme, a Halloween Theme and some various Letter of the Week themes.

I’ll show some of our activities for letters E and F in this post! We had some fun with circle time – Going through our various activities on our Calendar Board, geussing what “e” word would be on our various flash cards from the letter basket,  talking about our animals of the week and playing sleeping elephants.

 
 

We had show and tell! That was a big hit with the kiddos!
 

We made our letter Ee is for Elephant craft from 1+1+1=1’s Animal ABC printables. We used puffy paint (glue and shaving cream mixture) for this one!
  

And then made the letter Ff is for Frog Animal ABC printables the next week! This time we got out the chalk pastels and coloured and shaded away.
 

We also used the printables from Animal ABC’s in our letter binders. Only pictures of the letter Ee below as I couldn’t find my camera on the day we did the letter Ff=)
 

The kids enjoyed an array of fun fall activities outside in the fresh air. We also discussed signs of fall everyday at circle, making a running list of everything we could think of.
  

As usual, we stuck with doing tot trays and fine motor activities. Pictured below you have patterning with frogs and butterflies, drawing on the chalk board side of the easel, playdough (of course), stepping stones game that I created, counting pennies as these kids have a fascination with coins, a Halloween cheerio book, the rice and treasure bin, a bin of blue macaroni and safari animals and plenty of learning puzzles.
  
  
  

Lot’s of sensory activities – both inside and out! Two favourites were water play with funnels, different sized containers and coloured water and exploring ice that had frozen in our water table overnight.
 

We spent some time talking about Remembrance Day during our letter Ff week. We made poppies, passed around real poppies in circle time, talked about what the day means and said thank you out loud for the brave soldiers.
  

We also did a few other crafts such as a paper piecing elephant and coffee filter art. The coffee filter craft was one of Monkey Girls all time favourites and she has asked to do it a few times since! It is very simple if you have never done it before – first have your child colour a coffee filter with washable markers then spray it with water form a spray bottle (we just cleaned an old fantastic bottle VERY well and used that). The colours end up spreading and mixing, making beautiful artwork. We later cut ours into leaves to put on the window.
 

That be all for now! Next up? Halloween… just a little late haha.

Where have I been? GISHWHES would be the answer!

Hubbers, Pirate Red and I entered GISHWHES this year.

It was a tremendously fun, terribly stressful and ultimately rewarding experience! It was only a week long but I have been off my game at home since that point. Building trebiches, dirtying all the dishes in the house in an attempt to create medieval armour out of cookware, and sugar high, halloween excited kids in the mix made for a pretty disorganized home. We are all back together now, so expect a bunch of posts from me real soon.

In the meantime – here are a few of our adventures! Many are videos, etc so not posting them here=)
Eating Lot’s of Kale, being coloured by toddlers!
 

Kissing through 11 items of food, a Flea Strip Club on a cat, A cake made and decorated totally by toddlers.
  

The cake making process, a Dinosaur made of Sanitary Napkins.
 

And last but not least… Worst Christmas Card Photo EVER! Haha… isn’t it lovely? angel Eyes is screaming BTW, you just can’t tell with her face blanked out=)