kirstencan

Friday Night = Game Night

Remember when I asked for board game recommendations?  Thanks so much!  I got a lot of great ideas. These are the ones we got for the kids for Christmas:

From top to bottom:
Curious George First UNO
Spiderman Memory ($4 on sale - just hoping to get Monkey interested in Memory)
Lola's Pink Milk Game
The Ladybug Game (also $4 on sale!)
Charlie and Lola Go Fish
Chess (about $5 at Ross)
Balloon Lagoon (found this one on sale, too - yeah!)

The biggest hits are Balloon Lagoon and Charlie and Lola's Go Fish.  The Pink Milk and UNO are the next faves.  We decided to make ever Friday night Game Night - after dinner we all play games until it's time to get ready for bed (or the kids start acting crazy) and now we're glad to have a lot more choices!

Those card holders I made are kinda essential for the card games with the boys - highly recommended!

Pink Milk is completely adorable, but it's a bit like 'Round and round'.  Still good, though.  So wish me luck tonight!  I've been having quite the losing streak. ;)

How we're doing

Lots of people have been asking how we're doing with homeschooling Thomas.  We're doing fine.  It's hard, but it's going well so far.  We're all getting used to the new routines.  And I'm now teaching all three - as the first day we really 'did school' with Thomas, he finished and Monkey plopped into his seat and informed me that it was his turn now.  He really loves to learn.

You know what's a good thing on a Tuesday afternoon?  UPS delivering a big box of school stuff I ordered.  And then digging through it.

One of the things I ordered was special two-lined Handwriting without tears writing paper (I've used the HWOT program for Princess, too).  The two lines are far less confusing than the three (and the FOUR-liners that Thomas would come home with from kindergarten - FOUR!).  This is really the first time that he even got the concept of staying in the lines.  He wrote lots of Star Wars words yesterday, can you see them?

More often than not, you'll find Princess doing her work in front of the heater vent under the window.  That's homeschool in January for you!

We've found a few things that are working well for us.  One is Playroom Library Time.  We spread one of Nana's quilts in front of the bookshelves in the playroom, and pretend to check out books.  I would love to have a regular morning to take them all to the library, but I can't handle the two boys there by myself... yet.

Also we're working hard to re-instate Quiet Time - which never really went away, but we're doing much better at it lately.

We've been reading chapter books aloud after lunch.  Right now it's The BFG.  I'm going to keep a list of the ones we read on the sidebar.

The best thing ever?  Grandma School.  Seriously.  When we go down to my mom's house (we try for about once a week), Thomas will have nothing to do with me.  He grabs my mom and demands to do Grandma school.  He works SO well for her, and she'll come up with other fun things to do with the boys.  Meanwhile, I get to go work one-on-one with Princess, which is hard to find time for now!  I love Grandma School.

And on Friday I have a meeting at the school to get Thomas back into speech there.  So we're doing well, thanks for asking!

We Will Become Silhouettes

For Christmas, I planned on making three sets of silhouettes of the kids: one for each set of grandparents, and one for us.

One got finished in time, another turned into my mom's birthday present, and I just finished ours.

I used black cardstock and an x-acto knife.  Scrapbook paper for the backing.

Nothing fancy:  took photos of the kids, printed them (on paper) the size I wanted, and cut them out with the cardstock beneath it.  Easy.

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And Happy Birthday to Aaron!
I hope you have a terrific (at least not too bad) day at work. I am so glad and honored that I'm the one who gets to celebrate your birthday with you - well, me and three little ones who adore you as well.
I love you! :*

Karl's cards

A belated Christmas gift finished at last:

I printed some contact info cards for my brother.  He designed them.

It was my first project in my new crafting closet (which is almost done).

It was really cool printing in my newly organized space!  So much that I later finished the last belated Christmas gift I had to make!  I'll show you that one on Monday.
Have a great weekend!

(AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!)

On January 20, 2009:

We put out our flag.  I think we were the only ones in the neighborhood that did.

We colored during the speeches,

And listened to Obama's speech twice, because Princess had to miss it for her piano lesson ("PLEASE tape the rest for me!").

We had a parade during the parade.

We wore patriotic clothes (Princess picked a shirt says 'free' on it).

We listened to NPR later in the car, and at every mention of the president the boys would shout "OBAMA!  They said OBAMA!  That's our NEW president!"

I really wanted my children to be involved in this historic day.  Hopefully they'll remember it. 

I know I will!

In which Kirsten takes up yet another hobby:

That's right, I'm finally trying to learn one of the fiber arts.

A very sweet (and patient) friend at dance loaned me her supplies and taught me how to crochet last night.  I've never felt so clumsy, I swear.  But I kept at it and did a bit more while watching The Great Escape with Princess last night. 

This morning I finished off my first washcloth!  And it's a trapezoid.

?!

Crochet is good for sitting, that's for sure.

And the near-red, white, and blue is appropriate for today.  I'm feeling rather patriotic as I start my second, hopefully square, washcloth.

Stamping

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I got down on the floor and made stamps.  I've been wanting to do this as a precursor to block printing or stamp carving for Princess.  I was happy to have a project that the boys could do too, though!

We used part of a styrofoam egg carton that we'd washed and saved and cut it into small pieces.

Then we used chopsticks to 'carve' designs.

We got out a brown inkpad to print them.

Fun stuff!

A Random Day

It seems that I'm a little busier now with Thomas at home (surprise!) and it's been harder to get over here to post.  At the same time, I think I need this space MORE as I really need the adult conversation...

Ah, well.  Such is life.

Anyway, I meant to post yesterday, but here's what I was up to:

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Get up.  Check a few blogs and finalize my order for new school stuff with Rainbow Resource (finally - I've been working on my cart for 2.5 days).

Hang out with the kids, eat breakfast.

Shower, get everyone ready.

Make a gluten-free almond butter + jam sandwich.*

Head to IKEA (listen to the ABC's on the way there).

Meet my mom in the parking lot and head inside with my list.

I need a bunch of stuff for my crafting closet area.

I can't go to IKEA with kids by myself.

They totally didn't have a few things I needed.  Ugh.

On the way out, buy some hot dogs/chips for the kids and divvy them out in the car (*sandwich for Thomas).

Unload loot.  Photograph loot for my 365 project.

 

Somehow my $1.50 curtain rod didn't make it into my car.  Where did it GO?

Make sandwich for me.

Pick up 5 pairs of batman/race car/buzz lightyear underpants (not mine) and throw them in the laundry.

Help Monkey make his bed.

Wash two loads of laundry (not folded or put away, but washed).

Wipe down two bathrooms (yes!).

Help Princess with her math.  My mom did school with Thomas.

Open all the windows.  It was fairly warm-ish here yesterday.  I had to close them about an hour later, but it was nice while it lasted.

Spend some time online finding more ideas for church youth activities (thank you to those who sent me ideas!  I appreciate it!).

Fill two trash bags with things to donate to the thrift store.  I'm really able to get so much more done when my mom comes up.

Pull Princess' hair up in a bun for ballet.

Load kids in car and drive Princess to dance.

Drop overdue dvd at the library.

Make dinner.  Wednesday = Pasta night.

Head to church for the planning meeting (it went better than I could have hoped - it really helped to come prepared.  I'm way happy with the schedule this year).

Hang out at one of the girls' homes while we play PS2 guitar hero and karaoke.

Cringe repeatedly because they're playing the Country and High School Musical versions (yikes!).

Take one girl home 3 times:  once to get an extra mic, once to get a USB converter (which she didn't find), and then to the church to look for her lost cell phone (which she didn't find until she got home).

Home and veg.  A little Scrubs was in order.

A New Year

I was a little late getting my photo calendars done this year - but now that mine has arrived... it's officially a new year.

And with the new year come changes.  Well, with children, there are always changes, but the big one here is that right before Christmas we took Thomas out of public school.  Without going into details, his situation at school was not so great anymore. Worse than I had thought.  We're working on still getting him in for speech services, but that's it.

I'm grateful that we are already homeschooling Princess - I am much more prepared for this new step.  While it came a little sooner than I had planned on, I'm glad to have all of my kiddos on the same page again.  Something I've learned over the last year or so is that it's hard to have kids in really different school situations. So while some people ask if it would be worth changing schools or even teachers, our answer is that the best place for him right now is home, and we're glad to have him here.

So we're 'doing school' every day. I have yet to work out a firm plan or come up with a really great reinforcement idea.  I still need to order a few things for him.  I know that he doesn't need to 'do school' much formally, I'm a huge believer in learning through play, but we are still trying to sit down to work on reading and handwriting.

Just like last summer when he was done with preschool, he's come home and had a great attitude change.  He's happier, and he's made a ton of progress with his reading in just a week.  He wasn't letting us work with him at all (rarely even doing his homework) when he was in school.  So that's a good thing, and I'm optimistic.

Last week was crazy stressful, though.  It just hit me (and how!) that this is going to be even harder than I thought.  And I expected it to be hard.  There were lots of 'How am I going to DO all of this?'  I'm not sure yet, but we're working on new routines for all of us.

Having to speak in church yesterday didn't help with my stress levels either, let me tell you - but that went okay.

So here's wishing for a happy New Year - changes and all.  And many more.

About comments and activities

Okay, today I could really use your help on two issues: commenting with Typepad, and ideas for Young Women activities at church.

Comments:

Is anyone else out there having trouble commenting here?  I've had a couple people say that they have, and since then I've been unable to comment on some blogs.  They just don't work, the 'preview' and 'post' buttons at the end of the comment window are both 'inactive' (I guess?  Light grey and you can't push them).  That stinks.  Some blogs make you sign in to typekey now, too - I'm hoping mine doesn't do that, as I actually prefer people NOT sign in so that I can reply to them easier. 
Anyway, I've let Typepad know, and they told me it was something on my computer (but I've double and triple checked the thing they said and that's not the problem).

I was wondering if I'm the only one having problems commenting? Let me know if this is just me!  Leave a comment or (if you can't) email me at kirstencanblogATgmail(dot)com.  I'm wondering if you have been able to comment here, and if you are having to sign in to typekey to do so.  Or, if you've been having regular problems commenting on other people's blogs - I'd like to open another help ticket with Typepad.

Activities:

If any LDS bloggers out there would take a second and think of the best YW or YW/YM activities you can remember - either ones you remember from being a teenager or a leader, I'd really appreciate it! 

Specifically I'm looking for activities you can do at the church or at a leaders house or yard.  We have our big annual planning meeting next Wednesday, and I want to come prepared.  Our ward is doing entirely too many activities where you have to GO somewhere.  Like most of the combined ones, and it ticks me off because then we usually have to meet earlier than 7:00, and with gas prices how they were this summer... I wasn't a happy camper.  Anyway, leave me a comment or send me an email, I'd really appreciate it!  I want to show everyone that you can do tons of fun stuff without leaving the church building.  And we are really lucky that we have lots of parks and greenspaces that are walkable from our church, so outside activities in the summer are still great.  Actually, any and all ideas are very much appreciated!  I want to come to the planning meeting armed with a ton of ideas.

And I realized that I never showed you the neighbor gifts for Christmas.  We did Chocolate covered pretzels (1/2 of the pretzel dipped in either white or dark, or dark drizzled with white, etc. with some dipped in crushed candy canes).  I was going to print up a super cute label for them, but my gorgeous red cardstock that I got for my cards was actually too thick for my laser printer!  Oh well.

Thanks for your help!