Weekly Wrap Up/Tot School - 11/18/16

Life is kinda back to normal now. My big show is over. It's still my busy season, but I have time to breathe and not spending 36 hours a day in my office is nice. I still have another show to do before the holidays but it's a much smaller scale show and I can get everything I need ready in a day. So my office time has been spent catching up on our family's "needs for winter" clothing list and gifts.

The girls have been doing well in their online schooling (Time4Learning and Reading Eggs/Math Seeds) so we'll be continuing doing mostly that for the rest of the year. We do really need to finish our Thailand Country Study though! Joshua has been doing a lot of the same school activities (his favorites) so not too many pics of his schoolwork, but he is loving independence learning too!

My booth at my big show. I had record sales so all the hard work was worth it!

Olivia and Joshua have a huge set of wooden blocks in their room. Olivia has taken to making elaborate stories to go with towns she's built

Boxes are a kids favorite toys. Joshua and Olivia like to color them too

Joshua loves to help with the laundry

Safety is very important in construction. No one needs to know it's just a bike helmet!

Joshua loves to "circle the correct answer." Here he's finding all the red items

The girls and I took part in the local Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph. Olivia wanted to leave her poppy for the soldiers.

Brianna and Olivia did a lot of baking for various Guiding activities. Here, Brianna's teaching Olivia how to grate orange zest.

And here, Olivia taught Joshua how to roll out cookie dough with the rolling pin.

Brianna worked with her Pathfinder group, putting on a spaghetti dinner for the public to raise funds for their England trip. The girls did everything from busing tables to dishes and clean up afterward.

Making music is one of Joshua's favorite things.

Two of Olivia's friends (2nd and 3rd here) are going to be living in Australia for the winter. Olivia is very sad that her friends will be gone, but they plan to penpal so at least they can keep in touch!

Joshua keeps stealing Tupperware lids to make "pizza"

Most of Joshua's shape tracing end up looking like circles, but you've got to start somewhere!

The girls had their Enrolment Night for Guides and got a bunch of new badges!

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, 1+1+1=1, Practical Mom, Hip Homeschool Mom and Homeschool Creations

Weekly Wrap Up/Tot School x2 - 11/4/16

Our neighbours had a family emergency last week, so Brianna had a short week of school while she took care of their kids so they could be at the hospital in the next city, an hour away. Add in yet ANOTHER round of snot in my house, it made for a fairly unproductive week.

I have my major show of the year this weekend, both days, so I've been spending 8-12 hours a day in my office making stock. Because I hand-make everything I sell, prepping for shows of any kind is very time consuming. I do love it, but I wish my house ran it's self while I was busy.

Because of me living in my office, school has mostly consisted of computer work (Time4Learning for Brianna, Reading Eggs/Math Seeds for Olivia) and unschooling. I haven't done set preschool with Joshua in a couple weeks, but we all know, learning continues even if there's no formal teaching! Joshua now counts to 20 and is working on dressing himself. Even my blog has suffered. I have like 13 draft posts with post ideas, but no time to write them!

While this huge show is exciting and I hope to gain loads of new contacts and customers, I can't wait for it to be over and life can slow down again!

Brianna has re-found our math help book and has been discovering how helpful it is to her schoolwork

One of the kids favorite shirts that I make is called a Candy Pocket. In our house though, it's a kitty pocket!

Cars are probably the most important thing to Joshua after food and snuggles

Sure, not the proper way to play with these monkeys, but still works on fine motor skills!

Brianna took a paint class last weekend and came home with this! I was super impressed. She is not good at drawing things or people, but is apparently quite good at landscapes!

Olivia's hand/eye coordination is amazing with this tape the tiles app. I'm amazed how fast she can go!

Halloween!

Joshua loves to watch Olivia do her schoolwork

Joshua is very determined in his independence

Brianna was was feeling particularly crappy so I told her to go take a nap. She refused and continued her schoolwork. Later, I looked over and found this. I guess I won... 

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, Practical Mom, 1+1+1=1, Homeschool Creations and Hip Homeschool Mom

Taking Health Seriously Pt. 2

This is a follow up post to my March health post.

I am now at 42.6 pounds lost (!!!!), at least 4 clothing sizes and (going by bust+waist+hips) 10.5 inches smaller. All since January.

I am SUPER stoked. I haven't been this small since I was about 5 mths pregnant with Isaac (17 years ago,,,). I am only 12 (!!!) pounds from my ultimate goal (which is still technically "overweight", but I have a large frame and have no interest in being "skinny", just healthy).

January to the end of May I worked really hard. I've never done so well for so long and my new clothing sizes proves it. In June I had 2 surgeries 11 days apart, one of them major abdominal surgery. I was on restrictions for 6 weeks and even after that still felt like a zombie.

While I didn't get much exercise done over the summer, I still worked really hard to keep my eating good. 95% of the time I stayed below my calorie goal on MyFitnessPal. Even with the lack of exercise, I managed to lose 10lbs over the summer.

By the end of Sept, I was feeling 100% again. The temps were cooler. Workouts could happen again! We all love walking and have a great bike path that's only a block away. I put together a daily workout to try to tone, since losing all that weight has shrunk a lot of parts but also made a lot of parts floppy.

We joined AquaFit now that beach season is over. While AquaFit is MUCH harder than it looks, it is still fun. And it's something different than the usual sweaty reps. We walk there while the weather is still nice so we get a 2 mile walk in as well.

As winter comes, it'll be tempting to get lazy. I really hope I can keep the will power to keep going!

Tot School - Week 4

Waaay late posting this week!

Joshua is continuing to love school and often asks for it long before I've had enough coffee to process the request. This week we worked on some fine motor skills (like lacing pony beads on pipe cleaners, not pictured). 

This was his first time working with a glue stick. He was pretty excited and did fairly well!

He loves reading stories. I have a bunch of these little tot school story books that he loves, as well as actual books.

One of the great things about homeschooling is I don't always have to be the teacher. Here he's showing off his school work to Grandma and then our neighbour

We live next to a furniture store and our side yard butts up to their cement wall. Instant jumbo drawing wall! None of their customers see this wall (unless they're in my yard lol) so they don't mind. Brianna was drawing circles for Joshua, his current favorite shape, and he drew a one in front of a zero and informed her that it was ten. Then started making his own 10s. The Y looking thing next to the 10 he's drawing was his drawing of a 9.

Joshua had a grand time with friends (seen here in red) at my niece's birthday party. There were 3 other kids his age and a giant field to run in. The bonfire proved to be interesting with 4 toddlers, but everyone managed to stay safe.

Linking up with 1+1+1=1, Homeschool Creations and Hip Homeschool Moms

I WILL Take This Year's Weight Loss Seriously

Several times now I have done the common "New Year, new ME!" fad. I've lost as much as 40lbs (3-4 years ago and starting from a much higher weight). Last year I lost 14. Then gained 9 of it back.

Last year I started buying sewing patterns. I don't want to waste money and time buying fabric and making myself cute stuff for it to flip flop being too big and too small. I want to be able to enjoy my hard work for a long time!

I have the added bonus of a new friend, who kinda lives next door (she actually lives on the street behind me but our back yards share a fence so that still counts!). She too is overweight and wants to be healthy for her family.

She overeats but has loads of energy. I eat pretty healthy but am lazy. We bounce off each other great! She yells at me to get off my butt, I yell at her if she grabs a chocolate bar.

I have loads of fantastic online friends who have been my weigh loss buddies for years. I love them to bits and would probably be a lot heavier right now if it weren't for them. But there's just something that makes you extra accountable to have someone right there in your face telling you not to cheat.

This year, I'm already down 11lbs.

All I've done is the same thing I always do - eat better (and less) and move more.

I use MyFitnessPal to track my calories. Calorie counting in general isn't a big thing as it doesn't take into effect good and bad calories. A banana and a half a chocolate bar are both roughly 100 calories. But counting calories works for me as I can see, first hand, portion control. Which is my big food issue. I eat fairly healthy stuff, but I eat way too much of it.

For exercise, I track my steps via the S Health app, built into my phone (an S5 but is now available for download for some other Android phones). Again, the visual helps me see my progress and motivates me to make the numbers go up. I also occasionally use a treadmill and an exercise bike, but I really dislike exercise equipment. I can't wait for the snow and ice to vamoose so I can get back to walking outside!

I'm still 43lbs from my goal. Will I see goal this year? Maybe. But I will get a hell of a lot further than I have in the past!

Weekly Wrap Up - Feb 19th

We started the week with Family Day and a day of laziness. Then on Tuesday we got hit by a nice winter storm that had Brianna shovelling majority of the day. Freezing rain > snow > freezing rain > snow does not make for a pretty property.

My car ate my snow brush

Olivia's friends finally came back from their European trip. You'd think they were gone 4 years instead of 4 weeks!

We finally caught up on Mystery Class. I've lost 10lbs so far this year. Brianna started a new chapter in math. Olivia is doing a science unit about the senses.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Alberta (and BC) Bound!

Last summer Lee and I took an epic 3 week road trip, driving from home (near Ottawa, On) to Victoria, BC and back. We car camped and couch hopped. The event being surrounded by the trip was our friend Leslie and his wife April's wedding, in which Lee was the Best Man. It was something I had always wanted to do and was seriously the best vacation ever.

Being that we're a homeschooling family, it was also a great geography lesson for the girls who "followed" us from home. We talked to them each night over Skype and sent postcards through the mail.

The kids trying to stow-away on our van-bed the morning we left

Giant Nickel in Sudbury, Ontario

Heading into the mountains of western Ontario

Lake Superior 

A wolf wanted to check us out outside of Wawa, Ontario

Terrance Bay, Ontario

The Terry Fox Memorial outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario

                                       

Time Travellers!

Finally got out of Ontario!

The flat lands of the prairies

As the speed limit increases (68.5mph)

Meeting up with my Kindergarten best friend, Holly, after 20 years

Fog line over the Assiniboine River in Manitoba

Saskatchewan!

Meeting up with fellow homeschoolers, Carla and David in Saskatchewan

Sitting on the Alberta/Saskatchewan boarder in Lloydminster, Ab/Sk (pardon the face, it was very bright)

Back in Alberta after 17 years!

Our friends had an awesome 80's/candy themed wedding in Edmonton, Ab (also where I was born and raised)

I was the wedding organizer, which meant I got to slave labour the other wedding party members

The Groom and his Best Man

Bride, Groom, Man of Honour and Best Man

Lee's Best Man speech was a tear jerker

My second mom growing up, Ana, in Edmonton, Ab

Outside of the wedding, Lee's goal for this trip was to go to West Edmonton Mall

Another homeschooler, Allison, in Edmonton, Ab

My best friend from high school, Steve, in Edmonton, Ab

First views of the Rocky Mountains (in the height of forest fire season)

A beautiful shallow lake outside Jasper, Ab

Glacial fed river in Jasper National Park

Finally, British Columbia

We had fun buying lottery tickets in each province

The Rockies get clearer, and bigger.

Speed limits increase again (74.5 mph)

Seeing my now 17 yr old brother, Theo, for the first time since he was 10. And my step-mom, Norma, in Surrey, BC

On the ferry to Vancouver Island

The redwoods of Vancouver Island, Sooke, BC

My Grandpa Tim and my Aunt Nikki, in Sooke, BC

Stepping into the Pacific Ocean, in Sooke, BC

One of the scary things about driving in the mountains, rock slides. This one was an older one and thankfully very small

Amazing animal crossing bridges in Banff National Park

Beautiful Badlands of Alberta, near Drumheller, Ab

At the Royal Tyrell Museum, near Drumheller, Ab

Hoodoos, near Drumheller, Ab

Lee's favorite part of the drive, huge prairie farms

The saline lakes of Chaplin, Sk. One of the largest bodies of salt water that is no where near a coast, in the world. 6-7 times more salty than the ocean!

Back in Ontario!

At the Panorama Amethyst Mine, the largest amethyst mine in Canada, north of Thunder Bay, On

Our haul from the mine

10,000 kilometers! (6,200 miles)

HOME!

Our complete route