Happy Easter

Our Easter weekend was pretty low key, but that's ok. We've been so busy lately it was nice to stay home and not do much at all. The kids woke Desi up before 7 to find their easter baskets, which she was oh so happy about hahaha.

Then the rest of the day we hung out at home. We went for a hike in the woods and tried to find the pins for our property lines, but some are still buried under a foot plus of snow, so we'll have to try again once everything melts.

 



February Break

The last week in Feb and first week of March was february break for the kids. We snuck in a few fun activities throughout the week including a trip to Echo, the science museum in Burlington, bowling, and then the big highlight, to the Pump house which is the new ginormous indoor waterpark at Jay Peak.



I'm definitely getting my workout today. Somedays, having a house with 4 flights of stairs comes in handy in that aspect. Jacob woke up in the middle of the night with a fever and headache, and Josh seconded that later this morning after he woke up. So I've been going up and down the stairs all day giving tylenol, more water, cleaning out buckets (gross!) and checking in on sleeping kiddos.
Then to top it off the other day Emily pulled a muscle in her leg, and hasn't been able to walk much on it. Although by now I think she's probably just milking it. Eventhough she is the "healthy one" she seems to be the most demanding of all 3, and can bellar the loudest. Lucky, or un-lucky for me, depends on how you look at it, her room is on the top floor, so from my desk that's 3 flights of stairs up to get to her room. :/

Hoping this bug passes quickly and no one else manages to catch it.

Vermont Farm Show

Yesterday we took a day off from school work and went on a field trip with some friends to the Vermont Farm Show in Essex. Desi was lucky enough to have a day off of school, due to no power at the school. So she came along. I had a hunch ahead of time that the kids may be completely bored just walking around looking at all the booths and the small number of animals there, so together with the other mom, we came up with a scavenger hunt/ question sheet for the kids to work on while we were there.

The kids were each armed with a clipboard and a pencil as we headed into the exhibit halls. We got lots of compiments from exhibitors on the questions the kids asked, and some were curious why the kids had the clipboards so they explained it was their "homework". The highlight of the event, was when they met one of the reporters from our local news channel. One of the items we put on the scavenger hunt, was to find someone who is on tv/radio and get their autograph. The reporter was suprised to get asked and happily signed her name on all 6 of the sheets.

After a few hours at the expo, we headed to Pizza Putt for some lunch and to let the kids run off some energy in the giant playplace! Visiting during the week when school is in session, is definitely the time to go. The place was almost empty, and we enjoyed $5 large pizza specials!

 



Snowshoeing

This morning we took advantage of the warm weather before the temps drop below zero again tomorrow, and headed into the woods to explore and snowshoe. We saw lots of cool tracks including a coyote chasing after a rabbit, and some deer tracks.

This was Em's first time on snowshoes for a longer distance than just around the yard, and she did great! Although she wasn't happy I kept trying to take her picture because she wanted to be the leader :)

 



Montreal

This weekend we made our annual January trip to Montreal, so Brian could go to the Vermont Bar association's conference.

I was worried we weren't going to be able to make the trip at all. On Thursday after Jake's hockey practice he started to complain that his ear hurt, we gave him a hot pack and some tylenol, and that seemed to help. Later that night he woke up in extreme pain and was pretty miserable for most of the night :( Fortunately he was able to get some sleep and made it until 8, when I was able to call the pediatrician, and took him down to get seen. He once again had an ear infection, that we didn't know, and had another ear drum burst :( Poor guy! So we were given some antibiotics to fight off the last of the infection, and were cleared for our trip, since he wasn't in any pain anymore.



After a quick drive, we arrived at our hotel. 3 of the 4 kids went swimming in the pool. Unfortunately no swimming for Jake so he and dad hung out in the room and watched some hockey. On Saturday we headed to the Biodome and Olympic Park, while Brian was in his workshops.



Swim Lessons!

We are back into full swing with swim lessons at our favorite pool once again this winter! I can't believe we've been doing this every year since Josh was 9 months old!

This session Josh is in level 4, and Emily has graduated from Baby Bubbles and now is in level 1, which means no more mom or dad in the pool with her.

 



A peek into our classroom

I am soo happy with how our homeschool routine is going. I wasn't too sure back in August when we had a tough start as the kids were adjusting to the new routine, but now we are all settled in and going great! Both boys are getting all A's and B's on their tests, and even Emily is jumping in and doing some preschool work here and there.

I love the classroom space we have at our new house. At the old house we had just a small hallway for our set up. Now we have an entire room! The kids each have their own separate space complete with desk, shelves and cabinets for storage, and oodles of wall and ceiling space for hanging work and projects. Which is one of their favorite things to do. There is always something new being hung up somewhere! We couldn't of gotten any luckier with this space.

We start our day around 8:30 in the morning, and are usually done by lunch time or a little after, depending on how much work they have to do for the day. Then our afternoons are filled with chores, or hanging outside sledding and snowshoeing.

Josh's favorite subject is Match, and Science. Although he just finished science and now has moved onto History. Next week he starts French, which he asked to learn and is very excited about it!

Jake's favorite subjects are math, and art. Although he is also turning out to be an awesome reader.

Emily loves doing her preschool activities on abcmouse.com, practicing writing her words in her tablets, and even starting to read some basic readers :)

 



Snow!

Over the past week we have received close to 2 feet of snow, which the kids have been loving every inch of it. I love love love that we have our own massive sledding hill in the front yard, which makes for hours of entertainment for 3 kiddos. The other night we even let them try out some night sledding, by lining the walk way paths with tea lights in mason jars. Which was oodles of fun!



Merry Christmas!

The kids were excited to see that Santa found us at our new house. Although they were a bit nervous for a few minutes when they didn't find any presents under the tree in the living room, but then discovered that Santa put his presents under the tree in the dining room!

Our Christmas was fairly relaxed, the kids spent some time outside trying to sled in the new snow we received over night, but it wasn't the best type of snow for sledding. Not to fear, we are supposed to get close to a foot tomorrow night, so there will be plenty of sledding in a day or two!



Little Passports Program

Today the boys got a special package in the mail from the Little Passports Program. It's a program for kids that teaches them about different cultures and geography. Each month they are sent a package from another country filled with activities, souveniers, recipes, and much more.
This month they recieved their suitcase to store all of their goodies, a passport, and a world map.