Ginger Day 19

Payton made some snowflakes.  She did a great job and Ginger thought it was fantastic.  She hung them up and decided that she and the Wookie would hang out in them.

Ginger Day 18

Ginger made a count down to Christmas for the kids.  The kids thought it was great.  She was hanging up over the oven.

Ginger: Day 17

Ginger was messy last night.  She ate some cheerios and got them all over the kitchen table.  She also wanted to know what the kids favourite cereal is.

Ginger Day 16

Last night we tried to build our gingerbread house.  It failed miserable, but the kids had fun decorating it.

This is how it turned out.  The gingerbread literally fell apart, it cracked.  The icing didn't work, it wouldn't stick the pieces together.  We have some years that it works, some years that it doesn't.

So Ginger left a little message for the kids. She thought the house was great and easier to eat like this.

Ginger day 15

Today Ginger was being silly.  The kids thought it was funny.  She made herself a gingerbread house.  I think she wants the kids to make their own gingerbread house.

Ginger 13 & 14

Ginger and her side kick TMNT are watching over the house as crime fighters while we sleep.

 Ginger was naughty again on the 14th.  She stole my ipod and took #Elfies with her friends.

Ginger Day 12

Today Super Ginger came back!  She was flying around the house last night and landed on the tv before the kids woke up.

Ginger Day 11 - Naughty Elf

Today Ginger took all my candy canes.  I was saving them to share with the kids but she got into them and let them eat as many as they wanted.

Ginger Day 10

Ginger had a little sleepover with her friends.  She got into the crackers and shared them.

Wordless Wednesday

Ginger Day 9

Today was game day.  Ginger got her new friend Donatello and played X's & O's.  The only problem is they used marshmallows and a sharpie!

Payton left a little snack for Ginger.  We got this little cups from church when we did communion.  The kids thought they were cute little cups and wanted to keep them.  So now this one is Ginger's.  Payton left the cup full of milk and a cookie.  So Ginger had a little snack while she had game night with Donatello.

Ginger Day 8

We decorated our tree this weekend.  Payton hounded me until we did it.  So the kids hauled everything up the stairs and away we went.  They did a great job.  Some things can not be placed out, just because we have no room and I don't want the dogs to knock things over.

Ginger Day 6 & Day 7

Day 6 Ginger missed some of Santas animals.  She doesn't have enough time when she reports to Santa to spot and visit.  So she had a little visit with one of our animals.  She got one of the ponies and got some snacks.

 Day 7 Ginger reminded the kids to practice for the up coming church concert.  The have lines they need to study and some songs they need to sing.  Hopefully this year they sing the songs.  Last year I think they just lip sang.

Payton thought Ginger would enjoy a mini cinnamon bun and put it down for her to eat.

Ginger: Day 5

Today Ginger grabbed some friends and watched a movie.  They had so much fun they stayed there all day.

Ginger: Day 4

Today Ginger was enjoying the heat from the lamp.  After a full day of being on the water yesterday, a day of rest and relaxation was in order.

Ginger: Day 3

Today Ginger and her friend Donatello went on a little boat ride.  They decided last night to go fishing in the sink for some jelly beans.  It's always fun to bring a friend along with you.

On a side note we read the Elf on the Shelf book last night and took a picture to commemorate the occasion
 Here is the "good" one

Here is a funny one.  Gotta love these kids

 

Ginger: Day 2

Today Ginger was a naughty elf.  She decided to treat herself to some of the kids halloween candy. 
 Nathan has come in to wake me up every morning and relays to me what Ginger has done.

Ginger: Day 1 Our Elf on the Shelf

It's that time of year again.  The Elf on the Shelf is back.  For the next 24 days your news feeds are going to be full of different Elf on the shelf ideas.  Like most I have been searching for creative ideas on Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/tenillewilson/christmas/) is my pinterest page with some great ideas.

The one thing I really like about Ginger our Elf is how creative the kids get.  They made her an apartment in one of our shelves.  She has it pretty good in there.

 Our suitcase the kids painted last year, it was still packed with last years clothes and goodies

 Yes that is a picture of the kids Nathan is in there beside Clayton and on Faith's lap.  He's kind of slipping that's why you can't see him well. 

Some of the pictures the girls drew for Ginger.

 Here is Ginger herself.  Payton made an origami piano.  Ginger thought she would try it out this morning.  The seat didn't quite fit her long legs but it was still great.

Wonder what Ginger is going to get up to tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday

Halloween 2014

Well Halloween was great this year.  Alittle colder then I like but it went well.  Clayton had a bit of a problem with his minecraft head.  It kept moving around so we taped it to the body, next time I think I will come up with a way to wear it more as a hat instead of just sitting on his head if that makes sense.  I like to match the kids pumpkins to their costumes.  It's fun looking at all the pumpkin carvings.  I had a 5th pumpkin but it was rotten the day after I bought it.  So I had to do with a dragon this year :(

 minecraft diamond sword

 Vampire teeth.  I messed up a bit on the bottom but that's o.k

 Minecraft Creeper

 An eyeball.  I just thought it was cool looking.  As I couldn't find a good Miley Cyrus pumpkin carving.

I made the boys costumes out of boxes and then I just glued craft paper on it to make it look blocky. I found some great ideas on Pinterest.

Faith's costume I had to make it less slutty, so she had to wear the white shorts and shirt underneath.  I tried to find nude but just couldn't in her size.  She didn't wear this one to school only because her teacher had a haunted house and she asked the kids to dress up as porcelain dolls. On the actual Halloween night, she wore a sweater and pants under the costume.
Payton's costume I lucked out this year and found it for a reasonable price at Value Village.

Halloween was good this year.  We only had 28 kids, as most people on my street doesn't give out candy.

Fall Leaves

I think it's a fall tradition that the kids play in the leaves.

Dustin sent the kids out to clean up the leaves and of course they had to play in them first.  They made a big mess and some of them got hurt.  But all in all I think they had fun running around and being silly

I used my ipod to take the pictures that is why they are alittle blurry.

Gotta love kids

Hair Styles

Lately I've been doing Payton's hair for school.  We've had 4 letters home about lice.  So basically 1 per week since school started.  Payton isn't as careful about her hair as Faith is.  So I thought well I'll just put it up and then hopefully not worry as much about it.  I didn't want to just do the plain old ponytail or braid everyday.  So after a short search I came across this site.

I found this awesome youtube channel.  She does wonderful hair tutorials and so easy to follow.  Some hairstyles I'm still getting used to doing.  Some are basically because Payton's hair just isn't thick enough, and some are because I don't have 10 hands.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2LgZ_4GzSFQS-3a87_Jc6w

Mindy from Cute Girls Hairstyles, her instgram is CUTEGIRLSHAIRSTYLES

 I combined two different hairstyles here.

 Love they way she does rope twists.  They really do stay and make the hair alittle curly when you take them out.

 The first one is Faith, she had volleyball that day.  This is a 3d braid.  Payton has a "fake" braid.  It's basically strategically placed elastics.

 Fishtail braid into a pony tail.

All these hairstyles take about 10 minutes or less to do.  Trust me when I say that I don't have a lot of time to devote in the mornings to doing hair.  I really like my sleep.

It's Almost that time of Year Again... Halloween

I love Halloween.  Not sure why, but I love decorating the house and making the kids costumes.  I have started making the boys costumes.

The boys want to be Minecraft characters.  Nathan wants to be Enderman and Clayton wants to be Herobine.  So I've been googling costume ideas and looking on Pinterest.  I found some good ones about the diamond sword and treasure chest.

http://kerryannmorgan.com/2013/10/how-to-make-minecraft-diamond-sword-and-diamond-pickaxe.html

Here is the link for the diamond sword.  While I didn't print out the images.  I did follow the pattern on the sword.

Clayton wants it to be shiny.  So now I have to find something.  I'm thinking glossy glue or something.

http://pixld.me/treasure-chest-mod-minecraft-1-5-2-1-5-1/

I used this picture as a guide.

Nathan wanted a treasure chest to carry his candy in.  While that's not going to happen.  I thought I would make one anyways.  It only took a couple of hours.

They are both made with cardboard, foam and then construction paper glued/taped on.  The boys are so excited.

Now to make the people.  Then to make the girls costumes.  Faith wants to be Miley Cyrus this year, the one where she is wearing the teddy bear. 

South Pembina Y Neighbours

Our used Toy and Clothing sale is coming up.  This is a little different you can now sign up online at www.ywinnipeg.ca/sales You can pay with debit or credit, how awesome is that?  You can also phone any city of winnipeg YMCA/YWCA and get them to sign up.

It's super easy sale to be a vendor at.  You buy a table for $30.00 then you come the day of and set up your gently used kids toys and clothing.  Some people have their clothes sorted in boxes by sizes and sexes.  Some have them just on the table sorted by sizes.  It all really depends on how you want to do it.  You can also barter with the customers if you want.  Some people sell stuff just to sell, some people sell stuff to get some money back.  There is no right or wrong to it, you just do what works for you.  The main thing will be to have a large enough float and some plastic bags for shoppers to use.

So come out next Saturday and see what awesome deals you can find.

Portage La Prairie Splash Island

We went there today.  Payton has been wanting to go to a water slide for so long.  Splash Island is in Portage La Prairie, MB  I've been hearing about it all summer and almost all the news feeds on FB have been about how great it is. I just needed Dustin to take time off of work to come with us.  They have rules about kids being 8 and under being at arms reach. So I needed an extra hand encase one of the kids just wanted to sit, and someone had to be near the slide to keep an eye on the kids.  Although the lifeguards did a great job of keeping track of who went down the slides and who was at the bottom of the slides.  Payton did at one time run into someone because that kids wasn't paying attention. There is a fence around it, so there is a capacity of people who can be there at one time.  It cost us about $35.00, we did the family rate of $25.00 plus one extra kid at $5.00.

 This is the slides.  There are only 2 of them. But the darker one is a fast tunnel. They call it funnel tunnel it is completely enclosed and goes really fast.  The lighter purple is open all the way.  This one can be slower but it can go fast too.  Dustin went down this one sitting up and he said he almost got stuck half way down.  His method for going fast was laying down and up on the heels and on the shoulder blades.  That method worked for Faith as well.  For me I sat up and leaned forward and swung my hips into each curve.  Although at one time I did hit my head on the side of the slide because I was sliding side to side; in my defense I did have a kid on my lap.  They have signs there that you had to be this tall to ride alone.  Nathan just meet the requirements, but I didn't feel comfortable with him at the end of the tunnels by himself.  They had signs saying that catching kids at the bottom was against the rules.  Luckily I had asked Dustin to grab Nathan's life jacket before we left.  You can ride down the open tunnel with a life jacket and with a partner if you wanted.  The covered tunnel there are no shirts, no partners and no goggles.  Nathan went up the stairs and down the slides without either Dustin or I with him.

They have a lazy river there.  Basically it's just a bit separate area from the main pool.  This is were we spent most of our time.  1 because Dustin could hide on the kids going around the centre isle there. 2 because our stuff was just behind me where I took the picture. The river has "jets" that push the water so that you float down the river. Clayton loved being on the tubes and just floating there.  The water here is 1.07m so everyone could touch.  Just to the left the water got deeper it was 1.5m, the kids had a harder time touching there.

 This is the little kid slide.  But all my kids went on it.  It's a small slide that goes into a shallow pool.
They also had a basketball net and ball there for anyone to use.

Just to the left in this picture you can see the little splash pad/wadding pool.  It was in a u shaped hole.  There wasn't a lot there, some tunnel sprays and a mushroom and a little blue slide like the ones you find at swimming lessons in the shallow pool.  You can also see in the background the entrance to the pool. You can find the change rooms, concession, bathrooms and medical.

They have beach entry over by the little splash pad area.  It slowly gets deeper, I could touch but my face was in the water.  Too deep for the kids to touch.  There was another U shaped area by the little slide. I'm not sure what you would call it.  They had a bench in the water there, in some of the spots on the bench they had smaller little jets come up from the bottom. The water was colder water then the pool.  This was a popular place, I think because most of the kids can touch here. 

There is a bit of green space around the edges.  There are some chairs to use, and picnic tables and some benches.  We managed to snag a bench; it was nice to have to put our towels on.  They do have a picnic area with a cover and some picnic tables under there.  The ride there was about an hour from our place, but let's face it going anywhere from my place takes at least 30 minutes.  We got there at 12:18 and stayed till 4:40.  You can bring in outside food as long as you don't have glass.  We brought our swimming tubes and goggles.  There were no problems with it.  I did see some kids with water guns and pool noodles.

All in all it was a good day.  The kids and I and even Dustin had fun.  This is definitely one place we will go back too.  Just not this year as their last day is September 1.