When the new year comes, I usually like to set some sort of goal or two—though I prefer not to call them resolutions.  This year one of my goals was to spend more time playing with my kids!  With all the time that goes into feeding them, teaching them and caring for their basic needs, sometimes it’s hard to put all distractions aside and just play!  So last Monday, before the brutal cold weather came, Kayla, Madeline and I spent the afternoon goofing around outdoors.  The highlights (in my opinion) were playing tag and making snow angels.  Here are a couple pics:

We had a beautiful snow here today.  And it was the type of snow that was perfect for packing!  Not wanting to miss an opportunity, we bundled up to head into the winter—I mean, autumn—wonderland.  30 minutes later, we were ready.  

It’s a lot of work to get the girls outside in the winter, but it was so worth it!  We weren’t the least bit cold, and the snow kept falling on us as we played.  We built our traditional snowman, not once but three times.  I’m not sure if it was intentional or accidental, but every time I turned my back sweet little Madeline had knocked the snowman over.  Finally we finished, snapped a few pictures and decided on a name.  So here’s Fomkah, our Snowman.  He was named after Fomkah the sneaky bear from a Dora book the girls loved.  

Today at lunch Kayla was picking the flaxseeds off the crust of her bread when she said, “mmm, Mommy, these are so good.  What are these?”  I explained that they are flaxseeds, that they’re super healthy and that they can even help your skin not to itch so much.  Motivated by my speech, Kayla was eager to try some plain, so I poured some on her plate from a container in the fridge.  Madeline wanted the same.  I lost count of how many times the girls said, “may I have more flaxseeds please?”

Tuesday was our first official day of school, though it wasn’t much different than most days this summer!  Learning together is the norm for us, but it’s always fun to make a big deal out of the start of school in September.  Carrying on our tradition we started last year, we camped in our tent (in our yard) Monday night.   Once again, it was a perfect night for camping!

Tuesday morning we enjoyed blueberry pancakes for breakfast and then had Bible time together (complete with musical instruments for our praise song).  Next we did chores before moving on to the rest of our school time.  We recited the pledge of allegiance, and let me tell you, hearing a two-year-old saying the pledge was flat-out adorable!  I wish I had videotaped it.  

Here’s our first day of school picture:

Kayla used the camera for the first time and took a picture of me, the teacher:

Next was gym class outside—racing, jumping, galloping, throwing, kicking balls, doing somersaults, etc.  We played a little wiffleball, but I think Daddy makes a better teacher when it comes to playing ball.

We wrapped up the school morning by building towers with the stacking cubes and practicing numbers, shapes and animals.  Madeline said this was her favorite part.

In the afternoon Kayla and I did a reading lesson together, working on words with the short-o vowel sound.  She’s turning into quite the little reader!

In the evening, while Aaron was at the men’s prayer service, we had a play date with some good friends at Jameson Park.  It was a wonderful, fun-filled day.