2017 — Page 65

Snow Day

Today it snowed most of the day. It actually started sometime during the night, as we were sleeping, and we woke up to several inches. It continued until late afternoon. Of course, the kids couldn’t wait to get out in it and I kind of dreaded it as I know the mess. But, they went out and had a lot of fun and actually stayed out a pretty long time. Then they came in and had hot chocolate. I think Tess stayed out the longest.

After they had their hot chocolate, Bethany got out her knitting loom or whatever it is called, and started working on a hat for her doll. We had gotten two different colors of yarn so she could make a hat for each of the dolls she got for Christmas — she got twins, a boy and a girl.

Then Tess decided to get out the sewing kit she got for Christmas and Caroline got out the embroidery set she got. Everyone wanted to sew or make something. Even Sarah got in on it – she is usually not that interested in doing many crafts or sewing. After watching everybody for probably almost an hour she decided to run and get her beads and make a necklace.

It was nice. Everybody had something to do and if they didn’t – Bella – they watched and played with all the yarn and scraps of material. It was a very pleasant afternoon.

A hat for Sarah’s doll that was started the night before. The very first one from Bethany’s loom.

What We Are Reading

We have read several short books this year. I usually keep a record of all the books we read aloud each year in a notebook, and then in January we start a new notebook. So far this year we have read 26 Fairmount Avenue by Tomie Depaola, Here We All Are by Tomie Depaola and we are now reading On My Way by the same author. I have ordered all the books in the series and we have decided to read all of them. There are only six from what I see so far. Most of the kids really like these books and they are rather interesting so I don’t get bored reading them. A wide range of kids seem to be able to listen to them and enjoy them and that is really nice. Sometimes I feel like I am reading to just one or two kids as the book just doesn’t seem suited to everyone.

I bought a bookmark from Barnes & Noble that actually keeps track of how long you read. You can just push the start button and it keeps track of your minutes and hours. It is kind of neat and we decided to use it to just get an idea of how much we read in a month. So far this month, we really haven’t read much as we have been so busy getting things done after Christmas and getting everything put away. But, according to our bookmark we have read two hours. Not too bad, but I think we usually read a lot more. We will continue to keep track of our reading times just for fun.

Things have settled down now and all of our family has returned back to their homes. Joey is back on chemo and is doing ok — but, very tired and sleeping most of the time. That is pretty normal for his chemo week. Please remember to keep him in your prayers.

This evening Abigail asked me if I wanted to take a walk around the neighborhood. It sounded fun and I could use the exercise. So, I grabbed my camera — to make it more interesting — and we walked. It was pretty light outside when we started, but by the time we got home it was dark. We had a nice walk and I took a few pictures — mostly of houses. It was nice as many of the houses still had candles in the windows and lights and decorations outside. So, tonight I will just post a few of the pictures from our walk since they are the only pictures I have taken in the past couple of days.