Days at home

So our weeks go like this: Mondays are joy school days with our neighborhood friends. Tuesday we go to preschool. Wednesday we have music makers. Thursday we have preschool again. Friday is a free day, which tends to fill up quickly with doctor's appointments, visiting teaching, running errands etc. So when we get a totally free day, with nothing required, it's a real treat. Not that we don't enjoy all the activities throughout the week. We definitely do, in fact I tend to prefer to have my time scheduled like that anyway. It's just that "free" days remind me of how much I love being a mostly stay-at-home mom.
On Monday we had the opportunity to attend the Cori Conners concert, a fairly new tradition on the Garner side. Her songs are full of nostalgia and memories. She sings one dedicated to her mother-in-law who passed away and how much she would have loved the sounds and festivities of the season. It made me want to run home and hug my babies. I was so grateful to have 2 beautiful, blonde-headed kids to wake up to the next morning. I was brimming with love, almost to the point of tears as we ate breakfast. We happened to have a free day and Miles had been ACHING to play in the snow. In fact he literally ran out of his room in the morning after waking up, grabbed his snow clothes, and got all ready before breakfast. So we started the process of digging out the snow clothes, realizing what items we did and didn't have, getting dressed, crying over not wanting to wear certain coats/gloves/boots etc, dressing and re-dressing, and about 10 minutes into the process, I was spitting fire. Forget loving my kids, forget my tenderness over breakfast, I was MAD. Why does it have to happen like this? We made it outside and the kids did surprisingly well! Miles was mostly concerned about shoveling the drive way. :) Atta boy.
In addition to a new piano, we received a free tuning! When the lady started taking the piano apart, we were all entranced. I mean, how beautiful is that? She let the kids help her a little until I made them stop so she could actually work. So cool.

The kids helped me decorate the tree. They really don't care about any other decorations, so this may be as far as we get this year. Just getting the tree up was a major effort on all our parts. Call me Scrooge, but I have little to no desire to pull out the last box of Christmas decorations and put them up around the house.
We brought in some snow from outside and let them paint it. This is my idea of playing in the snow. No cold, wet hands and the ensuing fits.
We also made some wrapping paper the other day. The best part was that we used that paper to wrap their sibling gifts in. :) This is the first year we've thought to do this, but they really enjoyed using their own money, going to a store and picking out a toy for each other. They are having a hard time keeping it a surprise from each other and keep asking if it's Christmas yet to open that one present that is theirs under the tree. :)


Speaking of sibling love, how cute it that? They usually watch a movie while I get ready in the morning and when I came out of the bathroom, I found them like this. Swoon! Knowing me, I probably got angry at something they did minutes after taking this picture.